Last updated:
2:36 PM, 11 May 2008



Jim Miller on Politics

  Email:
jimxc1 at gmail.com



What's he reading? Francis Parkman.

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References:

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My Group Blog:
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Media Blogs:
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R-Rated:
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Dormant:
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Solly Ezekiel
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David Russell
Tobacco Road

*new



Pseudo-Random Thoughts


Boys And Girls Are Different:  As even the New York Times is forced to admit, occasionally.  In particular, girls are more likely to be injured in sports.
Girls and boys diverge in their physical abilities as they enter puberty and move through adolescence.   Higher levels of testosterone allow boys to add muscle and, even without much effort on their part, get stronger.  In turn, they become less flexible.  Girls, as their estrogen levels increase, tend to add fat rather than muscle.  They must train rigorously to get significantly stronger.  The influence of estrogen makes girls' ligaments lax, and they outperform boys in tests of overall body flexibility — a performance advantage in many sports, but also an injury risk when not accompanied by sufficient muscle to keep joints in stable, safe positions.  Girls tend to run differently than boys — in a less-flexed, more-upright posture — which may put them at greater risk when changing directions and landing from jumps.  Because of their wider hips, they are more likely to be knock-kneed — yet another suspected risk factor.
For some injuries, far more likely, notably injuries to the anterior cruciate ligament.
If girls and young women ruptured their A.C.L.s at just twice the rate of boys and young men, it would be notable.  Three times the rate would be astounding.  But some researchers believe that in sports that both sexes play, and with similar rules — soccer, basketball, volleyball — female athletes rupture their A.C.L.s at rates as high as five times that of males.
Although the ligament can usually be repaired, recovery is a long, and sometimes painful, process.

After seeing the injuries on a university women's basketball team (a very well-known team) and reading about the injuries suffered by women's cross country teams (more frequent though not as severe as the injuries on men's football teams), I came to the politically incorrect conclusion that boys and girls should not play the same sports, with the same rules.

The print edition of the article gives two-thirds of a page to this question:  Everyone wants girls to have as many opportunites in sports as boys.  But can we live with the greater rate of injuries they suffer?  My answer to that question is that we should want girls to have as many — but not the same — opportunities in sports as boys have.  Because boys and girls are different, as any knee surgeon can tell you.
- 2:36 PM, 11 May 2008   [link]


Who Do You Believe?  Obama's adviser, or that lying video?  I'm going with the video, myself.  Obama did promise to meet with Iran's [insert nasty adjective of your choice here] President Ahmadinejad, wthout preconditions.
- 1:36 PM, 11 May 2008   [link]


Happy Mother's Day!  To all the mothers out there.  This year, I don't have my usual mother duck to show you, nor even last year's flowers.

But I do have tributes to mothers from four very different bloggers: "Babalu", who reminds us of the facts of life, Dan Collins, who takes a light approach, Jeralyn Merritt, who touched my heart by describing how she is taking care of her aging mother, and "neo-neocon", who gives us three generations, and a little family history.

Cross posted at Sound Politics.
- 12:45 PM, 11 May 2008   [link]


When A Disaster Strikes, some try to help.  Others try to take credit for helping.
Myanmar's military regime distributed international aid Saturday but plastered the boxes with the names of top generals in an apparent effort to turn the relief effort for last week's devastating cyclone into a propaganda exercise.

The United Nations sent in three more planes and several trucks loaded with aid, though the junta took over its first two shipments.  The government agreed to let a U.S. cargo plane bring in supplies Monday, but foreign disaster experts still were being barred entry.
Classy bunch, those generals.

(If the same storm had hit the United States, it would have been called a "hurricane", not a cyclone.   In the northwest Pacific, it would have been called a "typhoon".  A storm can change from a "hurricane" to a "typhoon", or vice versa, by crossing the International Date Line.  There's a full discussion of the naming rules for these giant storms in this article on tropical cyclones.)
- 11:15 AM, 10 May 2008   [link]


Expansionist Plans?  Or just confusion?  Barack Obama said, yesterday, that he had been in 57 states.
"It is wonderful to be back in Oregon," Obama said. "Over the last 15 months, we've traveled to every corner of the United States.  I've now been in 57 states?  I think one left to go.  Alaska and Hawaii, I was not allowed to go to even though I really wanted to visit, but my staff would not justify it."
As I read that, he is saying that he has campaigned in 57 states and has 3 to go before he has campaigned in all of them.

It's an understandable mistake, especially given the constant travel of a modern campaign.  But it also true that this slip would be treated differently if John McCain or George W. Bush had said it.

(You can see video of the slip here.  Like Ann Althouse, I '"love the way he pauses and really thinks before adding the "-seven."'
- 5:39 AM, 10 May 2008   [link]


Measuring The Snow At Mt. Rainier:  Here's where they do it.

Mt. Rainier weather station, May 2008

They use the orange pole on the left to measure snow depth.  When I took the picture, there was almost 19 feet of snow there.  I am not sure how they measure the daily snow fall, but I wouldn't be surprised if they use that small dark container to the right of the weather station.  (The area was roped off, so I didn't take a close look.)

I took the picture last Sunday.  Since then, some of the snow has melted, but, according to the park's recorded message, there is still 210 inches on the ground.  (They have received 896 inches since last July.)
- 4:21 PM, 9 May 2008   [link]


Is Obama The Democratic Nominee?  Not quite yet, says Jay Cost.
Elite opinion on the Democratic race has congealed around the idea that it is over.   Clinton has no chance whatsoever to win the nomination now.  There is a minority of analysts out there - maybe 5%, maybe even less - who see her path to the nomination as much narrower than it was four days ago, but who still see a path.

I'm with the minority on this one.  I think she is nearly finished, but not quite yet.
I'm with that minority, too.  As are some of the bettors at InTrade, where they currently give Barack Obama about a 90 percent chance to win the nomination.  That means, of course, that the same bettors are giving Clinton about a 10 percent chance to win the nomination.

In general, Cost's analysis seems correct to me, but incomplete.  Incomplete because the nomination fight isn't over until it's over.  And, until it's over, something could happen.  For instance, Jeremiah Wright, who seems to enjoy the spotlight, might pop up again.  And it is not hard to think of even more dire possibilities.
- 12:37 PM, 9 May 2008   [link]


Worth A Look:  Maybe several looks.  Karl Rove's maps showing McCain versus Clinton, and McCain versus Obama.  You'll note that McCain is — currently — doing better against the junior senator from Illinois than against the junior senator from New York, and that the patterns of support for the two Democratic candidates are quite different.

(Some states will almost certainly shift as voters in them learn more.  For instance, I think that, assuming that Obama is the nominee, McCain will carry both North Dakota and Nebraska easily.)
- 8:52 AM, 9 May 2008   [link]


Letter Of The Day:  From, coincidentally, Mercer Island.   As I am sure you know, a destructive cyclone has hit the nation long known as Burma.  According to news reports, as many as a hundred thousand may have been killed.  Many might have been saved if the leftwing military dictatorship had been willing to warn the people.  Even now, the military rulers are blocking help from the outside.

Does any of this bother our letter writer?  No.  But this does:

Has anyone noticed? George Bush and his underlings, along with everyone at "fair and balanced" FOX News, keep referring to Myanmar as "Burma" ["Aid slowly trickles into ravaged Myanmar," News, May 7].

What's the point?

Maybe Myanmar should refer to America as "the Colonies" ... ?

Man, it really is time for a change.

(Out of courtesy, I have omitted the letter writer's name, though you can find it easily enough at the link.)

I hesitate to point this out, but the preference for Burma over Myanmar is shared by the leftist San Francisco Chronicle and the leftist Washington Post.  More important, it is shared by the democratic opposition in Burma.  Their broadest organization calls itself the "National Council of the Union of Burma".  So, President Bush is on the side of the people of Burma — and the letter writer is on the side of the cruel military dictatorship.

Cross posted at Sound Politics.
- 2:55 PM, 8 May 2008   [link]


Kansas, Or A Seattle Suburb?  When Bill Clinton was presenting himself to the American public in 1992, he was described as "The Man from Hope", Hope, Arkansas, that is.  His supporters even made a movie with that title.  The Clinton campaign called him the Man from Hope for two reasons, to take advantage of the town's name, and to imply that Clinton had the wholesome values many of us associate with small towns.

There is just one thing wrong with calling Clinton the Man from Hope; it isn't completely true.   Clinton was born in Hope in 1946 and lived there (in the care of grandparents) until 1950, but he grew up in Hot Springs, Arkansas, a very different place.  Hot Springs was famous, or, if you prefer, infamous, for its vices, famous enough to attract visitors like Al Capone and Bugs Moran.  Hardly anyone would think those visitors had small town values.

But Clinton got away with it during 1992, though reporters familiar with Arkansas (and Clinton's personal history) must have know that he was being deceptive.

The Obama campaign is pulling a similar trick with his mother.

Barack's mother, Ann Dunham, grew up in small-town Kansas.  Her father worked on oil rigs during the Depression, and then signed up for World War II after Pearl Harbor, where he marched across Europe in Patton's army.  Her mother went to work on a bomber assembly line, and after the war, they studied on the G.I. Bill, bought a house through the Federal Housing Program, and moved west to Hawaii.

That leaves out a lot.  Stanley Ann Dunham was born in Kansas in 1942, but her family moved to the Seattle area in 1955, and in 1956 settled in a Seattle suburb, Mercer Island, where they moved sharply to the left.  There's a good description of their time in Mercer Island in this long Chicago Tribune article.   Some excerpts:

Obama's mother spent 8th grade through high school here.  Four of those five years were spent on Mercer Island, a 5-mile-long, South America-shaped stretch of Douglas firs and cedars, just across from Seattle in Lake Washington.
. . .
At Mercer High School, two teachers -- Val Foubert and Jim Wichterman -- generated regular parental thunderstorms by teaching their students to challenge societal norms and question all manner of authority.  Foubert, who died recently, taught English.  His texts were cutting edge: "Atlas Shrugged," "The Organization Man," "The Hidden Persuaders," "1984" and the acerbic writings of H.L. Mencken.
. . .
"If you were concerned about something going wrong in the world, Stanley would know about it first," said [fellow student] Chip Wall, who described her as "a fellow traveler. . . . We were liberals before we knew what liberals were."

(Or as I would say, leftists.)

Sociologically, Mercer Island was already a long way from small town Kansas, especially for those who fell under the influence of teachers like Foubert and Wichterman.  But Obama would prefer that we not know about that part of his mother's life, even though it was the formative part.

It is not hard to see why Obama wants to conceal this part of his mother's life, just as it is not hard to see why Clinton wanted to call himself the Man from Hope.  In each case, the man wants to claim some connection to small town values, the one directly and the other through his mother.   Clinton got away with it in 1992, and Obama may do the same this year.

The deliberate deception tells us something about both men.  In particular, it tells us that both men are bold liars, willing to deceive even when they know that their deceptions can be detected by anyone who takes a little time to check.  (And both men rely on the forbearance of "mainstream" journalists, some of whom must know the truth.)

Cross posted at Sound Politics.

(The Dunhams didn't go directly from Kansas to Seattle.  After World War II, her family moved to Texas, and from there to Seattle.  So, with the same lack of accuracy, one could say that Barack's mother grew up in Texas.  But I doubt that his campaign will ever make that claim.

Incidentally, I fell for this trick myself, believing for some time that the Dunhams had lived in Kansas most of their lives and then moved to Hawaii to retire.

This is the fourth post in my "Strange Obama" series.  You can find the earlier posts here, here, and here.)
- 1:41 PM, 8 May 2008
Two corrections:  Ann Dunham, Obama's mother, was born in 1942, not 1940, as I originally wrote.  And her family also lived in California after leaving Kansas, and before moving to the Seattle area.
- 6:56 PM, 8 May   [link]


Barbara Walters, Home Wrecker:  Star Jones and Tim Graham point out the obvious.
From Us Magazine through TV Newser: Star Jones lets her old "View" boss Barbara Walters have it on how she's using her tale of adultery with black Republican Sen. Edward Brooke in the Seventies to sell books: "It is a sad day when an icon like Barbara Walters in the sunset of her life is reduced to publicly branding herself as an adulterer, humiliating an innocent family with accounts of her illicit affair and speaking negatively against me all for the sake of selling a book.  It speaks to her true character."

Aside from the never-ending controversy over how Star Jones dramatically lost weight, it's amazing to see how everyone from Oprah to Howard Kurtz in the Washington Post today see Barbara's tale of being a mistress as a fascinating life story, and not a tale of sleazy immorality.
The obvious that almost all journalists missed.  Walters helped destroy a man's marriage and his career.  She feels a little sorry about the second, but not at all about the first.

That so many journalists, including Howard Kurtz, missed the obvious tells us something about their own morals, and about their willingness to tolerate (and, often, conceal) the moral failings of politicians they like — and something about their hypocrisy when they pretend to care about the moral failings of politicians they dislike.

(Gretchen Wilson wrote a song for Ms. Walters.  Maybe some interviewer should play that song for Walters as she goes around on her book tour.)
- 7:10 AM, 8 May 2008   [link]


Nasty Air Pollution In Hawaii:  From the Kilauea volcano.
Big Island crops are shriveling as sulfur dioxide from Kilauea wafts over them and envelops them in "vog," or volcanic smog.  People are wheezing, and schoolchildren are being kept indoors during recess.   High gas levels led Hawaii Volcanoes National Park to close several days last month, forcing the evacuation of thousands of visitors.

Residents of this volcanic island are used to toxic gas.  But this haze is so bad that farmers are thinking about growing different crops, and many people are worrying about their health.
The vog has gotten much worse since March, when a new vent opened in the volcano.

Of course this vog would be completely illegal if it were coming from a US factory.  (Maybe even if it were coming from a Chinese factory.)
- 6:25 AM, 8 May 2008   [link]


More Bad News On The Economy:  As usual since the inauguration of President Bush, the news is "better-than-expected".
Worker productivity rose by a better-than-expected amount in the first three months of the year while labor cost pressures eased.

The Labor Department reported Wednesday that productivity, the amount of output per hour of work, increased at an annual rate of 2.2 percent in the first quarter.  That was slightly higher than the 1.5 percent increase which had been expected.
Bad news, that is, if you are hoping for a collapse of the US economy — as so many on the left are.
- 2:39 PM, 7 May 2008   [link]


Suspicious Minds:  The late reporting of the Lake County results in Indiana made many suspect that Obama supporters were holding back the results until they knew how many votes they needed.  Including many Democrats who support Hillary Clinton.  For example, take a look through the comments at this election blog.   Mixed in with the congratulations to Obama you will find many who think the election was about to be stolen, and some of those who say that are clearly Clinton supporters.

Last night on Fox, Democratic operative Bob Beckel suggested the same thing, that the delay in reporting was to facilitate ballot stuffing.
Regarding Lake County, very suspiscious indeed. The mayor of Hammond, IN was on CNN casting aspersions on Gary, IN. Bob Beckel on Fox last night relayed an anecdote that should send chills down your spine. Was talking about a prior campaign where he called the registrar's office in Gary and asked what was taking so long. The election official told him that he, Beckel, was the cause of the hold up. Something along the line of, "There's no hold up, we're just waiting on you to tell us how many votes you need."
(I didn't see the program, so I can't verify the word for word accuracy of that quote.  But I have seen essentially the same thing reported in several independent places.)

And, apparently, CNN was unable to get a reasonable explanation for the delay.

For the record, I think that incompetence is a more likely explanations of the delay than attempted vote fraud.  But I wouldn't mind it if someone investigated the reasons for the delay.
- 12:57 PM, 7 May 2008   [link]


"I Tried To Acquaint Her With The Facts":  John Stossel tries to educate Arianna Huffington — without much success.  Oddly enough, Huffington thinks that her opponents on the right "don't believe in facts, and they don't believe in evidence".

If you are like me, you will be both amused and discouraged by the encounter.  Amused because Huffington herself is almost impervious to facts and evidence, discouraged because there are so many on the left who think (or perhaps I should say, don't think) like Huffington.
- 7:10 AM, 7 May 2008   [link]


Why Did Obama Beat The Polls?  Jay Cost explains.
So, we can conclude that Clinton's narrow victory in Indiana was largely because she didn't do as well with her strong groups as in Ohio and Pennsylvania.  However, she did do just as well in the south.   It was in metro Indy and in the north that she didn't do as well.  On the other hand, Obama's extremely large victory in North Carolina was due to his strength among African Americans, a group with which he has improved over time.
To say the least.  It's easy to forget that, at the beginning of this campaign, Clinton was doing very well among blacks.

I suspect that there was a surge in voting by blacks in both states, as well as an improvement in Obama's share of the black vote, but I haven't seen any numbers on that yet.
- 6:47 AM, 7 May 2008   [link]


Worth Reading:  Fred Siegel explores the Obama contradictions.
The disparity between Obama's rhetoric of transcendence and his conventional Chicago racial and patronage politics is a leitmotiv of his political career.  In New York, politicians (Al Sharpton excepted) are usually forced to pay at least passing tribute to universal principles and the ideal of clean government.
. . .
For all his Camelot-like rhetoric, Obama is a product, in significant measure, of the political culture that Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass described:  "We've had our chief of detectives sent to prison for running the Outfit's (the mob's) jewellery-heist ring.  And we've had white guys with Outfit connections get $100 million in affirmative action contracts from their drinking buddy, Mayor Richard Daley ... That's the Chicago way."

At no point did Obama, the would-be saviour of US politics, challenge this corruption, except for face-saving gestures as a legislator.  He was, in his own Harvard law way, a product of it.
In other words, like Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama is best understood as a machine politician, or perhaps in Obama's case, as a front man for machine politicians.
- 10:04 AM, 6 May 2008   [link]


Quick Predictions:  Clinton will win Indiana by 7 points, Obama North Carolina by 8 points.  Clinton will be helped by the continual Jeremiah Wright connection in both states, Obama by a surge of black votes in North Carolina.

Here are the Real Clear Politics survey summaries for Indiana and North Carolina.   Indiana is about 9 percent black, North Carolina about 22 percent black.  One would expect, from those numbers, that blacks would make up about 18 percent of the Democratic primary vote in Indiana, and about 45 percent in North Carolina.  I would not be surprised if the black vote in the North Carolina primary approaches 50 percent.
- 9:43 AM, 6 May 2008
Other Predictions:  FWIW (not much, in my opinion), Zogby is predicting a close race in Indiana, and a big win for Obama in North Carolina.  Meanwhile, Drudge says that the Clinton campaign told him that they may lose by 15 points in North Carolina.  But then you don't have to be too cynical to think that's what the Clinton campaign would say if they expect to lose by 8 points.
- 12:45 PM, 6 May 2008
Update:  It is clear that I was wrong about Obama's strength in both states, though how wrong, I don't know yet.  (And it may be a very good night for Zogby, something that hasn't happened very often in this series of primaries.)

You may be wondering why CNN has not called Indiana for Clinton, given that 83 percent of the vote has been counted.  That's because the places that have not reported are almost all places where one would expect a strong vote for Obama, notably Lake County, which is about 26 percent black.
- 7:21 PM, 6 May 2008
Deliberately Late?  Suspicious people may be beginning to wonder whether Lake County is holding back reporting until they see how many votes Obama needs.  That's unlikely, but not impossible, since vote fraud is not unknown there.  However, incompetence is a much more likely explanation, at this point.  But if I were running the Clinton campaign, I would send a few lawyers to the county, just in case.
- 7:49 PM, 6 May 2008
Unimportant, but amusing:  Obama easily carried Buncombe County in North Carolina.
- 8:42 PM, 6 May 2008
CNN projects Clinton as the winner, with a mere 99 percent of the precincts counted.  That was close.  More tomorrow, after I get some sleep.
- 10:22 PM, 6 May 2008   [link]


Archives

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July 2004, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4
August 2004, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4
September 2004, Part 1, Part 2. Part 3, and Part 4
October 2004, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4
November 2004, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4
December 2004, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4

January 2005, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4
February 2005, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4
March 2005, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4
April 2005, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4
May 2005, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4
June 2005, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4
July 2005, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4
August 2005, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4
September 2005, Part 1 Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4
October 2005, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4
November 2005, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4
December 2005, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4

January 2006, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4
February 2006, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4
March 2006, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4
April 2006, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4
May 2006, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4
June 2006, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4
July 2006, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4
August 2006, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4
September 2006, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4
October 2006, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4
November 2006, Part 1 Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4
December 2006, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4

January 2007, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4
February 2007, Part 1 and Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4
March 2007, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4
April 2007, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4
May 2007, Part 1 Part 2, and Part 3, and Part 4
June 2007, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4
July 2007, Part 1 Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4
August 2007, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4
September 2007, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4
October 2007, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4
November 2007, Part 1 Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4
December 2007, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4

January 2008, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4
February 2008, Part 1 Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4
March 2008, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4
April 2008, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4
May 2008, Part 1 and Part 2






Coming Soon
  • Congratulations to the Sierra Club
  • JFK and Wiretaps
  • Armey's Army
  • Green Republicans


Coming Eventually
  • The Rise and Fall and Rise of Black Voting
  • Abortion, Cleft Palates, and Europe
  • Kweisi Mfume's Children
  • Public Opinion During Other US Wars
  • Dual Loyalties
  • The Power Index
  • Baby Dancing
  • Jocks, but no Nerds
  • The Four Caliphs



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