Punditry Fail

Gerard Henderson writes a regular column in the Sydney Morning Herald, and he is, like many of his ilk, dependably predictable.

The fashionable left-wing view of former president George W. Bush is he invaded Muslim lands and instituted draconian national security legislation - the embodiment of which is the Guantanamo Bay military prison. According to the leftist line, all this was a manifestation of a world view labelled neo-conservatism.

Of course, al-Qaeda's attacks in the US - which culminated in the events of September 11, 2001 - took place before the ''coalition of the willing'' (US, Britain, Australia and Poland) invaded Iraq. Also, Bush was never a neo-conservative since he has been a political conservative all his adult life. But facts rarely suffice to diminish a convenient theory. And Bush - war monger overseas and human rights oppressor at home - is a phenomenon widely referred to at universities and within sections of the media.

Well, Gerry, how was it not a manifestation of Bush’s policies – which were disingenuously referred to as “neo-liberalism”, not neo-conservatism – when he was the architect (ostensibly; Cheney was the brain[-in-a-jar] behind the administration, after all) of the actions, when it was his Defence Secretary’s bungles that screwed up first Afghanistan and then Iraq?

As for al-Qaeda’s “attacks’ [sic] “in” the US, can you enlighten me as to which ones occurred before [culminating] “in the events of September 11, 2001”? If you mean the USS Cole, that was not “in” the US, and if you mean the ’93 bombing of the World Trade Centre, that wasn’t al-Qaeda. As you damn well know.

Apologists for Bush like to point out that Obama has ordered more drone strikes than his predecessor, and they like to claim that there are no general protests being raised against them. That, too, is false.

Conflating the actions of France’s President Hollande in Mali with Bush’s actions in Afghanistan and Iraq doesn’t help the argument either. In Mali, after all, there is a legitimate government being supported by European efforts, not toppled. And adding Algeria to the mix again points to a fundamentally different set of conditions as if it was equivalent.

That’s the kind of fuzzy thinking that got Bush into trouble and America mired in wars that have made getting out of the financial crisis it’s in significantly more difficult, as well as making any effort to help others nearly impossible. It’s also the kind of misdirection that left many people believing that Saddam Hussein was involved in September 11 and believing that letting Osama get away wasn’t a big deal.

It’s flat-out ignorant. It certainly doesn’t deserve a paycheck.

It’s the Stupid Economy

When politicians here talk about how they’re going to be all about the economy, they mean inflation and they mean interest rates and they’re blowing smoke.

I don’t care what Tony Abbott thinks the unemployment rate is about
because he isn’t really going to do anything about it, at least not anything I want from government.
I want Medicare and I want major infrastructure builds, including the National Broadband Network (even though my internet speeds are fine, thanks), because these things help people and that’s what government is for.

Government isn’t just about the economy, and when that’s the focus all kinds of people get hurt, especially the most vulnerable of us. Cracking down on dole bludgers was a great gimmick for Reagan and Howard and Thatcher, but it hurt people and had absolutely no net effect for the rest of us.

Are interest rates too high? Where? Greece? Not here, so why are house prices so crazy? That’s not unemployment and it’s not government spending. It’s a lack of oversight.

Labor reneged on its budget surplus promise? I never wanted them to make that commitment, especially not when they were trying to keep us out of the GFC, which they managed well. Deficits are not evil in themselves and don’t represent mismanagement. It’s amazing that there are still people who think it’s like a credit card.

Every government spends money. I know how I want them to spend it, and vote for the party with the policies that spends accordingly. Promising to not spend is not going to win my vote.

Hot
We've had to add a new colour to the weather maps to account for temperatures higher than we've ever charted in the last hundred years.  And over the last week we've had terrific wildfires in Tasmania, New South Wales . . . well, pretty much everywhere.  And yet . . . .

When I moved here, Australia was in the midst of a mult-year drought.  This only officially broke in the last couple of years.  In fact, this year and last have been pretty cool and definitely wetter than my earlier experience.  Fire was a big deal then, too, and often started even before Christmas.  This year and last, that hasn't been quite the case, at least not anecdotally, if news media reportage constitutes anecdotal.  But after seeing the Tasmania reports, when we were told that yesterday would present "catastrophic" danger of fire, most of us took it seriously (except, allegedly, for three teenagers, who thought they'd see what happened if they set one off; thankfully the fire service were able to deal with it, and the police were quick to locate the suspects).  After all, with all this rain, there's been a lot of growth, and that means plenty of tinder for bush fires.

So it proved to be.  Not many properties affected, but lots of fire and tough conditions.  And yet . . . .

Today is cooler, which makes fighting fires easier, but the temperatures are set to soar over the coming days and to stay high for a while, including and in some respects to do a "heat dome" over the middle of the country, which is causing a pressure system to stay in place longer, allowing hotter temps, and hence the need for an expanded colour scale.

And yet in the news reports of the fires and of the weather nobody says "climate change".  Nobody says "global warming".

I heard one news reporter asking a meteorology expert whether the conditions were a change, a "new normal", and if we could expect more and worse.  Neither one said "climate change" or "global warming", but danced around the topic.

Not helpful.  Long periods in the high 30's, in the 40's, and expectations of temperatures in the 50's don't just mean we're going to have to be more careful about fires, that we're going to be hot sometimes.  They mean we're on "watch and act" status with the expectation of hearing the call to evacuate . . . globally.

Climate change is real, and cleaning out the gutters and cutting back the bush around our homes is only going to help a little.  Even when we use those activities metaphorically.

(Here's a map showing the weather move across the country.  No hot pink yet, but it'll come.)

This Is Why We Can't Have Nice [Schools]
The NRA, after skulking off into what turned out to be wholly temporary obscurity, including shutting down their Facebook page (they have friends?), has returned with some truly awe-inspiring gun-nut belligerence.  Armed guards in schools is what we need to keep our kids safe, and less violence in video games and t.v. and movies (and in the home, maybe, do you think, like fewer guns lying around . . . o.k., no, not so much that part).

Never mind that there are plenty of schools already with armed guards, including at Columbine, even when that school massacre was perpetrated, more guns is always the answer.

Write to your representatives in Washington, in your State capitol, in your county government, in your municipality . . . write to everyone.  Tell them you want regulations and tell them they can't have your vote if they take one more dime from these asshats.

I'm writing to mine every day until I get an answer and a commitment.

Update
Arm the priests!

Hellhounds on the Trail
Really?  The name of the company that sold the rifle used in Connecticut was Cerberus? As in the three-headed dog that guards the hell of ancient Greece?

And we wonder about American gun culture.

It's damned.

I don't care what else they do, these people need to step up, and not just sell off.

A Port Arthur Moment
In 1996, a madman killed 35 people in Port Arthur, Tasmania.  The response included something unexpected from the Prime Minister at the time, John Howard: gun control.

How many mass shooting has the U.S. had now?  Had even just since Columbine?  Had just in the last year?

Mr. President, it's your Port Arthur moment.  The hell with the "fiscal cliff".  Make gun control happen.

Light Speeds

The plan to build a light rail link from Sydney’s eastern suburbs, starting at Randwick and travelling through Surry Hills, to the CBD, including closing off a stretch of George Street to traffic, is a good step forward, at least for the beach suburbs, up to a point, but isn’t going to do much beyond that.

The traffic sticking points aren’t limited to getting to and from work in peak hours along Anzac Parade or the airport. The real problems are coming in from the south, where you’re suddenly dumped into single-lane entries through Newtown, or from the West, where Parramatta Road becomes a bottleneck, or from the North, where the bridge traffic has to be funnelled into the streets of the CBD.

Light rail already exists in part of the inner west, but serves a limited community and is vastly underused in consequence. Extending that part of the system would make sense, but faced considerable community opposition because the planned extensions were so poor. (Residents in Ultimo and Pyrmont, for example, can walk faster anywhere they want to go in the CBD than waiting around for a tram was going to help with.)

So thank goodness the foresighted planners this time have also included another 33 kilometres of highway to dump cars into the city, and a truncation of bus service.

Three to five years before we take one step forward, two steps back, and three over to the side to wait until something better gets some funding.

Paying for It

This is a damn shame. Unions have been trouble from the start, although usually trouble for employers trying to exploit their employees, but also admittedly because of corruption, such as the infiltration of unions by organised crime and the kind of machine-politics exploitation exemplified in On the Waterfront. But the drive to eliminate collective bargaining from American workplaces isn’t about those problems. Legislatures enacting these bills talk about economics, and that’s true, but not the way they’d have you believe. Unions, public or private, aren’t taking employers (which, in the case of public service unions would be taxpayers, ultimately) for a ride. They’re trying to get a good deal for working people and the deal is often predicated on pensions. Pensions aren’t money now; they’re money later. Instead of having the money up front and saving it, employees rely on their employers to help pay for their retirement. The problem comes in, then, when those employers find themselves faced with the bill for the agreement. Then they want to renege. They’re welshers.

Knowing that you will have to cut a deal from time to time, and that the deal will mean less cash in hand now or later, incentivises employers to find a way to disarm workers. Republican legislatures are complicit in making sure that working for a living only lasts as long as employment itself does. They clearly believe that unless you are an employer yourself you’re not worth the cost of your labor, certainly not after you’ve stopped working. That’s why they want to gut Medicare and Social Security and unemployment benefits. They call these things “entitlements” and talk about “dependency”. And we let them get away with it.

There’s nothing wrong with regulating unions. Killing them doesn’t help the economy, however. It means only that the 1% have a better chance of growing their share of the economy at the expense of everyone else.

These are people who believe they shouldn’t have to pay for what they use. They think we should pay for it and are doing everything they can to make that happen.

$
The problem with the House Republicans isn't that they can't do math or aren't honest - or, anyway, not the main problem - it's that they have Boehner as leader, and he is on record as having specifically run for national office because he thought his own taxes were too high.  And this is characteristic of every single one of these asshats: they are selfish, they never learned to play well with others, and they admit it, every day, but the jerks that elected them and keep voting for them are equally selfish.  Except for the ones who can't do math and aren't honest.  Well, maybe them, too.  Go, Whigs!  It's coming true faster than you realize.

The Man of Bronze

A "new" Doc Savage novel? Well, according to the blurb on the back, it is, from a previously unfinished "Kenneth Robeson" (i.e., Lester Dent & his corporate stable of writers) manuscript.

I haven't gotten very far with it, but it's about twice as thick as any of the others I've ever read and otherwise just as identical.  I'll see if it's got the whole crew of sidekicks or focuses on just Monk & Ham, as they often tended to do.  Maybe Pat will show up, too.

A Short Walk in the Woods
Although the track from Perry's Lookout to the Blue Gum forest is less than three kilometers, it's pretty much three kilometers straight down and then, for the bushwalk on Saturday, straight back up after lunch.  I haven't done stairmaster like this since ever.  But the Blue Gum Forest? What a sight.

Not so much me, of course.  Glad of the hiking poles, though.

Credentials
I've joined the Australian citizenry more fully than even a passport will provide for:

I own a barbeque.

Lamb, potatoes, cauliflower, for a first effort. Next up: sausages.  We'll get to the rest as we go along getting used to.

Win/Fail
I don't think I'm going to get over the Obama win very soon, or the Republican loss.  Yes, we can, we said, and then we did; Yes, we will, we said, and then we did.  Repugnants only managed: oh, no, you mustn't! Heavens!

I have hope still for what may yet be accomplished, but the change we voted for is assured by the re-election of Barack Obama: ain't no stopping us, now!

Harry Reid: step up!

House Dems: step up!

President Obama: take a bow, and then step up!

So much time, so little time to do it in - until 2016, and then who will it be?  That's the only thing that's worried me since 2008: Biden?  Clinton?  Probably not.  So who's next?  C'mon, guys, Elizabeth Warren?  Hey, I like.

Fun
The "Run4Fun" is . . . yes, a fun run.  Held out at the Olympic Park each year, you finish inside the main stadium, which is . . . fun.  This year's result, well, it's better than I expected, so maybe I can build on it from here. My first City2Surf was only another 17 minutes for a race that's 4k longer, but I was younger and fitter (the latter not so much, the former is all relative these days), so my plan is really just to come in under 90 minutes next year.  This one is pretty much the end of the racing season, as from here on it gets a bit too warm even in the mornings to be running that hard.

Running the City


I understand why, but I also disagree with the decision to cancel the NYC marathon. O.k., the city is struggling to clean itself up, get the power back on everywhere, cope with the devastation of entire neighborhoods, and Central Park is a mess, but I still think they should have kept the race on.

Surge

It seems hard to believe that a late-season storm could be such a big deal, but Sandy looks to be a huge . I expect there will be significant damage, although my early impressions were that it’d be mostly affect coastal resort property and infrastructure (especially if you count beaches as “infrastructure”, as there will be a lot of sand lost). Then I saw the picture of that building crane’s boom bent over backward.

I suppose that the replica HMS Bounty pulled out to weather the storm, rather than try to stay in a harbor, so as not to be crashed ashore, but it doesn’t sound good for the lost crew members.

And other losses? Hard to believe it, but right now it’s going to actually harm Obama’s chances of getting back in. I do not look forward to hearing his failure to be re-elected was due to the storm, however. After all, he should be solid in most of the affected States in the first place.

Well, stay home, and I hope everyone’s stocked up on bread and milk. (Why those two? Especially if the power goes, what are you going to do? Make cheese sandwiches?)

Coming Out Swinging

The President did well in the third debate. Romney did o.k., which is important. He didn’t fall over when he was pushed, but Obama was fairly effective in rebutting claims and pushing on Mittens’ policies and campaigning. My favourite line has to be the “horses and bayonets”.

But zingers don’t win debates and debates aren’t themselves what win elections. Where Obama has not done well is two-fold: attacking R-money, as the President has done over the entire campaign, is not the same as having policies, and if he’s got them, they’re the weak point Willard consistently points to, that they are four more years.

The last four years have no doubt been hard on America, as they have been elsewhere (and I am thankful for Australia’s currently robust economy and hope for more of the same or better; not that I’m likely to get either, at least not for long). There has been nothing dramatic to change people’s perceptions, even with 5 million “new” jobs and an overall decrease in unemployment, a decrease that appears to have resulted in treading water economically.

Obama has done well: Don’t Ask is gone, universal health care is closer than it’s ever been, we’re (mostly) out of Iraq and on our way out of Afghanistan. Killing people, even Osama bin Laden, whether with ground troops or the increased use of drone strikes, is not something I think is worthy of credit. Bailing out the automobile industry is.

People go on and on about deficits. They look at Greece and Spain and say: not us, thanks. But they don’t see that the austerity measures such as those proposed by Romney-Ryan are a significant part of how those countries got there. They look at Britain and see bipartisan austerity without recognising the cost it’s had to the society. Romney says that government doesn’t create jobs and that it shouldn’t be in the business of investing in businesses as if that was the same as investing in research and development. But business is where research and development needs to be conducted right now, because that creates jobs. It’s also a way to increase businesses starting up in the U.S. and creating jobs. The U.S. government has, in the past, directly created jobs, and it can do so again, investing in infrastructure development and long-needed upgrades and repairs. Deficits don’t matter. They can be reversed and they can be written down. Austerity has long since been proven a poor way to restore a nation’s economy. And let’s not let people like Mr. 1% get away with comparing Obama’s path to that of Greece. Greece has got a serious problem with tax avoidance, something R-money knows well and knows from first-hand experience.

Obama gets two out of three debates, but in the next two weeks he can still lose the election, and it’s his to lose. Unfortunately it’s too late to point to websites, and it’s too late to put up policies. We have to want four more years more than they want the next eight.

Round 2
I missed Biden vs. Ryan, although I have enjoyed some of the commentary I caught up with.  Seems Joe did a good job roasting the Congressman.  But, now back in town, I caught up with Democrats Abroad Australia for a public viewing of the 2nd Presidential debate on CNN.  This time I'll give the win to Obama.

The President was on-message, and engaged Romney - and Romney's policies - well.  He didn't let Mittens get away with lies, which was good.  The moderator was also effective, to a point, in keeping both candidates to the format, stopping R-money when he tried to get the last word, although Obama was the more likely to back off.  Romney kept up his usual me-me-me schtick, interrupting, going off the asked question.

But Romney was still effective.  He's got a kind of charisma, so even if his 5-point plan (really?) is basically "trust me, I've been a Governor and have worked as a consultant" he comes across well.

Obama got in a few good zingers, but he also sounded petulant at times, not a good look for an incumbent President, especially in his appeals to the moderator to moderate more.  He's also given to starting sentences with "look", and that's a bad way to start any appeal.

There was an article last week in the NY'er about billionaire resentment against Obama, and as much as I think such attitudes are unbecoming at best among the super-rich, Obama wasn't winning any friends among them today.  I suppose it hardly matters at this point, with only a few weeks left in the campaign, but he still needs Wall Street money and Romney needs less.  I haven't read much about the ads or the effect the Super PACs are having, though.  I guess I could see the ads on YouTube, but I don't see much point in giving myself blood pressure problems.

But a win's a win, and I'll take it.  If Barry can keep it up for one more session, I think he'll roll on in come the first Tuesday in November.

Winners & Losers
I hate to say this, but I think Romney won the first debate.  He was good, very good, although mostly he was good at always getting the last word, and that counts for a lot.  But Obama was bad - not very bad, but bad enough.  He looked tired.  He didn't manage to rebut Romney even when Mittens was obviously lying.  The 5 trillion dollar tax cut that doesn't add to the deficit? Yes, it's basic arithmetic that tells us that's a lie, but Obama failed to make that point decisively, memorably.  He didn't rebut the obvious "death panels" references and he didn't manage to make a case in favor of Federal health care insurance vs. State-based, and that's a point that really needed to be made.

Worse, Obama looked tired and offered a lot of passive-aggressive bullshit.  The whole "if that's what you believe/want then he's your candidate" business just made him look like Gore.  I liked that he tried to claim "Obamacare", but he did a bad job of it, half-assed, really.

A lot of criticism of Obama has been that he's only as good as his teleprompter.  He looked it today.  He hemmed, he hawed, he "you know"'d too much.  Starting a sentence with "you know" or "look" is just bad form, it puts people off, makes them feel stupid.  Romney didn't do any of that, or didn't seem to.  He's a prep school debate pro, and he romped over Obama.  Putting up with a bully doesn't make you a paragon of virtue, it makes you a victim, especially in politics.

I want Obama to win.  I'd like to believe he will.  But he's going to have to step up his act in debates 2 & 3 if it's going to happen, all those solid blue States notwithstanding.

I'll probably miss Biden vs. Ryan, as much as I'd like to see it.  I'll be away on holiday, but if the opportunity arises, 90 minutes of ol' foot-in-his-mouth against the GOP's architect of nothing might actually be entertaining.  I hope.

Bridge Run
The Blackmores Sydney Running Festival was today.  I've done the Bridge Run twice, now, having geared down from no training, injury, and just general lack of motivation, and while I'm glad to have finished the 9k, I'm not exactly proud of my finish, but I'll take it.  Must. Train. More.  Maybe it's time to get up another half marathon.