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A week ago today, the House of Representatives passed the very long and complex Waxman-Markey energy bill. This bill included 300 pages of amendments which were added by the Democratic leadership at 3:00 AM Friday morning. It is impossible that any of those voting on the bill could have read and understood this complete bill as amended. (Many of the amendments were apparently of the “subparagraph (c) of paragraph XXII is amended to replace AAAA by BBBB” type, which require careful and undisturbed thought to comprehend.)

This bill, should it become law, will have enormous impact on the lives of all Americans and on future generations. There was no particular reason why it had to be voted on last Friday, except possibly for Nancy Pelosi’s vacation plans. It says much about the character of the majority of members of this House that they passed it without reading and understanding it.

What would we think of a financial manager/advisor who invested all of a family’s money into a particular investment without doing serious due diligence–who, for example, put all the money into purchasing a fast-food franchise without bothering to read either the prospectus or the franchise agreement? How about “violation of fiduciary responsibility?” What this House has done is similar in principle, though obviously much further-reaching in its implications.

Dear liberal and “progressive” friends: When you talk about drastically expanding the role of government in American society, remember that “government” is not some abstract and benign entity. Are you really comfortable having every detail of your life planned for you by people who take their responsibilities with as little seriousness as that demonstrated by the House last week?

If government by the people is “democracy,” and government by an elite is “aristocracy”…I wonder what the proper Greek would be for “government by clowns”?

A young lad loves a maiden
she likes another one
that other marries another
whose heart and hand he won

It is an old, old story
yet new with every start,
and every time it happens
it breaks a loving heart.

–Heinrich Heine

Poetry, of course, is notoriously difficult to translate. The Heine translations of which the above is an example (done by Max Knight and Joseph Fabry) are among the fairly rare examples in which the poem as rendered in the target language preserves much of the rhyme and rhythm of the original. This is done, though, at the sacrifice of precision of meaning: even with my mostly-forgotten high school and college German, I can tell that the line

Dem bricht das Herz entzwei

doesn’t say anything about “breaking a loving heart”–rather, if refers to “breaking a heart in two.” Also, the translation uses some rather strange English phrasings (new with every start?) Still, though, I think this kind of translation is a very nice supplement to the more-precise-but-drier translations which seem to be much more common.

A few more Heine poems from the same translators:
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In a statement intended to help justify the proposed “cap and trade” energy tax, Barack Obama said:

At a time of great fiscal challenges, this legislation is paid for by the polluters who currently emit the dangerous carbon emissions that contaminate the water we drink and pollute the air we breathe.

There are so many things wrong with this that one scarcely knows where to begin.
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Joshua Muravchik, writing in Commentary:

The most surprising thing about the first half-year of Barack Obama’s presidency, at least in the realm of foreign policy, has been its indifference to the issues of human rights and democracy. No administration has ever made these its primary, much less its exclusive, goals overseas. But ever since Jimmy Carter spoke about human rights in his 1977 inaugural address and created a new infrastructure to give bureaucratic meaning to his words, the advancement of human rights has been one of the consistent objectives of America’s diplomats and an occasional one of its soldiers.

This tradition has been ruptured by the Obama administration. The new president signaled his intent on the eve of his inauguration, when he told editors of the Washington Post that democracy was less important than “freedom from want and freedom from fear. If people aren’t secure, if people are starving, then elections may or may not address those issues, but they are not a perfect overlay.”

There is, of course, some truth in Obama’s point. If people are starving, they are likely to care more about their next meal than about what may seem to them as the relatively abstract rights to voting, free speech, etc. But what Obama is missing here is that the cause-and-effect flows in both directions. Societies that have economic and political freedom are far more likely to develop economically–up to a point where people can think about things other than basic survival–than those that do not.
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An article in the Israeli publication Ma’ariv wonders: Where are all those demonstrators who so loudly denounced Israel during its Gaza operation? Why aren’t they out there protesting the beatings and killings of Iranians at the hands of the Iranian government?

All the peace-loving and justice-loving Europeans, British professors in search of freedom and equality, the friends filling the newspapers, magazines and various academic journals with various demands for boycotting Israel, defaming Zionism and blaming us and it for all the ills and woes of the world—could it be that they have taken a long summer vacation? Now of all times, when the Basij hooligans have begun to slaughter innocent civilians in the city squares of Tehran? Aren’t they connected to the Internet? Don’t they have YouTube? Has a terrible virus struck down their computer? Have their justice glands been removed in a complicated surgical procedure (to be re-implanted successfully for the next confrontation in Gaza)?

and

A source who is connected to the Iranian and security situation, said yesterday that if Obama had shown on the Iranian matter a quarter of the determination with which he assaulted the settlements in the territories, everything would have looked different. “The demonstrators in Iran are desperate for help,” said the man, who served in very senior positions for many years, “they need to know that they have backing, that there is an entire world that supports them, but instead they see indifference. And this is happening at such a critical stage of this battle for the soul of Iran and the freedom of the Iranian people. It’s sad.”

via Robert Avrech and Soccer Dad.

In a famous episode of The Twilight Zone, aliens come to earth and declare their desire to help humankind in every possible way. Their benign intentions seem confirmed when it is discovered that they have in their possession a book titled To Serve Man.

Turns out it’s a cookbook.

Allen West, who is running for Congress in Florida, very cleverly uses this episode as a metaphor for the current political situation.

Investors Business Daily (6/15) has an item on proposed legislation which would force the reduction of the interchange/discount fees which are charged by credit card companies to retailers. The legislation would “let merchants collectively negotiate take-it-or-leave-it fees with issuers”–something that would surely be a violation of the antitrust laws if not specifically enabled by legislation.

The proposal would be harmful to banks which are MasterCard and Visa issuers, but would be particularly harmful to American Express because of the way in which its business is structured. (Disclosure: I’m both an Amex shareholder and an Amex bondholder, although these positions do not represent a very substantial portion of my overall portfolio.)

What this legislation will do, if passed, is to transfer wealth/income from the investors, executives, and employees of American Express to the investors, executives, and employees of retail companies. If passed, if would reinforce again the growing impression that the most important single factor in the success or failure of an American business lies in the strength of its relationship with the politicians.
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A little song in honor of Brian Deese, Obama’s point man on auto industry restructuring issues and especially General Motors…with apologies to Gilbert & Sullivan.

When I was a lad, I was smart you see
So I went to Yale to get a law degree
I studied hard and I impressed some profs
But I thought I could do better so I blew it off

(he thought he could do better so he blew it off)

I quit and went to work for Hillary’s campaign
And they were really quite impressed with my most excellent brain
When Clinton dropped out Obama wanted me
And now I rule the U.S. auto industree

(when Clinton dropped out Obama wanted he
That’s why he rules the U.S. auto industree)

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Thomas Sowell has been re-reading the works of Edmund Burke, and finds the words of this philosopher to be very relevant to our current era.

I wonder if Obama, during his much-heralded passage through the university system, ever found time to read Burke and other writers (Hayek, for example) who are outside of the “progressive” worldview?

(via Common Sense & Wonder)

And Victor Davis Hanson suggests that Obama might have a little more depth in his understanding of the world had he ever owned a small farm with a difficult neighbor.

Dresden, once known as “Florence on the Elbe” because of its beauty and culture, is now best known for its destruction by British and American bombers in February of 1945. “Dresden” is the name of a haunting movie, originally made for German television, about a love affair in the doomed city.

Dresden is of course also the German city that Barack Obama intends to visit–for reasons best known to himself–during his current trip to Europe. It seems like this would be an appropriate time to review the film (which I watched a couple of months ago via Netflix) and to use it as a springboard for discussion of the Dresden bombing and of the WWII strategic bombing campaign in general.

Here’s a brief synopsis of the film. I’ve tried to minimize the spoilers, but some are inevitable.
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Here are some items I thought might be of interest to Chicago Boyz and Chicago Grrlz and Readerz.

Megan McCardle on the moral infrastructure of capitalism.

via the Assistant Village Idiot, who adds thoughts of his own.

The seen and the unseen–an important article on political decision-making, written by a law school professor and drawing on the work of Frederic Bastiat. Highly relevant to the discussion over Obama’s Supreme Court nominee.

via Betsy

A long and well-written comment on my post the age of blather by kathteach. I am (sadly) willing to believe her when she says that few students now learn the art of reading carefully and analytically: however, I remain unconvinced that jargon such as “self-to-self connections” really helps in addressing the problem. Anyhow, the comment (at the end of the thread, at least at the moment) deserves to be read.

Bill Waddell has a baseball analogy for the way in which certain F500 manufacturing companies are run. But after reading about the backround of Obama’s point man on General Motors, I’ve been racking my brains trying to extend the analogy. Maybe someone who was selected as manager of a baseball team after impressing the owner while working on his (the owner’s) campaign for the city council?

Or maybe another analogy entirely.

Now, Brian Deese is probably–unlike the political appointees mocked by Gilbert & Sullivan in the above song–a very bright guy. He may even be a briliant guy. But I venture to say he would never have been selected for this job if his career path had actually been centered around working for companies that actually make things and sell them. Nor, of course, if he had the precise background and skills that he does have but had been working for the losing campaign.

Diana Senechal, guest-blogging at Joanne Jacobs, tells the following story:

I run two lunchtime literature clubs at my school. The fourth graders just finished reading A Little Princess. During our discussions, I encourage delving into the text and discussing it on its own terms. I am not a big fan of “accountable talk,” “making predictions,” “making connections,” and so forth when they assume precedence over the subject matter itself.

One student brought up the part where Sara spends her money on hot buns for a beggar girl. “She made a self-to-self connection,” the student said. I felt sorry that students are learning such ghastly terminology, however well meant. Why are students not encouraged to say, “She understood how the girl felt” or “She felt compassion for the girl”?

Why, indeed? It’s bad enough to impose verbiage like “self-to-self connection” on college students: to do it to a 4th grader is really unforgiveable. It adds nothing to understanding–indeed, it very likely interferes with the true understanding and appreciation of the story by creating an emotional distance.

Strange, awkward, and unnatural verbal formulations, used ritualistically and without contributing to understanding, are becoming increasingly common in our society: although this phenomenon is arguably at its worst in education, it is by no means limited to that field. These word and phrases are not similar to the traditional jargon of a profession or trade. “Self-to-self connections” is not the same kind of thing as “amp” or even “kanban.”
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A few items for your Monday reading pleasure:

In a commencement speech, the CEO of Questar Corporation takes on some popular myths about energy.

A professor of English who teaches at the U.S. Naval Academy has thoughts about the teaching and mis-teaching of his subject:

We professors just have to remember that the books are the point, not us. We need, in short, to get beyond literary studies. We’re not scientists, we’re coaches. We’re not transmitting information, at least not in the sense of teaching a discipline. But we do get to see our students react, question, develop, and grow. If you like life, that’s satisfaction enough.

Interesting description of the typical reaction of his students to Madame Bovary, and about the ways in which he tries to establish a connection between this character’s feelings and their own.

(via Newmark’s Door)

Finally, some not-so-cheerful thoughts from Arnold Kling:
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Fortune (5/25) has a story about a Duluth, MN startup called Magnetation. The company’s founders (now 78 and 83) have developed a process for recovering useable iron ore from the millions of tons of tailings left as waste from previous mining activities. There are millions of tons of this stuff in northern Minnesota. The Fortune story isn’t available on-line yet, but the company website is here.

Not all startups are centered around computer technology or biotech.

It seems that General Electric has hired a group of Barbarians to help them with their Internet marketing activities. No, really.

The said Barbarians have located an interesting data visualization tool…an interactive map of the U.S. with lots of data about power sources and the grid. It shows energy source mix by state, individual power plants, the geography of solar and wind potential, and key elements of the grid as it now stands and with extensions which some have proposed.

I thought this might be an interesting reference for our many discussions here about energy policy, economics, and technology.

The Obama administration is looking at pressuring Israel to change the status quo regarding that country’s nuclear arsenal.

Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller, speaking Tuesday at a U.N. meeting on the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), said Israel should join the treaty, which would require Israel to declare and relinquish its nuclear arsenal.

“Universal adherence to the NPT itself, including by India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea, … remains a fundamental objective of the United States,” Ms. Gottemoeller told the meeting.
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Obama has nominated Cass Sunstein, who he knows from the University of Chicago, to be “regulatory czar.” Apparently, Sunstein has proposed that web sites be required to link to opposing opinions. He has argued that the Internet is anti-democratic because users can choose to view only those opinions that they want to see, and has gone so far as to say:

A system of limitless individual choices, with respect to communications, is not necessarily in the interest of citizenship and self-government,” he wrote. “Democratic efforts to reduce the resulting problems ought not be rejected in freedom’s name.

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Andrew C McCarthy, former U.S. Attorney for the southern district of New York, responds to a request from AG Eric Holder for his participation in a task force on detention policies–a request which McCarthy (who led the terrorism prosecution against Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and eleven others in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing) chose to decline. Here’s why:

I admire the lawyers of the Counterterrorism Division, and I do not question their good faith. Nevertheless, it is quite clear—most recently, from your provocative remarks on Wednesday in Germany—that the Obama administration has already settled on a policy of releasing trained jihadists (including releasing some of them into the United States). Whatever the good intentions of the organizers, the meeting will obviously be used by the administration to claim that its policy was arrived at in consultation with current and former government officials experienced in terrorism cases and national security issues. I deeply disagree with this policy, which I believe is a violation of federal law and a betrayal of the president’s first obligation to protect the American people. Under the circumstances, I think the better course is to register my dissent, rather than be used as a prop.

Read the whole thing.

For those who don’t remember just what a serious matter the fight against terrorism is, here’s a reminder.