It's A Great Day

That's what this election comes down to, according to Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe.

PermaLink | 11:33 AM | |

Here's what Anthony Williams said the other day according to Washington Post Reporter David Nakamura:

"I can't imagine why, with all the things happening in the world, the Cato Institute would take the time to analyze the impact of baseball in Washington, D.C.," Williams (D) said yesterday during a luncheon speech at the University Club.

I'm in favor of the stadium. It is being financed mostly by a tax on major companies in the City. I don't think it will actually impact anyone. And a baseball team will be good for D.C. It will help unify people in the nation's capital, bring development to a bad part of town, attract new residents, and hopefully, provide a new venue for vendors to utilize with their expense accounts.

PermaLink | 7:30 AM | |

David Brooks writes which candidate politicized the issue, which one did not and he gets it completely right.

PermaLink | 7:02 AM | |

I have known for some time that the Terra Museum of American Art in Chicago was going to close. I, of course, was worried about its sole Edward Hopper painting "Dawn in Pennsylvania" because I didn't know where it would be re-located. Well, great news. Looks like it will join "Nighthawks" at the Art Institute of Chicago, at least for the next 15 years.

PermaLink | 6:43 AM | |

Despite his mistakes it looks like the popularity of President Bush in the state will pull Tom Coburn over the top.

PermaLink | 6:26 AM | |

Last evening the WEDJ PCS had its first open house performance. It was truly amazing to see the kids perform, especially the pre-kindergarten and kindergarten students. Even one of the teachers joined in when it was the older students turn to go on-stage.

My major impression is that the school is achieving, in only 6 weeks, what it sought out to do. You could see these young people gain confidence and self-esteem as parents clapped in response to their singing and dancing. These experiences almost certainly assist them as they go out into the world to make names for themselves. As I said to Mary Robbins, the school's art partnership director, NYU - here they come!

PermaLink | 5:45 AM | |

I guess I'm confused but aren't these tons of explosives weapons of mass destruction?

PermaLink | 5:40 AM | |

Man accused of trying to run down Rep. Katherine Harris
Wednesday, October 27, 2004 Posted: 1:46 PM EDT (1746 GMT)

(CNN) -- Police in Sarasota, Florida, arrested a man accused of trying to run down Rep. Katherine Harris and her supporters with a car Tuesday, a police spokesman said.

A silver Cadillac "swerved off the road and drove up the sidewalk" heading "straight towards Ms. Harris," according to the police arrest report.

"Harris stated that she was afraid for her life," according to the police report, "and could not move as the vehicle approached her."

No one was injured in the alleged incident.

It happened as Harris and her supporters were campaigning in Sarasota, her spokeswoman said Wednesday.

A witness to the incident saw part of the vehicle tag before the car left the scene, according to the report. Police matched the tag to a car registered to Barry Seltzer, 46, of Sarasota.

After police tried to contact Seltzer, he came to to the Sarasota Police station where, according to a police report, he admitted trying to "intimidate" a group of Harris supporters.

"I was exercising my political expression," Seltzer told police, according to the report.

He was arrested on a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. He is now in Sarasota County Jail, and is to have a court appearance Thursday.

Harris emerged as a controversial figure during her role as Florida Secretary of State during the 2000 presidential election recount.

She used that attention to fuel her campaign for the House of Representatives in 2002. In her bid for re-election, she faces Sarasota lawyer, Jan Schneider, who lost to Harris in the last election.

PermaLink | 3:52 PM | |

In response to an email to Sewell Chan I received the following automated response:

I left The Washington Post on Friday, Oct. 15, 2004 to join the The New
York Times as a metropolitan reporter, starting Nov. 8, 2004. My new e-mail
address is sewell@nytimes.com.

Please direct ALL matters concerning the District of Columbia public
schools and urban education to Deputy City Editor Paul Bernstein, who can
be reached at 202-334-7300 or at bernsteinp@washpost.com.

Too bad. I almost got him to visit our school.

PermaLink | 5:53 AM | |

On the trip back home on the train from New York City I watched the movie the "Passion of Ayn Rand". In the movie, as in the excellent biography by Barbara Branden, Nathaniel Branden comes off looking like a cheap immoral fool. At one point in his life he is close to sleeping with three woman simultaneously. It was his actions that split the objectivist movement and resulted in a lot of people becoming disillusioned. Because Mr. Branden and I share a common friend I thought I would ask him about this period in his life.

My email:

I watched the movie for the 2nd time last weekend and I was just wondering what you now think of your behavior when you were associated with Ayn Rand.

Also, I'm a friend of Michael O.

Mark Lerner

His response:

That movie is almost entirely fantasy, bearing little relation to the actual events of our relationship. If the subject interests you, I suggest you read "My Years With Ayn Rand."

Nathaniel Branden

I think he is still in denial.

PermaLink | 9:17 PM | |

PermaLink | 3:43 AM | |

My wife and I are disappointed but being the liberal newspaper that it is this is definitely not unexpected. Still, the Post wrote often and forcefully about our need to go into Iraq so I guess that's why we were hopeful their editors would support the President. The endorsement takes up one full page in the Outlook section and since the Post will not give equal time to an alternative viewpoint I thought I could provide this service. This endorsement of the President comes from today's Cincinnati Enquirer:

George Bush for president

Four years ago George W. Bush was elected by the narrowest of margins. He promised to unite the country with "compassionate conservatism."

Then, as the President is wont to say, "9/11 happened."

The terrorist attack that killed more than 3,000 Americans changed our outlook, changed our sense of security and it most certainly changed our president.

The next four years will require a president who has the fortitude not to waver in the face of terror. George W. Bush and John Kerry are both strong and patriotic men, but we believe the times call for America to be consistent. For that reason we support Bush.

Wartime leader

Sept. 11 forced Bush to become a wartime leader. The days immediately after the attack were the finest moments of his presidency. He spoke as the leader of all Americans, expressing the nation's horror, grief and rage at the cowardly attack. The president declared war on terror - and the nation and Congress enlisted in that cause.

We invaded Iraq, convinced that Saddam Hussein had stockpiled weapons of mass destruction and meant to use them against us or give them to others who would. That intelligence was simply wrong. While Saddam's forces were quickly overrun, no such weapons have ever been found. The world is a better place with Saddam deposed, but the long-term cost of doing that is a bill that America will be paying far into the future.

John Kerry agrees that America is committed to achieving stability in Iraq, but says he would recreate the kind of multi-lateral coalition that fought the first Gulf War to do it. How? Kerry suggests that just having a new face in the White House would bring new allies to our side. We disagree. France, Germany and most of the Arab states are not going to support us unless they are guaranteed significant roles in the new Iraq. We did not topple Saddam just so we could divide up the country as spoils of war. Our most important ally in Iraq must be Iraq. France and Germany have said they will not send troops under any circumstances.

We wish the president were willing to acknowledge the mistakes that were made, and to hold accountable those in his administration who made them. But other nations and past administrations all believed Saddam had the weapons and was willing to use them.

The task now is to capitalize on the gains that have been made, restore frayed alliances and stand prepared for the next attack.

Homeland security

At home, the Department of Homeland Security, the now-accepted delays and inspections at the airports and the USA Patriot Act all resulted from 9/11. The latter is an over-compensation that is in need of correction. Kerry has argued persuasively that terrorists are targeting our way of life as well as our lives. We agree with him. Victories over terrorists will be worthless if we give up basic American freedoms to do it. But while the senator calls for more first responders, more port inspectors and more police, he is not very specific on how he will pay for them. He also ignores the major strides that have been made in improving the communication and coordination of our intelligence and security agencies under Bush, assets that deteriorated under the previous Democratic administration.

Economic policy

On economic policy we believe the Bush tax-cut program is the best method of encouraging investment and job growth. Kerry has said he will repeal the Bush tax cut for those making more than $200,000 per year and use that money to fund his new programs. He says that will affect only the rich, people like himself and the president. He's wrong. The over-$200,000 category isn't just "the rich." It's also the bulk of the small and independent business owners in America - a segment of the economy that creates many of the new jobs we need. Nor would repealing this cut raise enough money for all of the programs Kerry has proposed.

Kerry has made much of outsourcing and his claim that the Bush administration provides tax breaks for companies that send jobs overseas. This so-called tax break has been in place for several Republican and Democratic administrations to protect American companies doing business overseas from having to pay taxes here and abroad. A likely consequence of Kerry's vow to close this "loophole" would be for companies to sell off overseas assets, resulting in the loss of a tremendous number of support jobs here.

The president deserves credit for his "No Child Left Behind" education initiative, which he managed to pass with bipartisan support in Congress. While the plan is not perfect, and can certainly be improved upon, it offers accountability and empowerment. Kerry's program, in contrast, concentrates on providing more money to schools, without insisting on the accountability.

Retirement and health care

The same can be said for the president's approach to the problems of Social Security and health care. His proposals for private investment accounts and health savings plans give a measure of control and responsibility in these areas to the people using them.

Kerry proposes $1,000 reductions in family health care premiums, cheaper prescriptions, and "high-quality" coverage for 95 percent of America, including every child. He has offered little on Social Security except to say the Bush plan would leave retirees vulnerable. But the Bush plan would not break faith with those who now depend on Social Security. Catastrophic health problems and secure retirements are things we all worry about. But Kerry's proposals are nothing but incredibly expensive promises that he offers no realistic way of paying for.

This election may be as close as the last. That means there will be a sharp and painful division in this country. To achieve our goals of security at home and stability abroad, our president must couple the constancy of his first term with the compassion that he has long professed. To be effective, that compassion must be used to encourage compromise. We believe George W. Bush has the strength to meet this challenge and the others that will confront America in the next four years.

PermaLink | 9:18 AM | |

I checked out the Cato website and saw that there was an all day conference on Friday regarding the war in Iraq and I immediately signed up.

The conference was tremendous. It was co-sponsored by The Objectivist Center (their link is on my page)and it was great to see David Kelly again. David is the organization's President and I was one of the original supporters of his group when it was founded over 10 years ago. I remember the shock by people who attended his early conferences that you could actually question the ideas of Ayn Rand.

This was a conference targeted directly at libertarians. And it was packed! People were seated outside the auditorium. Exactly half of the speakers were for the war and half were against. This surprised me since I thought libertarians were unified in their opposition to the war. Even more shocking was that the objectivists were in favor of our involvement.

Fantastic presentations by Deroy Murdack (for), Jacob Hornberger (against), Nick Gillespie (questioning), and Ted Galen Carpenter (against). In the end, my mind was not changed. I am still against the war but I respect the views of the other side.

I had a good conversation of Nick Gillespie, the editor of Reason Magazine, and found out that he has moved with his wife to Washington, D.C. He is interested in my involvement with the WEDJ PCS and he said he would love to come by and see it. A great day.

PermaLink | 9:13 AM | |

By Walter E. Williams

Politicians have a field day misleading Americans who, as a result of having been dumbed down by our education system, can't think, reason or analyze. How many times have we heard the political lament, "There are 43 million Americans without health insurance"? While that observation might very well be true, what are we to make of it? Does it mean that there are Americans dying on the streets for want of medical treatment? Were that the case, you can bet the rent money that the major TV networks would feature nightly stories of medically indigent Americans in various stages of pain, suffering and death.
I have seen no such stories. So what does the absence of health insurance mean? Among the things that it might mean is that you don't receive medical treatment on the same terms as a person with health insurance. You might spend a day waiting for treatment at a clinic instead of having an appointment at a chosen time at a physician's office. It might also mean that you will receive a smaller quantity and lower quality of medical care such as hospitalization in a ward instead of a private room, interns rather than specialists, and treatment at voluntary clinics and free hospitals such as Shriners.
Let's face it: People who can buy insurance get benefits that those who cannot afford it don't. Those with lots of money get things that those with little money don't. Whether we like it or not, these are facts of life. By the way, a healthy young person might opt for self-insurance and not purchase health insurance because he believes that the money could be better spent elsewhere.
According to some of the electoral rhetoric, President Bush has been responsible for shipping the best American jobs overseas, thus turning us into a nation of hamburger flippers. But according to a study by Bruce Bartlett, a senior fellow at the Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis, "How Outsourcing Creates Jobs for Americans," over the past 15 years, foreign corporations have moved jobs to the United States at a faster rate than jobs have left. "Jobs insourced to the United States increased from 4.9 million in 1991 to 6.4 million in 2001," says Mr. Bartlett, whose syndicated column runs in The Washington Times. There has been an 82 percent increase in insourced jobs compared with a 23 percent increase in outsourced jobs.
Moreover, because of the higher and increasing productivity of American workers, the jobs that move here pay more than the ones that leave. Insourced jobs pay roughly 16.5 percent more than the average domestic job, and one-third of them are in the manufacturing sector, says Mr. Bartlett. Americans who lose their jobs because of outsourcing might have to make painful adjustments. But should we listen to political proposals to ease their pain by erecting trade barriers that will make the nation as a whole worse off?
Speaking of jobs, let's look at the numbers. Our unemployment rate, which the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics put at 5.4 percent in September, is one of the lowest in the world and in our history. France's unemployment rate is 9.4 percent, Germany's 9.9 percent and Italy's 8.6 percent. Our Canadian neighbor's is 6.6 percent. The only reason for today's hysteria over jobs is because it is an election year, and one of the ways politicians gain power is to create fear among the electorate. The next time you hear a politician whining about our "awful" job climate, ask him which European country we should look to for guidance in job creation. The fact of business is that our country is the world's leader not only in job creation but in terms of where the world wants to invest its money.

PermaLink | 8:30 AM | |

Ron Brownstein, reporter for the Los Angeles Times and, as us C-Span junkies know, an extremely astute political commentator, has an interesting story about the shift in emphasis for the Democrats from the South to the Southwest.

PermaLink | 5:37 AM | |

William Safire of the New York Times says that John Kerry's latest ploy to turn every news story into a Bush Administration plot against the common man will not work.

PermaLink | 5:41 AM | |

According to David Brooks and the Wall Street Journal.

And yes, Amy was great, the play was great, New York City was great, and life is good.

PermaLink | 4:09 AM | |

No blogging this weekend as our family heads off to New York to see Amy appear in her first student production at Tisch. We are really really proud of her since she landed her role on the initial audition she went on at the most prestigious acting school in the nation. She is now a legitimate actress.

Also, the journal of the American Healthcare Radiology Association published my article "Management and Art." Here is a link to one version of it.

PermaLink | 5:34 AM | |

Not surprised, I read this morning that John Kerry won last night's debate. It is clear to me that I look at these things completely differently then the rest of the world. When people say it was John Kerry that won they are talking about style. It is of course style that did Al Gore in four years ago. In his case a different candidate showed up each time he faced George Bush. The viewers then translated his metamorphosis into a belief that they could not credibly cast their vote for Gore because they would not reliably know which personality they would get as President. His speeches since being in office only reinforces this characterization.

In Kerry versus Bush we have an extremely articulate strong looking man facing someone who cannot think on his feet to save his Presidency. But the issues tell a different story:

1. Kerry's stand on foreign policy is completely incoherent and I still cannot believe he can express his opinions with a straight face.

2. His positions on domestic issues are dangerous. His suggestion that government spending generates economic demand represents the re-heated theories of John Maynard Keynes that resulted in high unemployment, high inflation, and lack of growth in GNP that we saw in the 1970's and 1980's.

3. He offers no solutions for fixing social security and medicare which will both facing bankruptcy.

The President, on the other hand, talks about the problems of social security and healthcare as if he is reading from CATO's Congressional handbook. This whole election would be so easy for him to win if he hadn't acted like his father in never finding a spending bill he didn't like. Now we can only wait and watch.

PermaLink | 5:11 AM | |

"Father Denounces Hamdi's Imprisonment"
By Jerry Markon
Washington Post Staff Writer
October 13, 2004

"Hamdi Back in Saudi Arabia"
The Cato Institute

PermaLink | 1:54 AM | |

"Gehry Is Selected as Architect of Ground Zero Theater Center"
By Robin Pogrebin
The New York Times
October 13, 2004


Design for the new addition of the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

PermaLink | 1:36 AM | |

You might conclude from reading my blog that I'm excited about President Bush being re-elected on November 2nd. Not true. There is no out there who a libertarian can get excited about. We might have actively campaigned for a strong rational anti-war candidate. In this way a consistent Howard Dean would have been much more preferable over John Kerry as the Democratic nominee.

On the Republican side we were promised a great debate over policies fostering an ownership society. To me what Karl Rove and the other strategists are doing is throwing out these ideas just enough to keep the free marketers interested in this race.

I'm, of course, not the only one who has noticed this. Its been pointed out by a Pulitzer prize winner. Here is Anne Applebaum on the subject:

"Just look at the numbers. According to the president's fiscal 2005 budget, discretionary federal spending -- meaning money nobody is being legally forced to spend -- has risen 29 percent over the past four years and is growing even faster than spending on Medicare and Social Security. According to a Cato Institute study, the increases for 2002, 2003 and 2004 constitute three of the five biggest annual increases in the past 40 years. Contrary to popular belief, not all the money has been spent on the military: Spending on everything besides defense will increase by more than a third during President Bush's first term. Nor is it all going to homeland security. The Education Department, once slated for abolition, has experienced a huge spending boost. So has the Energy Department, whose creation was once greeted with skepticism. In fact, many of the programs that Republicans promised to eliminate in the mid-1990s -- the dubious public-private partnerships, the extraneous commissions, the grants for pet causes -- now have larger budgets than ever."

PermaLink | 11:47 AM | |

Sorry I've been away on a business trip but I'm sure you already know what I think of the vice-presidential debate and the second Bush/Kerry contest. However, here I go anyway.

When you see Dick Cheney and John Edwards together on the same stage it is immediately obvious who I want to see become president if something happens to the person in that position, and it is not the ex-trail lawyer.

Wasn't the town meeting type format supposed to favor John Kerry? I'm starting to doubt this was ever the case because I certainly did not hear anyone mention last night or this morning. If this was the true then George Bush easily won on Friday just by keeping up with John Kerry all night. The more I listen to the Democratic nominee the more difficulty I have understanding what he is saying.

PermaLink | 11:18 AM | |

The connection between this article by Walter Williams and the letter to the editor by Michele Harvey is that when people try and do things for the "public" with taxpayer money the definition of what is "good" is open to interpretation. The resulting dispute is never pretty.

American Despotism
by Walter E. Williams

Last week, Washington Post columnist George Will penned a column "Despotism in New London" (9/19/04). In it he described how Connecticut's Supreme Court, by a 4 to 3 ruling, allowed the New London Development Corp. to use laws of eminent domain to condemn the city's Fort Trumbull's 29 acre neighborhood and lease it to Pfizer for its $270 million research facility, and to luxury hotel, condominium and office building developers for $1 a year. New London is hard up for tax revenues and if the property is taken away from middle class homeowners and transferred to wealthy interests it would yield the city more tax revenue.

The Fifth Amendment is very clear about takings. It says in part, "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." The key word is public use. Public use means uses such as roads, bridges, military installations and public buildings. The Connecticut Supreme Court held that the only requirement for the taking of private property is that there be some public benefit. With that kind of reasoning, no one's private property is safe because what's a public benefit is subject to wide interpretation.

This kind of despotism is rife. Mr. John A. Rapanos, a 68-year Michigan landowner faces a ten month federal imprisonment and up to $10 million in fines. Mr. Rapanos cleared and graded 200 acres of fallow farmland that he had owned since 1950 with the intention of constructing a shopping center. When the shopping center deal fell through, he leased the land to a local grain farmer. What was his crime?

Under the Clean Water Act, no person may discharge, dredge or put fill material into the navigable waters of the U.S. without a permit. The closest navigable waters to Mr. Rapanos' land is Saginaw Bay some 20 miles away. Mr. Rapanos' crime in the eyes of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was that he filled in depressions on his land without permission. According to his defense at the California-based Pacific Legal Foundation, "the Corps has argued that isolated pools and puddles were magically transformed into 'navigable waters', and subject to regulations, merely by the stopover of 'migratory' birds." With the Corps reasoning, you could go to jail if you had a tree stump ground out and filled the hole. In the early stages of Mr. Rapanos' case, U.S. District Judge Lawrence Zatkoff - noting that a drug dealer was before him that day - said rebelliously, "Here we have a person . . . who commits crimes of selling dope, and the government asks me to put him in prison for ten months. And then we have an American citizen, who buys land, pays for it with his own money, and he moves sand from one end to the other and the government wants me to give him 63 months in prison. Now if that isn't our system gone crazy, I don't know what is. And I am not going to do it." Mr. Rapanos' sentencing has been delayed because the constitutionality of federal criminal sentencing guidelines, in another case, will be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in October.

President John Adams (1797-1801) said, "The moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence." Unfortunately, our courts have increasingly become tools for powerful vested interests and the constitutional protections of private property mean less and less each day. The good news is that we have energetic minds at organizations such as the Institute for Justice (www.ij.org) and the Pacific Legal Foundation (www.pacificlegal.org) who are fighting against the emasculation of our Fifth Amendment rights and other constitutional guarantees. But they cannot do it alone; we must help them. Remember Benjamin Franklin's admonition: "Make yourself sheep and the wolves will eat you."

GMU Strays From Its Roots

Until recently, I was proud to be a graduate of George Mason University.

Now, however, I am ashamed of the university and its officials' response to those whose views differ from their own ["GMU Disinvites Moore," front page, Oct. 1]. A public university is supposed to serve the public, and that means all points of view -- not just those that meet with the approval of the Virginia state legislature.

The namesake of GMU -- George Mason -- wrote the Virginia Declaration of Rights, the first document in this country that was meant to limit the government's authority and support the rights of individuals to be free to speak and think as they wished. He was a man who was not afraid of dissenting political views and was quite opinionated on the subjects that were important to him.

For the university that bears his name to first invite and then disinvite an openly political speaker such as Michael Moore because of external pressure from state politicians is not only cowardly but opposes everything that George Mason stood for.

MICHELE HARVEY
Centreville

Tuesday, October 5, 2004; Page A24
� 2004 The Washington Post Company

PermaLink | 6:10 AM | |

I know, everyone says John Kerry easily won the first debate. So why do I still insist that the President was better? I guess it comes down to my personality. I don't need people to make long explanations when I want to know their point of view. In this way I am similar to my boss. We both tend to make decisions based upon feelings. These choices are not simply emotional reactions. They are grounded on experience and knowledge. George Bush appeals with people who think this way, at least according to David Brooks.

PermaLink | 7:56 PM | |