Month: April 2009

South Park Foreign Policy

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Via Instapundit comes this report on the U.S. struggle to deal with Somali pirates:

Gen. David Petraeus, who came to the Capitol to talk about a wide variety of issues, told a House committee Friday that just trying to outrun or block pirates from boarding cargo ships isn’t enough to deter sea bandits off the Somali coast who are becoming more aggressive. The Pentagon is starting to study how to better protect merchant shipping, but hasn’t yet come up with a formal plan.

They should just ask the writers of South Park:

Of course, we should shoot all pirates regards of race, ethnicity or creed. A pirate is a pirate. 

Monkeywrenching socialism – Introduction

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I always thought that if we every got within shouting distance of a tipping point where we would become a socialist country somebody would start up an extended discussion on monkeywrenching socialism. Nobody else seems to have done so (feel free to educate me on other efforts in comments) so I thought I’d put in my two bits with a blog post series.

Let me be clear as to what I am talking about. This is not about felonious conduct. It’s not a mirror image of left-wing monkeywrenching. It’s about exploiting a simple fact of life, that socialism doesn’t work and the socialist ideology makes headway only when the long-term effects are hidden or obfuscated. Monkeywrenching socialism is about improving society across the board from politics to economics to culture by introducing moments of clarity and insisting that there is no moral or ethical high ground for a wrong system that has caused as much damage in the world.

Peacefully adopted socialism depends on people feeling a misplaced sense of loyalty to the corpse of the system that socialism is usurping. People know that something is wrong but they ‘play fair’ long after the socialists have started their long march through the institutions and played dirty pool to tear the guts out of the old order before anybody notices.

More soon.

Mis Speak or Think?

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As my family converged this week, Alena got used to being called Sarah and Sarah Tessie. Their mother doesn’t really confuse them – well, I hope I don’t. And Bush, well, he had trouble with words. Still, does anyone feel a little worried that Napolitano’s problems are not “misspeaks” but “misthinks.” That is, does she believe terrorism doesn’t exist? That we should be more worried about returning vets than those who would have destroyed, say, Brooklyn Bridge? Is she capable (and I would think for someone in her position it would be important to do so) of distinguishing between actions covered in civil and criminal courts, between actions that enforce laws on the books and political actions? Lemuel Shaw (father-in-law to Melville) was hung in effigy after the Sims trial. He knew politics, he knew his beliefs – he was an abolitionist; but he also recognized the law. I’d just as soon we didn’t have good people enforcing bad laws. But laws can be adjusted; precedence can’t – laws should be seen as, well, laws.

Perhaps I simply haven’t enough context or knowledge; perhaps she isn’t as bad as this seems. I’m not always impressed by the level of CNN’s interviews. Nonetheless, although I’m less critical than some on this blog of illegal immigration, I fear this hints at further, deeper troubles ahead.

Here is a CNN interview; transcript from Hot Air.

KING: A lot of Democrats in Congress want to you investigate [Joe Arpaio]. They think he is over the line. He says he is just enforcing the law and the problem is the federal government.
 
NAPOLITANO: Well, you know, Sheriff Joe, he is being very political in that statement, because he knows that there aren’t enough law enforcement officers, courtrooms or jail cells in the world to do what he is saying.
 
What we have to do is target the real evil-doers in this business, the employers who consistently hire illegal labor, the human traffickers who are exploiting human misery.
 
And yes, when we find illegal workers, yes, appropriate action, some of which is criminal, most of that is civil, because crossing the border is not a crime per se. It is civil. But anyway, going after those as well.

Decaying in Front of Our Eyes

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I have stumbled across a couple of musings on the MSM from different perspectives that throw into sharp relief a lot of the problems with our present media that we regularly discuss on this site. First, from my friend Jim Wright comes an insider’s view of the biggest Alaska story to hit since Sarah Palin: “Alaskan Middle School Students Scare Moose to Death“.

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Municipal bond troubles ahead

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The municipal bond market is a critical source of funding for states and local government in the United States. These bonds are traditionally free of Federal taxes (assuming they meet some criteria, which most of them do) which allows them to raise money about 25% cheaper than equivalent taxable bonds of the same credit quality, all else being equal. Bonds are also often exempt from state taxes in the state that originated them, a concept that required a 2008 supreme court ruling because of allegations that it violated interstate commerce rights.

In general, municipal bonds have lower default rates than other equivalent bonds based on prior history, and the recovery rates for those bonds which DO default is higher, as well. As a result of these historical trends, municipalities are generally able to issue debt at lower interest rates and find buyers.

While history is important, I would be wary of the market right now. As you can see in this article, the governor of California is starting to request that the Federal government provide a backstop for their bonds. In a prior article, I noted that the entire issuance of an Illinois bond sale went to a single purchaser, who just happened to be a big bank receiving large amounts of Federal funds (it helps sometimes to have lots of people from Illinois in the White House, I guess).

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