Joust The Facts

The Joust The Facts "Quote Of The Day"

Comes from the Heritage Foundation discussion of tonight's State of the Union speech by President Obama.  Early on in the speech Mr. Obama proposed (yet another) jobs program.  They address this idea here.

More Job Training Programs on Top of All the Other Redundant and Ineffective Programs – David B. Muhlhausen, Ph.D.

Tonight, President Obama called for the federal government to engage in new job training and employment initiatives, especially for the hard to employ.

Before Congress signs off on any new initiatives, we must recognize that President Obama wants to add several new programs on top of the 47 job-training programs already operated by the federal government. Further complicating the matter, the U.S. Government Accountability Office has concluded that there is little evidence that these programs are effective.

When federal job training programs have been evaluated using random assignment to job training and control groups, these scientifically rigorous evaluations overwhelmingly find that these programs are ineffective. For example, Job Corps, the federal government’s flagship program for hard-to-employ youth, has been found to be ineffective on several measures:

• Compared to non-participants, Job Corps participants were less likely to earn a high school diploma (7.5 percent versus 5.3 percent);
• Compared to non-participants, Job Corps participants were no more likely to attend or complete college;
• Four years after participating in the evaluation, the average weekly earnings of Job Corps participants was only $22 more than the average weekly earnings of the control group; and
• Employed Job Corps participants earned $0.22 more in hourly wages compared to employed control group members.

Instead of adding new programs to an already bloated job training system, the President and Congress should stop wasting taxpayer dollars by terminating these programs.

So the President proposed a jobs program, on top of the 47 that already exist, of a type and structure that hasn't been demonstrated effective.  It sounds like a good idea superficially, if you're not paying attention, but he knows the data and proposed it anyway.  Your tax dollars at work.  Well, at least it'll create more government jobs running the program, so it's got that going for it.

The Joust The Facts "Quote Of The Day"

From Jazz Shaw at Hot Air, on this snowy New England Saturday, comes a pithy summary of the mindless ideology that pervades Obama decision-making.

His final point highlights the amazing reverse logic which seems to be in play here, once again comparing the Keystone XL project to California’s high speed rail line. In the latter, the White House is continuing to push a project which virtually nobody seemed to have wanted by tossing vast amounts of taxpayer money into a plan which seems almost predestined to fail. In the former, they are fighting tooth and nail to stop a project which would have been paid for by private investment and created jobs in states which desperately need them, costing the taxpayer nothing and resulting in a downstream flow of cash back into government coffers through increased commercial activity and employment.

What is to be gained from this general approach unless you’re actively looking to turn out the lights?

You can cue up Dandy Don Meredith from the early days of Monday Night Football at this point.

 

Win, Place, Show in NH - A Joust The Facts Endorsement

By the time this post is published the results in New Hampshire will be all but complete.  Mitt Romney wins (38% currently), followed by Ron Paul (23%), Jon Huntsman (17%), Rick Santorum/Newt Gingrich (or perhaps Newt Gingrich/Rick Santorum) (10% each).  Rick Perry seems to have fully imploded, with only 1% in the Granite State primary, though his focus has been on South Carolina.  Still, I would like to review some of the pros and cons for each of the candidates, and issue a true horserace endorsement.

Let me first stipulate that each of the remaining Republican candidates would be preferable to another four years of the stumbling imperial presidency.  From anti-constitutional recess appointments to profligate spending and ever-enlarging seas of red ink, from turning federal agencies like the EPA and IRS into the imperial storm troopers of liberal ends to agenda-driven perversions of justice, through vote-buying with taxpayer funded giveaways, the U.S. really can't afford another four years of Mr. Obama's ideological vision of America.  The candidate that is eventually chosen to face Mr. Obama simply must beat Mr. Obama.

Second, I think it is incumbent upon Republicans to come up with a candidate who articulates an inclusive and welcoming vision, but notably without embracing the divisions - race, class, gender, etc. - into which the left wishes to divide America.  The left wants social justice, and apparently that is different from rule-of-law justice.  The left wants to divide into groups then pander to each group.  The candidate needs to expand on an America that gives opportunity to all, fully, but most importantly equally as individuals.

Third, I've been awfully disappointed in the nature of the attacks on Mitt Romney lately.  Ronald Reagan and his 11th commandment are rolling over in their graves.  For a long time I was quite proud of Newt Gingrich for refusing to attack any other Republican, always focusing his attacks on the President.  If you're going to try to elevate your primary support, the argument against Mr. Romney ought to be over the Massachusetts healthcare reform as governor, and not over his work in the private sector.  Tonight Rick Perry called it "vulture capitalism."  Shameful.

I'd like to say that there is one candidate who embodies everything I'm looking for as November 2012 looms in the not terribly distant future.  There isn't.  Mr. Perry hasn't shown himself to be solid enough as a speaker, and solid enough as a debater that I would feel confident that he can compete in that biggest contest.  I think he entered the race for the wrong reasons - primarily because others thought he should.  He needed to do a lot more homework, a lot more preparation before taking this leap.

Mr. Romney's flaw is primarily that Massachusetts healthcare reform.  Recall, I'm a doctor whose office used to be in Massachusetts and is now in New Hampshire.  But I still operate in Massachusetts, and I see the problems with this law.  It is - marginally - better than ObamaCare, but the architect of Romney's is the same left-wing MIT economist that consulted with the administration and pushed ObamaCare regularly in the pages of the New England Journal of Medicine.  Mitt Romney needed to come up with a better solution to that problem than he has; he is not, as a result, the best spokesman against Mr. Obama's signature legislation.

Mr. Huntsman infuriated me by doing something I listed above as a no-no, parroting the liberal line on global warming/climate change.  "Listen to the scientists?"  Does he mean the ones shown to be committing academic malpractice in the climategate emails?  Does this mean the EPA can kill the capitalist golden goose unilaterally?  He's also a little too isolationist internationally.  Pulling all the troops home is desireable, but not at the cost of American security.  Still, he has a reasonable economic policy outline, perhaps the best one.

That said, his foreign policy views are far more conservative than Mr. Paul's.  Ron Paul may be very conservative with domestic fiscal policy, but the pure libertarianism of the rest of his package is a non-starter.  And he definitely needs a better explanation of his newsletters.  I don't think he's electable in a general election, and I'm not alone in that assessment.

Mr. Gingrich has a number of problems, not least of which is that he was effectively Palin-ized during the 1990's by the liberal media and Democrats (BIRM).  He was the "Gin-grinch" that stole Christmas, remember?    There are a lot of people that won't vote for him because they remember that false caricature.  And that loveseat shot with Nancy Pelosi discussing global warming/climate change?  Ugh.  To his credit he has renounced that previous stand.

Mr. Santorum is against big government, except when he's for it.  And unfortunately he seems to be for it mostly for social causes, which are down the list of my priorities for the next four years.  I don't like his debating style, as he begins every answer with a recitation of his credentials.  And he has been less good at attacking Mr. Obama than at attacking his Republican friends.

But you've got to go somewhere.  To win, I'll take Newt Gingrich, and hope that he's able to overcome the various albatrosses hung around his neck.  He's the sharpest debater, and with his time as speaker is very good at making the media uncomfortable when they would rather make him uncomfortable.  He'll make Mr. Obama very uncomfortable too.  To place, I'll take Mitt Romney.  ObamaCare notwithstanding, Mr. Romney is more conservative than you have been led to believe; it's reasonable to argue that much of Mr. Romney's supposedly liberal stances in the past were the actual political posturing, running as he was in Massachusetts and against Ted Kennedy.  For show, it's Jon Huntsman.  Hey, he played keyboards in a rock band growing up, you gotta like that.  But please, modify that stance on climate change to at least recognize that the Climate-gate scandals may be problematic.

You may have heard that the Union-Leader endorsed Mr. Gingrich.  Here's a snippet.

We sympathize with the many people we have heard from, both here and across the country, who remain unsure of their choice this close to the primary. It is understandable. Our nation is in peril, yet much of the attention has been focused on fluff, silliness and each candidate's minor miscues...

Readers of the Union Leader and Sunday News know that we don't back candidates based on popularity polls or big-shot backers. We look for conservatives of courage and conviction who are independent-minded, grounded in their core beliefs about this nation and its people, and best equipped for the job.

Happy 2012! ... Oh, And Merry Christmas

And 'cause I missed doing my Christmas post ...

The 23rd Anniversary of Pan Am 103

December 21^st has acquired an increasing aura of ominous significance for my family and me.  In 1988 Pan Am 103 was blown from the skies by now-convicted Libyan terrorists, falling to earth in Lockerbie, Scotland and taking with it the lives of 259 people on board the plane and 11 on the ground.  One of those lives on the plane was my brother, returning from a semester overseas in London during his time at Syracuse University.

Annually on this date I have been reprinting my first post from the start of this blog, which I dedicated to my brother.  The plane disappeared from the radar screen at 7:03 PM GMT, the moment when all those lives, my brother's included, were tragically ended.  The post is timed here at 7:03 PM EST, the time when I arrived home from my residency training to discover the awful truth.  In 2005 the pain of this shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere became that much greater, when my father was taken from our family suddenly.  The irony - or possibly the design - of the two dying on the same date has not escaped our notice.  This post now contains the original first post, from September 2004 and the material I wrote about my father when, after his death, I returned to this blog.

The original first post:

My Reason for Being

There are a lot of ways this weblog could begin. I think the best is with a brief history and explanation. You see, I lost a wonderful younger brother in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. I miss him every day; he would be 38 now. I recall thinking back then that the attack constituted an act of war. I couldn't believe that there wasn't the moral clarity and certitude of purpose on the part of our government to prosecute a war against those who had attacked us. That lack of moral clarity persisted through the Desert Storm war, leaving Saddam in power, through the first bombing on the World Trade Center, through the embassy bombings, the USS Cole attack, etc., etc., etc. With the devastation of the attack on 9-11 finally, at long last, all Americans would see that we may not have thought ourselves at war, but an enemy was at war with us. The same America that fought World Wars I & II would surely unite to fight against an enemy that attacked us on our home soil - but I was wrong.

Even before the first strikes in Afghanistan many, particularly in the media, were questioning the action, opining that we would find ourselves in a quagmire. With the attacks in Iraq the same voices were heard. Now, as Iraq struggles to find a footing for democracy many who in the 1990's thought Saddam needed to be ousted and, if necessary, preemptive action taken have changed their mind, simply because it's not their guy doing the ousting.

President Bush is doing exactly what needs to be done - aggressively prosecuting the GWOT. The critics note that terrorists are flocking to Iraq to fight against Iraqi and US soldiers - to which I answer "Good. Get more of them together, rather than chasing them to the ends of the earth." To those who think Iraq is not part of the GWOT and that we should have left Saddam in power I ask, do you really think the world would be a better place with Saddam still in power?

This is the history that has influenced me. As Senator Zell Miller said at the beginning of his speech at the Republican National Convention [link]:

Since I last stood in this spot, a whole new generation of the Miller Family has been born: Four great grandchildren. Along with all the other members of our close-knit family -- they are my and Shirley's most precious possessions. And I know that's how you feel about your family also. Like you, I think of their future, the promises and the perils they will face. Like you, I believe that the next four years will determine what kind of world they will grow up in. And like you, I ask which leader is it today that has the vision, the willpower and, yes, the backbone to best protect my family? The clear answer to that question has placed me in this hall with you tonight. For my family is more important than my party. There is but one man to whom I am willing to entrust their future and that man's name is George Bush.

My family, and in fact all Americans, are too important to me. This blog will stray onto lesser topics regularly, my passions and interests. But it will likely always return to this vital effort.

Posted by Giacomo on 28 September 2004

Here are the Wikipedia entry on Pan Am 103 and the website for the Syracuse students.  The latter is very well done.

From my return post of December 29, 2005:

Lastly, I'd like to write briefly about my dad, who passed away eight days ago, on a professional level.  He was a remarkable physician, a cancer specialist in a way that really no cancer specialists are anymore.  He performed all manner of cancer surgery, soup to nuts, including the plastic reconstruction of any deformity created.  He guided the radiation therapy and chemotherapy for his patients.  He read their MRIs and CTs himself.  He looked at their pathology slides.  This was one-stop shopping cancer care, something that you need six or seven different doctors to provide now.  You might think that each of those six or seven physicians would be more highly informed in their particular area to optimize their portion of the care.  You would be wrong.  And you'd have to coordinate six or seven different physician offices to get anything done.

He retired four years ago, and had to be dragged kicking and screaming from his practice.  When he left, he spent the next two years staying in contact with his patients, and working with each of them to be sure they had the best follow-up care he could arrange.  That's something you don't see either.

I won't be writing here on a personal level.  That's something I did for his burial two days ago.  We miss you, Dad.  We all miss you very much.

If anyone is interested, here is the link to his obituary.

As Good An Indictment Of ObamaCare As You'll See

From The Cato Institute's Michael Tanner, in the pages of the NY Post.  He writes it from a "why should anyone trust the government" angle, but if you just focus on Obama's government healthcare takeover and want to convince yourself that that was a colossal and expensive mistake, well, read on.

For example, a recent survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation shows family premiums increasing by a whopping 9% this year, three times more than the previous year’s increase. The average family policy now costs more than $15,000 per year. Not only has ObamaCare failed to slow premium growth, but at least 2 percentage points of that increase is directly attributable to the health-care law’s provisions.

ObamaCare is also already reducing our health-insurance choices. The new law has already driven a number of insurance companies out of the market, meaning there will be less competition and fewer choices. Moreover, the new law has already cut back on flexible-spending accounts used by some 30 million workers, slashing permissible contributions in half and limiting what account funds can be used to pay for. And just released regulations from HHS may well eliminate most health savings accounts, effecting another 10 million workers and their families. And, of course, once the individual mandate kicks in, in 2014, assuming its not struck down by the Supreme Court, all of us will have to purchase a government-designed insurance plan, even if it is more expensive or contains benefits that we don’t want.

We also know that ObamaCare is going to cost us more in debt and taxes. A new study from the Congressional Budget Office concluded that the subsidies in the bill will add $1.36 trillion to the national debt over the first seven years after the bill is fully implemented. And at a time when 47% of Americans already pay no income tax, the bill’s tax credits will remove as many as 8.1 million more Americans from the tax rolls.

And we know that the health-care law will slash payments to physicians and hospitals, meaning it will be more difficult for us to find and see a physician. The government’s own actuaries estimate that these payment cuts could force as many as 15% of hospitals to close.

Let's see.  Fewer doctors and hospitals (reduced access) - check.  A huge increase in the national debt - check.  Reduced freedom of choice in health care insurance options - check.  Increasing levels of income redistribution - check.  Increased costs, more even than the previous rate of increase, for those reduced options and access - check.

It's no wonder the bill is steadily more unpopular.

[T]he Kaiser Family Foundation released its October tracking poll and found that only 34% of respondents have a favorable view of the Affordable Care Act, down from 41% in September. Notably, the decline was due to losing Democratic supporters, who dropped to 52% support from 65% month to month. Meanwhile, 51% of the public is opposed to the vast new government health-care entitlement, up from a prior 2011 average of 45%.

Shorter Andy Stern; Even Shorter F. A. Hayek

Mr. Stern, former head of SEIU: Central planning is good.

Mr. Hayek, economist: No, it's not.

I might remind Mr. Stern that China's 5 year plan is just that, a "plan."  Remember that Mr. Obama also had a "plan" for a boatload of "green jobs."  How's that workin' out for you?

Because They're Better Human Beings, That's Why

Seen on the wall of a Boston parking garage.

I feel, somehow, inferior.

Please, Not Valentine

The Red Sox, having stayed in house with Ben Cherington as GM, are now apparently on the verge of signing Bobby Valentine to manage the team in 2012.

That would make management 0 for 2 on the big decisions so far this offseason. Just what the team needs, a self-promoting gadfly manager who has failed everywhere else.  Yeah, know his Mets won a pennant in 2000 - and then promptly lost the Series to the Yankees.  Just what the Sox need.

11/30/11 1715: Here's MLB.com's Hot Stove gang talking about Valentine.  They seem more impressed with his accomplishments than I am, but also note that as manager "he is the show."  Self-promoting gadfly seems an apt descriptor.

The Joust The Facts "Quote Of The Day"

Coming today from the Wall Street Journal's Bret Stephens, on the subject of global warming climate change.

Consider the case of global warming, another system of doomsaying prophecy and faith in things unseen.

As with religion, it is presided over by a caste of spectacularly unattractive people pretending to an obscure form of knowledge that promises to make the seas retreat and the winds abate. As with religion, it comes with an elaborate list of virtues, vices and indulgences. As with religion, its claims are often non-falsifiable, hence the convenience of the term "climate change" when thermometers don't oblige the expected trend lines. As with religion, it is harsh toward skeptics, heretics and other "deniers." And as with religion, it is susceptible to the earthly temptations of money, power, politics, arrogance and deceit.

Deceit?  How about How about the climategate emails, versions 1.0 and 2.0?   Arrogance?  How about Phil Jones of East Anglia University and Michael Mann of Penn State?  Money?  How about James Hansen of NASA?  Power, politics?  How about the oracle himself, Al Gore?

Speaking of Mr. Gore, there is a legal aphorism that at least this site attributes to him:

When the law is on your side, argue the law. When the facts are on your side, argue the facts. When neither the law or the facts are on your side, hollar.

Given that Al Gore has been doing a lot more "hollaring" than arguing, perhaps the laws (of science) and the facts are not really on his side.

Exit Question:  Will Jon Huntsman need to "revise and extend" his own remarks on the topic?

HUNTSMAN: Listen, when you make comments that fly in the face of what 98 out of 100 climate scientists have said, when you call into question the science of evolution, all I'm saying is that, in order for the Republican Party to win, we can't run from science.

Politicians govern by concensus.  Scientists don't.

Don't Know Much Geography ... Or College Sports, Either

At Yahoo! Sports, in a feature blog called "The Post Game," writer Max Thompson smugly makes fun of ESPN for putting up an image of Minnesota during a story on Wisconson athletes Ryan Braun of the Milwaukee Brewers and the Green Bay Packers stellar quarterback Aaron Rodgers.  I borrowed the picture and show it below.

Okay, so a geography-challenged intern in the ESPN graphics department put up the wrong state image.  That's bad.  You know what's also bad?  When the smug writer who makes fun of it goofs up in the same post. 

"Wisconsin hockey is ranked #1 in the nation."  Err, no.   Teams that are currently 5-8-1 overall do not get ranked #1.  In fact, in the most recent USCHO poll not only are the Badgers not in the top 20, they're not even listed as "also receiving votes."  The honor, #1 in the nation, goes to Coach Mark Dennehy's mighty Merrimack College Warriors, of North Andover, Massachusetts.

If you're going to poke fun at ESPN, you'd better make sure you don't have any glaring, easily refudiatable* errors of your own.

*refudiatable -- I did that intentionally.

11/25/11 1305: You know, I knew I should have grabbed a screen-cap.  Check out the story now and the reference to the Badgers as #1 in hockey is gone.  Vanished into the internet memory hole, with no inkling of the prior error.  Here it is below as it now stands.  The reference to Badger hockey used to reside in the first paragraph.

Fisking Frum: A Multitude Of Non Sequiturs

David Frum, ostensibly a Republican, asks in New York Magazine "When did the GOP lose touch with reality?"  Judging by his composition it's a fair question to turn back on the inquisitor.

He starts out by trying to emphasize his Republican street cred.

I’ve been a Republican all my adult life. I have worked on the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal, at Forbes magazine, at the Manhattan and American Enterprise Institutes, as a speechwriter in the George W. Bush administration. I believe in free markets, low taxes, reasonable regulation, and limited government. I voted for John ­McCain in 2008, and I have strongly criticized the major policy decisions of the Obama administration.

Believes in free markets?  Check.  Low Taxes?  Check.  "Reasonable" regulation.  Well, one man's reasonble is another man's unreasonable.  Let's just file this one under "less regulation than Mr. Obama wants" and move on.  Limited government?  Check.  Voted for McCain in '08?  Given the other choice you'd kind of have to, so check.  Criticized the major policy decisions of the Obama administration?  Haven't we all, Mr. Frum.

So it's all good.  Until we hit the next paragraph.

America desperately needs a responsible and compassionate alternative to the Obama administration’s path of bigger government at higher cost. And yet: This past summer, the GOP nearly forced America to the verge of default just to score a point in a budget debate. In the throes of the worst economic crisis since the Depression, Republican politicians demand massive budget cuts and shrug off the concerns of the unemployed. In the face of evidence of dwindling upward mobility and long-stagnating middle-class wages, my party’s economic ideas sometimes seem to have shrunk to just one: more tax cuts for the very highest earners.

Let's take these one at a time, and see how the square with his assertions of his limited government/low tax/free market declarations.  First up: "the GOP nearly forced America to the verge of default just to score a point in a budget debate."  The GOP did nothing of the kind.  What the GOP did do was to insist on substantial budget cuts (limited government) and no tax increases (low tax) in exchange for increasing the debt ceiling.  Mr. Obama, on the other hand, wanted a blank check.  He was looking for a way to avoid any spending cuts while raising taxes on the upper earners - which analyses have shown is not enough to pay for such spending anyway, and which Mr. Obama himself admitted is the wrong medicine in a sluggish economy.

Next we have this: "In the throes of the worst economic crisis since the Depression, Republican politicians demand massive budget cuts and shrug off the concerns of the unemployed."  Okay, I think we're in agreement about the economy.  Where your reality testing is suspect, Mr. Frum, is in what follows that generally supportable statement.  Republican politicians have never demanded "massive budget cuts," only a reduction in the growth of future spending.  You've fallen into the baseline budgeting trap.  "Massive cuts" to beltway insiders and liberal journalists means decreasing the rate of growth of government spending from 10% to 4%.  To those of us in the real world that's a 4% increase in spending that would be a lot more affordable and reasonable than 10%.

I'm also concerned that you think Republicans "shrug off concerns of the unemployed".  I suspect you are referring to those politicians resisting the call to provide endlessly flowing unemployment benefits.  Already they've been extended to nearly 2 years, and Republicans are cruel to want to stop them there?  Studies show that extending unemployment benefits extends unemployment.  Or perhaps you're referring to the Republicans' insistance that Democrats who want this live by their "pay-go" standard and cut spending elsewhere to fund it.  Or maybe you're living in pure fantasy land, and you believe, as apparently the president does, that extending unemployment benefits "creates jobs."  Regardless, this is not "shrugging off concerns of the unemployed," and putting it that way is pure demagoguery of the sort I'd expect from Sen. Harry Reid, among others.

Let's move to your final preposterous assertion in that section, that Republicans simply want "more tax cuts for the very highest earners."  Aside from presidential candidates and their proposals for various flat, flatter, and flattest tax reforms (which would help the struggling private economy, many believe), is there anyone in Congress who has proposed cutting only the top marginal rate?  By the way, if you're going to suggest that preventing the rates from rising with expiration of the Bush cuts is a cut in marginal rates then you misunderstand the concept.  That is preventing an increase, not pushing for a cut.  Let's assume you really are for "low taxes," as you state.  Then wouldn't blocking a tax increase be desireable?

But there are more puzzling assertions in this essay.

It was not so long ago that Texas governor Bush denounced attempts to cut the earned-income tax credit as “balancing the budget on the backs of the poor.” By 2011, Republican commentators were noisily complaining that the poorer half of society are “lucky duckies” because the EITC offsets their federal tax obligations—or because the recession had left them with such meager incomes that they had no tax to pay in the first place. In 2000, candidate Bush routinely invoked “churches, synagogues, and mosques.” By 2010, prominent Republicans were denouncing the construction of a mosque in lower Manhattan as an outrageous insult. In 2003, President Bush and a Republican majority in Congress enacted a new ­prescription-drug program in Medicare. By 2011, all but four Republicans in the House and five in the Senate were voting to withdraw the Medicare guarantee from everybody under age 55.

I'll have to move swiftly though this miasma, in order not to bore the readers, but this is nonsense.

• The push to reform Medicare (by making it a grant program to buy insurance rather than a government provided insurance benefit) shows allegiance to private enterprise, to individual freedom of choice, but mostly to the principle of fixing future problems before they are unfixable.  Medicare's future unfunded liability is nearly $100 Trillion.  That's Trillion, with a T.  Those under 55 are ten years away from qualifying for Medicare.  Ten years. 
• The mosque in "lower Manhattan" was to be 2 blocks from Ground Zero of the 9-11 attacks, an understandably sensitive location.  Rather than an example of Americans being insensitive to Muslim sensibilities, it is instead an example of Muslims being insensitive to non-Muslim sensibilities.
• And Democrats (among others) have now so bastardized and warped the tax code that half of Americans pay no federal income tax.  That's not good for America, and in particular it's not good, for those who want a growing and vibrant economy, to stifle those who would provide jobs and economic growth with a steadily heavier burden of taxation.  You know what's at the end of the road of steadily more progressive taxation, don't you?

So Mr. Frum, what we have here is a non sequitur.  You assert that you want limited governnment, less regulation, low taxes and that you oppose Mr. Obama's policies.  Your objections show us, however, that you don't really want those things.  You ask in this article whether you're crazy.  You're not.  You are, however, deluding yourself if you think that Republicans should and will support Democrat, or even Democrat-lite policies of centralized control, bigger government, higher taxes, more regulation and balkanization, all of which stifle economic growth and freedom.

The question isn't "when did the GOP lose touch with reality?"  The question, Mr. Frum, is when did you become a Democrat?

*no time now, I hope to be adding some links later for reference.

11/21/11 2020: A ha!  I got the links added - and a few grammatical corrections as well.

One Reason Why Your Health Insurance Costs So Much

A little anecdote that may help explain some of the escalation in insurance premiums that people are about to find as year end approaches  - for reasons other than the colossally intrusive and costly ObamaCare.

I saw a patient in the office a couple of weeks ago.  A gentleman in his 40's, he had twisted his knee two months earlier and since had been bothered by knee swelling, pain along the joint line medially (the inside part of the knee), and a catching sensation which cause his knee to buckle when it occurred.  He was unable to squat or kneel.  I examined him after taking the history, finding an effusion in the knee (the swelling), sharply positive provocative testing for a meniscus tear (the McMurray and snap tests), and prominent joint line tenderness directly over the meniscus.  Plain x-rays showed no degenerative changes.  And there's one other thing.  This patient had a very similar problem with the other knee four years ago, and I had arthroscoped that knee removing a torn medial meniscus with an excellent outcome.

So, clearly, this man had a symptomatic torn meniscus, with most probably an unstable flap tear (producing that catching/buckling sensation).  This is about the most clearcut, obvious presentation you could have.  He had had symptoms for two months, and anti-inflammatories had not helped.  I, quite appropriately, suggested arthroscopic surgery to resect the torn meniscus.  I've examined thousands of knees, and I had seen this many times before.  Based on the plethora of findings given above I didn't need an MRI of this knee to confirm the diagnosis.  I thought that was what the insurance company wanted, to save money by eliminating unnecessary testing.  I was wrong.

The insurance company, a large HMO, refused to approve the surgery until the patient had an MRI to verify what I knew to be true.  I didn't need one, I told them, but they insisted. The patient had the MRI, and of course it demonstrated the torn meniscus.  We'll be going ahead with the surgery soon.

Trust the doctor?  Not on your life.  No, instead we need an expensive diagnostic study read by a radiologist who hasn't examined the patient, increasing the cost of care on this one patient.  Now picture thousands of orthopaedic surgeons and hundreds of thousands of patients annually having the insurance company second-guessing the experienced surgeon.  By the way, my practice has our own MRI, and I still tried not to use it.

I tried to save some health care dollars.  I really tried.  But the insurance company wouldn't let me.

You think this is bad?  Wait until I tell you about PT for rotator cuff tears.

Is Congress Is Authorized To Do This?

Newsbusters' Noel Sheppard notices MSNBC's Martin Bashir calling on Speaker of the House John Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor to either raise taxes on the "wealthiest" Americans or resign.  That's ridiculous enough, but I noticed another problem or two.  Martin Bashir is, as he proves in the transcript, both economically and politically ignorant.  First economics:

So here’s a message to the House leadership, Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader Mr. Cantor. 68 percent of Americans and 68 percent of all millionaires believe that it’s time to raise taxes on the wealthiest individuals so that this nation’s economy can start moving again.

"Raise taxes on the wealthiest individuals so that this nation's economy can start moving again?"  And that's going to jump start the economy and spur hiring how?  Do I need to cite the long list of economists, Republicans, and yes, Democrats who have chimed in that it's not a good idea to raise taxes in a down economy?  I could start with the President himself.

But that's only the warm-up act.  Referring to Congress, Mr. Bashir asks:

But honestly, what have they done? What have they done to address the persistently high level of unemployment? What have they done to reduce the vast gulf between the haves and the have-nots in America.

Is that the job of Congress?  To "reduce the vast gulf between the haves and the have-nots in America?"  Can anyone tell me where the Constitution authorizes the Legislative branch to intervene in that way?  Heck, does the Constitution authorize any branch of government to equalize economic results among the people?

I'm not going to belabor the point.  It's simply a shame that he's in a position to influence the debate on TV.

Oh, wait, sorry, he really isn't.  He's on MSNBC.

These OWS Jokes Practically Write Themselves

I've been watching with amusement the preposterous, unhelpful and ill-informed protests known as OWS, "Occupy Wall Street" as it were.  There are "Occupy" protests in other cities, including our own Boston locally, as well as Toronto, Oakland, Sydney, LA and a host of others.  Most are comprised of a relative few individuals, who claim, without justification, to represent the "99%", as in the 99% who aren't among the top 1% of annual income in the nation.

Every day there's another howler coming out of the movement.  We'll go randomly through a few of the amusing and occasionally disturbing vignettes.

Both Ace of Spades and James Taranto today wrote about the discovery that if you appear to be giving out free food (or anything else, really, for free), freeloaders will want to partake.  Imagine that.  OWS is slapped with the realization that resentment and a feeling of being abused can result from someone usurping your property rights and taking your stuff.  From Taranto a serious take:

In truth, the Obamavillians are learning why Obama is wrong--why socialism doesn't work. A society that makes a virtue of dependency ultimately encourages freeloading and grifting. The instinct to prevent it is a healthy one. A lot has been written about the similarities and differences between Obamaville and the Tea Party, and here is one: Whereas the latter arose out of the instinct to reward self-reliance and discourage dependency, the former is having it awakened by an encounter with the real world.

Ace's more humorous look at the dustup:

Yeah,what right do the homeless and prisoners have to represent themselves as society's downtrodden. Impostors! They're not oppressed like the college graduates with too much debt from pricey private colleges!...

Amazing... they don't want to share their own stuff with people they don't have any particular common bonds with. And they're resentful of Other people coming in and acting like they have the right to take their stuff...

But note within their little society, they themselves set up a hierarchy "those who belong" and "losers and derelicts we wish to exclude."

Do they not get that that's what they are to us?

Here Ace explains why money exists, a concept seemingly foreign to the occupiers.  Short answer: it's a medium of exchange for items of value.

I think you guys (again, the guys in this video) are working for the same reason as Peter Schiff: Money. Which is, in turn, simply a convenient unit of exchange for the most precious commodity in the world: Time.

When you buy a loaf of bread, you are giving up some of your time, in the convenient unit of exchange called money, by which you were paid for your time, for someone else's time.

This is why virtually everybody works.

And have you heard about the drummers?  The percussionists threatened to disrupt the occupation, as if identifying disruption were possible in such a ragtag organization.

The drummers’ refusal to be silenced has opened cracks in the leaderless movement. The general assembly that has formed to oversee the protests proposed to limit the drumming to two hours per day, but the drummers fought back.

Ah, but those cracks were healed when an historic accord was reached.

The Heritage Foundation took a conservative's look at what are, as best as anyone can tell, the demands of the occupiers.  Hijinks ensue.  Here's a snippet, with Demand #9 and parts of its response, but the whole piece is worth a read.

9: Passage of a comprehensive job and job-training act like the American Jobs Act to employ our citizens in jobs that are available with specialized training and by putting People to work now by repairing America’s crumbling infrastructure. We also recommend the establishment of an online international job exchange to match employers with skilled workers or employers willing to train workers in 21st century skills.

James Sherk, Senior Policy Analyst in Labor Economics at the Center for Data Analysis:

Public works projects will not reduce unemployment. Government spending does not create new wealth in the economy, it reallocates existing spending. Some workers get jobs on the public works project, at the expense of jobs that do not get created elsewhere in the economy...

Sadly, government job training programs also do not live up to their hype...  The government has not learned how to do effective job training. Fortunately, OWS do not have to wait for the government to act. Private sector online job exchanges like Monster.com already match millions of employers with workers every year.

Read the whole list of demands.  It's a giant Marxist wish-list.  I particularly like the demand for student loan relief.  Hey, no one held a gun to your head forcing you to go $150k in debt for your degree in primitive cultures, why should others be forced to pay it off for you?  I paid off my student loans, you pay off yours.  You know what else?  My wealthiest friend started out owning a gas station and working construction jobs.  Figure it out.

Finally, perhaps the most unintentinally amusing comment on the OWS protests comes from Massachusetts Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren, who claims, with curious pride, that

“I created much of the intellectual foundation for what they do,”

"Intellectual foundation."  You keep using those words.  I do not think they mean what you think they mean.