Bruins back to the drawing board

Maybe an earlier verdict of "overrated" by Dick Vitale was warranted. The Bruins at least won the second half, but of course not by enough to overcome a dreadful first half. I don't know what it is. A couple of weeks ago they were playing so well you would have given them a good shot against any team in the country, but they turn out to have vulnerabilities and inconsistencies. At least they kept trying in the second half, and Collison certainly showed a lot. But we knew at the outset that this was a team that was going to have to see several freshmen mature a lot to have asny shot to go all the way. Now they might not even win the Pac 10. If this leads to a renewed commitment, especially to getting the ball inside, there's a chance. But it's difficult to feel encouraged just now.

What about Octomom?

I've had several requests to discuss Octomom, the woman who had octuplets by in-vitro fertilization (IVF). I had not jumped on any particular bandwagon because it looked like a one-day-wonder story (then two- then three- etc., I know), and while the story seemed bizarre, I figured if she was just looking for publicity and hoping some publicity-seeking companies and organizations would come through with some money, it was no skin off my ass. If it bothered me I wouldn't have to buy that company's products and therefore indirectly contribute to something that looked grossly irresponsible.

As it's become apparent, however, that this husbandless woman is counting on taxpayers to pay for her babies and has been essentially living off the taxpayers and her parents for the six kids she already has, I've become increasingly angry. The idea of people taking responsibility for themselves seems to be dying out. (Here's a Slate piece with whose conclusion I disagree but which has some facts I hadn't known.) If Bill and Melinda Gates had 8 kids in a multiple birth, who would care? They have more than sufficient means to take care of them. But for somebody to do this and expect others, especially taxpayers, to cover them -- even beyond the fact that she's living with her parents in a three-bedroom house with six kids already and obviously doesn't have the ability by herself to care for 14 kids, especially since some of the six have special needs.

I think now that she's had her 15 minutes she should give them all up for adoption. What is especially aggravating, however, is that this illustrates just how many people have no sense of shame at all in wanting the taxpayers to subsidize their goofy plans.

Down by 18 at the half? A-a-a-r-r-g-g-h-h!

I didn't see the loss to Arizona State on Thursday, but it was demoralizing, based on what I read. It shows that despite the good play of the previous couple of weeks the Bruins are vulnerable. And give all credit to Arizona, which has regrouped and won six straight since getting blown out by UCLA and edged by USC. But there's something lacking -- not sure quite what. I had to turn my cap around backwards to be a rally cap about 2 minutes in, but it obviously hasn't worked. 13 turnovers in the first half?

Spending our way to prosperity -- not!

Much of the negative commentary about Obama's economic "stimulus" plan has focused on the obvious pork contained therein -- although Obama may be technically right when he said there were no earmarks -- not enough time to slip them in, and besides, practically everything from everybody's wish list had already been slopped in.

I think this Register editorial managed to get closer to fundamentals -- reminding readers that the Bush era had already been an era of big spending, and not only on the war(s), and that it was loose money, easy credit and moral hazard -- why be prudent if you know the gummint will cover your losses? -- that got us into this mess in the first place. We might get a temporary illusion of recovery from this massive spneding spree, but it will crowd out genuinely productive spending and entrepreneurial activities, foster inflation and possible create another bubble to be burst. I wouldn't mind being wrong, but I don't think I am.

Knowing when to start

Somewhere along the line I got hold of American composer Ned Rorem's autobiographical book, "Knowing When to Stop," which covers his life to age 28 (in 1951), and essentially chronicles a life that was the opposite of the title. He knew he was gay early on and apparently was quite a flamer, living it up to sometimes amusing, sometimes appalling excess in Paris, Morocco, and London, as well as going to Julliard and Tanglewood. I read parts of it and found him rather compelling as a writer of prose. Until recently, however, when I went through the bonanza of CDs made available to me by Tim Mangan, the Register's classical music critic, I hadn't listened to very much of his music. It was time to start.

Well, at least I can now recommend his Piano Concerto #2 and his Cello Concerto. He was/is familiar with most of the twists and turns of "serious" music through the 20th century -- atonal, 12-tone, neoclassical, minimalist -- and you can hear influences from time to time, but the music I've listened to has been tonal and harmonic. You wouldn't mistake it for 19th-century music -- too creative use of rhythms and percussion, occasional mildly jarring harmony, odd transitions and juxtapositions -- but he writes melodies recognizable as melodies you might want to hum on the way out of a concert, and uses mosty traditional harmonies. Not sure to whom I might compare him -- maybe Ravel in some moods, a touch of Prokofiev, a little Copland flavor now and then, but I find the music stimulating and enjoyable and not really quite like anybody else. The Cello Concerto is particularly imaginative -- not the traditional three movements but 7 or 8 shorter movements that evoke a wide variety of emotions.

He is noted as a writer of songs, but I haven't yet listened to the CD I have consisting solely of songs. More later.

Trade war coming?

It's gotten a little attention, but not enough focus, I think. One of the hidden gems in the $800-billion (or so, still subject to negotiation) "stimulus" package is a "Buy American" provision that could trigger -- or help to reinforce what some other benighted countries are doing or contemplating actively -- a trade war. The provision would require infrastucture projects to use American-made steel. It was amended slightly in the Senate so as to say explicitly that it wouldn't be interpreted in a way that would violate existing trade treaties. But it still got the trade ministers at Davos up in arms. And even with the amendment, it would seriously restrict imports from China, India, Russia, Ukraine anbd Turkey, which are not yet WTO members.

The U.S. passed the Smoot-Hawley tariff in 1930, which seriously contributed to deepening the Depression. Some countries have already restricted exports of food in response to last year's food crisis, which is partly attributable to ethanol subsidies and mandates in the U.S. and some Western European countries. Countries are always tempted by protectionism in an economic downturn, and when they succum it always makes the downturn worse. Oh, what tangled webs we weave when we restrict and try to micromanage!

Gabriela Montero: Worth a listen

In an earlier post I mentioned that I wasn't familiar with the pianist and clarinetist who played with Yo Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman at the inauguration. I missed pianist Gabriela Montero, to whom I am listening as I write this. I got a couple of her CDs in the bonanza I scored when Register classical music critic Tim Mangan had to move to a new desk and decided to offload some of the CD review copies he's gotten over the last several years. And I had listened and enjoyed before the inauguration, but her name hadn't registered strongly enough for me to remember it.

The CD playing now is "Bach and Beyond," on which she takes Bach pieces and uses them as the basis for improvisations. Bach is especially adapted to being played in different styles, as demonstrated by the Swingle Singers' conversion of seemingly staid pieces into swing/jazz, or the early Moog synthesizer albums by Walter (later Wendy) Carlos in "Switched-on Bach." In the liner notes Gabriela writes that she had improvised from early on, but didn't let on to many in classical world. But she was encouraged later on, by Martha Argerich, and I'm pleased. She does surprising wonders with "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring."

Many think improvisation is unique to jazz, but it's pretty certain that players in the Baroque period improvised fairly regularly, and expected to do so, especially in cadenzas in concertos. Gabriela occasionally sounds jazzy, and she employs harmonies a Baroque player probably wouldn't have, but it's mostly classical-sounding. I think Bach would have been pleased.

Like a stern college professor

Just a few quick observations; I haven't reviewed the entire press conference and I may have more to say later. But in the opening Obama reminded me of the kind of stern-faced college professor from whom you knew you could expect a D-minus if you didn't parrot his lectures back at him precisely on exams. The notion that we were ruled by an ideology of government inaction during the Bush era is laughable; he increased domestic discretionary spending faster than anybody since LBJ in addition to squandering billions on the war. Obama's giving us more of the hair of the dog that bit us.

Immigration enforcement and low-hanging fruit

Remember back in 2005 or so when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (two "duties" the government would do better not to bother with) announced a targeted program to go after dangerous immigrant fugitives, potential terrorists and known criminals who had slipped through the faultless U.S. justice system? The ICE men knew they couldn't get all the illegal aliens, so they would focus on the truly dangerous ones.

Didn't last long, as newly available documents show. It turned out that going after criminals clever enough to have eluded the justice system by jumping bail or whatever, aren't that easy to catch, and sometimes they can be dangerous. So, as they have done with the misbegotten drug war (another foolish and in my view unconstitutional program), the enforcers started going after easier targets. In the drug war the tendency is to go after pot smokers, low-level "mules" and the occasional meth lab in a low-rent neighborhood -- or a cannabis dispensary in a state that has authorized medical marijuana. The big traffickers are sometimes too clever to be caught or better armed. In the immigrant war, by 2006 they simply started raiding homes where mostly peaceful but undocumented immigrants were believed to be. So they arrested mostly people with no criminal records or even deportation orders against them. By 2007 only 9 percent of those picked up had a criminal record.

When government bans something it has no business banning, it not only creates a new and usually violence-prone criminal underground, it creates a situation where the authorities increasingly go after generally peaceful people whose non-harmful activities or pursuits the government has arbitrarily outlawed. They always say it's to protect us from dangerous people, but it turns out the authorities have little taste for confronting the dangerous ones. So we get less safe as well as less free.

Bolivia's nationalization to hold back green revolution?

Interesting NYT piece I haven't gotten around to noting yet. If we're to wean ourselves off foreign oil, one of the vehicles is likely to be hybrid or electric cars. A key component of the batteries for such cars is lithium, and it turns out that about half the world's known lithium supply is in Bolivia, run by Evo Morales, a sometime ally of Venezuela's self-professed socialist Hugo Chavez, who wants to control that supply very closely. He's already nationalized oil and natural gas, though the decisions are meeting some resistance. Bolivia doesn't have the financial resources to exploit the lithium supply efficiently and resists having foreign companies come in (though with the world financial crisis that may be a moot point for a while).

So you can't get away from resources, sometimes in the control of regimes either hostile to the U.S. (at least rhetorically; Chavez has done nothing to interrupt the flow of Venezuelan oil to the U.S. except to centralize control of the industry, which has made it less efficient). If we wean ourselves from foreign oil we may become beholden to foreign lithium. Some choice.

Iraq's elections: time to start pulling out

Iraq held provincial elections a little over a week ago, and while final results are not published yet, many of the signs and portents seem hopeful. The Iraqis mostly ran the elections and they were not marred by violence. The results suggest something of a turning-away from the kinds of extreme and sometimes violent Shia dispensation that marked, for example, Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi army, and (perhaps) toward an almost-secular nationalism (though Dawa, the party of current prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, who did better than expected, is certainly rooted in Shia religiosity.

The major lesson, as this Register editorial explains, is that there is no solid reason to delay the beginning of serious U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq. There's certainly no guarantee that Iraq will become a model democracy, as some have fantasized, and sectarian violence is certainly a real possibility for the future (e.g., the Kurdish regions didn't vote this time around but Sunni Arab/Kurdish relations in Mosul, which did vote, are hardly warm and fuzzy). But Iraqis are increasingly taking hold of their own destiny, though they are more likely to muff important aspects than to effect a peaceful transition to a unified Iraqi state. But it's their country, not ours. The U.S. occupation was not an election issue precisely because all parties expect the U.S. to leave, so they're jostling for power in the post-occupation Iraq. It's about as normal as politics is likely to be in Iraq for a while. But the U.S. presence is likely to be more destabilizing than stabilizing. Bring them home!

Anthony Cordesman at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who is generally a reaslitic and informed observer, thinks the U.S. and some western European countries will have to continue giving aid and civil society-building assistance for a good while yet. Cordesman is worth reading, but I disagree. Iraq will never look like a model Western European state (even if that were the highest possible aspiration for excellence, which is dubious). It's always hard for parents (sometimes agonizing as a father of three might know) to let go and let their children become responsible adults, in part by being able to make mistakes and taking responsibility for the consequences. But for a child to become an adult it has to happen. Same for nations that fancy themselves in loco parentis to other countries.

Bruins looking really strong!

I had to be out yesterday so we recorded the UCLA-Notre Dame basketball game and I watched it today. It's difficult to overstate just how encouraged I feel. They're driving the lane and being aggressive offensively rather than settling for threes and long jump shots, and they're beginning to dominate opponents. I think (well, hope) they're turned a corner and this is the way they'll be playing for the rest of the season. I'm especially glad to see some of the freshmen besides Jrue Holiday getting decent minutes and starting to perform well. That kind of depth should portend a deep run into the tournamemt -- and maybe a four-four? And Alfred Aboya is becoming a force.

Incidentally, the Lakers are performing remarkably well without Andrew Bynum. Lamar Odom was incredible today.

Boycott Kellogg's!

So Kellog's has decided to end its relationship with Olympic phenomenon and (apparent) pot smoker Michael Phelps, endorsing its great health food, Sugar Frosted Flakes. A drubnken driving arrest -- far more serious and potentially harmful to others -- didn't shake Kellogg's confidence in Phelps but a photo with a bong did? Not that they will notice my minuscule efforts, but I'm boycotting Kellogg's. How about you? Maybe contacting Kellogg's with a polite complaint is in order also. As Bruce Mirken at MPP points out, boycotts are notoriously difficult to pull off, but we'll feel better.

Here's some relevant info:

Mark Baynes
Chief Marketing Officer

+1.269.961.2561
mark.baynes@kellogg.com

Kellogg Company
1 Kellogg Sq
Battle Creek, MI 49016-3599

DEA still persecuting patients

As I and many others have pointed out, when he was a candidate Barack Obama repeatedly promised that he would respect federalism and order the DEA not to conduct raids on patients and providers in states that have authorized the medical use of marijuana. Since his inauguration, however, at least a half-down raids have been conducted -- a dispensary in Lake Tahoe, a couple of medical grows in Colorado, and just last week four dispensaries in Los Angeles and environs. These are obviously Bushies who are still running the place, and they have conducted their raids in an unusually in-your-face fashion -- the day after the inauguration and then the day Eric Holder was sworn in as attorney general.

To be sure, administration spokespeople say they'll get around to doing the right thing. The Register today editorialized to the effect that Eric Holder has full authority to end the raids tomorrow and fire the people responsible for them, notably acting administrator Michele Leonhart. The DEA is also on the verge of denying a UMass researcher as a final decision the authority to grow his own research-grade marijuana, continuing its course of throwing roadblocks in front of scientific research at every opportunity. Not surprising, I guess, since the DEA attitude is rooted in ignorance of recent research and contempt for scientific endeavor in general.

Quote of the Day

"Beginning with the election of John F. Kennedy in 1960, the occupant of the White House has become a combination of demigod, father figure, and, inevitably, the betrayer of inflated hopes. Pope, pop star, scold, scapegoat, crisis manager, commander in chief, agenda setter, moral philosopher, interpreter of the nation's charisma, object of veneration, and the butt of jokes -- regrdless of personal attributes and qualifications, the president is perforce all these rolled into one."
-- Andrew Bacevich, in his new book, "The Limits of Power: The End of American Ecceptionalism," which averages a memorable quote or particularly well expressed insight every other page or so. Just in case you thought it started with The One.

Interviewed for Antiwar radio

Wednesday evening I went to Scott Horton's house to do an interview for Antiwar radio, which is available on the Antiwar.com Website and broadcast on a few mostly college radio stations. As soon as it's available I'll provide a link. Oh, it's up already, so here it is.

Nat Hentoff joins Cato Institute

Nat Hentoff, for 50 years a columnist for the Village Voice and in addition to being perhaps our best writer on jazz a persistent and tireless advocate of civil liberties, has joined the Cato Institute as a Senior Fellow. Years ago I had the privilege of introducing him at a Free Press Association conference, and I found him delightful. Good for him and good for Cato. I said most of what I wanted to say in this post over at the Register's Orange Punch blog.

Setting executive pay

There's a certain "he who pays the piper calls the tune" aspect to Obama's announcement that firms that take bailout money in the future will not be allowed to pay their top executives more than $500,000 a year. If you lie down with dogs and all that. And despite my acceptance in principle that firms should be able to pay what they want and concern that this could be a camel's nose leading to more government dictation of corporate behavior, I'm convinced that some firms went overboard with executive compensation (in part because of government loose-money policies, to be sure) and became clueless and insular. And of course, giving CEOs big bonuses when their companies are in the tank is absurd and pretty much the opposite of what a truly free market would produce, at least most of the time.

Here's the Register's editorial on the matter. We should be concerned about further efforts to dictate corporate policies -- and some are already in Team Obama's plans. But the simple solution for companies that don't want government micromanaging them is not to take bailout money.

Showdown coming on medical marijuana?

During the presidential campaign Barack Obama was asked on several occasions, and each time he said he would end federal DEA raids on medical marijuana patients and providers in states that have medical marijuana laws (Hillary did too, as did Ron Paul). However, at this point the DEA is still polluted with Bush holdovers, and whether it's a last dying gasp, an in-your-face kind of giving the finger, or perhaps a hope that they'll set a precedent Obama might not have the gumption to overturn, they have already several times done what Obama promised he would end. The day after the inauguration, a dispensary in Lake Tahoe and a couple of medical grows in Colorado were raided by DEA thugs. Then last Tuesday, the day Eric Holder was sworn in as attorney general, they raided four dispensaries in the Los Angeles area.

At least a White House spokesman, Nick Shapiro, has said that it will be the Obama administration's policy not to try to undermine state medical laws, and that as people are appointed they will be asked to keep this in mind as they are reviewing policies, or something equally wishy-washy. Garbage! The DEA is part of the Justice Dept. and Eric Holder has full authority to order the raids to stop and to fire those who ordered them. Immediately.

Of course, as I and a few others have pointed out, Eric Holder's record on drug-war issues is less than sterling from a reformer's perspective, and of course nobody asked about his retrograde views during confirmation hearings.

Iraq still unsettled

I spent most of today at work reading and calling people to try to get a read on the significance of the Iraqi provincial elections held over the weekend. Of course the results are still preliminary (and leaked for full spin effect), but they seem to indicate that Maliki's Dawa Party did better than expected. Marina Ottaway at the Carnegie Endowment thinks that's a tribute to the power of incumbency, the oldest story in the Arab world. News stories saying it's an endorsement of a strong central government are decidedly premature and likely inaccurate. The sects still voted as sects (though sects with divisions), and there may be trouble brewing in Anbar province if the Anbar Awakening people who made the "surge" look good find themselves locked out of political power through the ballot box. Mosul could be trouble too, and they didn't hold elections in Kirkuk, in contention between Sunni Arabs and Kurds, or the Kurdish north.

It was peaceful and run by the Iraqis, which is encouraging, but stability seems still a long way off. Still, there's no reason to delay U.S. withdrawal. Regiuster editorial day after tomorrow.

Afghanistan: graveyard of empires

Here's my most recent piece for Antiwar.com, harping yet again, as I will probably do repeatedly for a while, on the foolishness of getting too closely drawn in to a war in Afghanistan. As even SecDef Gates has acknowledged, the core interest of the U.S. in Afghanistan is to make sure that it isn't a base camp or staging ground for al-Qaida or other terrorist groups that could launch an attack on the U.S. It isn't, and it isn't likely to be. The Taliban and al-Qaida are separate organizations. The Taliban is Afghan in origin and composition, and it isn't going away. Al-Qaida is in Pakistan and is seriously weakened compared to pre-9/11. The U.S. should leave Afghanistan to the Afghans, after putting them on notice that serious al-Qaida activity is likely to bring a swift U.S. attack, with maybe five minutes' notice to Kabul. The Afghan regime that emerges might not even feature a central government. So what? Focus traditional intelligence and maybe a special forces strike if appropriate on the places we think al-Qaida is hiding in Pakistan. The Obama team has let it be known that it is doing a thorough reevaluation of the Afghan strategy. I hope so.

Afghanistan could very well be Obama's Vietnam if he doesn't withdraw soon.

Daschle gets dashed

Well wonder of wonders, whether it was Tom Daschle himself or Obama who let it be known that this nomination was thoroughly dashed on the rocks of unpaid taxes and something less than a frank and open acknowledgment of the problem, Tom Daschle withdrew from consideration as HHS Secretary. To me the crux of the problem was that Daschle acknowledged that he learned (if that was really when he learned) he would owe taxes on the limousine and driver provided for him by a Democratic fatcat with an investment fund in June, but didn't bother to pay the back taxes until Jan. 2 of this year, or to inform Team Obama about it until (if I remember correctly) a couple of days later. Here's the Register editorial that ran today, which I'm sure was the straw (though the chat shows foolishly attributed it to the NYT editorial that also called on Daschle to withdraw). I'm especially proud of the suggestion that Obama throw Daschle back into the velvet briar patch of influence-peddling (though many people might not get it since Disney's "Song of the South" is too politically incorrect to be shown anywhere these days).

I was especially amused at all the Democratic senaotrs yesterday who were proclaiming that Daschle -- "in Washington there are whores and there are whores and there are whores -- and then there's Tom Daschle," according to Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi -- was the very paragon of integrity and righteousness. Get blindsided much?

Daschle: incomparably sleazy

It's not just "forgetting" that he had to report the use of a limousine and driver as income, or even finding out about his "obligation" in June and not doing anything about until he had the HHS nomination. Tom Daschle, as this post from the invaluable Glenn Greenwald points out, is a first-class money-grubbing opportunist and sleazebag -- one of many who went to Washington to "do good" and ended up doing very well indeed, for himself. Since being defeated for his senate seat in 2004 he has been working in the lobbying and "legal" vineyards and raking in the bucks. It's not clear just how much money he has made -- $5 million over five years, $4 million last year alone; the stories aren't specific. But he's been paid plenty by the healthcare industry he's supposed to "reform." Now that he's got the bucks he wants power again.

Furthermore, while he was in the senate his wife worked as a lobbyist for the airline industry. Somehow people who had business or issues before the senate were eager to hire her (and help paty his mortgage. You won't hear much about it because plenty of "power couples" in Washington, from both parties, play the same sleazy games.

The Michael Phelps hypocrisy

I was planning to wax indignant about the flaming hypocrisy involved in tut-tutting about Olympian swimmer Michael Phelps having a picture showing him puffing away on a marijuana bong (and he does look as if he knows what he's doing with it; probably not his first time). So he has to go through the ritual of apologizing about a youthful mistake in judgment and promise he'll never do it again. Fortunately marijuana isn't considered a "performance-enhancing" drug (though any number of athletes use it in a somewhat medicinal way to get relief from various aches and pains). But the morons in government have made it illegal and keep it illegal, at the federal level even for medicinal uses that are thoroughly documented (check out my book), and most of the media have to treat it as a serious problem.

What the incident really shows is that top-level athletes can smoke marijuana without doing themselves serious harm. Our last three presidents somehow managed to make their way in life despite having indulged -- but so far all three want others to go to jail for what didn't hurt them (though I still have some hope Obama might be different eventually). Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize winners have smoked it. It has killed exactly zero people. The most harmful thing about it is the fact that you can be punished for using it. When it this country going to grow up and tell the politicians to make it legal?

Fortunately Radley Balko, who was one of my tablemates at the Reason 40th anniversary dinner in November and has done yeoman work on police abuses under the color of the drug laws, has written the comment I had partially formed in my mind, in the form of the letter he wishes Michael Phelps had written. Enjoy. A few excerpts:

"Here’s a crazy thought: If I can smoke a little dope and go on to win 14 Olympic gold medals, maybe pot smokers aren’t doomed to lives of couch surfing and video games, as our moronic government would have us believe. In fact, the list of successful pot smokers includes not just world class athletes like me, Howard, Williams, and others, it includes Nobel Prize winners, Pulitzer Prize winners, the last three U.S. presidents, several Supreme Court justices, and luminaries and success stories from all sectors of business and the arts, sciences, and humanities.

"Tell you what. I’ll make you a deal. I’ll apologize for smoking pot when every politician who ever did drugs and then voted to uphold or strengthen the drug laws marches his ass off to the nearest federal prison to serve out the sentence he wants to impose on everyone else for committing the same crimes he committed. I’ll apologize when the sons, daughters, and nephews of powerful politicians who get caught possessing or dealing drugs in the frat house or prep school get the same treatment as the no-name, probably black kid caught on the corner or the front stoop doing the same thing."

Circular stimulus logic

Here's a piece from Prof. Richard McKenzie of UC Irvine that nails a good deal of the circular logic involved in the "stimulus" plan that I suppose will be passed in one form or another. The housing market experienced a bubble and got out of whack? Pump in more money so it doesn't have to decline to more-or-less affordable levels, and try to make sure that those who overextended themselves never have to pay a price. People spending more than they can afford contributed to the problem so we'll bail them out too. Bankers and heads of financial institutions made huge mistakes, but if they're "too big to fail" we'll bail them out and send the signal that there's no price to pay for stupidity and cupidity. Works for me.

Philly Inquirer seeking bailout?

Perhaps it had to happen, but it's dispiriting nevertheless. It turns out that the Philadelphia Inquirer, which is facing pretty much the same economic troubles as the rest of the newspaper industry, has talked with PA Gov. Ed Rendell about a possible $10 million bailout. It doesn't seem to have gotten beyond preliminary discussion stage and now that iot's been made public it probably won't happen. It's troubling nonetheless. As this Register editorial tries to remind us, the founders put the First Amendment in the constitution -- it was downright revolutionary at the time and to some extent still is; the British still have official press censorship -- in part to have a free and independent press to serve as a watchdog on government. How much of a watchdog are you going to be if government is paying your bills?

I realize that the BBC and NPR both are capable of good journalism, but there are places they don't go, and NPR in particular is almost always a reliable apostle for bigger government -- not that it takes government funding for journalists to promote such positions.

What a day!

If you want to know why I prefer living in Southern California, today will serve as a good reason. Clear skies, temperature almost to 80. I had to stay inside to work on my article for Antiwar.com in the morning, and found when I went outside it was warmer outside than inside -- shirtsleeve weather. A few clouds, mountains in the distance across the lake with still a bit of snowcap. A day to make you want to sing, which I did while cleaning the pool filter and watering plants. They say we may get rain on Friday, and we can probably use it. But it's slated to be beautiful 'til then.

Of course that's what the state government counts on. We are overtaxed and overregulated and facing about a $40 billion deficit over the next 18-19 months. Sacramento is polarized, with both sides in deep denial about just how serious the problems are, unable to do anything remotely sensible. Government worker unions have a lock on state government, so the unsustainable spending continues. While housing prices have dropped they are still not affordable for lots of average-income people. But when you have beautiful days like today people stay and hope for the best.

Bruins looking strong!

As a dinterested fan with no stake in either team I like close games, of course. Preferably with doubtle overtime. But as an unabashed and very partisan fan, I love the way the Bruins handled Stanford this afternoon. Take a lead going into halftime, then come out in the first few minutes of the second half and take over, putting the other team on notice that it's not going to make a comeback and win this one. 97-63, not bad!

If this is a harbinger of things to come rather than just a very strong week, the Bruins should go deep into March Madness. Sign that it might be a harbinger is that several of the freshmen besides Holiday got significant playing time and extended the lead while they were in. Toward the end, in garbage time, some of those who had played few minutes kept driving into traffic and taking bad shots when they might have been better to kick it out, but that's inexperience and adrenaline. I can't wait to play ASU and Washington again and see if those losses are avenged. If think they just mnight run the table.

Only stimulating pork

Peggy Noonan has a tendency to over-romanticize politics and its capacity to be ennobling or even sometimes constructive. Still, she has a point in yesterday's column. Obama missed a big chance to assert himself and come up with a "stimulus" that might have actually stimulated some economic activity instead of just being a pastiche of pork (assuming government spending is actually stimulative, which is far from certain. Tax cuts can be, however.). Both Democrats and Republicans couldn't wait to return to their hyper-partisan habits, with the Democrats crafting a bill with everything on their wish-list for the last couple of decades with zero GOP input, and all House Republicans taking a stand and voting against it. I'm inclined to agree that there's a stupid party and an evil party, and when they get together and produce something both stupid and evil they call it bipartisanship. But the swiftness with which both parties were so eager to let Obama know post-partisanship wouldn't last a week was kinda shocking. If he had had more legislative experience or had thought this stimulus thing through more, I think he could have knocked some Dem heads together and forced a slightly less obnoxious bill. Maybe it will happen in the Senate. Here's the Register's take on the situation.

Et tu, EBay?

Unemployment is up again, companies one might have thought were solid are announcing layoffs, the LA Times announced layoffs today, and the Philadelphia Inquirer is reported to be flirting with Pa. Gov. Ed Rendell about a $10 million state bailout. (Presumably the only way to have a free and independent press in this country is to make it a ward of government.) But perhaps the most important signal that this recession is real and not likely to go away very soon is that EBay has announced a hefty year-to-year decline, with profit falling 31% from last year, the first decline since 1995 (which means it weathered the dot.com bubble-burst). We in the newspaper business, who have seen our revenues decline in large part because of migration to the Net, not only for news but advertising (Craigslist and Monster.com have hammered us; Register employment ad revenue was down 40% in 2008) had tended to see Net businesses as somehow all-powerful. (Incidentally, one of the best commentaries I've seen on the slow death of newspapers is this from Slate.com's Jack Shafer.) If EBay is seeing profits decline and laying people off, the recession is serious indeed.

Why Afghanistan?

Obama has said repeatedly that Afghanistan is the real central front in the misnamed "war on terror," and is apparently planning to commit up to 30,000 more U.S. troops (in addition to 36,000 there now) to the fight. SecDef Gates testified this week that we should scale back our objectives and focus on the military battle against the Taliban rather than nation-building (leave that to NATO, he said, though he didn't take enough notice that the Europeans would just as soon get their troops out). This strikes me as profoundly misguided.

As this Register editorial points out, Afghanistan is bigger than Iraq, with more difficult terrain and no tyradition of having a central government. Karzai's government is corrupt and ineffective and the Taliban is mostly indigenous rather than being foreign fighters. And they have that safe haven in Pakistan. We should leave Afghanistan to the Afghans after putting them on notice that we'll strike if we have a bead on Osama bin Laden, perhaps after giving them maybe five minutes notice. Otherwise we could be there and unlikely to dominate in the graveyard of empires. Even Stratfor.com, hardly a bunch of pansy isolationists, is inclined to agree, arguing that the real focus shold be on al-Qaida, by withdrawing troops from AFghanistan and giviung the anti-al-Qaida burdfen to intelligence and special forces.

Bruins are back! 81-66

Of course I attribute the victory tonight to the fact that I donned the UCLA sweatshirt I got for Christmas before even turning on the game. Right!

The victory over Cal tonight was satisfying because it showed they weren't demoralized by the loss to Washington but rather took to heart the need to tighten up the defense (16 Cal turnovers including 12 steals in the first half) and take the ball to the basket rather than settling for long jumpers. We'll see Saturday, playing Stanford, which will be smarting after a 1-point loss to USC where the difference was one that rolled around and came out, whether they can sustain it. They have shown a troubling inconsistency in the last week or so. It looked tonight as if the loss refocused them. I hope so.

Reversal of principles

Here's a WSJ editorial that illustrates how completely many self-styled conservatives have reversed field on the all-important issue of executive-branch power. It deplores the fact that Dawn Johnsen, Obama's choice to head the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Dept., is not totally dedicated to an expansive vision of executive power. Ms. Johnsen has not only criticized the Bushies' power-grabs but written that it would be good if forces within the executive branch, mainly legal advisers, exercised constraint on the tendency of the executive branch to go for the gusto in the power-grab department. The Journal sniffs that this is like hiring your wife's divorce lawyer. The notion that a president or his advisers might have a slightly more modest view of their powers and that this might be good for America doesn't occur to them.

This is almost a complete reversal of the dominant conservative view of executive power back when the movement was younger. Russell Kirk used the term "the imperial presidency" before Arthur Schlesinger Jr. did. James Burnham, a senior editor of National Review, wrote a book, "Congress and the American Tradition," deploring the flow of power to the executive branch and away from Congress. But beginning in the Reagan administration increasing numbers of conservatives became Hamiltonian advocates of "energy in the executive," and most conservatives became uncritical fans of unlimited executive power during the Bush administration. You can check the process in Gene Healey's recent book, "The Cult of the Presidency."

Maybe with a Democrat in power they'll come to appreciate the original intent better. That's generally what dictates attitude rather than principle. When a Republican is in the White House conservatives worship executive power and liberals worry about imperial tendencies, and vice versa when a Democrat is there.

Wha hoppen to Princess Caroline?

Both the New Yorker and New York magazine have long pieces that purport to go behind the scenes of Caroline Kennedy-Schlosser's aborted bid to be appointed U.S. Senator from New York. Unfortunately, while both have a fair amount of interesting detail, neither really tells us exactly what happened or why? Did Paterson always plan to appoint her, or did she drop out because she'd gotten word he didn't plan to? My hypothesis is that she got a big taste of New York-style politics, developed a pretty good idea of how drastically life would change if she went to the Senate, and decidedshe didn't want it that badly. John seemed more like the natural politician of the family.

Eric Holder: bad on guns and grass

Eric Holder is almost sure to be confirmed as Obama's attorney general some time this week, but my doubts about him are growing. As this Register editorial outlines, he signed on to a "no individual right to keep and bear arms" amicue curiae before the Suptreme Court's Heller decision, and at least in 1996-97 he was a militant drug warrior who sought a five-year mandatory-minimum sentence for possession of marijuana with intent to distribute. He was questioned briefly about guns during confirmation hearings, but although the Marijuana Policy Project and NORML have expressed concern, nobody questioned him about his retrograde views on the war on (some) drugs.

All this is germane because during the campaign Obama promised he would stop the DEA from conducting raids on atients and providers in states with medical marijuana laws (though the DEA conducted raids in California and Colorado last Thursday, after the inauguration. But the DEA is part of the Justice Department. Will Eric Holder implement Obama's promises or drag his feet?

Besides, torture doesn't work

Here's my most recent column for Antiwar.com, expressing satisfaction at Obama people being reasonably straightforward in renouncing torture -- and making the oft-overlooked point that there's no evidence that torture actually works at getting reliable information, that it's inferior to patient and intelligent interrogation. Jack Bauer is a fictional character.

Don't nationalize the banks (any more)

I'm not sure whether the idea of outright nationalizing banks is a dead letter now (though the idea has been in the air, or on the Net) or whether the banks are so close to being nationalized now that it doesn't matter much if the government takes the formal step or not. Anyway, it's a bad idea. I enjoyed talking to Lawrence White, at U. of Missouri-St. Louis to prepare for the Register's editorial denouncing the idea. Larry, who got his doctorate at UCLA (after my time), has made the economics of banking something of a specialty. His latest book is "Theory of Monetary Institutions." We didn't have time to discuss just how we might get all the way to free banking from here. As most freedom-oriented reforms like privatization and deregulation, it will likely come only after all the lousy alternatives have been exhausted, grounded in desperation rather than because of the impeccable arguments of scholars like Larry White. But he has laid intellectual groundwork.

Double-standard on Geithner

The Senate approved Tim Geithner as Treasury Secretary today. He may well be an able person, but if you or I had "neglected" to pay more than $30,000 on federal taxes we wouldn't be hearing complimentary speeches from the world most dubious deliberative body. More likely they'd be demanding jail time. But both Reps and Dems seemed to want him, so once again a member of the political/bureaucratic class gets a pass. Here's the Register's disapproving editorial.

Good start on Gitmo

As expected, Pres. Obama has announced the the prison camp at Guantanamo will be closed within a year. As I've mentioned in several places, it won't be easy. A few of those characters are really dangerous, some can't be released to their home countries without serious fear that they'll be seriously tortured, and the European countries have refused to take any of them in large part because the U.S. won't take any (even the Uighurs, Chinese Muslims everybody acknowledges should never have been there). But even the Bushies acknowledge that some have no business being there, so making the decision is a good start.

Incidentally, the WaPo ran a fascinating story Sunday, noting that the military officers first assigned to Gitmo did almost everything right, obeying the Geneva conventions though it wasn't strictly required and establishing a reasonably humane environment. Then the civilians, mainly Rumsfeld, got involved and things went downhill.

Here's the Register's editorial. On this one my old friend Steve Chapman agrees.

Bruins need help

Well, I'm not quite ready to give up hope of going deep into the tournament, but it sure looks as if the Bruins have a closing problem. Maybe they need a little pep talk from Kyra Sedgwick.

Yes, they've lost in Seattle the last five years and have still won the Pac 10 most of those years. Yes, Lorenzo Romar is a terrific coach who seems to have put together a good team this year, one that plays solid defense. But you can't go 5 minutes without making a hoop (12 minutes against ASU) as the clock winds down and expect to win games. I don't know just what winner's mentality the Bruins lack this year. I think they have the talent, some of the freshmen besides Holliday are starting to contribute, and people were saying just a week or so ago that they just might sweep through the league schedule. So much for that idea!

Time to suck it up.

Feds fumbled digital transition

Well it looks as if we're in for four more months of those annoying commercials about the imminent changeover to digital TV signals, commercials apparently aimed at people with a room-temperature (in winter! without a furnace!) IQ who are so clueless only the government can get them through this traumatic transition. The Senate passed a bill to delay the changeover and the House is more than likely to go along. The Obamaites have already floated the balloon.

Trouble is, insofar as the transition really is likely to be even mildly traumatic it's because the government decided to handle it through mandates rather than letting the TV stations do it within the context of a competitive marketplace. I talked to Tom Hazlett, who was chief economist at the FCC in the early 1990s and now teaches at George Mason. He says they've been talking about this transition since 1988 (!) and are acting in rough accordance with a law the congresscritters passed in 1996. If the government hadn't decided that only the government could handle this little problem, it probably would have been done years ago and we would never have noticed because it was so smooth.

Did you know the cellphone industry made the switch from analog to digital a few years ago. Did you notice? Was it a big problem? No, because it was handled in the marketplace.

Here's the Register's angry editorial.

Excluding the exclusionary rule

Here is the Register's editorial on the recent U.S. v. Herring Supreme Court decision, which decided that the exclusionary rule did not apply in the case of a guy who came in to get some personal stuff from an impounded truck. A police officer thought there might be a warrant and asked the clerk to check. No warrant in that county, but they checked a neighboring Alabama county and the database showed a warrant and they went out, pulled him over and found meth and a gun he wasn't authorized to have as a felon. Then word came from the neighboring county that the warrant had been pulled but the info not entered on the database. Thus the search was unwarranted, but the court decided not to exclude the results of the search since the error was not purposeful or aimed at Herring.

After talking to Roger Pilon at Cato, I concluded that although it was a close call, the decision was correct because the exclusionary rule is designed to guard against police misconduct and this was an honest mistake rather than outright misconduct. Herring was guilty (although of offenses that shouldn't have been crimes, but that's a different issue).

My old friend Steve Chapman disagrees.

Bruins hang on. Whew!

That was the kind of game you love to see if you're not invested in either team, but if you're rooting for one side or another it's a little tough to watch. The Bruins hung on to beat WSU 61-59, but it wasn't very convincing. They dominated in stretches but were in jeopardy when it came time to close it out. I think Darren Collison remembered the collapse against Arizona State and took it upon himself to make sure it didn't happen again, and he made two of three down the stretch to stay ahead; then the team did play good defense on the last play.

I think they'll need to play better to beat Washington, which is leading USC 31-30 at the half as I write. Looking forward to Saturday.

Facing the Cougars -- bouncing back?

Some may have noticed that I didn't post immediately after the Bruins lost to Arizona State on Saturday. It's pretty tough to win when you don't score a field goal for 12 minutes. ASU's defense was good -- they use a fairly complex zone -- but there was something fundamentally wrong with the way the Bruins approached the end of the game. They don't seem to have that closing instinct yet, though some of the Freshmen have definitely come a long way. But after that loss, I feel a little bit of trepidation. I think the Bruins on the right night could beat almost any team in the country, but there's also a tendency to play down to the competition, which truly great teams seldom do.

All that is prologue to worrying a bit about tonight's game with Washington State. The Cougars have often posed problems for the Bruins, for reasons I don't fully understand. I hope the Arizona State loss was the kind that encourages them to redouble their efforts to play smarter rather than the kind that allows them and others to get the idea that they are vulnerable. We'll get a start on assessing that tonight.

The more things change . . .

I guess it's becoming something of a refrain with me, but the notion that we can't expect much change in foreign policy from Barack Obama was the subject of my Antiwar.com column this week. The tone will surely be different, but he's escalating in Afghanistan and called four Middle East leaders today to assure them that the U.S. will continue to stick its nose in their business. Heck, he's even squabbling with Hugo Chavez. The best hope, perhaps, is that throwing money at domestic problems and the worldwide crisis that will have China less eager to lend us money just might leave the U.S. too broke to do much mischief in the world at large.

Remarkably flat inaugural

Given the pre-hype and the expectations, I thought the inaugural itself was rather flat. DiFi was a good MC, but it went downhill from there. Poor Aretha, who used to be so marvelous, shouldn't sing in public anymore unless this was a fluke. And that poet was just lame -- that's a recent tradition worthy of abandonment. The Perlman-Ma-etc. quartet was excellent, however. And Pres. Obama's speech was more workmanlike than eloquent. And while he invokes some nice values, he clearly thinks that government is the engine of the economy rather than the other way around. Here's the Register's editorial, in which we politely take exception to his idea of a government-centric society, and some other reporting.

Freedompolitics.com launch party a success

The Freedompolitics.com launch party last night, for the new national freedom-oriented Website sponsored by Freedom Communications, Inc., the Register's parent company, was a remarkable success. I have to admit the Steve Greenhut, who managed the affair, knows how to put on a party. I think about 100 people came through, the food was good, there was plenty of beer and cigars, and people talked animatedly throughout the evening. Of course it's much too early to tell whether a successful launch party translates into lots of hits. But we'll take the successful party.

Tibor Machan spoke, reminding us that historically speaking freedom is still a fairly young concept and one shouldn't give in to pessimism. Among those in atendance were OC Supervisor Chris Norby, representatives from other elected officials' offices, Jim Riordan of Seven Locks Press, Larry Gilbert and Art Pedroza, who blog at Orange Juice, Register Publisher Terry Hornes and Freedom VP Jon Segal, Steve Frates from the Rose Institute, OC Business Journal's Rick Rieff, Nick Berardino, who heads the county employees' union, and lots of others. I finally met Scott Horton, who does radio and interviews for Antiwar.com and we talked about getting together for an interview.

All in all, a nice time.

Freedompolitics.com launch party

I am very much looking forward to the launch party tonight for Freedom Communications' (and the Register's, mostly) new national site, Freedompolitics.com. I invited Scott Horton, who just moved into the area and does radio for Antiwar.com to come; I've been on his radio show a few times but never met him until tonight. Tibor Machan will be there, and we're expecting David Nott from the Reason Foundation and various other luminaries pof varying degrees of brightness. And beer, Italian food and cigars, of course. Will report later -- maybe not tonight if I come home exhausted.

Covering the inauguration

My main responsibility -- and it is the new age of responsibility, after all -- was to the people who cut my paycheck today, so I will direct you to the Register's Orange Punch blog for ruminations on what was, especially following the build-up, a rather flat inauguration ceremony. Here's today's Register editorial anticipating the inauguration. I also found a blog by Will Wilkinson, who edits Cato's at-liberty blog, who live-blogged the ceremony with a nice sardonic edge. Also David Boaz's dissenting prelude.

Bye, bye Bushie

Dubya has proven to be remarkably pathetic in his last few days in office, giving lame campaign speeches in hopes of burnishing his legacy. Perhaps even more pathetic have been the conservative columnists and writers who somehow have stayed toadies to the very end, trying to argue that this quintessential mediocrity, this remarkably unreflective and simple-minded man, deserves to be thought of as some kind of a great leader. It demonstrates to me a sick devotion to war as the noblest endeavor of humankind -- at least when undertaken by other peoples' children. Here's the Register's editorial on his final press conference.

The Price of Everything

Although I've met several of the gang in the economics dept. at George Mason U, to my knowledge I haven't met Russell Roberts. But I can strongly recommend his books, as I did in this Register review of his new book, "The Price of Everything." I haven't read "The Choice," but I did read "The Invisible Heart." Improbably enough these are all novels -- though they are novels intended to teach the reader a bit of basic economics in a relatively painless way -- and they actually have interesting stories with believable and sympathetic three-dimensional characters. Over the years I have made several stabs at writing a novel and each time have decided that it's just not my thing. I'm glad that an economist of Roberts's abilities has the knack for writing stories.

MLK: We forget the importance of non-violence

In almost none of the media stuff I've seen today is there much mention of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s commitment to non-violence, yet it was a key to his character -- and his effectiveness. He was certainly one of the half-dozen most consequential Americans of the last half-century or so, yet he held no office and practiced non-violent demonstration and confrontation exclusively. Yet we see most people today committed either explicitly or implicitly to violence, especially when they seek the power of the State to bend others to their will. Here's the Register's editorial on the celebration of his birthday.

Inauguration overload already

Is it just me, or is there even more hype for the presidential inauguration than usual this year. Of course the fact that Obama is the one has something to do with it, but the imperial presidency has been building for a long time, with most presidents reaching out for just a bit more unaccountable power whenever they have the chance. And the news media support the build-up, supporting, even when they do a segment on how there may be just too many challenges, the implicit notion that presidents are somehow close to superhuman.

I heard one caster say Obama represents the best of all of us today. Sheeeesh!! He's been the most successful climper of the slippery pole of power in a notably disreputable trade, politics. To see politicians rather than scientists, artists, writers, inventors or entrepreneurs as representing the best of us represents a profoundly twisted and unhealthy view of reality. It was bad enough to identify a pop singer as the American Idol.

Here's the piece I did for the Register's Sunday Commentary section on the challenges Obama will face. It would be a healthier country if all a president had to do was administer the executive branch and see to it that the laws are faithfully executed instead of being the First Inspirer, theb First Teacher and the First Buddy.

Bruins rounding into shape

Well, as I expressed before, I wasn't sure about this year's edition of the UCLA basketball team, and they have lost a couple of games they probably shouldn't have lost. Clearly, none of the freshmen, not even the highly touted Jrue Holliday, measures up to what Kevin Love, now in the NBA, was able to do last year as a freshman. But then Kevin Love, in retrospect, looked like a man among boys from his first game. He is a rare combination of talent and game savvy of a kind that doesn't come along very often.

After watching the team dismantle Arizona (which is admittedly in a down cycle this year thanks to the ill-timed retirement of coach Lute Olsen) Wednesday night, I'm beginning to fantasize about another trip to the Final Four. My first impression was that they weren't spectacular, playing mostly a perimeter passing game with less cutting and driving to the basket than I like to see. But at almost 60% shooting (41% from three-point-land), they were certainly efficient. Josh Shipp is more consistent than he was early in the season and Darren Collison is spectacular.

Big test tomorrow against Arizona State, which was picked to finish second and will be motivated after losing to USC.

Introducing Freedompolitics.com

I might as well do this slightly indirectly, by linking to this post from my former colleague John Seiler. Freedom Communications is starting a new Website called Freedompolitics.com. It will feature blogs and contributions from people all over the Freedom chain, as well as plenty of guest writers and bloggers. It grew out of a meeting among editorial writers from all over the chain a couple of years ago. Freedom is a large corporation, probably with more bureaucracy than necessary, like most businesses, even after recent downsizing, so it seemed as if it took forever to get it done. But the official launch is Tuesday: Inauguration Day. Check it out. Please bookmark it and go there often.

Obama will see foreign policy crises too

I know Barack Obama sees the economic crisis as his first priority. As I suggest in this article from the Register's Sunday Commentary section, however, he won't be able to ignore foreign policy or postpone some fairly consequential decisions early on. I mentioned the still-widening implications of the Mumbai terrorist attack -- India and Pakistan are edging closer to outright war -- and the crisis in Gaza. I thought it was a pretty balanced article. For my trouble, of course, I got several phone messages saying I was an Israeli dupe who is oblivious to Palestinian suffering, and a couple saying I was utterly unfair to Israel and maybe am a secret Palestinian. Ah, well. Judge for yourself.

Drug reformers hope; I'm skeptical

Perhaps I should be heartened by the fact that Barack Obama simply said he will get rid of the absurd "don't ask don't tell" policy for gays in the military. It's the issue that practically sank the beginning of the Clinton administration, but Obama seems to think attitudes have changed enough for him to get away with it. Maybe he's overconfident but I hope he's right on this one.

So maybe he really will do something about our absurd drug laws. He has promised that he would stop the DEA from doing raids on patients in states with medical marijuana laws (I love it when liberals are federalists; they may be inconsistent, but it demonstrates the charm of a decentralized system in that it can be used by people of various ideological strains). The Drug Policy Alliance and others are hoping he will keep his promise. This Esquire article suggests reasons both for guarded optimism and skepticism.

I think the choice of Eric Holder is a bad sign; he seems to be a fine man, but he has a terrible record on drug law issues. CNN medical commentator Sanjay Gupta, trial-ballooned for Surgeon General (a post ripe for abolition), as a few writers have noted, seems to buy much of the drug warriors' utterly absurd beliefs about the properties of marijuana. And I think Obama's natural caution may keep him from doing something so drastic as pushing for legalizing marijuana -- although rescheduling might be a possibility. He may also think drug reform is still the "third rail" of American politics, even though medical marijuana outpolled him in Michigan (and George Bush in Montana in 2004).

I remember when Clinton was elected, I was at a DPA conference shortly thereafter, and most of the reformers were almost ecstatic with expectation, figuring the guy who "didn't inhale" would at least be sensible about drug policy if not a big reformer. But the feds set new records for marijuana arrests under Clinton and he appointed Gen. McCaffrey as "drug czar" in a step that made the "war on drugs" more literally warlike. McCaffrey peddled nonsense about marijuana and campaigned actively (and probably illegally) against medical marijuana initiatives.

I hope I'm wrong.

A fun dust-up in the classical world

Well, it might not have the intensity of feuds in the rap world. But my experience associating with mostly but not exclusively classically-oriented musicians over the years is that musicians can be a temperamental lot -- they didn't coin the term divas for opera singers for nothing. Here's a fascinating little flap that is ruffling feathers at the New York Philharmonic.

Seems there's this wealthy businessman, one Gilbert Kaplan, who's a music-lover "with an obsession for Mahler's Symphony No. 2 (Resurrection") -- which I can understand; I've had a similar obsession since seeing it performed at the Hollywood Bowl eons ago -- probably late '50s; there's a place where the horns perform offstage to get an effect Mahler wanted, and it was especially striking outdoors. I have several recordings. I'm partial to Bruno Walter's old recording and Klemperer's is fine too, but I can commend a recent set by David Zinman and the Tonhalle Orchestra of Zurich.

Anyway, Kaplan, likely in part through making generous donations, has conducted the symphony all over the world, and did so in December at the New York Phil. But some of the musicians rebelled afterwards, suggesting he has little to no ability as a conductor and brings nothing of artistic interest to his conducting. As one of the trombone players put it on his blog: "My colleagues and I gave what we could to this rudderless performance but the evening proved to be nothing more than a simplistic reading of a wonderful piece of music." It became a public stink and Kaplan is not likely to be invited back.

Marvelous! I've played in amatuer bands and orchestras of varying degrees of skill since high school, and I can guarantee the players have opinions about the abilities (or lack thereof) of their conductors, sometimes griping quietly that the dude can't even keep a steady beat, let alone inspire anybody. At the professional level, especially in orchestras that get a lot of guest conductors, I'm sure the opinions are more pungent. Such opinions are usually the stuff of insider scuttlebutt, with a negative opinion occasionally creeping its way into a music magazine article. But in the era of the blogosphere, it becomes something like public record. I like it!

Now, I don't know. Maybe Kaplan is quite adequate. Still, it's a fun flap.

Spending our way to . . . well, you know

Here's the Register's editorial on Barack Obama's speech on economics and the need for an ever-increasing "stimulus" to get us out of the recession. Trouble is, not only must the money be borrowed from an increasingly reluctant China and eventually repaid, it will stoke inflation and direct money away from genuinely productive activities and into politically popular propjects or those with an especially effective interest group behind them. The oldest political trick in the book. So much for "change."

Jerome the Cynical Santa

I didn't get to reproducing this piece from my friend Jerome Stumps before Christmas, for which I apologize, but even after Epiphany I think it has something to say. I have a song from him that I will post as soon as I figure out how. Jerome's pretty hard core, so it's no surprise that the name of the song is "There Ain't No Fix in Politics." Take it away, Jerome!

Political "leaders" throughout the world are turning in their hardly used "fight inflation suits" and are donning instead the well-worn, more cheerful, red and white "feed inflation" Santa suits. Only the stomach padding is not pillows; it's paper currency by the basketful. Those great pillars of wisdom, the politicians, are caving in on the "hold the prices down" line and rationalizing that inflation is the lesser evil, while recession, unemployment, bankruptcies, and falling gross national product is the greater evil. What most people do not know is that politicians now have the power to inflate without limit! Up to now, there were limits -- so it is not correct to compare now with 1929.

Long before this uncontrolled inflationary state arose, an odious brand of Santa Claus economics was spreading throughout the world. By this, I mean the politicians playing St. Nick to all, by way of subsidies, welfare checks, minimum wages, and so-called full employment rules. And such insanity as unemployment benefits that nearly equal employed wage -- with money going to strikers too, so that taxpayers paid for union demands. Other insanities by the government's fairytale financing are foreign aid, and spending in every direction, ad nauseam.

Santa Claus economics brought about a climate of social expectation that in the end cripples the individual, and thus the nation, and now the world. It's what I call the prairie dog phenomenon. In North Dakota there is a national park where signs say: "Please do not feed the prairie dogs because you are only here in the summer, and when you go away they will have become so dependent on handouts they will be unable to fend for themselves, and therefore will starve to death in the winter."

It happens to humans too. Certainly, politicians as well as the majority of other assorted humans do not understand nature's laws. As a result, most people welcome something for nothing and the "not too bright politicians" are willing to offer a supply through campaign promises. These elected "leaders" then proceed to take away from those who produce and give to those who do not produce (the latter includes the politicians themselves). Thus the majority of us come to depend on the handouts; however, in winter economic weather, we shall starve or be killed.

So carry on, oh Santa Claus in every capital, and destroy our way of life itself for many. Treat us like Dakota prairie dogs. But yonder the leaves are turning brown -- and a long winter lies ahead.

As a loyal gesture, I wanted this year to offset the bureaucratic propaganda as well as the traditional Santa Claus concept with the sincere hope of bringing your thoughts and actions in harmony with nature's laws. There is no such thing as something for nothing; therefore, be certain that the recipients of your gifts understand that they have earned them.

More on Obama's CIA blunder -- I think

I wrote a bit more on what I consider the mistake of putting Leon Panetta in charge of the CIA for my Antiwar.com column this week. The political establishment seems reconciled to it now, and everybody hopes Panetta is shrewd enough to master the spook bureaucracy. I'm indebted to Amy Zegart at UCLA, author of the recent book, "Spying Blind," (which I haven't read yet but it's now on my list) for talking with me at some length on the phone. She has made something of a specialty of intelligence policy and organization, so she's quite knowledgeable. She is just plain baffled at this decision by Obama, as am I.

Russian-Ukrainian gas dispute has geopolitical aspect

I guess there's a tentative agreement between Ukraine (with implications for Central and Western Europe) over gas pricing and flow to Western Europe, involving international monitors. So the crisis (if it really deserves that moniker) may be over -- for now. I think most people understand there are geopolitical aspects to the dispute that may well trump the economic aspects (though with the world financial crisis having hit energy prices and Russia's economy pretty hard the economic aspect is not trivial). As this Register editorial explains, Russia's desire to remind Ukraine of its energy dependence is tied to deep-rooted Russian fears about invasion, tied to the knowledge that its borders are not well protected by topography, and what it sees, as in the Bush administration push to admit Ukraine to NATO (which most European countries now oppose, in no small part because of a similar gas cut-off three years ago), as U.S. messing about in what has traditionally been known as the "near abroad," which Russia considers vital to its security. If the push for Ukrainian NATO membership continues, expect more of what might be considered as Russian nastiness toward Ukraine.

I wrote about the gas cut-off back in 2006, for Antiwar.com, explaining the geopolitical aspects in more detail than I want to do in a blog post. Here's a link.

Madoff breaches trust ... or?

The swindle perpetrated by Bernard Madoff, who has confessed to running an investment Ponzi scheme seems almost like an exclamation point to an era of greed spurred (I believe) by a loose-money Fed and other federal interventions. One way or another the country is unlikely to feel as affluent in the next few years as it has felt in the previous decade or so. Anne Applebaum had some especially thoughtful comments recently, suggesting that a market economy to a great extent runs on trust, and Madoff breached trust big-time and in a public way, and it's likely to make people a little less trusting, perhaps a bit less entrepreneurial for a while. I hope she's wrong, but . . .

Incidentally, there's a theory going around the Internet that Madoff actually didn't run a Ponzi scheme but that his hedge fund lost big-time (as others did) and he concocted the Ponzi story, perhaps because his investors could get compensation for losses to fruad from the government, whereas they couldn't have recouped hedge-fund losses. Seems far-fetched (I'll run donw the links in the next day or so), but what do you think?

No winners in Gaza

I haven't mentioned the Israeli attack in Gaza much except to refer to my Antiwar.com article, but I've been reading a lot and talking to a bunch of people. Here is the Register's most recent editorial on the conflict. I'm also finishing up a byline piece for the Sunday Commentary section. I'll be interested to see how it turns out. The thing that strikes me most piquantly about the general topic of Arab-Israeli or Palestinian-Israeli issues is how firmly committed U.S. partisans are to the proposition that their side can do no wrong and the other side can do no right. Any criticism of Israel is likely to be branded anti-Semitic and criticism of Hamas or the Palestinians is taken to be evidence of being an Israeli stooge. Ah, well.

Obama's CIA pick absurd

I think Obama's choice of Leon Panetta to head the CIA is the first utterly ridiculous misstep of his transition, though there have been other mistakes as well (hello, Bill Richardson, hello Rahm talking to Blago's people repeatedly). This one is virtually incomprehensible, suggesting he knows nothing and cares nothing about the CIA. Too bad. There might have been a chance to depoliticize it slightly. Here's the Register's editorial on the pick. There wasn't room to mention that the last pick who was more political then professional, the former GOP congresscritter Porter Goss, was disastrous, but he was. It's likely the CIA will remain ineffectual and probably become a more hidebound bureaucracy. Although I'm not sure how badly I would want a really effective CIA, considering its past of having an expansive notion of what it could be doing inside the U.S.

Michigan bureaucrats mucking up medical marijuana

One of the problems with passing a medical marijuana initiative, as Michigan did last November, is that state bureaucrats and regulators get involved in interpreting and enforcing it, making something intended to be very simple and straightforward quite complex. In addition, while it may be unfair to impute such motives yet, our experience in California -- still struggling for proper implementation after 12 years -- is that some regulatory and law enforcement people who opposed the law in the first place will try to interpret it in ways that effectively nullify it.

When I was writing my book, "Waiting to Inhale," on medical marijuana, I interviewed Dennis Peron, the Calif. initiative's author dozens of times, and he made clear that what he wanted was a simple regimen whereby legitimate patients could get relatively hassle-free access to their medicine. Aside from the mistake of including the term "primary caregiver" in the language, that's what he wrote. But some cops wanted to do an arrest-first-sort-it-out-at-trial policy and others refused to return confiscated medicine. Some clearly hate the law and worked virtually openly to subvert it.

You can see some of this in Michigan now, where they are holding hearings on draft implementation procedures and getting flack both from medical marijuana patients and advocates and the police as well. Some of the rules seem just silly -- requiring patients to keep their medicine in a locked cabinet when there are no similar requirements for prescription medications that are literally hundreds of times more potentially dangerous. And they do seem to go beyond the scope of what the initiative asked the Michigan Department of Community Health to do -- set up a patient registry system, not write a bunch of rules and regulations.

Some of this is the result of the ignorance that always comes from outlawing one of God's creations -- people believe all sorts of complete nonsense about the dangers of marijuana. And some is due to the ridiculously over-bureaucratized society we have become, with legions of overseers who think they have a license to micromanage our lives. It will be interesting to see how it all turns out.

Blago outmaneuvers the respectable ones

I have little doubt that Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is at least as crooked as they say, and there's something repellently slimy about him. (I and others may be subject to what psychologists say is a human tendency to place more blame and assume more guilt the higher-up an alleged malefactor is in the political pyramid.) But I confess to a sneaking admiration for the way he has outmaneuvered those who have sought to distance themselves from him, and he has made the leaders of the Senate look ridiculous, which is always welcome.

By appointing Roland Burris, a black former state attorney general who apparently isn't tainted with scandal, he has provoked a latent threat from Senate Majority leader Harry Reid not to seat him. But in this case Blago has the law on his side. He has sole authority to appoint the successor when a senate seat is empty. He may be sleazy, but while he was arrested and charged, he hasn't even been indicted yet. He is legally considered innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt -- and the case against him might not be that easy to make despite those sinister-sounding wiretap recordings. He hasn't been impeached, and despite the atmosphere in Springfield, that isn't even a sure thing. So there's no remotely legal reason not to seat his appointee.

So Harry Reid has pushed himself into a corner from which he can't emerge without backing away. His knee-jerk reaction was ill-considered and without legal basis. Fun stuff.

Real problems developing

A few weeks ago I suggested that a potentially major crisis involving India, Pakistan and Afghanistan might face the incoming Obama administration, but that otherwise the Imperium’s potential conflict spots seemed to be in a state of relative quiescence. So much for my predictive powers! The Israeli-Palestinian conflict does not really affect the core interests of the U.S., but if it stays in the headlines much longer there will be increasing pressure for the U.S. to get involved one way or another — although it’s hard for me to imagine just what the U.S. could do that would be more stabilizing than destabilizing. When the Bush administration took power, as I remember, it decided not to jump in to the Israeli-Palestinian situation, contenting itself with expressing complete support for Israel but, with the final Clinton effort fresh in memory, simply issuing statements and expending verbiage on a “path to peace.” I wouldn’t be surprised if the Obama admin. does much the same — but my record as a prophet is not exactly pristine.

The empire stands aside

With the Israeli ground invasion of Gaza something like the final nail has been put in the coffin of any last-minute Bush administration hopes that things might move in the direction of a two-state solution before the Bushlet left office have been dashed. It is possible that this is also an "aha!" moment for the American empire as well. Nobody expects the U.S. to be able to do anything constructive, though U.S. minions have been supposedly working for more than a year toward any kind of symbolic rapprochement they might be able to spin into a sign of -progress. Thus the Bush administration winds down with yet another whimper of failure.

Here's my most recent column for Antiwar.com musing on the possible meaning of an impotent empire.

Against football playoffs

I'll be the first to admit that I would enjoy seeing a game between USC and whoever wins the supposed BCS "championship" game next week. I supect USC would win, perhaps handily. Pete Carroll really knows how to get a team operating at close to peak effriciency at the end of the season. But unlike a lot of fans I have little desire to see a true or even semi-authentic playoff system for college football. Why does there have to be an unambiguous single national champion? It would take way too long to do a proper elimination tournament as in basketball. And tournaments can have quirks just as easily as a decentralized bowl system, with a superior team having on off day or an inferior team getting a lot of turnovers or whatever and winning a game it would lose eight times out of ten. With a bunch of bowls, a lot of teams get to revel in postseason success.

Perhaps not incidentally, having a bunch of bowls -- unlikely to change because so many commercial interests are involved -- makes the college football post-season a bit more like economic competition than athletic competition. Confusion between the two is endemic. In athletics competition leads to a clear winner and a clear loser. In economic competition you don't have to have the most market share -- or whatever definition makes you Number One -- to be successful. You just have to have more revenues than expenses (or even just realistic prospects of being there next year), and the Number Seven market-share company might have the highest profit margin. It's nice to have numerous paths to success rather than a pyramid-type tourney in which only one team is the winner and the rest, no matter how much they improved or exceeded expectations, are viewed as losers