Comments by typingmonkey

Will someone please tell the Americans that Coors Light isn't going to increase theirs?

It also helps if you don't cut down so many trees.

It also helps when you don't dump tons of defoliant from the sky.

I know you know this AW. So please don't write articles suggesting that we should just blame the locals and their appetites.

Straw man.

Teachers, food safety inspectors, foresters, diplomats, scientists and public safety people are not making buggy whips. While their "industries" and indeed all industries contain inefficiencies, the simple fact that they are paid through taxation does not make their work as useless as a buggy whip. You can cut their jobs because you want to pay less tax, but don't pretend that automatically makes the nation richer.

And I will follow up by saying that selective preclearance raises constitutional questions which many seem to acknowledge.

On the one hand, we force sex offenders to register and we restrict their proximity to schools. This infringes upon their privacy and their freedoms, presumably because

1 - psychology driven behavior is more likely to indicate a persistent personality trait, so

2 - the offender is more likely to offend again, so

3 - society is willing to trade the offender's rights for its own protection.

These are problematic to begin with, but to extend the logic to a precinct involves even greater contortions, including the fact that I don't think corporations or precincts are people. A precinct contains a group of people, and any prior misdeeds by certain individuals within it should have no bearing upon the stature of the current group of people before the law (of course WW thinks precincts might have distinct personalities, but there I think he is in the minority).

So I too am troubled by the requirement forcing electoral districts to preclear regulations based upon "prior behavior". But LexH ignores the "substantial evidence of contemporary voting discrimination" and suggests the whole law should be tossed. I think I agree with the committee's real findings that while the need for the law remains, the mechanism should be refined to ensure that it remains both effective and just.

What this could mean is that the DoJ must preclear ALL voting laws nationwide (fiscally unlikely) or it could retroactively invalidate any electoral result that is found to based upon substantial disenfrachisement. That would be a heavy hammer. Say a precinct is found to be in violation for the past XX years. All electoral results from that precinct in that period would be invalidated, and those votes would be redacted from the official count. If that changed the overall result of an election, any current officeholder would be subject to a snap reelection if his prior challenger chose to mount it. This could ensnare not only mayors and school board members, but state and federal congressmen and senators (the POTUS would be shielded by the electoral college).

The indignity, hassle and cost of such a thing would encourage all precincts (and all incumbents) to exercise significant restraint and oversight over voting laws. Hopefully, this would achieve the legislative intent of the VRA in a just and constitutional manner.

Lex, did you actually bother to read the post you pretend to reply to, or was it easier to assume this is all some liberal conspiracy?

The post says reauthorization was based upon "substantial evidence of contemporary voting discrimination." Please let me know if that wasn't perfectly clear.

Now if you want to question the preclearance clause, I think you could make a case. But the election of black individuals in no way suggests that efforts to disenfranchise voters do not continue today. Alabama could elect a black person to every single office in the next election, and still pass unduly restrictive voting laws the very next day. There is no link, so your post makes no sense.

It is almost not worth replying to WW any more. Honestly man, take a leave, go work for the Romney campaign or his superPAC. You'll make a fine adviser, and if he wins I'm sure he'll give you some nice government job. If he doesn't please come back and bitch about it here. But really, your affection for the man makes you say things not truly worthy of your skills or of this paper.

Now to the issue at hand, I'm a capitalist myself, and apparently like the President we understand and value creative destruction. If you take company A with 1000 employees and company B with 1000 employees and combine them into company C with 1500, you've likely enhanced efficiency and profit in that company, in that sector of the economy and potentially in the economy as a whole. Good on you, you're good at the destruction thing, and you get a bonus. We all know Mr Romney is an expert at destroying jobs (or inefficiency, if you prefer) and we all acknowledge that this is an important part of capitalism.

But there are two key problems here if you want to claim this will make you a good POTUS in 2012. First, I think even WW would have to acknowledge that the sort of capitalists America needs most at this point in the economic cycle is the creative sort, like a Walton or a Jobs. Right on cue, Mr Romney admits his greatest advice as America's management consultant in chief would be to slash jobs in every governmental enterprise save one (ironically the one with the poorest economic efficiency). Only partisan ideologues cheer at this.

Secondly, the POTUS is CEO of the entire nation. Cutting 500 jobs from one sector might make that sector more efficient, but the nation as a whole may be LESS efficient until and unless you connect those 500 people to gainful employment elsewhere. Neither candidate can claim much direct experience in this skill, but at least Mr Obama demonstrates real awareness of the whole equation. For instance, he would probably say those individuals need temporary education and health care, while Mr Romney might eliminate them.

In short, feeding a family involves a lot more than being a good butcher.

Wrong again.

Google is between 101 and the salt flats, in a swath of land upon which not a single human being resides. They could build a large campus there, with housing, and actually reduce their environmental impact (if the govt would let them). Furthermore, these companies are where they are because it is also close to Stanford, VC in Menlo Park and the south bay bedroom communities. Finally, Salesforce and Zynga are already in downtown SF.

So the point of the whole article, in case you missed it, is that the bay area attracts lots of great employment, but fails to enjoy all of its benefits because of arbitrary and irrational constraints.

WW, perhaps you shouldn't let people know quite so much of what you really think. I mean, this is getting pretty far beyond the pale.

In my life as a landlord, I have only had three basket case tenants. One inadvertently started a fire with a lamp, and cured it by instigating a flood (at least she was well insured); the other started a business but was so disorganized he managed to lose it to his accountant; and one family "conscientiously" sorted their dirty laundry into piles - one in each room. Of dozens of tenants over the years, these were the only three who proudly wore their political views on their shirtsleeves, and yes, they were all republicans. The family with the mountain range of laundry lost their jobs, got evicted, and named their fifth child "Reagan" all in the same year. I hope the little girl learns to like it.

What these anecdotes suggest is that personality has little to do with political philosophy. I'm sure there are just as many polite industrious organized democrats as there are loopy obnoxious ones, and ditto for the republicans. Looking at Barack Obama and Newt Gingrich, which would you say is more polite? More organized? More industrious?

Personally, I believe the difference is better categorized as cultural or tribal. If you grow up in an environment characterized by diversity, you learn to value it for its ability to generate, develop and implement new ideas. If you grow up in its absence, you learn that homogeneity confers a social cohesion dividend. Each tribe learns to value its values, because in their environment, those values work.

So yes, political inclination probably has a geographical distribution, and that can be self-reinforcing. But I don't think personality has much to do with it.

No. We haven't achieved actual inflation, which would lower both the real cost of labor and the burden of debt, which would spur hiring and spending, which would restore some of the lost productivity in the economy.

Heck, I already solved this problem...

So, I again propose that we consider a fanciful idea

1 - Have the IRS hire programmers and create their own online filing system, which would be free (short Intuit first, of course)

2 - After citizens file, let them allocate their taxes online to whatever government programs they favor (every department and program could create a webpage making their case to the taxpayers, and there would have to be some smoothing algorithm so budgetary swings are moderated)

3 - If you don't care, you can click "let my congressman decide for me" (which is the unfortunate default we have been stuck with for over 200 years)

4 - The website would let us all see transparently and in real time where we as a nation really want to spend our money.

This will force the rent seekers to make their case to the people. If Lockheed wants a few hundred billion dollars for F-35s, they will have to convince me, you, and WW to give it to them. It will no longer be a simple matter of hiring lobbyists and retired generals. If ConAgra wants more corn subsidies or if someone wants a bridge to nowhere, they will have to get me to click their button. I can tell you right now, they needn't bother trying.
And after allocating their tax dollars to their priorities, fiscal conservatives like me may find there is money left over. We should be able to devote this to paying down the debt, and the website should project how much that will lower our taxes in the future.

Personally, I don't believe Congress is institutionally capable of holding our purse strings in any position other than spread eagle. I do believe people are generally more fiscally prudent with their own money than any third party driven by electoral politics can be. This is a fundamental institutional weakness of "representational democracy". Why not try actual democracy instead?

Who says silicon valley hates development? The residents of Santa Clara, none of them named Steve Jobs, recently chose to spend millions of their own tax dollars to build a giant ring of their own. This one will consist of 60,000 hard plastic chairs surrounding a lovely 100'x300' patch of grass, surrounded in turn by large, tall high density accommodation...for automobiles. The whole contraption will allow out of towners to drive in, drink beer, and watch 22 men chase a football for 60 minutes x 8 Sundays every year.

That, according to the local electorate, is the kind of development worth paying for. Apparently, the locals find all the new concrete, traffic, trash, noise and light pollution perfectly acceptable as long as they come with cheerleaders. Smart people, those voters.

That is a false choice. As the article stated, many people at Google, FB and elsewhere prefer to live in more urbanized environments, even if that makes their commute longer. In other words, density offers superior "economic efficiency" AND "ambiance and quality of life".

Beating the British one on one is an accomplishment no military has ever been able to take for granted, so the handsome victories won by the American frigates were and are worth commemorating. But while the American officers and crews deserve full credit for their skill, courage, and daring, ultimately the campaign demonstrated little more than the intelligence of American shipbuilding strategy in achieving a temporary stalemate against a vastly superior but distracted foe.

In other words, the designers of the fledgling USN wisely surmised that in confronting the overwhelming superiority of European naval powers, an asymmetrical approach would be best. So the frigates were made long, slender and stout to give them firepower, speed and toughness. Consequently, they could easily escape any ship of the line yet overpower most frigates, which is precisely what they proceeded to do. They successfully disrupted British merchant shipping and denied the British naval supremacy and complete freedom of movement. But they could not break the blockade, defend the coast, or significantly change the balance of power. For a weak young nation, they were the best weapon we could afford, and we made good use of them to surprise, annoy, and harass the British just enough to settle.

What are the lessons for the USN two centuries later? That our navy made us great, and should be enlarged so that it may make us greater? Hardly. We are now what Britain was then. We have the most numerous and powerful capital ships. We have the sprawling imperial interests around the globe. And spending more to buy more of the same will do little to counter the numerous, unpredictable, asymmetrical challenges that arise like mushrooms in our wake.

So our lesson is that we should be smarter than the British. Even with hundreds like the HMS Victory, they were unable to stop a handful like the USS Constitution. Eventually someone somewhere will design something to neutralize our naval superiority and deny us freedom of movement. If our only response is to waste more money on more aircraft carriers, they will someday surprise, annoy and harass us into settling a conflict we should be smart enough to win.

Excuse me, but I believe you and RR both try to brush this off as adolescent behavior of long ago. Alec Leamas adds "boys will be boys" and other such bromides. So I ask again, if a gang of black youths ambushes a white girl, pins her down, cuts her hair off, and leaves her weeping, what would conservative America have to say about it? "Boys will be boys"? "Adolescent behavior"? "Hijinks"? or "Give him time, that kid is Presidential material"?

No. We want to try them as adults. We think one youthful misdeed tells us all we need to know about them, their past and their future. And we condemn it all.

Yet unlike them, Mitt Romney was born gagging on silver spoons. I had sincere hope that the enormous privilege of his upbringing might offer him the opportunity to embrace the world with a great generosity of spirit, like FDR, the Kennedys, Carnegie, or Gates. I have been waiting my whole political life for a true fiscal conservative with the sensitivity and character to unite this nation socially. I suppose Clinton was the closest, but now we get Mitt. How can you tie a nation together when your instinctive response to difference is amputation?

With this story all his patrician tendencies fall into context, and the moral foundation of his life is unearthed. From what I see, it does not look good.

That, sir, is not an argument.

If this were Crenshaw High instead of Cranbrook, and Mitt were a black adolescent manhandling a white girl, you all would be singing a different tune. Something on the order of "irredeemable thug" or "try him as an adult" or maybe "stand your ground". Certainly not "hail to the chief".

And don't even try to justify this as innocent prep school behavior. I'm sure Mitt's teachers were fawning over the lad's intelligence, maturity and leadership at the time. But an intelligent mature kid would have known right from wrong. And a real leader would have welcomed the new different kid. Mitt assaulted him.

And what does Mitt's violence tell us? (1) that he is a product of homogeneity, fearful and intolerant of difference, (2) that he is a coward, unwilling to face an adversary on fair moral or physical grounds, but willing to ambush him with a posse, and (3) that he is the product of privilege, confident that no retribution would ever dare approach the hem of his robes.

That's all I need to know about Mitt Romney. Character counts, and I'm done with this guy.

For those of you who think this is much ado about not very much, I would suggest that the more tactile gay rights story right now is the testimony of several Cranbrook School Alumni who many years ago saw a younger feminized boy restrained and assaulted by a lad named Mitt Romney.

Mitt characterized the assault as "hijinks" implying that assaulting classmates with less physical and social capital is an activity which may be placed in the category of youthful amusements. One wonders if the recipient class is ever consulted in this. And in apologizing for "going too far" Mr. Romney implies that there is some level of gay bashing which may be considered appropriate. So his crime, if any, was merely in miscalibrating the laugh out loud terror. "Oops, my bad."

I don't know about WW, but that is the story which left ME a little cranky.

Why, so you can waste time along with money?

Scarring the earth for such baubles is sin. Buying them is vanity.

Or, you could just as easily (and probably more accurately) blame the GOP for making it a partisan issue.

And, you could just as easily argue that fence sitters now have the example of the POTUS showing them exactly which side of the fence history will favor.

The man is standing up for principle. And not just any principle, that of universal human rights. Wasn't it you who just said we could pat ourselves on the back for this? This will be a big victory for American soft power.

Let me begin by pointing out a startling fact. All gay men have nipples. Equally bizzarre, straight men have nipples too, each and every one of us. That's right, there are 7 billion nipples bouncing around right now, today, on the hairy chests of men. MEN! And clearly, they have no reproductive function whatsoever.

So why are they there? The devil? Should we deny them? Condemn them? Cicumcise them? No. They are there because sexual reproduction is an enormously complicated biological process. We all begin as nothing but an egg and a sperm. Then we become embryos, and all embryos begin with female sexual characteristics (nipples!). Only later does a complex chain of gene expression and hormonal cascades create (in some cases) the nut sacks which make us who we are. Needless to say, there are a million places where the process can get sidetracked. XY females, XX males, XXY people are all well documented facts of life. This is true amongst the birds and bees as well.

Left handedness, dwarfism, albinoism, even being a twin are all unusual but natural byproducts of navigating a complex developmental pathway (sadly, these conditions have also been historically deemed as contrary to the law of god, and subject to ignorant persecution.) I see no reason to believe gayness could not be in the same category.

Furthermore, to equate variance with disease is a fallacy. Left-handedness, as long as it remains a rare condition, is supposedly an asset in hand to hand combat. Gayness is supposedly more common amongst boys with many older brothers. If competition generally leads to loss, perhaps it is better to be a lover, not a fighter? And who knows, for a mother who has already reared a large brood, perhaps having a mama's boy stay close to home will help her and her offspring as she transitions into the roles of widow and grandmother.

So for Christians as well as atheists, the only heresy is to condemn the creations of our creator. As they say, god works in mysterious ways. And if you can't understand them, you can't judge them either. So the next time you lather yourself into a fury thinking gayness is an unnatural abomination, ask yourself what you are doing walking around with a woman's nipples on your chest.

Just last week, I said goodbye to a lovely young Chinese professional couple who had been renting a property of mine. They were educated, gracious, responsible people who would be a credit to any nation. But they did not like driving and traffic in America, and they felt their careers would be better served in China. And get this, they said China is more fun. They also said the majority of their Chinese expat friends had or were seriously considering returning too. Sure they could breed like rabbits here, and if they naturalized they could vote for the red pol or the blue one. But apparently, in life there are other things.

So while I share with MS the belief that America can justly claim world leadership in certain cultural attributes like freedom and creativity, we would be very wrong to assume that all 1.3 billion Chinese or 7 billion humans really just want to be like us. In the new multipolar world order, the quickest way to lose the race is to assume you've already crossed the finish line.