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Rambling thoughts on who knows what... Because not everything is as the conventional wisdom would have it... BLOGS I SORT OF LIKE... Volokh Conspiracy ProfessorBainbridge MarginalRevolution Patterico Powerline Ace Wizbang JustOneMinute XRLQ Betsy's Page HE WHO USED TO LINK ME EVERY NOW AND THEN InstaPundit Email Steve
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Thursday, March 31, 2011
What's missing from the following comment from Speaker Boehner?
“It is our position and we will continue to fight for everything that is in it,” he said. “We are going to continue to fight for the largest spending cuts that we can get, to keep the government open and fund it through the balance of this fiscal year” What is missing is Boehner explaining the REASON for why the GOP is pushing cuts in government spending. Cutting government spending is critical to improving the economy. It isn't that the GOP is looking to cut government spending for the sake of cutting... or because they're meanies... or to settle scores with liberal recipients of government spending... but rather because the economy won't recover unless and until people see that the brakes have been put on runaway government spending. This means that until government spending goes down housing prices won't recover and businesses won't start to rehire people. The GOP needs to make sure the public knows the reason why they're doing what they're doing. They need to personalize this issue for the public, to make the public feel like they have skin in this game, that their livelihood depends on the GOP succeeding. If they don't, they leave themselves vulnerable to whatever libels the Democrats want to use in trashing the GOP. Any bets on what the GOP will do? Tuesday, March 29, 2011
The continuing saga of 'If only the GOP had a clue...'
They wouldn't be talking about Libya but rather devoting all of their energy and the airtime they could get to set the stage for the upcoming battle over government spending... and in particular, doing their best to portray the Democrats as the ones who should get blamed if the government shuts down as a result of the Democrats refusal to make more than token cuts in government spending. As much as the bleating blogosphere might think or hope otherwise, unless and until lots of Americans are losing their lives over there, Libya is just not that big an issue to most Americans, and certainly not among the mushy middle whose votes and support the GOP needs. (note: and the public cares even less about the particulars of how Obama is going about dealing with Libya, for example, whether it is a NATA or US led operation, or whether getting rid of Gaddafi is an explicit goal of the operations, so the Republicans who are arguing that Obama hasn't said this or explained that are revealing themselves to be even more tone dead). On the other hand, the economy is HUGE to just about everybody (setting aside those on the radical right who think that everything takes a back seat to getting to say prayers at school meetings). And government spending plays a HUGE part in how well the economy does. The GOP needs to be out right now pushing the point that the economy is not going to get better until government spending starts to come down, both in absolute terms and as a percentage of the overall economy.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif This means that the GOP needs to be telling people that their house prices aren't going to go back up... until government spending is cut, and significantly so. They need to tell people that the unemployment rate isn't going to improve... until government spending is cut, and significantly so. They need to tell people that the prices for gas and food aren't going to go back down... until government spending is cut, and significantly so. The GOP needs to paint the Democrats as being willing - even eager - to keep the economy in the doldrums in order to protect their cherished spending. And that isn't what the GOP is doing. They're spending their time talking about an issue really nobody cares about. Typical. Meanwhile, the Democrats are making sure their talking points are pushed to the media.
Maybe someone can explain the thinking of online advertisers who come up with ads such as this that are injected before you get to see the page you've clicked on. (if the ad doesn't display when you click, it is simply a pop-up ad that comes up for some number of seconds before moving on to the page you want to see)
Do they think we're so easily distracted that we'll forget about getting to where we wanted to go and instead move to sign up for whatever it is that they're selling? Or does everybody pretty much do as I do, which is click on the 'close' button just as soon as we can find it? In order to be worthwhile, marketing has to follow a few simple rules, one of which is not ask the audience to do something that runs counter to their natural inclination. Good marketing triggers the viewer to do something the viewer already wants to do, even in the case where the viewer isn't quite aware of their desire. And asking a viewer to delay going to a web page whose link they clicked on but a second earlier isn't going to work.... even given the extremely low response rates associated with online marketing. Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Let's be clear, there is one and only one reason that justifies committing American troops to any form of combat: to protect America and Americans from harm.
And that isn't what is happening in Libya. The lives of our troops are not tools to be used in attempts to win the hearts and minds of the Arab world or to protect them from the depredations of their leaders. Here's the test: if sending our troops into combat lowers the long term risk of America being attacked, then by all means, I'm up for giving our troops the orders to attack. If not, then the troops stay in their barracks. Wednesday, March 16, 2011
If, as Jonah Goldberg argues, the situation in Japan doesn't warrant all of the hysteria, then is Obama worthy of the criticism he has received for not paying enough attention to the situation?
Sally Jenkins gets all whiny, arguing that public financing of NFL stadiums obligates the NFL to play this year.
Well... unfortunately, the public wasn't smart enough to insist on those terms when it doled out the money. Nor were ticket holders smart enough to insist on those terms when they paid upfront for seat licenses and tickets for the 2011 season. I won't argue with Jenkins' assertions that the owners grabbed as much as they could and gave up as little as they had to. But that is what owners do. In fact, that is what pretty much what anyone dealing with the government does. It is up to our elected representatives to look out for our interests. Unfortunately, they don't. They didn't do so when doling out huge compensation packages to government workers. They didn't do so when dealing with owners of sports teams. Jenkins shouldn't get p***ed at the owners, she should be angry at herself... and everybody else who voted for a politician who was more interested in getting to sit in the owners box than in truly representing the public interest. Tuesday, March 15, 2011
The only way the Wisconsin kerfuffle will turn out to be a Pyrrhic victory for the GOP (as the New York Times claims) is if a significant number of voters who would otherwise have voted for the GOP shifts their votes to the Democrats (or, somewhat less damaging to the GOP, stay home and don't vote).
And I've seen nothing that indicates that such groups exist. Sure, government workers are foaming at the mouth, but they were already heavily invested in voting for Democrats. There are probably more GOP-leaning voters amount private sector union workers that the Democrats can convert, but these workers are a bit less outraged (their unhappiness at the GOP's treatment of 'unions' is somewhat tempered by their dislike of the sweetheart treatment government workers have received), so I'm not sure the Democrats can pick up big numbers of converts from this group. And of the other groups who are upset (college students, professional agitators, etc.), they also are among the groups who already heavily vote for Democrats. On the other side, I can't envision there being a lot of GOP-leaning voters who are going to recoil at what was done. After all, how can one be a GOP-leaning voter and not be in favor of cutting spending? Or of curtailing crony capitalism? Walker and the GOP legislators just did what their supporters wanted... not exactly the type of thing that leads to politicians being punished. Wednesday, March 09, 2011
I'm no fan of NPR's content, and I'm even less of a fan of their getting government (i.e., my) money, but I think it ridiculous that NPR President Vivian Schiller is being forced to resign in the wake of the video showing a couple of NPR staffers disparaging Tea Partiers... because she is being forced to resign for bad reasons.
I really dislike the concept of firing managers because someone on their staff did something improper.. unless the manager knows of that behavior or has otherwise created an environment in which staff thinks such behavior is allowed and/or encouraged. That's why I think Ohio State should fire football coach Jim Tressel (and not merely suspend him), as he was aware that his people were acting improperly and yet did nothing. But there is nothing to suggest that Vivian Schiller knew that her former staffer was off soliciting money from terrorist-affiliated groups, was making the disparaging comments that he was, or claiming that NPR would be better off without government subsidies. In fact, the speed at which he was thrown out suggests that his actions were directly at odds with NPR policy. No CEO can ever hope to never hire someone who is going to go off the reservation. No CEO can ever hope (or should even try) to monitor their staff's behavior in such an intrusive way so as to stop these breaches from happening. Sometimes, there is a bad egg. The real test is how the CEO reacts when made aware of the specifics... Friday, March 04, 2011
So now Sarah Palin comes out and says she really doesn't disagree with the Supreme Court decision, but was simply trying to point out the double standard that, according to her, keeps people from praying before football games or saying 'God Bless You' during graduation speeches.
First of all, if that is what she was trying to say, how hard would it have been to say it at the beginning? Why post in such a way that doesn't make the point? And it isn't as if she can realistically say that she assumed that everybody would understand her point... for the simple reason that I read of no one jumping to her defense to claim that that was the point she was making. If her point was obvious, obviously someone would have said something, right? Furthermore, she doesn't impress me with her clarification. Doesn't she know - or accept - that there is huge difference between someone speaking their mind on a public sidewalk and someone speaking at an activity (the school activities she references in her examples) that has government involvement written all over it? Someone speaking at a school activity does not - and should not - have the same freedom to say what they could say in their own home... or on a public sidewalk. As I ask often of the Democrats when they do something that I just can't follow... does Sarah Palin not know the difference? Or does she but is playing to the ignorance of her fan base? Thursday, March 03, 2011
As further evidence that conservatives as well as liberals want the umpires on the Supreme Court to interpret the rule book (i.e., the Constitution) the way these conservatives want, I refer to the unhappy conservatives (Sarah Palin, etc.) who are unhappy with yesterday's Supreme Court decision addressing demonstrations at military funerals. It doesn't matter that there is nothing in the text of the Constitution that allows punitive action to be taken against the protesters, to Palin et al, all that matters is that their sympathies lie with the father and thus, anything (or close to it) that makes him upset is something the state can legitimately take action against (in this case, allowing the civil system to impose damages on the protesters).
Furthermore, you might think that where eight of the nine Justices agree on a case that those opposed to the decision are defining themselves as out of the mainstream. Between the conservative Scalia and the liberal Breyer, that's a pretty big slice of the ideological spectrum... and yet Sarah Palin decides that they're the ones who are wrong? Wednesday, March 02, 2011
While the author of this article would probably think otherwise, I think the times call for New Jersey Governor Chris Christie should be more like Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker in going after government unions, and not the other way around.
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