The Blue South

Civility is Alive and Well in National Politics...YOU LIE!

2009-09-11T08:48:00.004-05:00

This just in...Joe Wilson is an asshole with no manners. But it isn't just Joe Wilson that has forgotten what his mother taught him. People are ranting and raving at townhall meetings, parents are afraid to let their children hear an innocuous speech by the President, and the punditry continues to stoke the fire.

Now, I'll cut the pundits a break here, because that's what they do-they stoke the fire, talk in histrionics, and make sweeping over-generalizations and intellectually lazy arguments that appeal to the groundling in us all. Maybe I'm giving humanity a little too much credit, but I can't bring myself to believe that the pundits truly believe the tripe they spew on the cable news networks. This is true for both the Fox News and the MSNBC crowds. It's all about the ratings, people.

But the virulent river of wasted words has begun to flood into the halls of Congress, from the mouths of our elected representatives. This is pathetic. I repeat, this is pathetic. Civility is a cornerstone of democracy. Without civility, without an ability to hear opposing points of view, we will never reach the compromises that have defined our legislative process since the Constitution was written. When the Joe Wilsons of the world interrupt a speech, they signal an inherent disrespect for the speaker that in turn signals an unwillingness to compromise and build legislation that will move our country forward.

I am of the firm belief that the legislative process should be like settling a lawsuit-the best settlements, like the best legislation, truly please no one. Everyone had to give up something in order to get something. That is a principle I think we have forgotten as a nation. You must experience some pain to bring about positive change. But instead of girding our proverbial loins, and accepting a solution that might cause a little pain in the short run, we act out like children. This is truly a pathetic state of affairs.

Joe Wilson makes a valid point, that the healthcare legislation must address how we pay for healthcare for illegal immigrants. But Joe Wilson is fooling himself if he thinks that we don't already subsidize hospital care for illegal immigrants. Our hospitals cannot turn anyone away, by law, until that person is in stable condition. If an illegal immigrant shows up in the emergency room, he must be stabilized. Assuming that person has no health insurance, it is highly unlikely that he will be able to pay the bill. The hospital, after a meaningless effort to collect the money owed it, will then in turn write off the bill on its taxes. We, the American taxpayers, have just subsidized health care for an illegal immigrant. And we have been doing it this way for years.

So why not address the problem in legislation, that will set out a proactive process for handling the issue, instead of allowing the money to seep into the system through the back door? Why not assert a little control over the situation, give the government a little more say in how it spends its money? Because Joe Wilson, and people like him, are assholes, that's why.

Quote of the Day

2009-01-13T09:23:00.002-05:00

This comes from an article in the Post and Courier about our pro tem's new cannon:

McConnell spends much of his free time on his new toy, and his fellow re-enactors enjoy helping him polish, wax and fire it.

I can't really add to that.

Hat tip to Finx over at Indigo Journal for linking the article.

Ok, I know I said I'd be busy, but I couldn't resist...

2008-11-28T10:38:00.004-05:00

Compare and contrast. Both of these were headlines in today's State:

Gun Bargains This Weekend: S.C. Firearm Purchases are Tax Free Today, Saturday in Recognition of the Second Amendment

Two Injured in Gunfire at SC Thanksgiving Parade

Oh, the irony.

Short Hiatus

2008-11-26T16:28:00.003-05:00

The Blue South is going to be busy for a couple of weeks. In the meantime, enjoy these remixes courtesy of Ross over at the Indigo Journal:

Quote of the Day

2008-11-22T11:25:00.004-05:00

Stephen Jones, president of Bob Jones University, has issued an apology for the school's past racist policies. Let's see what he had to say:

We conformed to the culture rather than provide a clear Christian counterpoint to it. In so doing, we failed to accurately represent the Lord and to fulfill the commandment to love others as ourselves. For these failures we are profoundly sorry.

Source.
BJU's "culture conformity" included a policy against interracial dating that was in effect until 2000. According to The State:

The school had used the Bible to justify discrimination in the past, such as in a 1998 letter to a writer who questioned the school’s ban on interracial dating. Then, school officials noted that God had created oceans to keep men apart, as well as ethnic, cultural and language barriers.

I'm not sure which culture they were conforming to, since our culture was pretty clear about a need for racial equality beginning with the Civil War and culminating in the Civil Rights Movement, some 40 years before BJU ended it's anti-interracial dating policy. I guess Stephen Jones knew the time was right to issue the apology when his WWJD bracelet began glowing.

S.C.: the "Pay Toilet of the Nation"

2008-11-17T21:10:00.003-05:00

At least according to Sen. John Courson, our lovely state has become a pay toilet. Source. Apparently it turns out that a loophole in the way that DHEC construes the landfill "needs" of counties allows our landfills to accept millions of tons of garbage from other states.

The State began a week long series on DHEC's ineptitude today, and we here at the Blue South have to say, it has started out with a bang. We're biting our nails, wondering what's around the corner as the State's hard-hitting investigative team has set it's sights on DHEC.

Five Headlines

2008-11-15T10:37:00.004-05:00

(1) Catholic Priest, Father Jay Scott Newman has distributed a letter to his parishioners urging them not to take communion until they have done penance for voting for Obama. Source. See, this was a tough call for me because, on the one hand, if I voted for Obama my eternal soul was in peril, whereas on the other hand, if I didn't vote for Obama, Tinkerbell would die. It was a tough call, but I think I made the right one. And Tink, you're welcome.

(2) Wallace Scarborough is protesting the results of his election loss. Source. Scarborough, who lost by a scant 211 votes, has challenged about 700 votes on the grounds that some of the people voted at the wrong precinct and did not cast fail-safe ballots, others voted in the district even though they no longer lived there, one polling place reported 27 more votes than the total number of signatures on the poll list, and because, c'mon, he's Wallace freakin' Scarborough, a REPUBLICAN, running for office in SOUTH CAROLINA, obviously there's something fishy about that.

(3) Gov. Sanford was named chairman of the Republican Governors Association. Source. That's right, Marky Mark is going to Washington, pigs in hand, to retool the Republican party. Meanwhile, while Sanford's veto pen is distracted by his new job of promoting a Republican return to it's bed-rock principles of limited government and low taxes, the General Assembly will be holding clandestine meetings to pass much-needed legislation while they have the chance.

(4) The South Financial Group, S.C.'s largest bank, is on the dole. Source. Even though they claim they're in good financial condition, a bank spokesperson stated that it was too hard to resist $347 million in free money. Word on the street is that they plan to add a little bling to the teller lines, ATMs will get a fresh coat of paint, and departing executive Mack Whittle will get a roll of diamond encrusted toilet paper, a bejeweled scepter, and a custom velvet portrait of himself standing atop the hopes and dreams of his customers, doing a mean fist pump, that plays a constant digital loop of Jay-Z's "Diamonds are Forever."

(5) Prison Fashion: Inmates in S.C.'s prisons who "commit overt sexual acts in common areas" will have to continue to wear pink jumpsuits. Source. Inmate Sherone Nealous lost a court fight to ban the use of the pink jumpsuits, sighting the fact that the pink really clashed with his eyes and that he would "rather have a nice paisley or argyle pattern." S.C. Prisons Director John Ozmint has reportedly been looking into the viability of adding some ruffles and lace to the jumpsuits and maybe switching the jumpsuit out entirely to bring in some more up-to-date fashions. "It all depends on what I see on the runways at Fashion Week," Ozmint said, "Who knows, maybe we'll introduce some patent leather, anyway you look at it, these inmates will be looking fierce."

Exclusive: The Blue South Lands an Interview with Embattled Congressman Paul Broun of Georgia

2008-11-13T23:06:00.005-05:00

We here at the Blue South are proud as heck to publish our exclusive interview with Rep. Paul Broun of Georgia's 10th District. Some of you may know Rep. Broun for his recent comments comparing our president elect to Hitler and Stalin, saying that Pres.-elect Obama is a Marxist who wants to establish an American Gestapo. Turns out, Rep. Broun is sorry for making those comments and he didn't mean what he said at all. Here's our exclusive:

TBS: Rep. Broun it's a pleasure to talk with you today.
Broun: Thanks, I'm glad to be able to fully explain my recent comments.
TBS: Well, then let's cut to the chase. What did you mean when you called our next president a Marxist?
Broun: Well, not to bore you with a history lesson, but if you look at Obama's record and his speeches, then take the third word from every sentence that contains the words "hope" or "change", then those words begin to spell out the first words of the Communist Manifest, by Karl Marx.
TBS: But we thought you were going to apologize...
Broun: Now, let me finish. See, if you take the letters from the name "Barack Obama" and take their numeric equivalent, you get 2-1-18-1-3-11-15-2-1-13-1, and if you add that up it comes out to 68. You want to guess what year Karl Marx wrote the Communist Manifesto? That's right, 1968.
TBS: But the Communist Manifesto was published in 1848...
Broun: Ohhhh, you just got served.
TBS: Ok, so didn't you want to...
Broun: Thanks for your time, it's been a pleasure.

We here at the Blue South have been proud to bring you our exclusive coverage of this incredibly important issue. We would like to extend our thanks to Rep. Broun for graciously agreeing to say really stupid things in public and then have to come up with some logical reason for saying them. Keep up the good work congressman, and people of Georgia, look at the name next to the (R) on your ballot next time.

Sadly Ironic Quote of the Day

2008-11-13T08:09:00.003-05:00

This gem comes to us from David Ignatius column in today's WaPo. The topic: the upcoming G-20 financial summit. Here's the quote:

Bush administration officials support some items in this package, but they are wary of the unintended consequences of new regulations -- particularly ones that are rushed through during a crisis.

Source.
See, I thought the Bush administration, the same one that declared war on a tactic and then used the "I'm a wartime President" excuse to curtail civil liberties, justify torturing and holding detainees indefinitely without a hearing, passing the USAPATRIOT Act, passing a $700 billion dollar bailout that gives god-like power to the Secretary of the Treasury, etc., etc., etc., thrives on crisis-mode.

Guess I was wrong.

The Future of the Republican Party

2008-11-11T21:42:00.004-05:00

I had an interesting conversation today with an author/scholar who thinks the Republican party is no longer, nor has it been for quite some time, on the side of federalism. He said that he has not voted for a major party candidate for president since (and it took him a minute to remember) George H. W. Bush. He then related how he stood in line at his polling place for two hours this time around only to achieve some sort of individual catharsis, knowing his vote would not make a difference.

This got me thinking about the state of the Republican party in the aftermath of the Democratic tide that washed in on November 4. Jim DeMint was also thinking about this. Funny, I didn't know he had the capacity and it turns out, I'm right. DeMint wants the Republican party to turn back to its "Reagan-ite" roots of limited government and low taxes. Source. Was Jim DeMint conscious during the Reagan years? Does he not realize that we underwent an unprecedented expansion of our military that cost taxpayers money that we've only just begun to pay back? Last I checked, the military is part of our government and spending money means you can only delay increasing taxes for a short while.

The truth is that Reagan was merely a pawn in the neoconservative hijacking of the Republican party. The Republican party of limited government and low taxes has not existed for a very, very long time. Sure, they may cut taxes here and there, but every president tinkers with the tax system. In fact, capital gains taxes were higher during the Reagan administration than they were under the Bush (2nd) administration. Does that mean that DeMint will be belly-aching for a return to the Bush-ite roots of low taxes and limited government as well?

My advice to Jim DeMint is to pull your head out of that place where all your thoughts seem to come from and look at the world around you. Limited government is a thing of the past. Federalism is dead. States are only as sovereign as the federal government tells them they can be. And lowering taxes at this point in our history is one of the most short-sighted panders I've seen in a long, long time. If people like Jim DeMint would quit pandering and misquoting history, take the reigns of Congress, and wield the power that was meant by our Constitution to be the most important power, then maybe, just maybe, our country could start climbing out of this mess we're in.

But hey, the Jim DeMint's of the world have to get reelected, right? Makes me sick. Where's the term limits lobby when you need them?

The Case for Raising Taxes (In a Nutshell)

2008-11-05T21:15:00.003-05:00

There was a lot of campaign rhetoric about Barack Obama's tax policy being socialist, in that it seeks to redistribute wealth among the population. The problems with that characterization are legion, but the most glaring are: (1) true socialists seek to nationalize the means of production to harness the power of industry to redistribute wealth; (2) we have a progressive tax system, meaning that the marginal tax rate increases as income increases (e.g. tax brackets); and (3) (and I'll admit this is more editorial than factual) over the past two decades we have seen an enormous concentration of wealth in the upper echelons of our socio-economic structure that has lead to a real need to "redistribute" some of that wealth to a struggling middle class. Ok, so we are agreed, Obama is not a socialist. That's not really my point here, though.

We are going to end up spending trillions of dollars trying to grease the wheels of our credit markets over the next couple of years. We are fighting two wars. Our Congress sees fit to expand spending programs every time they get the opportunity. In short, we are spending a lot of money. So where's that money coming from?

In the macro-sense, that money can come from three sources: (1) we can borrow it; (2) we can print it; and (3) we can take it from our citizens. So far we have been borrowing vast amounts of money from China, Japan, and a few oil-producing countries to finance our wars and our deficits. I don't have time to verify this, but I'd be interested to see how much of our budget is spent each year just paying interest on those loans. My prediction is that when we hit the tipping point where the interest we pay on loans from other countries begins to outgrow our budget, those other countries will stop lending us money. So what do we do then?

Well, we can print the money...and watch the value of an already shaky dollar plummet. There are pros and cons to a weak dollar, but my point of view is that the cons vastly outweigh any perceived benefits. So if we need money to finance our entitlement programs and wars and economic recovery, I would say that printing more money to fill that need is a terrible idea.

So that leaves us with the problem of taxes. No politician that raises taxes can expect to keep his job. That's why we're in this mess. The problem is that the responsible thing for us to do as a society is to pay more taxes. But nobody wants to hear that. People like to drive on our roads, attend our schools, turn on their electrical appliances, talk on their cell phones, etc., but nobody wants to bear the burden of paying for all that. However, if we just raise taxes across the board, then we can all minimize the individual pain and begin building a road to a fiscally responsible government (provided they don't just spend all the new money on new toys, which is possible).

My point here is this: Obama's tax plan, to increase taxes on those making $250k or more is not some socialist, redistribute the wealth to those who didn't work for plan. It's really only a first step in a much needed journey toward fiscal responsibility. So when you see your taxes going up, don't just give the knee jerk reaction and vote in another George Bush who will refuse to raise taxes even when he and everyone around him recognizes that it is necessary. It will hurt us in the long run much worse if we don't start paying for our government services now and just keep running up interest on overseas bonds.

Goin' Rogue on the Daily Show

2008-10-30T07:28:00.001-05:00

For anybody who didn't see this last night, it had me in stitches:

Headline Innuendo-"Deep Boat"

2008-10-26T08:26:00.003-05:00

Apparently one of our state's competitive grants for filmmaking has gone to a porn producer and the people are loving it. The State featured an article today entitled "Polls Find Deep Support for Drilling". I didn't bother to read the article, but from the headline, it's clear that "Drilling" is going to be a hit at the, wherever pornos are shown publicly place.

But on a more serious note, aren't we deluding ourselves a bit here people? I mean there's only about 20 billion barrels of oil out there. We use 20 million barrels every day. By my calculation, that keeps us burning that sweet sweet crude for only about another 3 years or so. Then we're right back where we started. Oh, and did I mention that it's going to take anywhere from 6 to 12 years to get the stuff on the market. Oh yeah, and it turns out that hurricanes come through a lot of those areas pretty regularly. Remember what Katrina and Rita did to gas prices? Oh yeah, and for those of you prone to hug a tree every now and then, it turns out that offshore drilling carries with it a significant risk of dumping a bunch of that black gold into the ocean and killing a whole bunch of animals, some of which we like to eat. Ooh, ooh, and I almost forgot to mention that pursuing this false solution is going to delay market forces that are driving innovation in new technologies to reduce our dependence on oil.

In sum, it seems like the whole offshore drilling debate is not much more than a red herring. My vote is to increase research spending on the stuff that can get us out of this mess permanently before we end up driving our cars like Fred Flintstone.

Everybody's Doing It...It Makes You Feel Good

2008-10-26T07:42:00.004-05:00

Former Bush administration mouthpiece, Scott McClellan, seen here looking uncomfortable next to MC Karl Rove, has endorsed Barack Obama for President. Read the story here.

Quote of the Day

2008-10-24T07:11:00.003-05:00

Alan Greenspan on why our economy is tanking:

I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such as that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms.

Oops.

So does that mean that Greenspan's mistake was trusting in one of the most basic tenets of capitalist theory? Talk amongst yourselves.

From Wall Street to the Corner of Main and Gervais

2008-10-22T19:42:00.002-05:00

So it turns out that reduced consumer spending means that we're going to have to cut about $500 million from the state budget this year. Apparently our state government receives about a third of its revenue each year from the sales tax. Oops. At least our legislature is cutting its budget instead of just running a deficit. That's refreshing.

Leaky Pipes and Our Growing Water Problem

2008-10-22T12:34:00.003-05:00

Unless you have been living under a river rock for the past couple of years, you've noticed that we've been in a severe drought. Anyone who enjoys spending time on any of our numerous lakes and rivers can provide anecdotal evidence of the decline of water levels over the past few years. One of the most stark reminders for me of this phenomenon is the floating dock at the landing on the Congaree at the end of Rosewood Drive here in Columbia. The pilings to which the dock is attached tower over my head as I pull my kayak to the end of the boat dock, reminding me of the potential torrent the Congaree can become. Then, as I paddle into the middle of the river and get out of my boat I find I'm only standing ankle-deep in water. It's depressing.

However, despite my own selfish concerns for the river levels, there are also real concerns for Columbia and cities across the Southeast. Today American Rivers, a conservation group whose website can be found here, released a report outlining possible solutions for our drought-based water supply problems. The report, which can be found here, outlines 9 basic conservation measures that can save Columbia up to 27 million gallons of water per day. Those conservations measures are: (1) fixing leaky pipes (which account for up to 14% of our total yearly water use); (2) retrofitting buildings with new appliances (which account for about 20% of our total yearly water use); (3) smart landscaping (we use about 30% of our drinking-quality water watering lawns each year); (4) increasing the cost of water (we are capitalists after all, despite what Hank Paulson tells you); (5) metering all water users instead of allowing shared-use buildings to charge a flat fee for water usage; (6) increasing public understanding of our water challenges; (7) returning more of our saved water to rivers (they liken it to a water "savings account"); (8) involve water users in decisions about water policy (localized democracy...scary to the elites); and (9) build smarter in the future.

Sounds like a good plan, especially considering that a healthy supply of water is absolutely necessary to preserve any shred of our current way of life. My prediction, though, is that we'll build more dams and pray for rain. See, I'm beginning to realize that human nature tends to be reactionary. No matter how much we understand a problem, we are not apt to fix it until we feel the consequences. This is a sad truth, mainly because we have very smart people spending their time coming up with reports like this one and a whole bunch of people who will promptly ignore them. This complacency is endemic to our representative, republican form of government. We give more power than we have to to people and trust them to make these decisions for us. The problem is that we groan when those people actually ask for our money to implement the solutions and god forbid they start telling us to do things like fix our pipes or buy a new dishwasher.

For too long America has tried to have it both ways. We entrust our government to strangers and resist them when they do their jobs. In turn, they give up trying and just try to find other ways out of the problem. We end up with a massive national debt and a weak economy, then we turn to them to fix it. This is why I think the single greatest recommendation made by American Rivers is to involve the end consumers in the process of formulating water policy. This will cause people to become better educated through a public debate, they will see the consequences of the decisions before those consequences arise, and the people can have their solutions they way the people want them to be.

Direct democracy is not an easy thing to pull off. We are busy people and often perceive that we have little time to govern ourselves. But if we want to remain a free society, we must begin to democratize parts of our lives that we once entrusted to representatives.

Colin Powell Endorses Barack Obama

2008-10-19T11:40:00.005-05:00

The quintessential American moderate has spoken. The video is worth a look. Sorry I can't get the embed to work right, so here's the link.

Update. Let's see if this works:

The Gambler's Fallacy and Economic Collapse

2008-10-15T06:37:00.004-05:00

I have play a lot of poker in my day...a whole lot. I used to sit around and watch the World Series of Poker on ESPN when I didn't have a game going. I marveled at the skill of the poker pros, the ones who made it time and time again to the final table. They carried an enormous amount of respect from the growing number of amateurs who found their way into the tournament. The commentators would profile the pros, tell us why they were so good at the game. Some of them were mathematical geniuses, they told us. They could figure the odds of winning at the drop of a hat. Some of them had an uncanny ability to see into the thoughts of their opponent, reading the twitch of an eye, or betting patterns, or some ephemeral glow about them that told the pro exactly what that person was holding.

I too once suffered from the hubris of believing myself to be a good player. I approached the table with an air of confidence, pushed more and more money into the pot until I came out ahead. But over time I learned something about poker. Players have varying degrees of skill that allow them to gain certain advantages, but ultimately, to win you have to have the cards.

Let's shift gears for a moment. The gambler's fallacy is the false belief that as a certain result occurs more and more over time, the gambler believes that the probability of that event happening again rises. The classic example is the coin flip. If I flip a coin 20 times and it comes up heads twenty times then, if I fall prey to the gambler's fallacy, I begin to believe that the probability that the coin will land on heads again is greater than 50%. The problem is that no matter if I flip a coin every minute until the day I die and it always lands on heads, the probability of it landing on heads never rises above 50%. However, my confidence that it will land on heads goes up each time, causing me to believe more and more that the coin is destined to land on heads no matter what.

It's the same thing with derivatives. The contracts were structured in such a way as to allow for such a small probability that their inherent risks would manifest themselves that the people engaging in these agreements began to fall prey to the gambler's fallacy. The problem with derivatives is the same problem with any investment: greater risk = greater (possible) reward. Thus, the companies entering into derivative contracts made enormous profits from them and managed to avoid the risk factors. But then home prices began to decline and the risk reared its ugly head.

We can only hope that our government learns that if it looks like a security, and quacks like a security, then it needs to be regulated like a security. There is a reason that the SEC was formed in the 1930s. There is a reason that we still abide by the Securities Act of 1933 and 1934. We learned a lot about the pitfalls of unconstrained finance in those years. Let's not forget those lessons.

I Put a Spell on You...And Other Headlines

2008-10-08T20:05:00.004-05:00

This week in unbelievable headlines comes the most unbelievable of all: Voodoo Priestess from Blythewood Hired to Kill? Oh man, you've got to read that story if you haven't already. I don't want to spoil it for you, but let's just say when you write a check to a voodoo priestess for putting a spell on your political opponent, make sure it doesn't bounce.

In other news, it turns out our state revenues are going to be about $550 million short of the 2008-2009 budget. I guess for all those people who wanted small government and never voted, congratulations, you win.

Howard Rich, in his attempts to become the next king of South Carolina, has sent threatening letters to notable SC Democrats, including former DNC chairman and USC professor Don Fowler, stating that their contributions to "a wide variety of leftist organizations" are being monitored. Rich also grew a pair of fangs and sprouted bat wings over the weekend.

The Boogie Man Cometh

2008-10-08T15:17:00.003-05:00

"Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story" is about to open in theaters around the country. It is still playing at the Nickelodeon through October 14. For those of you who have not heard about the movie, it chronicles the rise and fall of S.C. native Lee Atwater. Atwater made his name as a win-at-all-costs campaign manager for George H.W. Bush and later as the chairman of the RNC.

The film follows Atwater from his early days in South Carolina through his death in 1991. Throughout the film, Atwater comes across as a lovable, yet sinister figure. Atwater was eulogized by James Baker as Machiavellian "in the best sense of the word." The film portrays Atwater as someone who was fiendishly adept at manipulating others, including the press, and who would stop at nothing to gain victory for his candidate.

For anyone who plans to vote on November 4, this movie is a must see. The ugly underbelly of election politics is juxtaposed with the dying plea of one of its most successful and ruthless purveyors that the slimy tactics must stop. It really makes you think, as a voter and a human being, about the process that elections have become. It makes you wonder how we allow our politicians to get away with being liars and thieves, with shirking any moral or ethical responsibility or dodging accountability through scapegoating others.

Atwater was a villain- there is no doubt about that. However the film has a way of humanizing the villain so that we can see ourselves in him. We can see our potential for evil, we can see our glaring imperfections, we can see how pathetic a life lived like Atwater's looks in the end.

You've Got to Know When to Hold 'em

2008-10-03T06:46:00.003-05:00

There's a great article at Slate.com (here) that describes those all-too-complicated derivatives in terms we can all understand: gambling, baby, yeah! Turns out somebody smarter than me looked at what the banks were doing, figured out a mathematical probability of the investment banks making money versus total financial meltdown and came to the conclusion that what the Wall Street folks were doing was essentially a game of double-or-nothing. See, it turns out that, statistically, higher risk means a chance of higher reward, whereas lower risk leads to lower rewards. What the Wall Street folks were doing was concentrating risk in a way that makes it highly unlikely that their bets would fail, but, in the event that they did fail, well, armageddon. I don't really have much to add to the article, so I just suggest you read it and discuss.

Bailout Alternative Offered

2008-10-01T18:37:00.005-05:00

Many of us are skeptical about the wisdom of the proposed $700 billion bailout. Turns out a few House Democrats share the sentiment. Enter Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon) and his No BAILOUTS (Bringing Accounting, Increased Liquidity, Oversight and Upholding Taxpayer Security) Bill.

Aside: Is it just me, or is anybody else sick of the cheesy, strained acronyms that are forced onto just about every piece of legislation that comes out of Congress these days? Hey Congress, I've got your acronym: The DYJASWTCUWAA Act (DO YOUR JOBS AND STOP WASTING TIME COMING UP WITH ASININE ACRONYMS)

I won't bore you all with the details, which can be found here, but let's just say the price tag doesn't involve a 7 and 9 zeros. DeFazio's bill calls for increased oversight through the SEC (hey, at least he's not proposing yet another federal agency with yet another asinine acronym for a name), a popular increase in the FDIC insurance limit from $100,000 to $250,000, and a "Net Worth Certificate Program" (and, in the spirit of this post, those are hereinafter referred to as NWCP's). The NWCP basically allows the FDIC to make loans to banks in exchange for a promissory note. A similar program was initiated in 1982 with much success.

Here's what I like about DeFazio's plan: (1) it doesn't just throw a whole pile of money at a big problem and hope that makes it better; (2) it attempts to establish oversight in the trading of securities, no matter what they're called; and (3) it doesn't bail out irresponsible companies that probably need to go by the wayside in order for our economy to truly recover.

This bill's definitely not as sexy as its $700 billion counterpart, but it's worth a look. More importantly, people are using their brains to find creative solutions to this problem instead of taking yet another Bush power grab and pretending it's going to save the nation from financial ruin. Our economy is screwed because there are fundamental problems with the way we've been doing business for quite sometime. Throwing a whole bunch of money at it is only a bandaid. The time has come to address the fundamental problems with our economy such as the fact that "service economy" really means that we don't produce anything and simply pass money between ourselves, continually putting a bigger number on it, when it really retains the same value.

Adding Insult to Insult

2008-10-01T16:58:00.003-05:00

So the Senate has proposed its own version of a bailout bill, aimed at garnering more Republican support. My immediate reaction was that the new bill would include the erection of a golden statue of Ronald Reagan standing between the World Trade Center Towers waving an American flag that constantly plays a loop of Toby Keith's "Angry American (Courtesy of The Red White and Blue)". Turns out I was wrong, but that would totally be a bad ass statue. By the way, reader(s), I hereby commission artistic renderings of such a statue. These can be sent via email to thebluesouth@gmail.com. I'll post the winning submission on the site.

However, it turns out the Senate, in their infinite wisdom, has decided to attract Republicans with the old faithful of Republican support-garnering devices- tax cuts. That's right, our Senate decided to make a $700 billion economic rescue package (that's $700 billion dollars coming from the government) more appealing by reducing the amount of money the government can collect.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Please fire these people. Please, voters, fire these people.

The House Bails on the Bailout

2008-09-29T16:43:00.006-05:00

The House of Representatives voted 228-205 today against the massive $700 billion economic bailout (or "buy-in" if you choose Rep. Pelosi's preferred nomenclature). Below are a few gut reactions:

(1) Hank Paulson won't get his chance to do the Scrooge McDuck backstroke in a room piled 8 feet deep with dollar bills (which, by the terms of the failed bill, he literally might have been able to pull off without congressional, judicial, administrative, executive, or any other type of oversight);

(2) The stock market fell 700 points, signifying what I've been thinking all along: these companies aren't really worth what we thought they were when that flashing number on TV kept going up and we kept buying stock based only on the flashing numbers instead, oh say, SEC filings and the like;

(3) According to minority leader John Boehner, he couldn't muster the Republican support for the bill because Nanci Pelosi hurt their feelings before the vote (if that is really true, I'm jumping off a bridge);

(4) We are still a semi-capitalist society (high five to the Invisible Hand);

(5) Giant corporations still can't borrow millions of dollars in day-to-day loans to pay for their operating costs;

(6) Giant corporations have to borrow millions of dollars in day-to-day loans to pay for their operating costs?;

(7) My power is still on, and I get cable TV and the internet, food supplies are steady, I own a shotgun, two serviceable fishing poles and a whole bunch of camping equipment, and there are no riots in the streets. All-in-all, not a bad day.

Ok, so on a more serious note, I'll explain why I don't support the $700 billion bailout (other than the 700 billion reasons I just gave, or, for my part, my $2,000 piece of it). Ever since September 12, 2001, the Bush administration has been pushing legislation down our throats via a weak, ineffectual and compliant Congress (both Republican and Democrat) in the name of perpetual crisis. September 11 was a crisis and it demanded swift action (which we never took). The Bush administration has found a great source of power in perceived crisis and has used that perception to demolish the traditional role of the executive branch in our government and the role of the government in our lives. Their latest escapade has been to push a fundamentally flawed piece of legislation down Congress' throat in the name of yet another in a long string of "crises." Bravo to the lawmakers who finally stood up (what took you so long?).

It is true that our economy is in bad shape. It is true that there are several fundamental economic problems that need to be solved and, if the markets are left alone to work themselves out, things are going to get a whole lot worse before they get better. However, what we don't need is another 11th hour bill, rushed through Congress and signed by Bush's golden pen (subject, of course, to his signing statement) that ends up becoming yet another piece of regrettable crisis legislation.

Absurd Quote of the Day that Brought Me Out of Hiatus

2008-09-29T06:32:00.003-05:00

You can hear the panicked screams emanating from Capitol Hill all the way down here in South Carolina. Lawmakers are suddenly faced with a very tough decision- how are we going to spend this $700 billion crisis money? Turns out that the bailout is deeply unpopular among the public, but hey what do we know?

This brings us to our absurd quote of the day that brought me out of hiatus. This gem comes from Rep. Jim Marshall (D-Ga.), who hails from the conservative 8th District of Georgia- the fightin' 8th. To set up the irony of this quote, I need only cite to Rep. Marshall's own website, the title of which claims: "Jim Marshall: Representing the People of Georgia's 8th District". Source. Seriously, check the link, its in the title, in big, bold letters. So imagine my surprise when I'm reading through the WaPo's coverage (Source) of the bailout this morning and I see Rep. Marshall saying this:

I am willing to give up my seat over this.

That's right, REPRESENTATIVE Marshall is willing to give up his seat to pass an incredibly unrepresentative piece of legislation that just happens to vastly extend the power of our federal government and enables our economy to continue down the road of becoming a full fledged Ponzi scheme, all because people (and by "people" I mean people in the Treasury Department and corporate America) got all freaked out because what is the equivalent of a large scale, corporate pay-day lending scheme stopped working. Gotta love it, folks!

Quote of the Day & A Little Background

2008-07-22T06:24:00.002-05:00

A gem like this:

“This thing is moving fast, and it’s impossible to predict,” Rainey said of the factors affecting the economy. “It’s hard to understand.” Source

prompted me to ask the question: who is John Rainey, and why is it so hard to understand?

John Rainey is this guy:

He's also chair of the SC Board of Economic Advisors, chairman of the board of Easlan Capital Inc., has not one, but two law degrees (USC, Georgetown), and, apparently, doesn't understand why SC's economy is tanking.

More to come later.

Random Bits of News

2008-06-26T17:41:00.005-05:00

(1) NBC Nightly News, 6/26/08, 6:40 pm, view the story here.

NBC ran a story about North Korea's recent compliance with international demands that they make their nuclear program transparent. Pres. Bush has announced that he will remove North Korea from the official "State Sponsors of Terror" list in light of North Korea's recent actions. Sen. Sam Brownback responded: "We're legitimizing a genocidal regime." Ok, I'm not a North Korea apologist. People have legitimate and justifiable worries about North Korea's treatment of its own citizens. But what does nuclear transparency have to do with state sponsorship of terrorism? We haven't proven that North Korea did, or attempted to provide nuclear technology to terrorist groups. The closest anybody's has come is suspicion that a POSSIBLE nuclear site in Syria was erected using information and technology from North Korea. But the fact that North Korea found Jesus in regard to their nuclear program doesn't necessarily mean they've quit sponsoring terrorism. And further, in regard to Sen. Brownback's comments, can people please stop misusing the term "genocide"...please. "Genocide", according to the United Nations, means "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group." Source. There is no proof that North Korea's government has engaged in such practices, despite their despicable treatment of their own people. Like I said, I'm not apologizing for North Korea, I only want my government officials to accurately characterize world events.

(2) US Supreme Court hands down a couple of interesting rulings:

(A) Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker - the Court ruled that, at least in the context of maritime cases, punitive damages are limited to a 1:1 ratio to compensatory damages. While the ruling was not a constitutional ruling and therefore not mandatory outside of the maritime context, the Court made clear that the problem of unpredictability of punitive damages (in this case, $5 billion against Exxon) extends into all civil cases and left the door open for similar challenges to other punitive damages awards. Source.

(B) District of Columbia v. Heller - the Court ruled that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own firearms unconnected with any service in the militia. Justice Scalia, writing for the majority, expressly overruled my April post on the issue (here), holding that the prefatory clause (e.g. the one about the militia) does not limit or expand the scope of the operative clause (e.g. the one that says citizens can own guns). I'm honored that the Supreme Court saw fit to rule on one of my posts, even if they did get it wrong. Source.

Raw Data: Come to Your Own Conclusions

2008-06-22T08:04:00.002-05:00

(1) Top 2 Oil Consumers in the World (Source):

U.S.: 20,730,000 bbl/day
China : 6,534,000 bbl/day

(2) The Dollar to the Chinese Yuan (Source):

March, 2003: 1 Yuan = 0.120192 USD
March, 2008: 1 USD = 0.141401 Yuan

(3) Of the $9T (that's $9,000,000,000,000) US debt, $5T is financed through treasury securities (as of 2007) (Source)

(4) The Dept. of Defense spent $666B in 2007 (Source)

(5) Top 5 Foreign Holders of US Treasury Bonds (Apr. 2008) (Source):

Japan: $592.2B
China: $502B
UK: $251.4B
Oil Exporters: $153.9B
Brazil: $149.5B

McCain is Going to Lose Unless...

2008-06-14T08:30:00.005-05:00

He runs against this guy:

McCain's people haven't figured this out yet. He is unelectable on Iraq and the economy and those are going to be the decisive issues this time around.

It's a pretty well-accepted phenomenon that candidates pander to the far right/left during the primaries and tend to move more toward the middle in the general. That's why I wasn't surprised to hear McCain's bad Iraq policy and bad economic policy up until he sealed the nomination. But he's been the Republican candidate for a while now and I don't see him moving toward the middle.

But moving toward the middle is not going to be enough of a winning strategy for McCain. He needs to move away from Bush's policies. Far, far, away. Miles away. If the world is a playground and Bush is in the sand box, McCain needs to be headed toward the jungle gym, pronto. This is his only real chance of winning in November.

Over the next month or so you'll see Obama begin to solidify his base and stake his claim to the Clinton voters. Even the ones that said they wouldn't support him will see McCain as an unacceptable alternative. Obama's already been playing the "Bush's third term" card against McCain. McCain deftly countered that Obama would be a second Jimmy Carter term, but the problem with that is that Carter's blunders are not fresh in the minds of every American.

If McCain truly wants to be the president, and not just a lame duck candidate in a year that his party doesn't think they have a chance (a la John Kerry, maybe?), then he's going to have to run against W. He needs to forget about Barack Obama, because this election is about George Bush.

Update: Some Speculate that Speculating is the Problem

2008-06-06T08:46:00.003-05:00

WaPo Article Here

According to some lawmakers and some deep-pocketed investors, speculating on the futures markets is at least contributing to the higher prices. Apparently the regulations restricting futures trading to those who actually have a stake in the market (e.g. airlines, farmers, etc.) were lifted at the behest of companies (including Enron) in 2000. So, let's see, if we account for the policy lag, let's give it about, oh, 7 to 8 years, and here we are. Look's like the neo-cons' economic policies are about as useful as their foreign policies.

Basic law of economics: if it's cheap, demand goes up; demand goes up, price goes up; price goes up, supply goes up, price goes down. Ah, but what happens when the supply doesn't go up, or actually goes down? What happens when some players think they can manipulate the market to their own ends? A bubble, that's what.

If you read the article linked above, you'll see that the main concern of a commodities bubble is the effect it might have on financial institutions. So, what does this mean to the average consumer? Did it hurt your wallet when Bear Stearns collapsed? Is Wachovia's struggling margin really making it hard to put food on the table? No.

The real fear is that there will be a run on the banks like the one that happened during the Great Depression. If people don't have confidence in their banks, those people will take their money out of the banks. However, we have the FDIC that is supposed to insure runs on banks (or at least assure those who make deposits).

No, what is going to happen, and is already happening in the mortgage markets, is that credit will become more and more difficult to obtain. This is because we have become accustomed to living beyond our means and the financial institutions that have supported our habits are running out of suckers who will buy our debt.

Ultimately, when all is said and done, I expect to see a moderate adjustment in the standard of living for the average American, the poor will suffer the most (as they always do), and the concentration of wealth that has been building over the past decade will recede a bit. Then the banks will feel a little more comfortable lending us money, and the cycle will start all over again. Welcome to the bubble-bust economy. Without fundamental changes in the way we see money and credit, it will be a self-perpetuating phenomenon.

CFTC: "There Will Be Blood"

2008-05-30T06:28:00.004-05:00

The US Commodities Futures Trading Commission ("CFTC") has announced that it has been, and will continue to be, monitoring oil futures markets, both at home and abroad, more closely to ensure that the process reflects "fundamental economic forces of supply and demand, free of manipulation and fraud." Apparently the investigation began in December of 2007, just after oil prices hit $90 per barrel. The CFTC stated that they normally conduct these types of investigations in secret, but because of the extraordinary leap in the price of oil over the past few months, were announcing their investigation to the public.

We all know what pervasive fraud on the market can do to a micro-economy (see WorldCom, Enron). What is interesting in this case is, first, that the CFTC is actually investigating oil futures market practices before any bad actors get caught with their hand in the cookie jar, and, second, that the CFTC has announced its investigation.

We are used to seeing the feds investigate bad actors in the financial markets. Anyone who has taken a look at the SEC rules can attest to the fact that the Feds have set up an elaborate scheme of regulations and pitfalls for would be fraudulent traders. What we are not used to seeing is a large-scale investigation of an entire market, especially one that occurs before the investors dump their shares and send the market plunging into oblivion (some might argue that's not such a bad thing for oil prices; I am not one of those people). Several possible explanations come to mind for why the CFTC might have launched its investigation in December instead of, say the day after oil prices plunge to mid-1990's levels and the futures market crashes. I don't want to speculate about the CFTC's motives, but it seems that either there was some evidence of fraudulent practices on the futures market that surfaced around Dec. 2007 or the CFTC is taking a more proactive approach than market regulators have in the past, oh let's say 7 years.

The fact that the CFTC actually announced its investigation is, at least according to the CFTC, a fairly extraordinary measure. Apparently they normally keep their investigations quiet and it is only after the recent massive jumps in the price of oil (30% or so in 5 months) that the regulators have disclosed their interest in the oil futures market. The CFTC's motivations for this one seem a bit more obvious- this is probably a shot across the bow for some institutional investors to go ahead and start cleaning up their practices and abandoning any market positions that might appear, well, fraudulent or manipulative. I'm interested to see where this goes, but, given the fact that the Feds have warned any investors who might be engaged in illicit practices, I'd say that we'll either see a gradual withdrawal from the market by those who might be tempted to engage in fraud or manipulative practices (most likely), or we'll see one or more big-time investors dump their shares suddenly, and send the price of a barrel of oil plummeting.

For my part, I'll keep watching the prices of oil, natural gas and other commodities with bated breath, and I am hopeful that we will see a gradual decline in prices that keeps a relative stasis between supply and demand because a sudden drop in prices, or a period of extreme volatility can be just as damaging as the unprecedented increases of late.

Interesting Story Related to My Last Post:

2008-05-25T10:43:00.002-05:00

James Howard Kunstler, author of "World Made by Hand", a book about America's post-oil future, predicts a much bleaker future for our way of life. Read the story.

Economists Don't Understand High Oil Prices

2008-05-22T06:28:00.003-05:00

A story in today's Washington Post centers around what seems to be a growing consensus that economists and industry "experts" don't understand exactly why oil prices are rising as rapidly as they are.

The Saudis refused Bush's entreaty to boost production because they didn't want to get caught holding the bag when the prices inevitably drop. They stated that supply and demand are currently balanced and that they didn't want to disrupt the equilibrium.

Some people are blaming speculators, citing some $90 billion of investment money being pumped through the markets in the last two years.

Everybody points the finger (at least partially) at China, which has become the flagship for the rapidly developing world. Certainly China, India, Brazil, and other rapidly developing countries are putting stress on demand, but then, at least according to the Saudis, supply is in balance with demand. Many of those same developing countries are heavily subsidizing oil and China particularly has been cited for hoarding oil in preparation for the Olympics.

Congress seems to think that OPEC is the problem in that they are keeping prices artificially high. The problem with that thesis is that it seems more likely that the weak dollar is to blame for OPEC's high prices. After all, can we really expect the OPEC countries to continue accepting $20 per barrel that is worth about half as much internationally as it was just a couple of years ago?

Further circumstantial evidence that it is actually our own fault that oil prices are rising so rapidly in this country is that, if you'll notice, every time that crude prices hit a new high the Dow drops about 200 points or so (270 yesterday). My theory in the correlation between oil price spikes and stock market tumbles is that all that money being leeched from the stock market is being pumped into the commodities markets which have seen exponential price growth, not just for oil, but also for corn, rice, and natural gas. As the demand for commodities futures rises, so does the price.

Ultimately, I think that high oil prices are a function of a confluence of factors: irresponsible financial policies on our part, both at the macro- and micro-levels (e.g. the credit markets and hyper-consumption); rising demand around the world as former 3rd world countries begin to industrialize and compete; different rules for different players (e.g. China buys its oil through state-negotiated contracts and does not pay market price); and over investing in commodities market as the boom and bust cycle that has plagued Wall Street over the past 20 years creeps into new territory.

The US solution is probably not going to lie in a business as usual approach, but rather we will need to innovate. We will need to move past the oil economy and into a new age. The problem is that no one really knows what resource will fuel the next era. Interestingly, this seems to be the first time (at least that I can think of) that humans have needed to transition from the fundamental mover of the economy (e.g. stone, bronze, copper, iron, etc.) due to pressures on the resource pool instead of simply using the technological gains of one age to bring about another.

The clock is ticking on the oil age. Global warming threatens the relative environmental stasis we have enjoyed throughout most of human history. Oil supplies are dwindling as new sources become more and more scarce. The question is whether or not we can transition from the oil age before it happens on its own.

I Know Its Almost Summer And All...

2008-05-18T09:49:00.007-05:00

But let's take a look at futures for natural gas and heating oil.

Crude oil prices are also hitting record highs almost every day. Bush just got back from Saudi Arabia where he asked the sheiks to boost production of crude oil. Know what they told him?

Demand does not justify increasing production at this time.

And, if you look at the above graphs, it seems the prices of heating oil and natural gas are also going up without the conventional pressures on demand (e.g. cold weather). My prediction: demand for blankets will spike around January 2009 when people begin to find that heating their homes is becoming prohibitively expensive.

Special thanks to my friend for bringing these graphs to my attention.

Let the Red Herrings Abound

2008-05-15T16:53:00.004-05:00

First off, I do not think its a vast right-wing conspiracy that state supreme courts keep ruling in favor of gay marriage during election years. They're not nearly organized or principled enough to pull that off. However, I'm anticipating a blitz of media coverage on the recent California Supreme Court decision that not allowing gays equal rights to marry is unconstitutional (at least under California's Constitution). Here's the story I read. Of course its a sign of things to come when you google "massachusetts gay marriage decision" and the first 10 pages of hits are different articles about the California decision.

Don't get me wrong. I'm all for gay marriage. I applaud the California Supreme Court decision and, although I haven't actually read the text of the decision yet, their reasoning, as portrayed in the Washington Post was sound.

What bothers me about this decision is simply the timing. Here's what's going to happen: for the next couple of days the networks will be milking this story for all its worth in their traditional manner. Then something will happen. They will realize that there's a presidential election going on and that the candidates haven't spoken out on their positions on the issue in a while. John McCain will be asked and he'll say he's against it. Barack Obama will be asked and he'll say something to the effect that he supports it while trying not to irritate those of his supporters who might abandon ship if he comes out strongly for gay marriage rights. Hillary Clinton will say something similar to Obama and nobody will pay her any attention as the election train passes her by. But then the media will begin to harp on it. And they'll drive it into the ground, parsing every single word out of the candidates mouths, figuring out what blue collar white voters think about it, what black voters think about it, what moderates think about it, what Chris Matthews thinks those people think about it. We are going to be hearing about this through November, mark my words.

So, to do my part, absent some actual newsworthy story apart from today's headline, you won't hear anything else about it here. My take: good decision on the part of the California Supreme Court, I think they nailed the equal protection argument that's convinced me for quite sometime. Not sure how they got around the fact that, to my knowledge, homosexuals aren't a suspect class, at least according to the US Supremes, but I think the argument is there to make them one.

So there you have it. I'm not talking about this anymore.

Everybody's Got a Crazy In Their Corner

2008-05-15T06:43:00.002-05:00

McCain supporter John Hagee has officially apologized to Catholics for "any comments that Catholics have found hurtful." Source.

Couple of Things:

(1) What a lame apology. If Hagee were apologizing to his wife for "any comments she might have found hurtful," he would still be sleeping on the couch. A true apology takes responsibility for one's words or actions, Hagee's shifts the blame to oversensitive Catholics.

(2) Catholics? Really? When did bigots start hating Catholics again? I really thought that was behind us.

(3) Here's the money quote from Hagee, exposing him for the true idiot that he is:

In my zeal to oppose anti-Semitism and bigotry in all its ugly forms, I have often emphasized the darkest chapters in the history of Catholics and Protestant relations with the Jews," Hagee wrote. "In the process, I may have contributed to the mistaken impression that the anti-Jewish violence of the Crusades and the Inquisition defines the Catholic Church. It most certainly does not.

(4) Hillary Clinton, if she is going to maintain any slim chance at garnering the nomination, is apparently going to have to gain the support of at least one crazy religious zealot. Given her disadvantage in virtually every category of electoral results, I suggest she go deep for her pick. I suggest Warren Jeffs. Now I know what you're thinking: Jeffs doesn't really say too many crazy things in public. But if Hillary really wants to make a splash, the leader of a polygamist cult who is currently serving time for aiding and abetting statutory rape is the guy for her. Nothing says "I've got a crazy minister in my corner too" like the potential first female president accepting the endorsement (maybe even marriage? I'm just saying...) of a guy who performs wedding ceremonies for 14-year olds.

This Just In...Clinton W.Va. Landslide Bolstered by the Banjo Vote

2008-05-14T06:44:00.002-05:00

W.Va. union United Banjo Pickers of Americky have put their support behind Hillary Clinton. According to the group's spokesman, their support was garnered due to suspicions about Barack Obama's ties to uppity banjo-picker Bela Fleck and his refusal to wear a West Virginia flag pin on his lapel.

Clinton was happy to accept the endorsement of the union, saying "We're going to fight on now that we have the majority of banjo-pickin' unions on our side, because everybody knows you can't win in November without the support of the Nascar dads and the Banjo moms/cousins." Clinton added: "Now that my campaign has the support of the majority of banjo unions we have clear evidence to bring to the superdelegates and an easy path down the river to deliverance (of the democratic nomination)."

Barack Obama refused to comment, but an inside source said he's already gearing up for Oregon's primary, courting the coveted granola-vote through his own special trail mix recipe.

John McCain couldn't be woken from his nap for comment (even though the phone rang like 30 times).

Quote of the Day

2008-05-13T06:57:00.002-05:00

This, from a story about Hilton Head dealing with the problem of over development of its shoreline:

The solution, like so many other things in Hilton Head, came on the back of a golf cart.

Exercises in Futility

2008-05-11T10:21:00.004-05:00

One priceless picture and a few Sunday headlines that may make you shake your head:

In W. Va., Clinton's Disciples Persevere

That's right, the Clinton faithful(est) are still pushing the rock up the hill.

U.S. Legal Work Booms in India

This one truly amazed me: we are now outsourcing our legal work to India. They do everything but sign the papers and appear in court (because they are not licensed to practice in America). The upshot of this is that, if we continue sending high value business to India, eventually their wages will rise and it will no longer make sense to outsource (you know, a rising tide lifts all ships, etc.).

Growing Deficits Threaten Pensions: Accounting Tactics Conceal a Crises for Public Workers

Oops, looks like Arthur Andersen-style accounting has found its way into the public sector. Wait, you mean that government-run businesses are subject to the forces of ecnomics too?

Losing a Home, Then Losing All Out of Storage

People are losing their homes to foreclosure, putting all their stuff into storage facilities, and then losing their stuff when they don't pay their storage bills. Who's gonna stop those predatory sub-prime storage facilities?

Funniest headline I've seen in a while:

2008-05-09T23:58:00.000-05:00

Republicans Vote Against Moms; No Word Yet on Puppies, Kittens

Am I Missing Something Or...

2008-05-07T06:47:00.004-05:00

Isn't the Clinton/McCain Gas Tax Holiday supposed to occur during this summer, while George Bush is still president? Do they really think they can pass that legislation in a month without clear support from the Whitehouse or either chamber of Congress?

Of course not, because Clinton and McCain, along with every other economist, pundit, and average American citizen, recognizes that the idea is foolish and nothing more than a very transparent election year pander. I try very hard to believe what politicians say during election years, but the gas tax holiday proposal is such a pie-in-the-sky idea that even my most optimistic brain cell refuses to accept it as a well-reasoned policy stand taken by not less than 2/3 of the people claiming to be qualified to lead our country through the next four years.

I may be able to accept that the gas tax holiday is the offspring of McCain's overall economic policy. After all, he freely admits that he doesn't understand economics at all and, supposing in his economic ignorance he just tows the party line, well we've seen enough irresponsible tax cuts and deficit spending over the past eight years to get used to it.

But Hillary Clinton has no business supporting the gas tax holiday at all. By all accounts, she is probably one of the most well versed policy wonks on the Hill right now. Surely her "elitist" ivy league education provided her with a rudimentary understanding of basic macro economics. But nobody ever won over a vote by telling the American people that high gas prices are a function of increased global competition for a limited natural resource and refining capacity that, somewhat inexplicably, has not been increased since Hurricane Katrina exposed its weakness. Nobody won over a vote by explaining the hard truth that the days of dollar-a-gallon gas are long since gone in this country.

Here's an idea. Instead of proposing band-aids that don't even cover the wound, why not propose what we Americans have shown we do best in times like these: innovation. Hmm, I wonder what candidate has spurned the gas tax holiday and repeated his or her calls for expanded energy research programs? Oh that's right, the one who is winning.

Desperation is a Stinky Cologne...

2008-05-07T06:38:00.002-05:00

Hillary Clinton before last night's pyrrhic victory:

"There are going to be the rest of these contests, which are very significant, and then in June, if we haven't done it already, we're going to have to resolve Florida and Michigan," she told reporters during a daytime event at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. "They were legitimate elections."

Source

Comment Period is Open on Vista Farms

2008-04-25T07:57:00.003-05:00

The 30-day public comment period is open on the issue of flood zones and Vista Farms. If you are a resident of Cayce or own property there, now is your chance to let your voice be heard. Comments may be submitted through Cayce City Manager Johnny Sharpe. They are due by 5 pm on May 6 and can be mailed to Johnny Sharpe, 1800 12th St. Extension, Cayce, SC 29171.

I'll be posting more details on this story as I come across them.

UPDATE: Looks like this issue isn't important enough to make it onto the City of Cayce's website (apparently, neither is the month of April, they're still showing March's calendar). I've posted on the striking similarities between the Vista Farms Disinformation Project and the News site on the City of Cayce's official website. Previous post here.

What Would Jesus Do?

2008-04-22T16:02:00.003-05:00

Apparently JC has taken a side in the democratic primary. And his endorsement is...(drum roll, please)...Hillary Clinton. Who knew JC's political consultant was Carl Rove?

Props to Not Very Bright for the story and pic.

Sometimes the truth smells funny

2008-04-20T08:56:00.001-05:00

This gem came from WaPo columnist Bill Kristof in today's Post:

Solar power is one of the most hopeful technologies but still produces about 0.01 percent of U.S. electricity. The U.S. allocates just $159 million for solar research per year — about what we spend in Iraq every nine hours.

Source.

This Just In...Elitist Obama Can't Bowl; Clinton Found Drunk in Darlington Infield

2008-04-16T07:11:00.003-05:00

Not only has barrack Obama lost his title as Kingpin of the Democratic Party, but now, in what can only be rationalized as a moment of disgrace and shame, has taken out his elitist anger on the little guy. That's right, for all you little guys who cling to your guns and bibles and immigrant hate in lieu of your economic interest and political ideals, Obama's not the guy for you (well, that shouldn't really be news).

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton recalls how her "diddy" took her out behind the cottage and taught her to shoot. She then proceeded to get wasted with disenchanted PA voters. But did anybody notice what she ordered for her shot? Crown Royal. That's right, good ole gal Hillary went all top shelf on those voters. And let's just guess who picked up the tab. Think she sprung for it with a couple of her $109 million confirmed dollars (many of which I'm sure she earned at her job at the mill...before it closed *sob*)?

So here's the skinny on this "elitist" tag that's been stamped on Obama's forehead. John Kerry went hunting. John McCain gave the commencement address at Liberty University. Hillary Clinton got drunk. Connecticut aristocrat George W. Bush talks with a thick Texas accent. When it comes to black people, Bill Clinton "feels your pain." John Edwards is the son of a mill worker. Mitt Romney joined the NRA. All pandering to overgeneralized perceptions of their target constituencies. All Barack Obama did was identify a problem, call it what it was, and attempt to find a solution. Who wants a president who does that?

The Problem With Fortune 500 Conservatism

2008-04-13T09:41:00.004-05:00

I would like to issue a challenge to any neo-con out there to square his/her views with traditional conservative ones (e.g. Edmund Burke, NOT Rush Limbaugh). In the title of this post I am borrowing a phrase I heard during a course on business crimes - "Fortune 500 Conservatives". I have given a lot of thought as to what that phrase means and I have decided that it is best applied to those who identify with the "neo-conservative movement".

To make this conversation relevant, here are a few things that sicken me about the neo-con hijacking of our government that has occurred over the past 7 years:

(1) People at the FAA have been threatened with their jobs for...well, doing their jobs. Source.
(2) The Dept. of Justice has been politicized to the point that their legal opinions have become little more than punditry. Source. Source. Source.
(3) The FDA is in bed with pharmaceutical companies. Source.
(4) The Fed bailing out a failing investment bank that got caught in a tangle of irresponsible investments. Source.
(5) The privatization of our military. Source. Source. Source.

And those are just a few.

My beef with the Fortune 500 Conservatives is that their "political philosophy" is completely self-serving, disingenuous, and serves as an eroding force to the underpinnings of our system of governance. The proper role of government regulatory agencies such as the FAA and FDA is to ensure that the public safety remains a concern to corporations who are increasingly more concerned with the bottom line and who do not seem to mind a little collateral damage, so long as the venture remains profitable. Putting industry insiders in charge of regulatory agencies is a classic case of the fox watching the hen house.

Fortune 500 Conservatives are disingenuous in that they distract their "base" voters with red-herring issues such as abortion, gay marriage, and flag-burning to attain positions of power and then proceed to loot the government power coffers for their own benefit. All this comes at the expense of the American public and causes a significant portion of voters to continually vote against their own interests. And what is more insulting is that when a political candidate calls these people out, such as here, that person is immediately tagged as out of touch or elitist.

Over the past 7 years we have witnessed a large scale hijack of our government, particularly the agencies that are supposed to be guarding the public from being savaged by powerful corporations and inhuman forces of the private sector. For example, after telling us over and over how scared we should be of terrorist threats our government set up the Office of Homeland Security. Sounds like a good idea. I'm all for "homeland security". Of course what most of us did not realize is that in the process the director of the DHS, now Michael Chertoff, has the power to waive laws that get in the way of his intended projects.

Let's think about that last fact for a moment. One guy, who was never elected, has the power to unilaterally circumnavigate laws passed by Congress (all elected) to further projects that he and his army of bureaucrats have initiated. And for what do you think DHS uses this vast power? Stopping the latest Al-Quaeda threat? Strengthening the security around nuclear power plants? Nope, they're waiving environmental regulations to expedite the building of a fence along our border with Mexico. Source. If that is not eroding the separation of powers, the single-biggest check and balance on government provided our Constitution, then I don't know what is.

And Castles Made of Sand...

2008-04-09T06:28:00.002-05:00

So here I am, flogging the dead horse about flood insurance and risk and coastal/riverine development, and then there's this. Not only are we subsidizing the flood insurance for high cost/high risk development on the coast at the federal level, but we are also spending upwards of $100 million state tax dollars to subsidize the sand on which those monstrosities are built. And why are we renourishing the beaches? Because they are made of sand and sit directly next to nature's most powerful erosionary force- the ocean. I guess we'll never learn.

Louisiana Supreme Court Rules for Insurance Company in Katrina Lawsuit

2008-04-08T17:14:00.004-05:00

The Louisiana Supreme Court recently decided a case involving private insurance of the flood damage resulting from Hurricane Katrina. The insurance policy at issue, like almost every other insurance policy that is not subsidized by the NFIP, contained the standard exclusionary clause for flood damage. The trial court and court of appeals both ruled that the word "flood" as used in the policy was ambiguous and, therefore to be construed against the insurance company. Those courts further found that because the flood that caused the damage resulted from failed levees and because "flood" as construed by the courts did not exclude flood damage from man-made causes, the policy covered the damage. The total judgment against the insurance company was upwards of $800,000.

The Louisiana Supreme Court overturned the lower courts, however, and declared that "...the entire English speaking world recognizes that a flood is the overflow of a body of water causing a large amount of water to cover an area that is usually dry
land," and that "flood" was therefore not ambiguous.

The disaster in New Orleans of 2005, due to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, should serve as a warning to all of us that building things in the path of destruction is a bad idea. Insurance companies caught onto the idea years ago and began excluding certain types of damage from their coverage. Because of the greatly heightened risk factors associated with buildings in flood-prone areas, private insurers got out of the business of insuring flood damage. Our federal government, in all of its wisdom, took the place of the market-driven insurance industry and began subsidizing the development of high flood risk areas. Not surprisingly the program is now close to bankrupt, with a Congressional overhaul in the works that, instead of cutting back the program and acknowledging that some areas simply do not conduce to development, adds wind coverage to the mix and puts the NFIP in arguably worse shape than it ever has been.

Meanwhile, we have sensible courts like Louisiana's Supreme Court who read private policies as they were intended to be read and continue to allow private insurers to contract out of covering flood damage. On the whole, its an untenable situation that seems to have no good end in sight.

Here in SC, meanwhile, we have continuing coastal development (that is not only increasing in volume, but also in size and value) as well as developers trying to build on our riverine flood plains. All this in the wake of some of the worst floods on record in the Midwest.

The Louisiana Supreme Court opinion can be found here.

Mike Gravel is Crazy

2008-04-08T06:57:00.000-05:00

SC Rule for Adverse Possession

2008-04-07T06:39:00.004-05:00

Google Analytics tells me that a lot of people wind up on my site when searching for the SC rule for adverse possession. I suppose that's because of a post I wrote a while back called "Rule By Adverse Possession," which really has little to do with the actual rule. So, in order to satisfy the masses, here it is, the SC Rule for Adverse Possession:

"To constitute adverse possession, the possession must be continuous, hostile, open, actual, notorious and exclusive for at least ten years." Knox v. Bogan, 322 S.C. 64, 472 S.E. 2d 43 (S.C. Ct. App. 1996).

There it is, the people wanted it, and the people got it.

Individual Gun Rights and 6th Grade Grammar

2008-04-05T09:54:00.003-05:00

The U.S. Supreme Court recently heard arguments over the Washington D.C. ban on handguns in District of Columbia v. Heller, No. 07-290. The reason the story is big news is that people seem to think that the time is right (e.g. we have enough Republican-appointed Supreme Court Justices on the bench) to challenge the Court's long-held view that the 2nd Amendment does not guarantee and individual's right to bear arms, but rather guarantees a collective right to bear arms- that is, in a nutshell, the right to raise a state militia.

Before I get into the 6th grade grammar lesson, here's a bit of Enlightenment political theory for you. The founding fathers of the U.S., and consequently our Constitution, were heavily influenced by Enlightenment-era political thinkers such as Locke, Hobbes, Burke, and Rousseau. One of the fashions of the time was to write about theoretical, political utopias, the most influential of which (at least in terms of our Constitution) centered around democratic theory- that is, the logic behind democracy. The fashion was to begin the book with a picture of man in "the state of nature," and to show how man came out of that state and into civilized society, most often via a social contract. The idea was that man, while in the state of nature, was perfectly free, however harsh life might be without civilization. Rousseau, in particular, picked up on this notion and espoused the idea that man only left that perfectly free state when resources around him became scarce and the need for collaboration with his fellow man arose. Then they entered into the social contract.

After man enters into a social contract, the dual nature of his existence arises (that is the separation of "man" and "state") and a problem arises. How much of his liberty does man cede to the state? Locke thought that man retained a significant amount of liberty (or at least ought to), while Burke espoused a strong state wherein man retained very few liberties. One of the liberties that received a good bit of debate between the theorists was the so-called right of revolution. That is, the right of the people to declare their government illegitimate and shirk its chains (often very violently, see e.g., Burke's classic Reflections on the Revolution in France, wherein he argues a very weak, if nonexistent, right of revolution and points to the bloodshed and chaos of the French Revolution to illustrate his point).

This brings me to the 2nd Amendment. If you accept the proposition that our country was founded on Enlightenment political ideals, then it is not difficult to view the 2nd Amendment as the protection of our right of revolution. However, when you view our Constitution as it was originally intended, that is as the structural centerpiece of our national government, it is probably more accurate to say that the 2nd Amendment was intended to protect the States' right of revolution against the federal government. State constitutions, then, would be the proper outlet for any individual right to bear arms.

And now for the grammar lesson. With all that historical context in place, it is time to look at the text of the 2nd Amendment:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

So let's separate the clauses. (1) A well regulated Militia; (2) being necessary to the security of a free State (notice that "State" is capitalized, this is how the States were referred to in the Constitution); (3) the right of the people to keep and bear Arms (notice that "people" is not capitalized); (4) shall not be infringed.

There is no question that clause 1 modifies clause 2. Let's keep those aside for a moment. There is also no question that clause 3 modifies clause 4. The central question in the argument over individual or collective rights to bear arms, then, is whether clauses 1 and 2 are independent of clauses 3 and 4. What's the 6th grade way of figuring that out? Switch them around: "The right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed, a well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State." Oops, that sentence doesn't make any sense. In this formulation, the formulation necessary to bolster the individual right argument, clause 2 is dangling. It doesn't stand alone. Thus, clauses 1 and 2 (which we've already agreed modify each other) must modify clauses 3 and 4. And there you have it, a 6th Grade grammatical analysis of the COLLECTIVE right to keep and bear arms.

Now, before members of the NRA start picketing my front yard, I would like to qualify my argument by noting that just because the right to bear arms is, in my view, a collective one, does not mean that the federal government has the power to pass a law banning all weapons. It does allow the states to regulate the ownership of weapons in a manner consistent with the 2nd Amendment (hence the proper prohibition of felons or mentally insane people from owning guns, or good laws that prohibit people with concealed weapons permits from bringing them into places that serve alcohol). We are far, far away from a time when the government will knock down the door of a law-abiding citizen and seize his firearms. We Americans, by and large, love our guns and the political will to take them away from us simply does not exist.

Sore Loser

2008-04-02T18:55:00.003-05:00

So I'm in my backyard transferring my tomato plants to their permanent homes when Cody, my dog, starts going crazy. I walk out to the street to check it out, and there, in my trashcan, is a stack of Brian Boyer political signs. I guess he figured he had a 70% chance of getting them in the trashcan of someone who didn't vote for him.

Oh well, at least we can buy beer on Sundays now.

Great Post on Obama-Muslim Hysteria

2008-04-02T12:12:00.002-05:00

Check out this post from a new blogger on the topic of hysterical anti-Obama emails floating around the inter-web. Looks like sanity is finding new homes all around the South.

Further Circumstantial Evidence Tending to Show...

2008-04-02T06:54:00.002-05:00

that the Vista Farms Disinformation Project is in bed with the powers that used to be in Cayce. Remember that official Cayce City News website? Turns out they're peddling the exact same propaganda as the Disinformation Project. I mean come on guys, can't you at least try and make it seem like the local government isn't run by a development company?

Vista Farms Disinformation Project is At it Again

2008-03-26T09:55:00.004-05:00

I just ran across this gem on the official news website for the city of Cayce:

"TRUE: Future tax consequences for Cayce homeowners and residents will be huge. BUT, they will be positive.

· Annexing 3,000 acres into Cayce before it is developed will significantly expand the economic opportunity for Cayce as a part of an overall strategic plan to lower taxes to residents in Cayce. Planners will have the opportunity to devise agreements that are tax sensitive to the residents and community, and the tax revenues from the development and jobs and retail sales will benefit all Cayce residents."Source

I am interested to see this "overall strategic plan to lower taxes to residents in Cayce." I am further interested to see how developing a known flood plain that is "protected" by levees built ages ago by farmers that conform to no levee standards and have proven themselves susceptible to the rising waters of the Congaree River will function to lower taxes for Cayce residents.

True, an upscale residential/commercial district would serve to expand Cayce's tax base and increase revenues for the city, but I have yet to see any proposal to lower property taxes (or any other local taxes) based on the anticipated revenues from Vista Farms.

Meanwhile, the people of Cayce should note that the flood insurance that business and homeowners would be forced to purchase in order to finance their properties is only made affordable because of the federally subsidized rates that are neither actuarially sound nor sustainable (even Congress has admitted that the NFIP in its present state is unsustainable, see H.R. 3121). This means that the burden of flood risk brought about by developing Vista Farms is borne not by the property owners, but by the public at large, thus increasing the tax burden on the citizens of Cayce (and, for that matter, the citizens of the United States). So essentially, this "strategic plan to lower taxes to residents of Cayce simply functions to increase their federal tax burden while failing to propose any reciprocal relief at the local level.

A Few Thoughts About Being Alone in the Wilderness

2008-03-20T07:46:00.004-05:00

A couple of weeks ago I embarked on my first solo backpacking trip. The idea for this trip came from a trio of sources: my fascination with Survivorman; my recent reading of Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer; and my conversations with a longtime backpacking buddy who took his own solo expedition a couple of years ago. The idea for my trip was simple: pack light (I limited myself to 25 lbs.), hike long (I covered about 30 miles in three days), and go somewhere I have never been before. With all that in mind I chose a surprisingly well-travelled destination, the Clingman's Dome area of the Smoky Mountains National Park.

For those of you who have never been to Clingman's Dome, I suggest you go. It sits high above the surrounding peaks and, if you're not inclined to hiking long distances, there is a road that leads to a 1/2 mile trail to an observation deck. I didn't make it to the observation deck, for reasons I'll provide later, but the area that I covered was awe-inspiring.

I timed my trip with the very beginning of Spring Break and was out from March 7 - March 9. My original plan was to spend three nights in the area, but, for reasons that will follow, I ended up only spending two. As I said earlier, I packed light which meant no tent, minimal food, and minimal creature comforts.

I embarked from the Newfound Gap parking area at about 2:30 pm on Friday, March 7. The original plan was to park at the Clingman's Dome parking lot, saving me about 10 total miles of hiking, but as my favorite Scottish poet once said, "The best-laid schemes o' mice an men, gang aft agley." In fact, as I would later find out, the road to Clingman's Dome was closed for good reason.

I set out from Newfound Gap into a hazy, rainy wood and hiked 5 miles down the Appalachian Trail to my first night's destination, a shelter just off the trail. Despite the dreary, London-esque weather, the hike was pleasant and I was filled with a sense of accomplishment at having embarked on what I was sure would be a great vision quest full of introspection and great self-realization. The five-mile hike was none too difficult, being mostly flat, and I made good time to the shelter.

Along the way I passed a trio of AT thru-hikers. The first hiker I met called himself "Traveller," which brought to me my first realization- I don't have a trail name. Throughout life I have been wary of self-applied nicknames, but, as I parted the company of "Traveller" I decided to give mine some thought. I got nothing. Everything I came up with sounded corny, so I decided to bunk the system and just go by my given name. Thus, I'm still wary of self-applied nicknames.

My second realization came when I arrived at the shelter for my first night- solitude would be a difficult thing to achieve, even in the wilderness. I spent the night in the shelter with four other people- two thru-hikers named "Grasshopper" and "Brakeman" and a father and son who were out for the weekend. Thus my plan for introspection was busted for the night.

My third realization came shortly thereafter- I don't know how to cook rice, especially at altitude. See, my food plan was extremely simple by design. I brought four power bars and five pounds of rice. Seemed simple enough. However, the only cookware I brought was a tin coffee mug that proved itself not conducive to cooking rice. After about 45 minutes of standing in the rain over my boiling rice, I was sure it was cooked. Wrong. Turns out rice needs a lot more water than I had originally thought. My spirits, though, were still high as I tossed out my half-cooked rice, and I resolved myself to learn the proper method the next day. I ate one of my power bars and then began settling in for the night.

At some point while I was sleeping the rain turned into a snow storm. I had not been totally unprepared for this event, though, as the weather forecast predicted "few snow showers" on Saturday. Of course I would love to find the person who deemed Saturday's weather "few snow showers" and give him or her a lesson on proper syntax. While "snow showers" certainly occurred, I can hardly justify calling a steady snow beginning in the middle of the night and continuing all day long "few." Of course, being from South Carolina, I was eager to encounter the snow, a phenomenon of nature that we sandlappers do not often get to experience.

What I did not count on was that water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit. Seems like a simple concept, but again, being a South Carolinian, 32 degrees is not something we encounter regularly (at least not while the sun is out). I found that pumping water from a nearby stream becomes impossible when it turns to ice as soon as it leaves the stream into the water filter. But that was ok, I still had a liter of water for my hike and I was sure that eventually the day would warm up enough so that I could get some more- again, wrong.

I trudged 10 miles, mostly downhill, through the snow and ice on Saturday. So long as I was constantly in motion the hike was relatively pleasant. I saw bear tracks, which was a bit disconcerting, but no bear. I stopped along the trail to try and hone my outdoor photography skills, with a few good results, and had a power bar for lunch. All in all it was a good hike and my spirits were still relatively high, despite my continuing inability to get any water.

When I finally reached my campsite for the night I was finally all alone. Being no longer on the move I was finally free to be alone with my thoughts. My first thought- "it's cold out here, I need a fire." Of course the fact that all flammable material around me was frozen solid and covered with snow meant that a fire was a dire improbability. I struggled to start a fire for about an hour before I gave in to the realization that tonight was going to be cold and alone and increasingly miserable. This was the first point where the thought entered my mind that would dominate the rest of the trip- "I need to get home."

It started off as an option. Maybe I would hike out the next day, maybe not. But as I sat there and contemplated my options it began to gain traction. After a very short while of sitting in the increasingly cold air, I decided I had little choice but to put off my rice-cooking lesson for the night, and decided on the best way to get warm. I unpacked my sleeping bag and tarp, spread the tarp on the ground, climbed in my sleeping bag, put the rest of what might be considered insulation (a poncho and a jacket) on top of me, rolled the tarp over me and began to wait out the night. It was about 6:00 pm, and I assumed it would be dark soon. Of course I had forgotten that Saturday was the first full day of daylight savings time and the digital clock on my Ipod (one of the few creature comforts I brought) had automatically changed. Ok, so a couple hours of daylight and then night would set in.

At this point I need to flash back a bit to explain exactly why I was so cold. Saturday's hike came with about five stream crossings. Normally these streams are shallow, high mountain streams, but because of the rain all day Friday, they had risen quite a bit. The result was that crossing these streams became, in many places, nearly impossible, at least without getting a little wet. And indeed, at three distinct points the water rose above my waterproof boots and the icy water covered my legs to the knee. Now I have been backpacking for a long time, and I know that getting wet is the cardinal sin for cold weather camping. Another cardinal sin I committed was wearing cotton pants that I soon learned freeze just as solid as my water filter did. By the time I reached the camp site I had been rubbing the bottoms of my pants together as I walked to create noise to alert any nearby bears of my presence. This was not a good thing.

This explains why I was shivering uncontrollably in my sleeping bag as my base layer (also soaked) began to thaw. It took close to an hour before I warmed up enough to stop shivering and all the while I was haunted by thoughts of hypothermia. Luckily, though, I eventually warmed up enough to sleep, for the first time, alone in the wilderness.

Shortly thereafter, though, I was awoken by the sound of human voices. I would learn the next morning that it was a group of college students from Connecticut. That night, though, I was satisfied that the noises I heard were human and drifted back to sleep. After struggling through the night, waking up with some regularity, I finally convinced myself that it was warm enough to exit my cocoon and start the day. What I found when I came out of my sleeping bag, though, was that my pants were still frozen, and had now been joined by my boots and the little bit of water I had left- also frozen solid.

This was the point at which my decision was made. I was going home today. I attempted to put my frozen boots on, but could only get about half of each foot in them, so I hobbled around camp trying to get some sort of a fire going to thaw my clothing. Of course everything around me was frozen and covered with snow still and the fire effort cost me my remaining stove fuel and one of my favorite t-shirts (which burned surprisingly well, but not well enough to get the fire going). Eventually I gave up on the fire, but in the process had thawed my boots enough to get my whole foot into them, and I walked over to the group of people occupying the other part of my campsite, who were just beginning to exit their tents and cook breakfast.

After chatting with the Connecticut crew for a while and consulting their map, which was far superior to mine, I decided to make a small alteration in my hike that would make exiting the wilderness possible in one day. See, my original plan was to hike back up to the Appalachian Trail (about 2,000 ft. above me) and spend the night in another shelter before hiking out the next day. However, I found that if I reached the AT with enough daylight, I could make it to the Clingman's Dome parking lot (another 1,000 ft. climb) and take the seven-mile road down to where I had parked. This seemed to be the best route since I was fairly certain I would run out of daylight and at least I would be hiking down a road in the dark. My confidence was further bolstered by what would prove to be a fleeting hope that maybe the road had been opened to traffic and I just might be able to hitchhike down to the parking lot. I decided that the rice I was carrying was doing me no good, so I buried it in the woods to lighten my load. This was the point of no return.

So I packed up and began my trek upwards toward the AT. This trail proved to be quite difficult and time-consuming, but after hours of struggling uphill I finally reached the AT. It was about 3 pm, so I knew I had to quicken my pace if I was going to make it to my truck by dark. The five uphill miles had taken a toll on my legs though, so I decided to take a long break before setting out again. It was here that the Connecticut crew caught up with me and were kind enough to offer me some trail mix to fuel the rest of my hike, which I am sure they thought was an endeavor in insanity, though they were polite enough not to say it outright.

Sunday was much warmer, and the snow had begun to melt as I ascended toward the AT. By the time I reached the highest point of my hike, just below the peak of Clingman's Dome, I was rewarded with some of the most spectacular views available in the Appalachian Mountains. I tried to quickly capture some of the views with my camera, but I did not have much time to spare, nor much photographic talent, and, while I produced some pictures that will certainly go on my wall, I was not able to do the views proper justice. The awe of my surroundings really overtook me there, even though I did not have time to let it soak in.

I was overtaken by joy when I finally reached the Clingman's Dome parking lot. I had been able to thaw out my filter a bit earlier and filled, and subsequently drained, my water supply. I was greeted first by a water fountain and gladly sauntered over for a bit of fresh water. It had not yet been turned on for the tourist season. However, I would not let this setback ruin my cathartic experience, and sat down briefly to enjoy my accomplishment. It was all downhill from here.

On checking the time (it was 6:30 pm), I decided that I needed to get moving down the road. Of course the road was still closed, and rightly so. It was covered by ice and snow in many places and would have made for treacherous driving. I was still hopeful that perhaps a ranger would pass me by and be kind of enough to offer a ride, but that hope never materialized. The walk down the road was long and relatively boring save a few decent overlooks. There were few signs along the way, so it became impossible to tell how far I had to go. All I knew was that it was seven miles from the top and, despite my natural abhorrence of simple math, I spent some time in my thoughts figuring out just how fast I was walking and how long it would take to cover the seven miles. My calculation was actually reasonably accurate and, after two and a half hours I finally reached the end of the road, stumbled to my truck, and remembered the best idea of the trip- that I had left a beer, a hunk of cheese, and a change of clothes in my truck. However, I was so exhausted that the beer and cheese did not go down easily, but the change of clothes was divine.

I learned a lot about myself on that trip, but none of it was what I expected. I learned that it is difficult to maintain high spirits in the face of nature's adversity. This is a different phenomenon from man-made or self-imposed adversity. Nature throws adverse conditions at you without regard to your place in life. There is no control when you subject yourself to her elements and she is unforgiving and relentless. At the same time, though, if you are lucky enough to ride out the weather, nature will reward you. These rewards came to me in the form of majestic mountain top views that I enjoyed not so much because of their intrinsic beauty, but rather because of the trip, the hardship, that led me to them. That is a phenomenon that only who have experienced it can understand. This is why I chose to post a picture not of those majestic views, but of the trail that led me there.

Ahhh Capitalism

2008-03-17T14:30:00.002-05:00

So what happened between Friday and today that caused Bear Stearns' stock to lose $28 in value? Presumably all that subprime trash they bought over the last few years is still worth about what it was on Friday. Presumably the asset column of their balance sheet did not change that much over the weekend.

And yet JP Morgan can scoop up what, until this weekend, was one of the more preeminent investment banks in the world for $2 a share.

Not to be the resident conspiracy theorist, but didn't this transaction come on the heels of our government's assumption of the risk for $30 billion worth of liabilities tied to mortgage-backed securities? How is it that when the government assumes $30 billion worth of a company's risk that the value of that company declines so precipitously? I'm just asking...

I know that our economy is headed towards a recession, that a run on investment banks is horrible for Wall Street, and that presumably a collapse on Wall Street could cause a collapse of the greater economy and render Americans in another Great Depression. That makes sense to me.

What also makes sense to me is that the two biggest, most sweeping securities regulation laws were passed in 1933 and 1934 as a direct response to what can politely be described as "gamesmanship" and what can more accurately be described as theft that was occurring on Wall Street about the time the bottom fell out and the U.S. economy was turned on its heels.

So why is it that the first time Wall Street causes a depression they are directly targeted by government regulation, and a lot of it, and now, when it seems like things are going that way again, Wall Street is given bail-outs? Is nobody out there worried about the moral hazard associated with allowing Wall Street to brush off losses that, in a free market, would ruin the whole securities exchange market?

Voters, I urge you to pay attention to your politicians' economic policies. When it sounds too complicated to understand, that's because it is. Remember that ultimately, all of the wealth generated by securities has to be tied to some tangible asset and, when the securities' structure becomes so complex that those assets cannot be seen, then the "free hand" of the market will begin to slap people around. And don't think for a minute that the pains from that market smack-down won't be passed directly to the American consumer. When your politician calls him/herself a "free market capitalist" just remember that it works both ways, when the economy is doing well and when the economy is doing what it is doing now.

SC Immigration Bill Gets Last Minute Amendment

2008-02-08T08:47:00.000-05:00

Sen. Jim Ritchie (R-Spartanburg) has introduced an amendment to a pending immigration bill that would require all SC businesses by 2010 to participate in a federal employee verification system. All SC businesses. All of them. Every single one.

As of the 2006 census there were 4,321,249 people in SC. According to The State, the SC Legislature estimates that there are about 75,000 illegal immigrants in SC. For those of you not mathematically inclined my calculator tells me that that means about 1.7% of the people in SC are illegal immigrants.

The unemployment rate in SC jumped to 6.6% in January (source). Thus, assuming that the 6.6% rate applies across the board, we can assume that about 70,050 illegal immigrants are currently working in SC.

My point here is that the only real problem I see with illegal immigration in SC is that finding them will probably cost more than any benefit, whatever that might be, we would realize by removing them from our workforce. It is not as though we share a border with Mexico or Canada, and I don't see any immigrants paddling makeshift boats to Myrtle Beach anytime soon (not that anyone would notice in that eyesore). I simply don't see what is the big deal.

The Spin Cycle: Hillary's Faux Victory

2008-01-30T07:18:00.000-05:00

This just in...Hillary Clinton wins her second meaningless primary. And celebrates. That's right, hot on the heels of her victory in Michigan over "uncommitted," Hillary Clinton won the delegate-less Florida primary by 17 points. Hey, at least the other candidates' names were on the ballot this time. The Washington Post's Dana Milbank wrote a pretty scathing review of the whole affair here.

Nevermind the fact that all of the candidates agreed not to campaign in the state, or that no delegates were up for grabs, Clinton still deemed it necessary to give herself a victory party. The thing that really sticks in my craw is that she did not give any acknowledgment of her loss in SC, a real primary, with real delegates at stake, in which she got hammered. Just another example of the Clinton machine at work, doing whatever is necessary to look successful. What should not go unnoticed here is that she blatantly violated an agreement with the other candidates not to campaign in Florida and, now that she has won, is trying to get the Democratic party to reinstate both Florida and Michigan's delegates.

In Case You Didn't Notice, Obama Won SC

2008-01-27T11:24:00.000-05:00

And what's more, there was a record turnout in the SC Democratic Primary. And 49% of Obama's votes came from those under 30. Those two figures together tell me that Obama's message is reaching a segment of the population that normally does not care very much about politics. I think Obama is right, that people are tired of politics as usual.

Another interesting thing to note: approximately 530,322 people voted in the SC Democratic Primary. Of those, Obama got 55%, or 295,091. Approximately 425,000 people voted in the SC Republican Primary. (all figures used for this post can be found here)

NOTE: I previously and erroneously posted that 295,000 + people voted in the Republican Primary. Sorry for the misinformation.

"Out of many, we are one."

I Couldn't Help Myself...

2008-01-24T13:07:00.000-05:00

Clinton/Edwards '08?

2008-01-22T10:59:00.001-05:00

Anybody else get the feeling that John Edwards was debating to be Hillary's VP last night? I thought the tag-team action against Obama was fairly conspicuous (and onerous).

Vista Farms Disinformation Project

2008-01-21T13:48:00.001-05:00

Take a look at the Vista Farms propaganda site here. Both Avery Wilkerson, the mayor of Cayce, and the "new team," who moderates the site, seem to be pushing the tax advantages and control advantages incurred by the citizens of Cayce in annexing the Green Diamond/Vista Farms plot. The project is being touted as a haves (Richland County) versus have-nots (residents of Cayce) campaign.

I have not personally witnessed any animosity between residents of Cayce and those "across the river." However, I find some of the other claims made on the site to be dubious at best. For example, the proponents of the Vista Farms project say that the annexation will lower taxes for residents of Cayce. Yet they site no proposals pending before the City Council to such effect. Further, they say that Cayce will not have to foot the bill for extending public services to the Vista Farms area. Even if the agreement between the developers and the City Council/mayor that the developers will foot the bill for sewer and water line extension is real, there is no mention of the costs of maintenance of those lines, the costs of extending the capacities of the sewer and water systems, or of the cost of providing other essential services to the area such as fire, police, and education. The proponents mention that the costs of services such as education, fire, and policing are a non-issue if the land is never developed and that even if the land is developed that the tax revenue from the developments will cover the costs of the services. What they fail to mention is that residential development tax revenues rarely cover the costs of such services.

Furthermore, the fact that the developers and the mayor who insist that there is no development plan, have also announced a plan to use 2/3 of the property for agricultural and environmental purposes suggests the disingenuous nature of the whole deal. So who will finance the very unprofitable "constructed wetlands" that are so highly touted by the developers? My guess is Cayce taxpayers.

Another problem with the view of the "new team" lies in their conception of the control of the land. They repeatedly mention that the zoning process is a public one and that the citizens of Cayce will have a say in how the area is zoned. Anyone who has attempted to sway the result of a zoning ordinance without bringing a big bag of money to the table can tell you how that turned out.

Finally, the biggest problem associated with the project is the levees. The existing levees were privately constructed to divert water from farmlands. It is well documented that the maintenance of levees is an expensive and time-consuming venture. So who will foot the bill for the levees? Well, the developers want you to think that private landowners will. What they don't tell you is the exorbitant cost of maintaining the levees would most likely prove prohibitively expensive for private landowners. So what will happen? Let the levees decay and endanger the whole development, or appeal the to the civic authorities for help?

Ultimately, as I have said on other occasions, the development of flood plains is a risky and expensive business. As Professor Adam Scales of the Washington and Lee School of Law put it: "maintaining a sinking metropolis that sits several feet below sea level is perhaps the ultimate faith-based initiative; these failures are surprising only in their capacity to shock.” (Adam F. Scales. A Nation of Policyholders: Governmental and Market Failure in Flood Insurance. 26 MISS. C. L. REV. 3. (2006))

McCain-o-Mania

2008-01-20T10:11:00.000-05:00

Well SC Repubicans, you surprised me. The conventional wisdom, that the evangelical vote would carry the day in SC, was wrong. You did not put your support firmly behind a guy who wants to amend the Constitution to bring it up to God's standards. And you were not charmed by the former imaginary D.A. from Law and Order. Good for you.

McCain's victory got me thinking: what if it came down to Hillary and McCain? Who would I support? Despite any inferences you may make from the title of this blog, I am not a partisan hack. There was a time when I felt very strongly on the side of John McCain (circa 2000). But now, after 8 years of the guy who beat him, well, I'm a bit wary of electing another Republican. Still, though, Hillary...really? I think if it came down to these two, I might well go with McCain.

Here's my thinking: McCain will not torture prisoners, which is a big issue for me. However, McCain will stay in Iraq, an equally big issue for me. But, on the Iraq issue, McCain's experience in Vietnam at least lends his thoughts on Iraq some credibility, whether or not you agree with his proposed policy.

On the other hand, Hillary probably won't torture prisoners either. And she will probably stay in Iraq. So they seem to be evenly matched on my two biggest issues. I guess I'll have to look deeper into their policy proposals.

Let's see, healthcare: McCain proposes what is essentially some sort of "market-based" solution to the healthcare woes of our country. One thing I like, McCain talks about low-cost health clinics, something I think is essential in providing healthcare to more people. One thing I don't like, any "market-based" solution for healthcare is a dubious proposition because there is an inelastic demand for healthcare (that is, healthcare demand is not the same as consumption demand, you don't go to the doctor's office to get that stylish new drug you've been shopping around for). Clinton wants to have some sort of optional socialized healthcare system- that is, if you have healthcare and you like it, you can keep it, or you can opt-in to a government healthcare system. One thing I like, it would provide healthcare to more people. One thing I don't like, most people receive healthcare as an employer-provided benefit, if they have a choice to opt-into a government healthcare plan, what incentive is there for the employer to continue providing the benefit?

Ok, on to energy issues. McCain's take on US oil-dependence is well-reasoned and he has acknowledged that human activity contributes to global warming. My problem with his proposal is that he buys into the "pollution shares trading" idea, and I simply do not see how that will reduce overall pollution. Clinton says essentially the same thing as McCain on this issue.

Alright, how about the economy? McCain will balance the budget, cut taxes on businesses and cut spending (surprise, surprise). Trickle-down economics remains a force of nature in politics...why, I am not sure. Clinton wants a "progressive commitment to shared prosperity." Sounds like socialism, but let's see where she's going with this...she wants to raise the minimum wage, fix the healthcare system, and promote education. Blah, blah, blah, freakin' blah. Sure, healthcare and education affect our economy, but she will have to work harder to prove to me the causal connections between her healtchare and education policies and economic success. I can see it, but I don't want to infer.

And finally, just for fun, gun control. McCain is all for gun rights and supports instant criminal background checks for gun owners. He doesn't believe that gun ownership is tied to higher crime rates. Clinton wants instant background checks and to extend the ban on assault rifles. I'm all for that. However, her position statement (that can be found here) indicates that she hasn't given much thought to the issue. That could be a good thing.

So, where are we? Well, I am exactly where I started. I don't really like either of them much. I think if I had to vote today, though, Hillary's healthcare proposal, which I'm sure she will pursue vigilantly, eliminates her from consideration. I just don't think socialized healthcare will work without either drastically reducing the quality of healthcare or drastically increasing government spending and taxes. I guess I would go with McCain. Consequently, McCain's issue statements can be found here.

I sure hope Obama wins the nomination.

Ron Paul is Why I Like Obama

2008-01-19T10:26:00.000-05:00

In Iowa, New Hampshire, and Michigan Ron Paul has garnered 10%, 8%, and 6% of the GOP primary votes respectively. He's polling right around 5% in SC and 7% in Nevada. Its probably a safe bet that Ron Paul is not going to be the next president of the US. But, what is interesting about Ron Paul's results is that he seems to have garnered the support of anywhere from 5-8% of the voting public in most states.

So what is it about Ron Paul, an obvious fringe candidate, that strikes such a chord with such a significant chunk of voters? I think it is his emphasis on individual liberties. The past 7 years have been characterized by diminishing civil liberties. I need not go down the entire list, but a few examples would be warrantless wiretapping, suspension of habeas corpus rights for some US citizens, etc. We all know the overt source of this trend, Rudy Giuliani has even built a presidential campaign around it. But 9/11's impact on US domestic policy is epiphenomenal. The root of the problem is fear, or more particularly, fear-mongering by members of our federal government used to justify further encroachment on our basic civil liberties.

So what does any of this have to do with Obama? Well, I'll tell you.

Most of what Obama has to say about policy is in line with what you would expect someone just slightly left of center to say. But that is not why people like Obama. The common, and I think faulty, consensus on Obama's appeal is charisma and great speeches. It is true that Obama delivers very rousing speeches that pull at the heartstrings of many people. But there is a subtle difference between Obama's message and that of the other Democrats that I think is the real reason people support him. See, Obama's message is not about what he can do as President, it is about what the American people can do to change the course of the country. Obama's message is not one of entitlement, but of empowerment, and that is the most democratic message that I have heard from any candidate.

I think he's on to something. I think that there is a large segment of the American public that is tired of seeing what the government can do and wants the power back in their own hands. Just as Ron Paul appeals to the libertarian right, Obama appeals to the libertarian left. The difference between the two in terms of election results is that there are simply more Americans who find themselves leaning left this time around.

Green Diamond and the Moral Hazard

2008-01-18T17:19:00.000-05:00

In 2005 Columbia Ventures, LLC, the Myrtle Beach-based developers pushing the Green Diamond (now called Vista Farms) development won a suit in federal district court to throw out the current FEMA flood map that placed the Green Diamond area within the 100-year flood plain. Columbia Ventures' beef with the map was that FEMA did not factor in the existence of levees in the area in making its determinations for the flood map. The Southern Environmental Law Center, on behalf of FEMA and a Cayce neighborhood association that opposes the project, argued that the existence of the levees were not, and should not have been taken into account by FEMA because they failed to meet the regulatory specifications that levees must meet in order to be effective enough to alter flood plains in such a way as to justify alteration of the map. Their argument can be found here Columbia Ventures won the case, but it has been appealed and is awaiting a hearing.

It is notable that the levees in controversy existed in 1976, the last time a major flood event inundated the area and failures in both their structure, construction, and placement were cited as root causes of over $4 million dollars worth of damage (and the property was not even developed at the time). At that time, and in every flood map since, the Green Diamond tract has been included in the Congaree River's 100-year flood plain. Many people interpret the "100-year" flood plain to mean that a flood can be expected in the area about once every 100 years. That is wrong. Actually the 100-year flood plain experiences about a 1% chance of flooding each year. Thus it is possible to have a 100-year flood each year for any number of years until we give up on developing the place and just call it a lake.

This brings me to the point of this post. That the NFIP exists, and that courts are willing to toss out flood maps and essentially green light the development of proven flood plains leads companies such as Columbia Ventures into what the risk-assessment industry refers to as "moral hazard"- the phenomenon that occurs when people are insured from a risk and because of that fact fail to take measures to mitigate any damage that might arise from the risk. Thus, as the moral hazard occurs in the pool of insureds, the overall cost of insurance goes up. So then, when someone like Columbia Ventures decides to develop such a risky property, the cost of insurance for all who need flood insurance rises. The problem is that flood insurance is subsidized by the federal government and any losses that are incurred by the NFIP are passed on to taxpayers. Furthermore, the problem is exacerbated by the fact that subsidized rates, by definition, are not actuarially sound- that is, they do not reflect the actual risk they insure, thus compounding the moral hazard for developers of flood-prone lands.

The Green Diamond Should Stay in the Rough

2008-01-17T07:52:00.000-05:00

Recently, the City of Cayce decided to annex the Green Diamond flood plain, located in lower Richland County for development. The timing, and hurried nature, of the decision is related to a window of time in which the area will be legally amenable to development. As part of an effort to modernize and make sustainable the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), FEMA, who is in charge of administering the NFIP, has been updating flood maps. The most recent map of the Green Diamond area has been thrown out by a federal court, not due to inaccuracy, but rather to administrative miscues in creating the map (imagine that, administrative miscues from FEMA).

The result of the court's decision to throw out the recent flood map is a window of opportunity for developers who have been salivating over the Green Diamond tract for some time now. They now have a limbo period in which development of the Green Diamond flood plain is not restricted by its flood map status. As FEMA works to put out a new flood map of the area, which will undoubtedly render the Green Diamond flood plain uninsurable, the developers, apparently in conjunction with Cayce's mayor and city council, are working to build on the flood plain.

One major facet of the project will be flood "protection" afforded the area by a levee system. One might think that only 2 years after the devastation caused by the breech of New Orleans' levees, that our collective memory might dissuade the development of flood-prone areas. But no, the technological hubris that has characterized our great nation for so long still prevails. Development of the flood plain moves forward.

The aforementioned "window of opportunity" for the development has little to do with federal property controls (at least overtly) and everything to do with insurance. Long ago the NFIP was created by the federal government because private insurers would not insure properties in flood prone areas. The private insurers cited essentially market-based concerns as to why they would not insure the properties. In order for the insurance companies to retain the ability to deal financially with a catastrophic flood event, the actuarially sound rate that would be passed to the homeowner would be unaffordable.

Enter the NFIP, the insurer of the uninsurable. The effect of providing flood insurance to low-lying, flood prone areas has been marked. Development of coastal areas and river flood plains has increased exponentially. In the process populations in those areas have grown rapidly. The result is an unsustainable insurance time bomb on nearly every beach that is susceptible to hurricane events and riverbanks around the country. Because of the federal policy of encouraging development of flood prone areas the NFIP has become a money pit. Congress has expressly admitted (see H.R. 3121, pending legislation entitled "The National Flood Insurance Program Reform and Modernization Act") that the NFIP, in its current form, is completely unsustainable and unable to deal with catastrophic events such as the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons. The pending legislation proposes to phase-in actuarially sound rates for some (mostly commercial properties and second homes) properties in flood plains and to add wind damage to the federally subsidized insurance coverage. The list of criticisms of the NFIP and the proposed reform is too long and complicated to post here, but I have an extensively researched academic paper for any who are interested.

The point of this post is to expose the true nature of Cayce's hurried annexation of the Green Diamond flood plain. If the development occurs between flood maps, then all of those properties will be insurable at the discount NFIP rates. The problem for those of us who will not benefit from the Green Diamond development is that when the area eventually floods, an event that would be severely exacerbated by a levee system and subsequent breech thereof, the cost of insuring the losses incurred will be passed directly to the taxpayer. In the meantime, the cost of bearing the risk of flood for the Green Diamond area will be borne by the insured (those people with property interests in the development) and the insurer (the federal government and, by extension, the taxpayer).

There are more criticisms of the Green Diamond development, which I plan to post when I have the time, but the biggest issue by far, as evinced by the rush to annex and develop the area, is insurance.

"Lindsey Graham is Too Liberal" (Seriously, It's a Quote)

2008-01-15T07:50:00.000-05:00

So I'm driving through West Columbia yesterday and, prominently placed among the plethora of political signs is one that reads "Buddy Witherspoon for Senate. Because Lindsey Graham is too liberal!" Seriously, I'm not making this up. Apparently Lindsey Graham is too liberal and this new guy, Buddy Witherspoon (a dentist by trade) is working to replace Graham in the US Senate on an anti-abortion, anti-illegal immigration, anti-"death" tax, pro- Iraq war, pro-individual liberty platform. He can be found online here. So, if you are one of the five or six insane South Carolinians who agrees with Mr. Witherspoon that Lindsey Graham is, indeed, too liberal, then here's your man.

Backpackgeartest.org

2008-01-12T10:37:00.000-05:00

I am growing a bit weary of politics, so I thought I'd blog on something I actually like for a change. I have recently found a website, backpackgeartest.org, that allows ordinary people to submit reviews of backpacking gear that they own and to become testers of gear that is sent to them to review. The site also has an archive of all of the gear reviews that can be extremely helpful to people looking for an honest opinion about a piece of gear they're considering buying.

I have been going through the process of becoming a gear tester and I have to say that the group has really structured the experience so that it is easy and relatively painless, yet it is tough enough to weed out those who are not serious about it. I'm impressed with the site, its standards, and its member reviews which are almost always informative. If you're into backpacking, I would highly recommend the site.

This post gives me another opportunity to show off a camping picture too. The picture for this post was taken on my recent trip to Cold Mountain. We are camped just off the Art Loeb trail about a mile and a half from Deep Gap.

In(dividualist)to the Wild

2007-12-29T13:20:00.000-05:00

A couple of days ago I read the first book since I started law school that did not have to do with some aspect of the law. The book was Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild, the story of Chris McCandless, a self-styled and controversial intrepid wanderer who walked into the Alaskan wilderness and, after 114 days, starved to death in an abandoned bus that sat by the Sushana River. The story of McCandless has come to prominence recently because of Sean Penn's movie based on the book. i have read many reactions to the McCandless story, and have found that many people express resentment toward him and his death. Indeed, Krakauer even chronicles some of the criticisms of McCandless that surfaced after the article that led to the book was published in Outside Magazine. The overriding theme of McCandless' critics seems to be that he was selfish, hubric, and under-prepared. People say that he ought not be made into a hero, that he should have thought more about his parents and others who cared for him, that he sets a bad example for people considering setting off into the wilderness to find themselves. I however, think these people have missed the nuance of the story. Chris McCandless was never meant to be heroic, his story was chronicled because it represents the convergence of tragedy, American mythology, and that aspect of humanity that makes us distinctly human and frail- that existence between extremes that is at the same time mundane and austere, yet, when it surfaces in people like McCandless, seems so very extraordinary.

I find myself comparing the story of McCandless to that of Aron Ralston, whom we all remember for being the guy who did what it took to survive, who challenged our self-perceptions and forced us to ask- could I do that? Ralston, of course, is the hiker whose arm was pinned by a boulder and who, after several days of suffering with little food and water, was forced to cut his own arm off to free himself. I bring up Ralston's story not in juxtaposition to McCandless', but rather peoples' reactions to the stories in juxtaposition. No one decried Ralston for being unprepared, or for possessing only that youthful hubris that would lead him into such a precarious position. Even though Ralston was hiking alone, had told no one where he was going or when to expect him back, and made the classic mistake of trusting his weight to a precariously perched boulder that had wedged itself into a canyon, a well-known canyoneering hazard. Yet Ralston has written a book about his travails, and now works as a public speaker, thus capitalizing on his brush with death. McCandless, on the other hand, made many of the same type of mistakes as Ralston, but perhaps his downfall is simply that he died, thus never allowing him the chance to make money from his story.

But the purpose of this post is not to point out the hypocrisy of McCandless' critics, but rather their ignorance as to what it really means to be American and human. When McCandless' body was found, there was a stack of books, many bearing notes and highlights from McCandless. One of the authors featured prominently in the collection was Henry David Thoreau, another American made famous for going "into the wild". The influence of Thoreau is perhaps one of the most vexing aspects of McCandless' story. When Thoreau wrote so vividly in celebration of the rugged individualism (not his term, but descriptive of the notion nonetheless), he was not describing what should have been, but what he saw all around him. That is the American ethos, the lifeblood of this country, and, at least during its formative years, what it meant to be an American. That, as Booker T. Washington so eloquently put it, a man can pull himself up by his own bootstraps. Self-reliance was how Emerson put it. Individualism is at the heart of American law, politics, philosophy, and life. Individualist notions permeate our Constitution the writings of the Enlightenment thinkers who gave us our own brand of democracy. And yet when someone who personifies that ethos so well dies in the process of adhering to the principle, people decry him as selfish and full of hubris.

True, McCandless is also exemplary of the dark and unattainable side of individualism. McCandless shows us that humans have socialized to the point that we can no longer survive the pinnacle of individualism. The state of nature is no longer hospitable to the civilized man. Perhaps this is the root of the criticisms of McCandless. It is not his own fault that worries people so much, but his exposure of the weakness in all of us. The book picks up on this theme in an aside about another individual who tried, and failed, to live off the land- Carl McCunn. McCunn's experiment with individualism was couched in terms of anthropological self-experimentation. McCunn wanted to see if a civilized man could survive using only the tools of the caveman. McCunn did well for a time, but eventually he died by his own hand, presumably after learning that his desired result was unacheivable.

Ultimately, though, the story of McCandless is one of a person who is distinctly human. He is at once both strong and frail, idealistic and pragmatic. McCandless is not the hero of stark proportions, who acts only according to virtuous principles and triumphs over evil. Nor are any of the rest of us. We lead a murky existence full of relativism, moments of weakness, and, should you view it the way that many seem to, the ultimate failure- death. This, is my theory as to why people react so differently to the stories of McCandless and Aron Ralston. Ralston lived, he cheated death, whereas McCandless committed the ultimate sin against life, he died, pitifully and alone. But the story of McCandless is much more real. We see McCandless in hospital beds, in churches, in ourselves. We see the repugnant reality that is death and, perhaps, just how maddeningly pointless a life-examined can seem when the story ends with death.

Political Natural Selection

2007-12-23T11:23:00.000-05:00

The State Board of Education is going to meet in January to debate whether to accept two biology textbooks that espouse the theory of evolution as the basis for the modern scientific understanding of life. Apparently concerns were raised over comments made by former Clemson professor Horace Skipper who criticised the books because "I didn't see where they had the scientific support that I think public schools need in a textbook." Having not read the textbooks, I have decided to comment on this issue only from a general, theoretical perspective.

First, the theory of evolution is not just a theory, as many of its detractors like to point out. If one ascribes to the paradigmatic view of science as illustrated in the classic The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, then one surely must concede that the theory of evolution ushered in a paradigm shift in scientific thought. It did not answer the questions, it framed the debate, rescued science from a series of pitfalls and red herrings, and brought about a new lense through which to look at our world. If one is a pragmatist, in the sense that one believes that truth is that which is proven through experience and results, then it is difficult to look at the relationship between science and technology as it exists today, as it has evolved since the paradigm shift brought about by Darwin's classic theory, and to deny that evolution essentially "works". Scientific research from within the evolutionary paradigm has given us cures for diseases once thought incurable, the cloning of entire organisms, the mapping and understanding of the human genome, the ability to turn stem cells into functioning organs, and the subsequent ability to turn other cells into stem cells.

The truth of the matter is that evolution is not up for debate in the scientific community. The only real topic for debate on evolution is at what level it occurs (e.g. macro-evolution vs. micro-evolution). That our State Board of Education would deny what has proven itself to be the truth to our students is alarming. I can only figure two possible reasons that this debate even exists today, one political and one based on the frailties of human nature.

The political, and largely cynical, view is that the members of the State Board of Education who consider themselves proponents of creationism or "intelligent design" (my favorite oxymoron) are simply pandering to what they perceive as their base, much like the Presidential candidates pander to the far reaches of their "base" in the primaries. This is why we see John McCain speaking at Jerry Falwell's "university", Mitt Romney getting a hunting license, or Hillary Clinton "singing" traditional African-American spirituals. Now we have conservative members of the State Board of Education pandering to what they consider to be their base: uneducated, religious conservatives. If I were one who considered myself a conservative, I would personally be offended that these people truly believe that they can placate me and reserve my support through passing off such rubbish on the already beleaguered South Carolina student.

The only other explanation I can think of for this aberration is one based on the frailties of human nature. This is based on my perception that many religious people think that there is a necessary conflict between evolutionary science and Christian faith. In short, these people are so afraid of going to Hell that they cannot possibly accept that the Bible might not be literally written. This is the frailty of human nature- fear of the unknown. The Bible, particularly as read by many of those on the more conservative side of religion, provides a quick and easy way to eternal bliss. Anything professing to be "knowledge" that may conflict with that path to bliss must be vehemently denied and hidden from the marketplace of ideas. My only answer to these people is that religion is an epistemology of faith. Science is an epistemology of reason. These are two entirely different ways of looking at the world, addressing very different subjects, and each ought to be separate. Just as Jefferson argued for the separation of church and state, I argue for the separation of church and science. When viewed properly, I believe that religion and science can be just as copacetic as apple pie and ice cream.

Ultimately, the dogmatic adherence to religious views when applied to scientific study will produce the same false beliefs that lead us to the "understanding" of spontaneous generation. Similarly, a dogmatic adherence to scientific views when applied outside of their scope will produce the same false beliefs that lead us to Social Darwinism and the Holocaust. We must temper our beliefs and our understandings. To the SC Board of Education I beseech you, please separate science and religion, please temper your views, open your eyes to the world around you- a world of shades of grey and nuanced understanding, not a world of black and white, good and evil.

Cold Mountain

2007-12-19T19:26:00.000-05:00

I have never read the book, Cold Mountain. I saw the movie, but I couldn't tell you much about it. But I have been to the top of Cold Mountain- the real Cold Mountain. And it lived up to its name. It was indeed cold, and windy, and foggy, and an alltogether dismal place to be. Perhaps if we had caught better weather, my account would be different, but I have only been there once, and it was as it was.

We started out from a familiar place, the Boy Scout camp where we had ended one of the most difficult trips of our lives, followed by the best beer and piece of cheese I ever had. I blogged about it a year ago. This time was going to be different, though. This time we would start at the Scout camp, about 6 miles closer to the trail that leads to the top of Cold Mountain. See, last year we were so burnt out and pressed for time by the time we reached Deep Gap, where the trail to the top of Cold Mountain splits from the trail down to the Scout camp, we decided that we would have to forego the trip to the summit of Cold Mountain in favor of actually making it to the car before sundown. This year the only goal was to reach the top of the mountain, and we were going to be sure to make it.

We started out a bit late on Friday afternoon. The weather was brisk, yet mild enough to shed all of my outer layers. We lost sunlight just as we approached a small trailside campsite and decided to camp there for the night. It turned out to be a great night, chilly, but certainly bearable. We sat around the campfire for a few hours, cooked my new favorite camp food, chicken quesadillas, and sipped whiskey through the night. I also used the occaision to break out my new toy, my backpacker guitar. Although I'm sure my singing voice sounds more like an animal in pain than the great rock star grit that I hear in my head, everyone seemed to enjoy the diversion.

The next morning was uneventful. Powerbars and coffee for breakfast, then we hit the trail. We made good time considering the trail climbed a couple thousand feet at about a 45 degree angle, and by midday we were at Deep Gap. Deep Gap is a gap between a place called The Narrows and the summit of Cold Mountain. It is relatively open and sparsely populated with oak and birch trees and the occaisional evergreen. At least three trails converge on Deep Gap, making it a relatively highly trafficed area and, at least in a few respects, not the optimal place to camp. More on this later.

After lunch (Wolf brand Chili, definitely worth the weight of an aluminum can if its cold out) we set up camp and headed for the top of the mountain. We had been fortunate enough to pay close attention to the area weather forecast, and knew that a storm was scheduled to roll in on Saturday. Because of this, we decided to set the tents up with the doors facing each other and to string a couple of tarps up over the opening for a cooking space and common area. With the tents pitched and the tarps taut, we headed up the trail toward the top of Cold Mountain. As we set out the clouds began to roll in, the wind picked up, and we knew it was just a matter of time until the storm hit, but we all knew that we had to get to the top of the mountain. It had haunted me for a year and I was not going to get this close again and not make it.

Because water is scarce, we filled our water bottles on the way up from a mudpuddle formed from water dripping off of a rock onto the trail. Not exactly the fountain of youth, but with the help of a trusty filter, it did the trick without setting off a second storm within our intestines. The hike to the top was tough and steep, yet leisurely. Everyone was in good spirits, knowing that we were finally going to the top. The weather worsened gradually as we climbed, but no one seemed to notice.

As we reached the lower section of the peak, above the treeline, the weather became apparent. We came across a couple of ledges that almost certainly would have provided breathtaking views except for the thick clouds that enveloped us at the time and prevented any visibility past about ten feet. All of my instincts told me to turn back, that the weather was going to catch up to us and that the timeframe for the trip down was shrinking. But I was not going to be deterred. I wanted to reach the top, as did everyone else. And finally, we were there, looking at the USGS benchmark that had been placed at the summit in 1934, conveniently labelling the top of the mountain for those too unobservant to realize they were there. By this time the wind was whipping so loud that we could barely hear one another, we had to hold on to our hats for fear that they would be blown into the abyss of the passing clouds. We peered over ledges into nothing but thick, grey clouds.

Yet the heavens were smiling on us. After a few gracious minutes at the top, we decided to head down. The trip down was quick due to the steep incline and just as we emerged from the trail and back into Deep Gap, the rain began to trickle. We made for the tents to get a warm drink and a snack and wait the rain out. But it never stopped. It rained, sleeted, and snowed all night. We sat in our tents eagerly awaiting the end of the rain so that we could emerge, start a fire, and go through the camping ritual we all knew so well. But it never happened. It never stopped raining. We sat there from three in the afternoon until after midnight and the rain continued. Finally we gave up, and settled in for sleep.

We awoke to bitter, bitter cold. We had planned on cooking pancakes and bacon for breakfast, but it was so cold that all we could think of was to get moving. We struck camp quickly, with few words, then hit the trail, back down toward the Scout camp. It would be about twenty minutes into the hike that I began to feel my toes again. I have never hiked that distance with so many clothes on. Snow flurries were flying around our heads nearly the whole time. And it was wonderful.

The point of this post is not to make the trip sound tougher than it really was. Many people have been in much tougher conditions on much higher peaks. My point is merely to tell the world, from the proverbial top of the mountain, how much I love these trips and how, even though it may rain, the wind may whip, visibility may be low, the trip is still worth making.

Shifting Sands and Mortgage Markets

2007-11-20T14:17:00.000-05:00

All of the recent problems with the mortgage markets have me thinking, and the one question that keeps troubling my mind is this: what, if anything, is our economy based on? I have had extensive conversations about this question with people much smarter than me and we seem to have come to a couple of (at least theoretical) conclusions about from where value derives in our economy. Of course all of these "conclusions" just lead to a plethora of other questions until, at least in my estimation, the whole argument becomes cyclical and, ultimately, paradoxical. However, I think I have distilled at least the value of the dollar to two things: 1) America's ability not to pay its debts; and 2) Amercian's faith in the notion that tomorrow will be better than today.

So, what do I mean by America's ability not to pay its debts? Well its a sort of Machiavellian economics: might makes rich. In other words, we sell of our debt to other nations based on the assumption that we won't have to pay those debts off. Why? Well, who is going to knock on our national door and make us pay those debts? Therefore, we can sell off our debt to inferior countries who can never collect on it. Its really a beatiful thing for us, so long as we can maintain our military might. This conclusion seems to be bolstered by the great negative impacts of national security failures on our economy (see 9/11) as well as the relative strength injected into our economy from successful military endeavours (see WWII and the Cold War).

My second conclusion (which I really must attribute to a friend of mine), that our faith in the notion that tomorrow will be better than today, finds evidence in interest rates. I mean, what exactly are we doing when we take out a loan? I think we're wagering (either consciously or not) that the advantage gained today by the money we receive will be worth at least as much as that total plus the interest rate we're paying when the money is due. This makes sense in the context of a home loan: houses are appreciating assets that ought to be worth more than they were 30 years from when they are purchased by a margin at least as great as their interest rate and usually expectedly more.

I'm not sure why I felt compelled to post this, but I think it stems from a worry I have about waning resources (hence the picture of one of my favorite lakes that is drying up). What are we going to do when we run out of oil, water, top soil, and clean air?

The Problem of the Slippery Slope

2007-04-12T09:57:00.001-05:00

I have been hearing a lot of slippery slope (or as I so affectionately refer to them, "chicken little") arguments lately, and I have become very dismayed at their effectiveness in changing people's minds. I find these arguments to be not only entirely ineffective and unpersuasive, but, and perhaps more insidiously, completely logically fallacious. See, the fundamental problem with chicken little arguments is that the conclusion does not necessarily follow the premises. These arguments are pure conjecture and speculation, yet, when framed right, sound authoritative. The fact is that slippery slope arguments depend largely on a series of causal assumptions, none of which are ever justified within the argument. Just because something seems to make sense at first blush, does not mean that it makes logical sense.

Another issue I have with chicken little arguments is their utter determinism. The great minds riding on Einstein's coat-tails have essentially eliminated determinism as a viable philosophical model and the simple minds, such as myself, have always refused to ascribe to deterministic philosophies because we refuse to give up the notion of free will. Long gone are the days when a scientist could credibly assert that, if he could freeze time and determine the direction and velocity of every atom in the universe, he could see the future in its entirety. The problem with slippery slope arguments is that they depend on deterministic causal chains in order to come true. The slippery slope arguer will assert that if X occurs, then over time, Y will occur. That a whole myriad of other elements of causation and deviation could occur within any segment of the prescribed time span is irrelevant to the slippery slope.

My point here is that we encounter these arguments with increasing regularity in our daily lives. Politicians are some of the most egregious examples of slippery slope appeals to the emotions. So I charge my reader(s) - next time someone tells you that if, for example, we pull our troops out of Iraq then the whole middle east will erupt in violence, ask them why that is? Or if you hear someone say that if we allow the government to trump a liberty in favor of greater security that sooner or later we will be living in a police state, ask why. My caveat here is, please do not respond to the above examples, as I have meant only to exemplify two different slippery slope arguments I have heard a lot of lately (one from each end of the political spectrum, by the way), and in no way mean to undermine either of those arguments, but rather to encourage my reader(s) to question them.

Rule by Adverse Possession (Pt. 1)

2007-03-27T15:37:00.000-05:00

For those of you not subjected to reading page after page of dry, dull court cases, there is a concept in the law of property that most people encounter in their first year of law school called "adverse possession." When I first read about this stuff, I was absolutely blown away. It seemed comepletely antithetical to everything I had assumed about ownership and property as it functions in society. You see, adverse possession (at least when grossly oversimplified) works something like this: Let's say this guy Joe owns a piece of land in Alaska, but Joe live in SC. Then this guy Sam, an Alaskan native, wanders onto Joe's Alaskan tract of land and decides he wants to live there. Over a couple of years, Sam builds himself a little hut, a garden, and some other basic improvements, and happily lives on Joe's tract of land for some time. Joe, meanwhile, is stuck in SC and can't get to his Alaskan tract of land. He has no idea Sam is living there. Then one day, Sam's buddy tells him about this thing called "adverse possession." He tells Sam that he can go down to the courthouse and file for quiet title on the land and it will be his. Sure enough, Sam does this and, like magic, the title to the land is in Sam's name. Unbeknownst to Joe, he has lost his Alaskan asset. And all of this, given certain technicalities that must be met, is completely legal (save the time that Sam was trespassing, but that is forgiven after a set period runs and Joe does not eject Sam).

Now, when I first read about this stuff, I was taken aback. How is it that, in America (he said with a thick Texan accent) some vagrant can squat on your land long enough and then it just becomes his? Well, the justification is that Sam is making more efficient use of the land and, because Joe did not care enough about the land to even discover that Sam was there, Sam is more deserving of the title. Whether or not you agree with this concept matters very little. It is settled law in every state in this country (though the requirements vary from state to state).

But I don't want to write this post about adverse possession- at least not the legal variety. Nope, I'm not talking about property law at all. I'm talking about adverse possession at the very top of the American political system. I'm talking about presidential adverse possession. You see, apart from reading about the mundane legal quandaries that people find themselves in, I'm also reading about constitutional law. And recently I have had the distinct pleasure of reading a series of cases dealing with executive power and its interplay with the other branches of government. Most notably, I just read the recent "enemy combatant" cases, which involve American citizens that were picked up either in Afghanistan or while returning from Afghanistan. Of course, these are not ordinary American citizens. These are people who took up arms against our own armed forces and at least appeared to fight for the Taliban. My gut says "hang'em high." Problem is, that my brain just finished processing their court cases, and he's not so sure.

Don't get me wrong, I'm in no way coming out in support of terrorism or defecting to the enemy, or anything like that. No, that would be way too interesting. Nope, I'm talking about procedure and governmental structure. Things that work in the background of cases like these that have way more impact than a lot of people realize. See, neither of these two cases that I read had anything at all to do with establishing whether either of these guys was a bad guy- that was established well before either of these cases got to the Supreme Court. These cases revolved around whether or not these people would be subject to a trial by jury (as is guarrantied to all citizens of the United States in the Constitution) or to a special military tribunal.

Turns out, the Supreme Court isn't sure. Neither am I. See, as much as I scorn the President's policies, and as much fault as I find in a war on anything in the abstract, I can't seem to countenance being very polite to a couple of guys who decided to fight against their own country. At the same time, I'm a big fan of the Constitution, particularly the part about allowing all citizens to have their day in court. Indeed, James Madison argued that, as long as habeas corpus remained robust and undeniable, that we didn't even need the Bill of Rights. All that could be sorted out in court. And I'm a firm believer that when it comes to things like criminal charges, people deserve all of the protections that the legal system currently affords (at least most of) them. But this brings me back to my gut- these guys could die of gonnorhea and rot in hell as far as I care. So, despite my normal, opinionated tone, I'm going to take a back seat here and admit, I don't know the answer. At least not yet.

(P.S. I know that no one who reads this will have any idea why I included that first part about adverse possession...it will become clear when I post the conclusion to this in a couple of days...but first, I want my reader(s) to tell me what you think about all of this.)

Ann Coulter = Windbag

2007-03-04T22:33:00.000-05:00

Nuff said

Big Brother's Census

2007-03-04T13:24:00.000-05:00

So, I normally do not look forward to checking my mail. It seems that Publisher's Clearing House forgot their promise that I was the winner of a major prize, and somebody named SCE&G seems to think I owe them $300 a month. That's the only real correspondence I receive via the US Mail, so anyone can imagine my disdain for the mailman (even my dog seems to hate the guy). However, being a good, law-abiding citizen, I perform my requisite daily duty of checking the old inbox.

It seems, though, that Uncle Sam has not caught on to my mailbox blues, and, last week, really kicked it up a notch. See, my
residence has been "scientifically selected" (whatever that means) to participate in the American Community Survey. For those of you who may not be familiar with the survey (a demographic that included myself until last week), it is billed as a supplement to thedecennial census, aimed at gathering information to disseminate to various federal, state, and local entities to help them formulate plans and divert aid. The handy-dandy brochure that accompanied the survey explains that the valuable information I provide will go to government bodies that determine things like police and fire station locations, housing aid, and "to show a large corporation that a town has the workforce it needs."

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm all for government handouts, at least when they come to me. However, the questions on the
survey raised some serious concerns on my part. For example, I have to provide intrusive information about all the residents of my house, my relationship to those persons, where they work, if they don't work, why not and for how long, as well as about 10 pages of other questions. Now, I'm not going to get on my soap box, wrap myself in an American flag, and spout off truisms about this being a "free country" or anything, I'm not that naive. However, I was curious as to just how the
census bureau justified asking such intrusive questions and requiring their answers under threat of penalties.

Being the responsible law student that I am, I immediately turned to my favorite online legal research site, and began digging. What I found was: 1) theACS has never been challenged in a court of law; 2) the ACS is not specifically sanctioned under any legislative act; 3) the office of the US Comptroller General has written a memo to a Congressional
oversight committee attempting to justify theACS; 4) that memo finds the authority to compel answers to the ACS not in any specific statute, but inferred from the text of at least 2 separate statutes (see 13 USC §§ 141, 193); 5) that those statutes call for supplementary census information only for the purpose of furthering the singular goal of the census; 6) that the singular goal of the census is the apportionment of US Representatives based on population.

So, to recap, save a legal memo put out in defense of the ACS, I couldn't find anything truly justifying its existence, except perhaps some loose and non-legal argument about the need for up-to-date information on US citizens to better divert government monies to those who are in need. My question (or at least one of them) is why is the Federal government collecting all this data for services that are traditionally provided by state and local governments?

Hillary Stumps in Columbia

2007-02-22T07:54:00.000-05:00

The Blue South was able to get a correspondant in to the gymnasium at Allen University to see Hillary Clinton deliver her stump speech on Monday, and boy was it anticlimactic. While we generally don't expect a whole lot of substance to speeches this early in the race, we do expect a lot of applause pauses and energy. And that wasn't the case on Monday. Maybe she was just having a bad day, but the speech was about as rousing as a Zanax washed down with a pint of Thunderbird. The town-meeting format wasn't particularly compelling either (and, while we generally oppose scripted questions at those sorts of things, a bit of screening wouldn't have been such a bad idea). Indeed, it was one of Sen. Clinton's questioners that received the loudest applause as he delivered his 10-minute "question" railing in the Iraq war from a Vietnam vet's perspective. In the end, Sen. Darrell Jackson had to cut the guy's mike to give Clinton a chance to speak up.

As far as the speech goes, she hit all the normal highlights. Universal healthcare, Iraq was a bad idea, George Bush sucks, all the standard Democratic stump-speech fare. She also insists on vowing to take the profits of the big mean oil companies (how she plans to do that short of a Nixon-esque "plumber" team, is beyond me). The fact is that Clinton simply isn't a compelling candidate at this point in the race.

Oh yeah, and while we're on the topic of Hillary, the Blue South would like to send a personal boot to the hindquarters of Clinton's operative, Howard Wolfson. This guy is dirty and vicious and about as blatant a liar as we've seen in a long time. We caught him last night on Hardball calling David Geffen Obama's "campaign finance coordinator." Come on, Wolfy, you know that's not true. The fact is that his tactic of spinning Geffen's anti-Clinton remarks (that were fairly meek) into an instance of the Obama campaign utilizing the slash and burn tactics that Obama himself vows to eliminate. Not a bad tactical move, but don't reach too far, or you'll lose any shred of credibility you have left.

Obama-Rama

2007-02-05T22:42:00.000-05:00

So I here there's this new guy running for president...what's his name...Oh yeah, Barack Obama. The guy has become as ubiquitous as American Idol in the past year or so. Obama's rise to political stardom began of course with a humble speech at the Democratic National Convention just a few years ago and since then the guy hasn't let up. All the while Obama has been gaining popularity exponentially. This somewhat rare status as a true political superstar has left the Blue South wondering...what exactly is it that makes this guy so freakin' popular?

Certainly Obama's strong oratorical skills and natual charisma play an enormous part in his stardom, but is there any substance behind it all? Obama has taken a strong rhetorical stance against the Iraq War (a fairly popular position these days) and is, in fact, the only Senator who has introduced a De-escalation plan, per the 9-11 commissions recommendations. Obama also talks a lot about healthcare. Its hard to find much he's done on that front nationally, but the word on the street is that while a state Senator for Illinois, Obama did manage to get some healthcare reform passed. Obama speaks of his days as a communtiy organizer in inner-city Chicago, as a civil rights lawyer and law professor, all noble pursuits. But his experience in the national theater is meager and, although he speaks passionately against cynicism (he even wrote a book most audaciously titled "The Audacity of Hope"), who knows what a few years in the D.C. meatgrinder will do to a guy like that.

Not that I'm a cynic but I am skeptical. The system tends to rub off on you. Obama speaks like he's going to enter the system and enact real, sweeping change. The questions are 1) whether that's even possible and 2) whether Obama's message will comport with his actions and policies.

The Troops Behind the Curtain

2007-02-01T20:05:00.000-05:00

According to MSNBC news, our very own Congressman John Spratt has spearheaded an effort by the Congressional Budget Office to look into President Bush's proposed troop surge in Iraq. As we all know by now, Pres. Bush vowed to send 21,500 more combat troops to Iraq in an effort to stabilize what many are now calling a civil war in Iraq. What Bush failed to mention, as uncovered by the CBO is that those 21,500 COMBAT troops will require at least as many, if not more, support troops to go to the country. CBO estimated that the effort could involve as many as 48,000 troops in all.

Despite what you think about the war in and of itself, I think we can find it agreeable on both sides of the aisle that politicians like Congressman Spratt have been standing up to the administration and reasserting their own voices in the debate. There are numerous bi-partisan non-binding resolution floating around the Senate that express Congress' reticence to escalate the troop numbers in Iraq. Barack Obama just introduced binding legislation that requires a nearly full US withdrawal (save some special forces) by March of 2008 (naturally this has largely been viewed as a posturing move for Obama given his recent entrance into the presidential race).

I say kudos to Congressman Spratt and all the other politicians who are taking a stand, particularly SC politicians (Lyndsey Graham has acted admirably as well). I'm glad to see leadership emerging in Congress and that our legislative body is once again asserting its own power and not being unquestioningly deferential to an executive office that has sought to expand its power time and time again.

Hagel in '08?

2007-01-27T10:53:00.000-05:00

The preliminary buzz (and by buzz we mean circumstantial speculation of the media) is that Chuck Hagel is positioning himself for a run for the presidency in 2008. News people seem to think that Hagel's criticism of the war in Iraq stems from his presidential aspirations and the almost universal sense among Republicans that, in order to succeed in '08, any viable candidate must distance himself from the President, particularly on the issue of Iraq.

However, the Blue South does not necessarily think Hagel's criticism of the war is necessarily political in nature (at least not entirely). After all, Hagel does not only have a war record, he has war wounds, and lots of them. And Hagel didn't receive those wounds in just any war, it was the Vietnam War. And since it seems in vogue to draw comparisons between the Iraq and Vietnam wars, the logical conclusion might be that Hagel, who witnessed the shortcomings of American policy in Vietnam first hand, simply doesn't want Iraq to turn into the same kind of conflict.

Now, the Blue South is on the record as saying that Iraq is definitely NOT Vietnam, and we stand by that assertion. However, there are similarities, at least superficially. But we want to give Hagel more credit. We like the guy. He's what McCain might be if he were a few years younger. Hagel's a tough guy. He just told the US Senate that, if they want an easy job, "go sell shoes." Chuck Hagel might be just what the Republican party needs: a tough guy that can appear to be tough on security matters, yet pragmatic in the face of disaster. And it is pragmatism that we desparately need in the politics of our country.

The American people did not elect a whole bunch of Democrats last year because they want hippie love-ins, higher taxes, and expanded government. What America wants is a counter-balance to the President, who has sought to expand the powers of his office drastically since he's been there. America is not a nation of politically polarized people. They do not exist only at the far ends of the spectrum. The vast majority of American people are in the middle, where they ought to be. That's because we're a nation of pragmatists (just ask John Dewey, William James, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., etc.). As far as we're concerned at the Blue South, Chuck Hagel's a pragmatist, he's the kind of guy we need in politics, and we like him.

Affirmative Government

2007-01-18T13:59:00.000-05:00

In a brazen political move, our House of Representatives has overridden Mark "Don Veto" Sanford's latest legislative rejection. Apparently, in all his executive wisdom, Gov. Sanford saw fit to veto a bill that would allow residents of Richland County to drive golf carts on the road. Sanford's office declined comment, but the Blue South was able to reach Tiger Woods for his input. Here's the interview:

TBS: Thanks for you time Mr. Woods.
Tiger: Who are you?
TBS: That's not important. So, why does Richland County need the golf cart bill?
Tiger: What's that?
TBS: Don't play stupid Tiger, we know the golf lobby was behind the legislation.
Tiger: Eh?
TBS: So how does it feel to meddle in SC's politics?
Tiger: Seriously, I think you have the wrong number. *click*

Seems fishy that the shady golf lobbying group (otherwise known as the PGA) won't give us straight answers. So in our investigative fervor, the Blue South turned to the bill's sponsor and avid golf carting enthusiast, Rep. Todd Rutherford (pictured above)...and he wouldn't talk to us either. The Blue South believes that Rutherford's silence is due to his ownership of the ultimate in golf cart luxury, complete with oversized mud tires, a DVD player, and a classy taxi-cab yellow paint job that just screams "responsible public official." Anyway, we've decided that we at the Blue South place our full support behind the golf cart bill because we feel that the traffic in 5 points isn't slow enough and it simply isn't safe for pedestrian traffic (especially the intoxicated college freshmen on their way home from a night of underage debauchery at Sharky's).

The Best Piece of Cheese and Beer I've Ever Had

2006-12-19T12:34:00.000-05:00

I've been backpacking for a number of years now. My schedule usually allows me about two trips a year, one in the summer, one in the winter. I've been to the vast majority of SC's mountains and done a little wandering around in NC and GA, and, until this past weekend, I've never felt like I'd been beaten by a mountain. However, Sunday afternoon, as I stumbled out of the woods into a parking lot at some boy scout camp in the Pisgah National Forest, I truly felt beaten. I keep telling myself that its just because I haven't been exercising, or that my 8 year old boots failed me, or that I simply wasn't mentally prepared for the grueling itenerary we had plotted. But then, it was only 2 nights and 12 miles. People do that sort of thing all the time.

I guess I should have known this trip would be particularly brutal. Things didn't go according to plan from the start. Half of our 6 man party didn't even leave Columbia until 6:30 pm (I was included in this half) and, due to certain navigational miscues, we didn't hit the trail until about 10 pm. Thankfully, the other 3 guys were kind enough to leave glow sticks along the trail so the late-comers could find our way in the dark. Of course the batteries in my head lamp were dying, so the normally bright, concentrated beam of light was reduced to a faint shimmer on the rocks below my feet. But the first night's hike in wasn't bad, only about 10 minutes of walking, and there was a meager fire awaiting us when we arrived...and plenty of scotch. Ahhh, scotchy scotch scotch, I love scotch.

The plan was that the next morning, we'd wake up early, have some breakfast, and break camp. We'd hike up some ridge, change trails, and some 6 or 8 miles later, we'd find a suitable place to camp for the night and do it all over again the next day. Nothing new here, I've executed similar plans for years. I though 8 miles might have been a bit ambitious condsidering that I'm not in the greatest shape of my life, but I could do it, I was sure.

So the next moring we left about 10 am and hit the trail. Thankfully, I had packed light for the trip and my pack was probably only about 30 lbs. The same can't be said for some of the other members of our party. The thing about backpacking is that, when you're new to it, you see all these neat gadgets that purport to make life in the wilderness a bit easier. What the marketers don't tell you is that you have to carry all those gadgets on your back and, even though most of them don't weigh much, when you bring a bunch of them, the weight adds up. I've learned that, while things like a candle-lantern seem neat and cozy, they don't justify their weight in the pack, at least in a pure utilitarian sense.

Anyway, we hit the trail. Because we were hiking in a wilderness area, the trail was not exactly what you'd call "maintained". There were no blazes and often we had to stop just to figure out where the hell the trail was. A few previous hikers had been kind enough to leave rock markers along the way, but they were sparse and, at many times, the trail was nearly invisible. But we managed to stay mostly on trail the whole trip, for better or worse. You see, when I said earlier that we were going to hike up a ridge, I really meant UP. In fact, we ascended what our guidebook (obviously written by some sadist) called a "moderate ascent," words that, in retrospect we relied on a bit too heavily. In reality, that trail was brutal...brutally brutal. And the so-called "moderate ascended" turned out to be 6 miles of ascent that left our hiking party completely wasted and in pain. I don't remember much from the trail that first real day of hiking. Only the pain in my feet from stepping on the thousands of sharp rocks that made up the majority of what some might call a trail.

When we finally arrived at the top of the ridge, the trail, thankfully, leveled out. It made for a nice hike along the top of the ridge and, since all the leaves were off the trees, excellent views of the surrounding mountains. After a bit of heated debate among the party, we decided that 6 miles was enough for the day and that we'd camp on top of the ridge. I took the picture above from our campsite. Its a view of the famous Cold Mountain (which we had originally planned to summit as a sidebar to or route, but, given the condition of our party and time limitations, we could not). We set up camp, cooked dinner (summer sausage and rice never tasted so good) and then broke out our libations. I made it through about 2 sips of scotch when I realized that water was going to have to be my spirit of choice for the night.

I woke up last the next day, some time around 8:30 am, and we were gone by 9. Breakfast was a granola bar and a few sips of water, but I had to be conservative because I was running low and the next stream we'd cross would be about 4 miles down the trail. Our trusty guidebook told us that the remaining portion of our route would be a moderate, easy hike for about 2 miles (he actually got that one right), followed by a "strenuous descent" of 4 miles. I've been hiking in the mountains for a long time, and I've never heard of a "strenuous descent". After all, going up is the hard part, right? Wrong.

Maybe it was the fact that my feet were already hurting when we started out that morning (along with my legs and back) and that every step, even on level ground, was full of pains from all sorts of different places, but the strenuous descent, once we began it, was indeed strenuous. In fact I've run straight down the side of mountains before and had an easier time (that is until I tried to stop, but hey, that's the fun part). By about the 5th mile (1 more to go) my ankles and knees were shaking, I was relying on a stick I'd picked up along the trail for balance, and my walk resembled more of a stumble than an actual gait. But I kept going, slowly, but going nonetheless.

Finally I heard one of the guys ahead of me (and by this point, they were all ahead of me) say that he saw the car just around the corner. Just prior to that my trusty stick had failed me, broke in half, and sent me hip first into a big, sharp rock. All I could do was sit there and absorb the pain. God that hurt like hell. But, after a minute or two, I resumed my stumble and, sure enough, just a few switchbacks away was the car, and the rest of the hiking party. I've never felt such a catharsis. As soon as I reached the car, I dropped my pack and was handed, of all things, a hunk of cheese and a beer. And that, is the story of the best piece of cheese and beer I've ever had. Funny thing is, as I walk around the house a mere 2 days later, I can't wait until I do it all again.

Real quick...

2006-11-29T19:31:00.000-05:00

I'll be busy studying for, taking, then getting over exams until Dec. 18...but I promise I'll be back.

Election Reflections

2006-11-19T11:32:00.000-05:00

There's been a lot of speculation about what the Democratic takeover of Congress meant in the eyes of the American voter. Here at the Blue South we think we've reached a bit of a consensus. It has been said by many that people don't necessarily vote for something or someone so much as they vote against something. This sentiment definitely meshes with the efficacy of negative campaigning (despite being detested by us ideologues). And I don't think there's much argument from any side of the political spectrum that the Democrats never really formulated an affirmative message prior to the mid-terms. So what, then, were the American voters against?

The obvious answer here is the Iraq war. That idea has been beaten into all of our heads by the media, but we here at the Blue South think it's not entirely accurate. The real thing that the voters spoke out against, at least as far as we can see, is the specter of neoconservative thought as manifested in our foreign policy. Of course the Iraq war is exactly that, but it is important to point out that Americans have rejected an approach to foreign policy, not one instance of bad judgment and poor execution.

Beginning after WWII, as the Cold War began to rage, early neocons such as Irving Kristol (pictured above) began to formulate their opinions. The idea, originally, was all about the containment of communism and fighting an indirect war with the Soviet Union. We had the moral high ground at that point because it was the Soviets who were viewed as the ones with imperial aspirations, and we were merely fighting the good fight to contain their influence.

However, the Cold War has been over for a while now. Communism has exposed its fatal flaws, namely the social-engineering catastrophes that lead to the deaths of millions and millions of people. If any lessons can be learned from the failure of the communist utopia they must be that utopias don't, and never will, exist and that societies and governments are best left to evolve in their own ways without intervention from outside ideological forces.

This brings us to the tragic flaw of the contemporary neoconservative- the idea that America's best interests are served by spreading democracy throughout the world. On its face it seems like a good a idea. No one here will argue that Democracy is not a good thing. It has been a major contributor to the vast freedoms that we have grown to love in this country. However, the policy of spreading democracy at the barrel of a gun, toppling regimes and then forcing elections, has become the subject of the ultimate democratic criticism- the voter. The fact is that, while spreading democratic values is a good idea, it is not a good in and of itself. The method matters, as do the results and, most importantly, the will of the people being "democratic".

Oh, SNAP...In Yo' Face Pelosi!

2006-11-16T12:48:00.001-05:00

In the coup of the century Steny Hoyer (D-MD) has defeated seemingly insurmountable odds to defeat Pelosi's man, Jack Murtha (D-PA) for the number two spot in the Democrat pecking order in the House. We at the Blue South obtained an exclusive interview with Hoyer, mere moments after his triumphant victory over the Pelosi Faction. Here's what he had to say:

TBS: Well, Steny, how's it feel to undercut the clear will of your party's leader in a self-serving power grab that potentially could divide your party before they get a chance to do anything at all in Congress?
Hoyer: Excuse me? Who the hell are you anyway?
TBS: That's beside the point, Steny, I just want to know how it feels to be a party-debasing, leadership-circumventing, snobby East Coast liberal power broker.
Hoyer: Pretty damn good....SECURITY!
TBS: But seriously, Murtha could take you in a bar fight, right?
Hoyer: Murtha's a patsy.
TBS: Whatever, man. He fights dirty- he'd take you.
Hoyer: Nonsense, Murtha's a lightweight. I'd break him in half. In fact, I just did, democratically speaking.
TBS: I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. Thanks for your time, Steny.
Hoyer: My pleasure, jackass.

There you have it, an exclusive Blue South conversation with like, the 6th most powerful man in America (billionaires exempted). No where else could you find such hard-hitting journalism than here, at the Blue South.

King George's New Pants

2006-09-10T10:42:00.000-05:00

With all the excitement of football in the air, although my beloved Gamecocks have gotten off to a somewhat lackluster start, as well as my new daily routine of reading page after page of silly torts cases, I haven't had a lot of time to spend with my blog...but I want you all to know I'm still out here, so I'll post a few of my random thoughts.

President Bush has apparently adopted a new strategy in his speeches these days, he's no longer denying things that we, the public, have known were true for quite some time. Take these secret CIA prisons...the Washington Post published a story about them in November of last year, and since that time, under Bush's omnibus excuse of national security, the administration has vehemently denied their existence. That is, until last week when Bush hit the speech circuit fessing up, not only to their existence, but to their moral objectionability as well. This change in strategy for Bush is nothing new in the Republican party, all of the '08ers have been distancing themselves from Bush for quite a while now. It was only a matter of time before Bush jumped on the bandwagon and started distancing himself from himself. Makes political sense, right?

In other news, Al Gore has earned pariah status for his power-point movie about global warming. I guess Americans have been too busy gassing up their Hummers and cutting donuts in the Wal-Mart parking lots to realize that Gore's video actually puts up some compelling evidence in a viewer-friendly format that the NASCAR moms and dads can understand enough to totally reject. Scientists have been calling global warming a problem for years, but nobody pays any attention to them. Why would someone who has spent their entire life studying Peruvian glaciers have anything useful to say about my life?

What else has been going on? Oh yeah, Mark Sanford still hates public schools and poor people. Glenn McConnell is still dry-humping the Hunley and leaving millions of public dollars on the nightstand. Mid-term elections are coming up and the buzz is that people are sick of the Republican incumbents and are going to vote for change this November...Yeah right, I'll believe that when I see it. Not to mention that my beloved Dems haven't put together a solid enough platform to be able to espouse any sort of political agenda. At least the Republicans can fall back on their hatred of gays and abortion to rally the troops. What do we Dems have, social justice? Welfare reform? Universal healthcare? Americans would rather attend a good ole gay bashing session than bother acknowledging the actual problems facing us.

Ooh, ooh, speaking of healthcare, these pharmaceutical companies disgust me. Do you know that they have instructions on how to "talk to your doctor" about certain pills. You can go to their websites and they will instruct you on why you need their drug, give you a list of ambiguous symptoms to aid in your self-diagnosis, and then tell you how to lie to your doctor to make her believe you're actually sick so you can convince your insurance company (assuming you have one, otherwise you couldn't afford to visit the doctor, much less actually pay for a prescription drug) that you NEED this pill. What a farce! There will be more to come on this problem, but for now I'm going to spend the remaining time I have before football starts (I've got about an hour) to put together some sort of visual aid for this post, because if there's one thing we Americans need in order to actually read anything, is a catchy picture to sex it up a bit.

My Favorite Quote of the Day

2006-08-24T17:25:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I leave my radio on NPR all the time because commercial radio is crap and you can only find good music if you look for it. Normally I get a hard dose of news and commentary from the nation and world with only a small parcel of SC news...that is until Your Day comes on at noon. Today's show featured an interview with Mike Petrie, the maintence director for the city of Union, talking about his city's progressive energy policy. When asked about the contents of Biodiesel, Petrie was happy to oblige with his own expert analysis: "80% Diesel, 20% Bio." PRICELESS! Oh yeah and the picture is one from my camping trip this past weekend...for Mr. Petrie's benefit, we're burning 100% Bio.

Energy Woes (Pt. II)

2006-08-09T11:40:00.000-05:00

So Bush tells us we're addicted to oil and that we have to do something to stop it. The problem is he's right and anyone who understands addiction knows that it takes tanamount to an act of God to kick one. Ever try to quit smoking? Try quitting plastic, driving, indoor lighting.

The fact is that petroleum products are ubiquitous in our society and our way of life relies on oil. I have had conversations with friends about this problem and they all seem to come to the same startling conclusion: technology will prevail. In other words, somebody will come up with some new solution or gadget that will save us all from oil dependence.

The problem with this point of view is that these people fail to see just how dependent our society is on oil. In the absence of oil, we won't have the ability to sustain a way of life that is conducive to technological advances. We would have to start from square one, something like the industrial revolution. Computers would be useless, cars would go nowhere, there would be little electricity.

So true believers in technology without limits, I submit to you a fast approaching deadline. You only have until the oil runs out (it is already running short) to produce your new gadget that will spare us our way of life. We are an oil-based society and are on the brink of losing the lynch pin of our economy and livelihood.

Energy Woes

2006-08-08T15:26:00.000-05:00

I recently had the pleasure of finally graduating college and, even though I participated in the smaller, less guilded ceremony of August, I was surprised to find that our speaker would be Dr. Samuel Bodman, W's Secretary of Energy. Seemed like quite a high level speaker for a crowd comprised mostly of Van Wilder types who were more interested in the what bars they were headed to that night. However, I managed to stave off my own hangover long enough to notice something very interesting about Dr. Bodman's speech.

He began with a trip down memory lane, all the way back to the 1950's and the roots of his own political philosophy- the Cold War. Bodman proceeded to draw many loose parallels between the world of today and the world during the Cold War and he made it well known that many of the tactics utilized in today's energy policy were informed by Cold War experience.

So now it all makes sense. The problem with our nation's foreign policy, energy policy, and even domestic policy is not that our leaders are blind to the world around them. It has to do with their paradigm. These people see the world in black and white, good and evil, Soviet and American terms. Instead of recognizing our problems with terrorists as their own species of conflict, these leaders have chosen to swap them out for Soviets and to fight the good fight the only way they know how.

But I'll take one on the chin for my liberal friends and go ahead and denounce those naysayers to the Iraq war that call it another Vietnam. Iraq is Iraq, terrorism is terrorism, and neither of these things has the least bit to do with the Cold War, save some policy mistakes we made in the region during our stand-off with the Soviets.

The world I see is not a polarized, good and evil, Cold War world. The world I see is nuanced and difficult to explain. The lines of causality for the crises around the world are nebulous and sprawling. In truth, I imagine the people who were living during the Cold War saw it much the same way. It is only the mistake of these few remnants of Cold War era leadership to oversimplify their historical perspective and attempt to apply it to our modern world. That old saying that he who ignores history is doomed to repeat it may be true, but I would add that with the passage of time our perspective changes in such a way as to make it very dangerous to put too much stock in lessons learned from historical situations.

Solutions for modern problems need to involve logic and modern philosophies, not archaic aphorisms gleaned from a misunderstanding of the past. We need to take a long, cold look at ourselves and our environment and go forward together, with some sort of unifying principles that can apply to all people in the world if we ever expect to bring peace and stability to the forefront.

A New World Order

2006-07-29T14:00:00.000-05:00

Photo provided by www.DownTheRoad.org the Ongoing Global Bicycle Touring Adventure

In this age of globalization and increased competition from foreign entities, our economy finds itself in a bit of a conundrum. One of the surest signs of a robust economy is the willingness and ability of companies to offer their employees benefits at what I will call the societal level. These types of benefits, pension plans, retirement, stock options, and health care are the types of things that make jobs worth the while. These benefits represent long term security for the worker and display the true magnitude of a particular corporation's economic clout.

The problem is that U.S. companies have been facing increased competition from foreign companies that can pay their workers much lower wages and offer little to no benefits. We are a rich country and, therefore, our people expect a certain amount of wealth from their jobs. Poorer people may be perfectly willing to accept their low wages that at least provide a little bit of food and material substance. The fact is, Americans don't want to give up their wealth, but companies are continually forcing them to in the name of competitiveness.

I see this phenomenon as a trend of global redistribution of wealth that will spread the limited amount of material well-being in existence more evenly around the globe. If it continues it will materially harm the average American. There will be less wealth to go around in this country. However, the upshot to this, at least on a grand scale, might be more prosperity in the rest of the world, alleviating many of the problems associated with poverty cycles, including the mass discontent caused by the anguish of living in poverty. In short, the redistribution of wealth around the globe, that results in a more even distribution of wealth and power might result in a more stable and, ultimately, peaceful world society.

The problem is that here in America, nobody wants to lose their way of life, nor should they. All productive members of society spend vast portion of their lives seeking material goods and the expected sense of well-being associated with their accumulation. That is one of the founding principles of our society and has been built into the very framework of our government, economy, and even our very lives. Proponents of globalization and worldwide free markets cite the need for new sources of labor, raw materials, and capitol in order to sustain the American way of life- and these people are not wrong. However, the expansion of our economy into a global one comes at a price and we, as Americans, must ask ourselves whether we are willing to pay it.

Minimum Rage

2006-06-27T18:37:00.000-05:00

Our Republican National Congress has done it again. In less time than it takes to say "morosely ironic" Congress has both voted to give themselves a raise (those are the only votes that always pass) and NOT to raise the minimum wage. I mean really, at $5.15 an hour, haven't those greedy working poor gotten enough out of our struggling corporate empires? They're lucky their jobs haven't gone to 5 year old Indonesian kids by now (for those of you who only recognize sarcasm in the tone of one's voice, I invite you to apply that tone to your inner narrator right about now).

Conservatives place too much faith in the capitalist system. The simple fact is that laissez faire capitalism proved itself a failure years ago. Need I remind us that the Great Depression really did earn the title, "great" for a reason. But laissez faire is no longer an issue. Congress has expanded its power under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution by exponential proportions. Our conservative forbears have been forced to admit that there is no longer such a thing as intrastate commerce, at least for the most part. Now we must once again force reality down the throats of the conservatives.

The basic, driving principle of our economy boils down to greed, pure and simple. Proponents of the system will call it self-interest, but that's just a candy coating on the harsh reality of our economic existence. The story goes that capitalism works because each individual is motivated to accumulate as much wealth as possible, thereby encouraging both production and consumption, while the free, unimpeded market is guided by the "invisible hand" (I'm not making this stuff up, read "The Wealth of Nations") that works to fairly dispense commodities to those who work hard enough to deserve them. The problem is that with accumulated wealth comes great power and, when accompanied by a largely unregulated inheritance system, that wealth and power stays in the hands of a few individuals until we end up with the picture we all now see (or at least ought to see): the overwhelming majority of the world's resources concentrated under the control of the overwhelming minority of people. Karl Marx thought this phenomenon would lead to the inevitable uprising of the working class and subsequent mass redistribution of wealth. Marx, however, was wrong because he underestimated the stranglehold of power associated with great wealth and the phenomenon we Americans like to call our "dream," but what rightly ought to be called what it is- greed.

Now for those of you with just enough sense to know that Marx founded his own economic system, one that became a very dirty word in this country, let me clarify my own stance. I am not promoting a communist revolution. Communism has its own set of very dire problems that I will not address here, but suffice it to say that's not what I want. I simply have to add this caveat because the very mention of Marx's name tends to invalidate most arguments in this country, particularly those arguments with the ill informed.

My purpose here is to give a Stephen Colbert-esque "wag of the finger" to Congress for not increasing the minimum wage. $5.15 an hour is a joke, albeit a very unfunny joke to those who have to live with it. What I am saying to my conservative friends is this: don't whine about our welfare system, state-supported healthcare, or those dirty poor people who so inconvenience your lives and rob you of your hard-earned money through taxes when YOUR Congress, full of those people YOU keep voting for, won't even raise their wage to a paltry 7 bucks an hour. YOU asked for it, YOU got it, now deal with it.

A Strategy of Denial

2006-06-10T08:43:00.000-05:00

Under the guise of some lofty notion about freedom of choice, many of our state republicans, including our embattled governor, are pushing for government subsidies to send children to private schools. For those of you who read my previous post about the racist roots of the republican stranglehold on South Carolina politics it might benefit you to know that the overwhelming majority of these private schools were founded in the mid-50's and early 60's...hmmm right around the time our national government was forcing an end to segregation. Why is it that today, in 2006, we are still debating incentives to segregate our schools?

But the racist roots of the republican push to privatize education is not my main concern here. The fact is that our public school system is suffering in many ways and that providing a tax incentive for upper-middle class white kids to flee our public schools is simply the wrong answer to the plight of our school system. School vouchers are a band-aid fix to our educational problem. Meanwhile, those poorer students who really don't have a choice even if the government offered tax breaks, would be sent back into a separate and unequal school system that perpetuates the cycle of poverty in our state that can only be broken with quality education for all.

And yet one of the firmest foundations of GOP dominance in our state comes from poor, rural whites who are continually preyed upon to vote against their own interests by saavy politicians who appeal to their sense of freedom. Sure, you'll be free...free to watch as the priveledged remain priveledged and the good jobs go to the only kids whose parent could afford to send them to a school that provided a decent education. State money for private schools is simply wrong. The money spent by the government (and yes, tax incentives are de facto government spending) rightly belongs to all the people, not just those who can afford to pay the balance of private school tuition, the cost of transportation to and from school, as well as the hidden costs that come along with poor kids trying to fit in with the rich.

Sanford and his republican colleagues are espousing a policy that is devisive and insidious and our state will continue to suffer for it. South Carolina is a relatively poor state and one of the key ways to break that trend is to provide a quality education to all of the state's students, rich and poor, black and white. We have to understand that our state cannot progress, cannot attract meaningful jobs, unless we provide business owners with a pool of well-educated, goal-driven, hopeful employees. So conservatives, if you really want to keep things as they are, if you really want to remain at the bottom, then vote republican and your wish will come true.

Onward into the Great Morass

2006-06-02T15:57:00.000-05:00

The single biggest issue of late in South Carolina politics has been what its supporters have termed "Property Tax Relief." It was recently pointed out to me by someone intimately involved in the debate that when politicians include the term "relief" in any sentence about taxes, the public tends to support it without question. Of course, no one likes to pay taxes and tax "relief" seems like a good deal for everybody. But let us examine exactly what this property tax "relief" is, who it benefits, and who it does not.

First, the gentleman who I have personally witnessed in the lobby of the Statehouse and in the gallery for every Senate debate on property taxes, the man who is arguably one of civil society's greatest proponents of the tax bill, lives in an old house in Charleston overlooking the Battery. For those of you unfamiliar with Charleston real estate, his house is on one of the most valuable pieces of land in the state. This is that man who is championing property tax "relief." It seems to me, a man of relatively meager assets, that any tax legislation supported so vigorously by someone holding such valuable assets is dubious in nature and deserves close scrutiny by those of us who find ourselves out of the highest tax brackets.

Also, because our local property taxes provide for the vast majority of the money spent on education, eliminating such taxes opens a Pandora's box of issues for those of us concerned with South Carolina's public schools. The Senate Democrats saw this opportunity to push for an equitable school funding program to be attached to the property tax "relief" bill. Under this bill, monies from the richer counties would be filtered through statewide programs into the school systems giving a roughly equal amount of money, per student, to each school in this state. I have personally attended public schools in both poor, rural counties and richer, more urban counties and I can vouch for the vast difference between the two. We must ask ourselves, is it fair to those kids who have the misfortune of being born in a rural area that their schools are underfunded and void of any of the newer technology and innovation that has made a few of the schools in this state great?

Paul Harrison wrote a famous book in the 1970's on the subject of worldwide poverty and, according to him, one of the root causes of poverty is geographic location. The logic goes that those peoples living in places that are naturally disadvantaged by climate and topography make up the vast majority of the systematically impoverished peoples of the world. Seems to make sense: if you live in the desert, it's probably thought to grow crops. Along the same lines, those students who were born in rural areas, where property values are low, attend underfunded schools. By allowing such a system to persist, we are dooming these kids to a life of poverty because we refuse to sacrifice a few of the creature comforts of our rich schools in order to promote equality of opportunity.

You should have seem the look on the President Pro Tempore's face when the issue of equitable school funding came up in Senate debates. I was a look of shock, horror, and disdain. The problem with our state's schools is that we allow a small percentage of them to prosper at the expense of the vast majority. But hey, we need people to shine our shoes, pump our gas, and bring us our filet mignon...right?

A Quick Note...

2006-06-02T15:50:00.000-05:00

I have gathered from some of the comments posted that I was not as explicit as I should have been about my wishes not to discuss religion in this blog. Politics is a contentious enough issue without involving religion which is why I don't wish to continue any more theological dialogue. I'll never be able to change anyone's mind about religion, that is a matter of faith and something I have no desire to do anyway. But I'm not going to reply to any religiously charged comments here because I don't want this forum to turn in that direction. If you desire to debate politics that is fine, I'll debate you until I'm blue in the face, but I don't think its my place to comment on anyone's religious views, so I'm not going to.

On Memorial Day

2006-05-29T10:55:00.000-05:00

Being that today is Memorial Day, I think it is appropriate to take a moment and reflect on the many sacrifices that have been made over the years that have enabled people like me to say the things we do. Apart from any politics, from any feelings for or against a certain war, or war in general, it is of paramount importance to recognize that since our country was founded war has been a part of our heritage, and that over that span of time many people have given their lives and livelihoods in times of crisis in order to preserve our great country.

I am not just speaking of those who have died in war, but also those who have survived. It is much easier to recognize the sacrifice made by a fallen soldier, but we must not forget those who have witnessed the atrocities of war and have returned, forever changed, to rejoin the society for which they fought so bravely.

A stark reminder of these people came to me today in the form of an article in The State about a new Pentagon-backed program to develop better prosthetic limbs for the mounting numbers of disabled veterans returning from Iraq. The older model limbs were said to be cumbersome and often so useless that they were shelved, serving only as a daily reminder of the sacrifice made by a disabled soldier.

There will be a lot of high sentence today about how the sacrifices of soldiers have contributed to our most fundamental and basic rights and freedoms, but my point here is aimed at the more mundane priveledges we enjoy, like the ability to button a shirt, to walk to work, or to live an emotionally stable life. Even those soldiers who returned from war with no physical injuries carry with them images so atrocious that those of us who are fortunate enough to be ignorant of the gruesome reality of war will never be able to relate to those soldiers in the same way, on the same level.

My point here is that these people, both alive and dead, have sacrificed so many things that we overlook in the grand scheme of things. So please, whether you are a raging liberal or a staunch conservative, or anything in between, forget about our petty differences, at least for today, and take a moment to reflect on those that we know and those that we don't know who have given up their very existences and plunged themselves into a world of horror and atrocity, all so that we who are lazy, content, and spoiled can know and love our freedoms- not just the freedoms of speech or of religion, but our everyday freedoms like the freedom to dress ourselves and to live reasonably happy lives.

There are many among us who will never see those freedoms again and to those people I say "Thank You, I love you, our country needs more people like you!"

One Trillion Junior Bacon Cheeseburgers

2006-05-27T13:21:00.000-05:00

I want to turn my attention away from South Carolina politics for a moment to discuss a bit of the national debacle. As of a few minutes ago our national debt was sitting at just over 8 trillion dollars. A little more than half of that debt is said to be held by the public and the rest lies in intergovernmental holdings. Each American family's share of the debt, according to the National Debt Clock website, is about $131,000 (much more than the average family can make in a year).

But what I'm really concerned with is what exactly is 8 trillion dollars? Is it even possible for the human mind to grasp such a figure and really understand what it means? I don't think so, but in an effort to make the debt a little more concrete, I've thought of a few comparisons:

$27,000 per person in the U.S. alone (a bit less than what the average U.S. family makes in a year)

Things you could buy with $8 trillion:
9 machine guns for everyone under the age of 18 in the U.S.
28,000 sexy dresses (priced at $56) for every woman in Afghanistan
534,000 private islands in Fiji (based on what Mel Gibson paid for his)
5,000 world peace flags for every member of the NRA
1 junior bacon cheeseburger a day for every impoverished American for the next 591 years

Welcome to the Blue South

2006-05-25T08:16:00.000-05:00

These days it seems that South Carolina politics has been plunging deeper and deeper into an ultra-conservative, archaic debate on issues that should have been settled years ago. There is no doubt that most of the voting population of our fair state votes Republican, even when those votes are so obviously against their own interests, not to mention any idea of the "public good." My problem with conservatives, though, doesn't stem from their moralistic, holier-than-thou attitudes, false pretenses of "small government", or even their misuse of public trust and power...no, I think that those attributes are intrinsic to politics and unavoidable in a form of government such as ours. My problem with conservatives stems from what I believe to be a fundamentally mistaken view that they take in regard to human nature.

There is little debate among those who spend their lives thinking about politics that the decisive difference between a liberal and a conservative boils down to their basic assumptions about human nature. If you were to draw a continuum ranging from conservative to liberal, you would have to place the assumptions that human nature is essentially "bad" on the conservative side and that human nature is essentially "good" on the liberal side (I'll define "bad" and "good" as best I can a little later, but I don't want this particular discussion to devolve into semantics). One can trace philosophically the positions taken by both conservative and liberal politicians to these fundamental assumptions about human nature.

While I personally don't believe that either camp has it all right, my beef with conservatives is the sheer hypocrisy contained in their fundamental assumption about human nature. Conservative Republicans spend tons of money espousing and promulgating images of themselves as good, moral, dependable people...precisely the types of people that they believe do not exist. Therefore, if the conservatives have it right, then they spend their entire campaigns (or even lives) lying to the public (and often themselves) about their images. You'll never find a Republican candidate for any office that will tell you he thinks that all people are essentially "bad," themselves included. That would be political suicide. So I encourage you conservatives out there to look in the mirror and ask the question, "Am I essentially a bad person?" My guess is that none of you will say "yes," except for those of you who recognize the Calvinist doctrines and can add the caveat that you have been made "good" by some exogenous factor (at which point this conversation would turn to religion, which is another conversation for another day). But really, are you intrinsically, inescapably, NATURALLY, evil? I didn't think so.