July 30, 2004

"A Self-Correcting Mechanism at Work"

CNN's Jeff Greenfield likes blogs. And he understands them, too. Unlike many in traditional journalism, Greenfield doesn't criticize bloggers for not having editors. He understands that the blogosphere is the editor and fact-checker.

I think the real-time quality to the opinions, corrections, and other voices is terrific; when someone makes a reference to another voice, says 'read the whole thing' and lets you link to the other voice, it's a breakthrough in political dialogue. Unlike some of my colleagues, I don't fear the lack of editorial control, because there's a self-correcting mechanism at work, and if people don't like the tone of the blogs, there's still plenty of traditional media around.

"There is no cost-free future for the United States..."

George Miller, my London correspondent until he started his own blog, has posted a couple of essays about John Kerry, one written before Kerry's speech last night and the other written after. Both are very good reads, but it's the latter I've chosen to excerpt for you. Miller writes about America and the war on terror through fairly unique eyes - those of a 40-year-old American who has lived in London since the age of 14, except for one year a few year ago in an Atlanta suburb. He starts with a quote from Kerry's speech...

"I know what we have to do in Iraq. We need a president who has the credibility to bring our allies to our side and share the burden, reduce the cost to American taxpayers, and reduce the risk to American soldiers. That's the right way to get the job done and bring our troops home."

The sum total of what Kerry knows about "what we have to do in Iraq" amounts to no more than this: Kerry would be nicer to "allies" who try to thwart the democratisation of the Arab world and he would cut costs and get the troops home as soon as possible. Kerry might have more foreign policy ideas up his sleeve, but these were the only words he had to say on Iraq in his entire speech last night.

Kerry was unable to actually articulate what the "job" in Iraq is. He wants to talk about strategy while leaving the objectives nice and fuzzy. It's not difficult to understand why he must do this - look at the rabble he was speaking to. Sure, the honorable Senator Joe Lieberman was in the crowd, but so were the Deaniacs. Kerry can't even make the simple verbal commitment to stay the course in Iraq (no matter what other "allies" choose to do) until there is a viable State in that country.

Notice, I don't insist that Kerry promise "democracy" in Iraq as President Bush does. While it's strange that a liberal democrat like Kerry should find it so difficult to articulate a vision that included the spread of democratic values, I'd be content for him to demonstrate "realism" and simply promise to stay the course in Iraq until there was an administration at least as viable as Saddam's, if hopefully a little less brutal.

You might argue that Kerry does believe all this, he jut didn't say so last night. Yet Kerry did find time to say "we are a nation at war." He's happy enough to use the wartime context to explain his exceptional experience in these matters. But if we are at war, then one would expect a man who would be President to explain how he would wage war. After all, whatever decisions a "President Kerry" makes, there will be some cost to pay, and probably in blood. There is no cost-free future for the United States, and there never has been.

A candidate that tells you how he would be unlike the current President, but only offers examples relating to "nuance" and "style," is a candidate that doesn't actually have any clear objectives for the next four years. This lack of direction is just about tolerable in peacetime. If you think this is peacetime, vote Kerry. If you know the country is at war, I suspect you'll stick with the guy who is fighting it.

In Kerry's Defense

John Kerry:

I defended this country as a young man and I will defend it as President. Let there be no mistake: I will never hesitate to use force when it is required. Any attack will be met with a swift and certain response.

The Kerry Doctrine: Once we get clobbered, I'll try and figure out how to strike back. ... [The] choice is clear: Wait to get slammed again, perhaps with tens of thousands dead this time, or continue to take the war to the terrorists.

Charles at LGF: "Consider the implications of [Kerry's] statement. He’s going to wait for the attack."

If elected president, John Kerry will wait for something like this to happen again, before responding. Your very life may well depend on defeating John Kerry.

Stop The Lies

From a story in today's Tennessean about yesterday's meeting of the Tennessee Tax Structure Study Commission, a supposedly "independent" and unbiased body that, in reality, is stacked with supporters of a proposed state income tax that narrowly failed in the state legislature two years ago:

[Commission Chairman Nelson] Andrews responded that the commission very well might recommend an income tax, but that it continued to be open-minded to any structure that would allow Tennessee to lower its sales tax and would keep pace with the economy.

Otherwise, he said, the state will encounter ''train wrecks'' every few years when expenses outpace tax revenue. He's unsure what the panel will recommend, but said he expected it to be ''fairly drastic changes'' in taxes.

Okay, can we stop the lies and deception now? The tax structure already provides sufficient revenue growth to keep pace with "the economy," meaning the growth of government costs due to inflation and population growth. Pro-income tax policymakers and commission know this, which is why they talk instead about expenses outpacing tax revenue, as Andrews did above. The truth is, the only time Tennessee faces a fiscal "train wreck" is when expenses outpace revenue because of overspending.

The state constitution allows for state government to increasing spending each year by a measure of annual "economic growth," which is defined by statute as the growth of personal income in the state. On average, that's about 5-6 percent, and the current tax structure, on average, produces about that much revenue growth each year. Some years revenue grows a little above the economic growth rate, some years revenue grows a little lower.

In years where revenue growth outpaces economic growth, the state constitution says the legislature can't spend the surplus unless it first passes a law allowing itself to spend the surplus. It's an easy loophole - the law allowing the legisture to bust the spending cap can be passed by a simple majority rather than a "super-majority" of, say two-thirds of the legislature. So if there is majority will to pass a budget that spends the surplus, there are enough votes to exceed the spending cap. This they have done, 11 times since 1984, spending a total of $3.2 billion in surplus tax revenue.

As I detailed in this January 2003 paper, it has been a bipartisan raid on your wallet.

The cap was exceeded twice during the Gov. Lamar Alexander years - by $446.1 million in fiscal year 1985, and $100 million in fiscal year 1987, and five times under Gov. Ned McWherter - $101 million in fiscal year 1989, $74 million in fiscal year 1990, a whopping $703.1 million in fiscal year 1992, and $450 million in fiscal year 1993. Gov. Sundquist has been just as irresponsible, pushing budgets that ultimately lead the legislature to over-spend the cap by $55 million in fiscal year 1997, $270 million in fiscal year 2000, and $771 million in [fiscal year 2003].

That has made a tax increase more likely. Here's why:

Every dollar spent over the cap one year means a higher baseline budget for the next year, and the next, and the next, and so on. When the legislature agreed to spend $105 million over the cap this year, it means they'll likely spend that $105 million again the next year, plus a little more to cover normal rising costs due to inflation and population growth.

Factor in a 5 percent annual increase for population growth and inflation and that $105 million becomes $110 million next year, $127.6 million in the fifth year, and $162.8 million in the tenth year.

Over 10 years, Bredesen's choice to exceed the cap by $105.1 million this year will cost you $1.32 billion in extra spending. If in any of those years the economy slows and revenue growth doesn't quite keep pace with the economy, the result is a deficit, a fiscal "crisis" and calls for a tax increase.

That is why, after several years of exceeding the spending cap by a total of more than $1 billion, Sundquist needed a billion-dollar tax increase to balance the budget.

Spending growth above the cap makes inevitable that governors and legislators will seek to pass tax increases to further satisfy their insatiable desire to spend more money.

In 1984, the same year the Tennessee legislature first voted to exceed the constitutional spending cap, it also voted to raise the state sales tax rate, which had been 4.5 percent, to 5.5 percent, effective April 1, 1984. That penny sales tax increase helped pay for $446.1 million in over-cap spending in fiscal year 1985 (July 1 1984-June 30, 1985) under Gov Alexander.

The legislature raised the sales tax again on April 1, 1992, to 6 percent, in order to pay for the $450 million in excess spending in 1993 under Gov. McWherter. The sales tax was raised again, effective July 15, 2002, to 7 percent (except on food) to fund Gov. Sundquist's request for a billion-dollar budget increase in fiscal year 2003. That budget exceeded the constitution's spending-growth cap by a record and $771 million.

If the legislature were to save rather than the surplus revenue in the years where tax revenue exceeds economic growth, Tennessee today could have:

July 29, 2004

No Offense Intended

A single quote from an advance text of John Kerry's speech tonight at the Democratic National Convention explains the critical, indeed, life-threatening difference between Kerry and President Bush in the one issue that matters this fall:

Let there be no mistake: I will never hesitate to use force when it is required. Any attack will be met with a swift and certain response.

Perhaps it's only coincidence, but it was rather telling that the last lines of the Bruce Springsteen song, No Surrender, that could be heard inside the Fleet Center as Kerry mounted the stage, before the volume was turned down, were these:

Now on the street tonight the lights grow dim
The walls of my room are closing in
There's a war outside still raging
you say it ain't ours anymore to win

Vote accordingly.

Blogs Aren't Journalism. They're Better Than That

From a generally pretty good story on blogs, politics and journalism in the Thursday Seattle Post-Intelligencer comes this snippet that I want to comment on:

Bloggers and others have mixed opinions on what kind and how much of a threat this new type of journalism is to traditional media outlets.

"I don't know how you guys stay in the game except by analysis, so you're going to become a giant collection of opinion pages," said Hugh Hewitt, a blogger at the convention who is also a radio talk show host and author.

"No matter what you do, it will not appear until tomorrow morning -- and whenever you stop writing, the world can change after that. What I do is immediate, which is why it is preferable. To the extent that people want news, they want it immediately. No matter what you do, it's day-old bread," said Hewitt, who operates the site hughhewitt.com.

Most bloggers, unlike traditional media outlets, don't have the resources to research and publish in-depth investigative stories. And many bloggers rely on newspapers and magazines for their information.

1. Hewitt is right.

2. Oh, spare me. Most bloggers, unlike traditional media outlets, actually know how to use the Internet and Google to find out most any fact they seek. Most bloggers, unlike traditional media outlets, actually know where to find things online - things like interview transcripts, audio archives of speeches, corporate financial documents, and so on. Most bloggers, unlike traditional media outlets, provide links to the documents they cite so that readers are able to fact-check the bloggers' post against the source material.

Sure, some bloggers rely on newspapers and magazines for their information, but even there the activity is journalistic in nature - cross-checking one publication's stories against another's to root out factual errors. Other bloggers rely on original documents and other source materials to fact-check media coverage. Both are journalism, where the reporting beat is reporting on journalism itself.

A case in point. Last year, the mainstream press was allowing Joe Wilson to claim he was "apolitical" as the former ambassador publicly undermined President Bush's assertion in a state of the Union address that Iraq had sought uranium in Africa. Many bloggers noted that the press often misquoted or misrepresented Bush's 16 words in that speech:

"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

Some left off the first 5 words - "The British government has learned," altering the quote from one in which Bush reported what British intelligence believed and falsely portraying it as solely a Bush administration claim.

Others noted that the press seemed not to notice the difference between "Africa" and "Niger," as Wilson only claimed to have debunked a report that Saddam had sought uranium from that one small African country.

The blogosphere did a good job exposing the inaccuracies in the mainstream press coverage.

(Bush's 16-word statement was completely factual the day he said it and today. Recent developments in the story have completely vindicated the claim itself – and outed Wilson as an intentional liar. The Senate Intelligence Committee report said Wilson's trip to Niger in fact DID turn up evidence supporting the British intelligence report of Saddam seeking to purchase uranium from Niger. And a British probe recently concluded that Saddam indeed DID try to buy uranium from Niger.)

While much of the blogosphere focused on the press coverage of the 16 words, I added some real journalistic probing into Wilson's claim that he was "apolitical."

I used Google to find archived audio of a speech Wilson had given earlier in which he clearly staked out a political anti-war stance. And, thanks to Google, I found archived audio of a second speech in which Wilson also gave a highly political attack on the Iraq war. Apolitical? Wilson claimed it and the mainstream press let him get away with it. Had they used Google and done some actual research they could have reported that. And perhaps, by exposing Wilson early on as lying about being "apolitical," they might have raised some red flags about his overall credibility.

We might not have had to wait a year to find out that Wilson was lying, for political reasons, all along.

Will all their resources, the mainstream press didn't out Wilson as a liar. I did. And as a result, readers got more truth here than they did from the likes of the New York Times.

Doesn't the mainstream press have a subscription to Google?

What If?

If you're in business, I wholeheartedly recommend to you this piece by Dr. Jeff Cornwall, professor of management and entrepreneurship and also a blogger, regarding how the business community, especially entrepreneurs, should prepare NOW for the eventuality of a future terror attack, in order to lessen the negative economic and business impact of that attack.

So why should a business blogger be talking about this? Well, I think that entrepreneurs should be asking similar questions. And, they should be asking them now. Not in terms of any lofty public policy issues, but in terms of how it would affect their businesses. Entrepreneurs I talk with certainly are thinking about this, at least in the back of their minds, but any discussion tends to always end up like they are whistling past a graveyard. Maybe we'll get lucky and nothing significant will happen, but the probability is high enough to warrant attention by any business owner.

How do you start thinking about the unthinkable? I would suggest the best place to start is with hard data. Examine what happened to your business and your industry after 9/11.

Read the whole thing.

Not A Fad

Blogging: new media, or a fad? The Seattle Post-Intelligencer explores the question. My opinion is: it's not a fad. The P-I story touches on blogging, journalism and politics. Worth reading. Discuss amongst yourselves.

How Islamic "Charity" Funds Terror

Andrew McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor who led the 1995 terrorism prosecution against Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, has a lot more background info on the Dallas-based Muslim "charity" that has been indicted for being the American fundraising arm of Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist organization. McCarthy explores the Islamic concept of zakat (charitable giving), one of the "five pillars of Islam," and how it it leads to funding terrorism.

Because of our national chariness about critically examining anything that touches on how Islam is interpreted and practiced in the United States, the abettors of terrorism, witting and unwitting, are thus given a capacious license for mischief. The Islamists simply assert that they are "practicing their religion" by "contributing to charity"; the mainstream media, academia, and even swaths of government take these assertions at face value, as though they were consonant with Western notions; and anyone who dares question the arrangement is immediately scalded by an alphabet soup of Muslim interest groups as a baleful Islamophobe.

It's a suicidal mindset. As Tuesday's indictment demonstrates, "charitable giving" includes paying for the afore-described indoctrination in madrassas, mosques and summer camps - schooling the people who will one day kill us that they should be killing us. More importantly, these "alms" subsidize the families of suicide bombers (encouraging ever more shaheeds) and go to direct purchases of military arsenals and equipment - or, because money is fungible, free up funds that are then available for belligerent purposes.

But ... Islamic charity also funds the sucide bombings by Hamas.

Give, and Allah won't harm you - but his self-professed agents will use your money to recruit your kids into a death cult and send them off to die while murdering Jews and other infidels. I'm sorry. I just don't understand the "Religion of Peace".

Another Blogger Hits the Big Time

A college student's blog becomes a hot media property and acquisition target. And his readership is far closer to HobbsOnline than InstaPundit.

The 18-year-old college student behind the CableNewser.com Web log now has a paying job. Brian Stelter said Monday he sold the online publication to Mediabistro.com, a media networking and events company. Created seven months ago, the Weblog will change its name to TVNewser.com and its coverage will expand to include news and gossip about the major networks' news divisions as well as those of cable.

Stelter, a sophomore at Maryland's Towson University, will stay on as editor. "I will get a monthly retainer, which may not be a lot of money but it's a lot better than (relying on) donations," Stelter said. "For a college student, it's a lot of money." Listen to an interview with Stelter.

New York-based MediaBistro.com approached Stelter after he was profiled by The New York Times earlier this year. Founded by Laurel Touby, a magazine editor and writer, it has an extensive listing of media jobs, and offers advice on how to get hired and published. Mediabistro plans to develop a network of Web logs, Stelter added.

The acquisition of CableNewser.com should increase traffic for Mediabistro.com. Stelter said his site got about 80,000 unique visitors a month and had about 5,000 visitors daily. "And that doesn't include RSS readers, or the items which are passed along inside businesses," he said. "It's mind-boggling the reach just one blogger can have."

July 28, 2004

Borderline Insanity II

Michelle Malkin highlights yet another example of a potential Islamist terrorist caught sneaking into the U.S. from Mexico.

A South African woman picked up in Texas almost 10 days ago may turn out to be a key, high-level al-Qaida operative. Her name is Farida Goolam Mohamed Ahmed. She was stopped at McAllen Miller International Airport on July 19 headed to New York.

Eddie Flores of the U.S. Border Patrol office in McAllen, Texas tells FederalNewsRadio.com that a review of her papers raised some concerns. "In looking at her documents, they did not find any entry documents in her passport where she was legally admitted into the United States," says Flores.

Ahmed produced a South African passport to the agents with four pages torn out, and with no U.S. entry stamps. Ahmed reportedly later confessed to investigators that she entered the country illegally by crossing the Rio Grande River. Ahmed was carrying travel itineraries showing a July 8 flight from Johannesburg, South Africa to London. Six days later, Ahmed traveled from London to Mexico City before attempting to travel from McAllen to New York.

Government sources tell FederalNewsRadio.com that capturing this woman could be comparable to the arrest of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of 9/11. It was revealed in court Tuesday that she was on a watch list and had entered the U.S. possibly as many as 250 times.

Tuesday, the South African government issued a warning that al-Qaida militants and other terrorists traveling through Europe had obtained South African passports, and authorities believe they got them from crime syndicates operating inside the government agency that issues the documents.

In justifying his support for a massive amnesty plan that would reward millions of illegal aliens who entered our country as Farida Goolam Mohamed Ahmed did, President Bush has said "family values don't stop at the Rio Grande."

Yes, well, neither do the Islamofascists.

UPDATE: Commenters here at Little Green Footballs (the blogosphere's best daily scorekeeper in the war against the Islamist terrorists) are trying to figure out who "Farida Goolam Mohamed Ahmed" might be, and whether or not she really is a South African woman. As the story above notes, South African officials recently warned that some AQ terrorists have gotten ahold of South African passpots.

Is Farida Goolam Mohamed Ahmed the women who was pictured on that Wanted Poster the FBI released two months ago, picturing seven suspected terrorists? Probably not - her name is Aafia Siddiqui. Farida Ahmed is described as being 48 in this story, which has more details on how AQ terrorists are getting South African passports.

Borderline Insanity

This story deserves a lot more attention that it's getting.

Middle Easterners with possible terrorist ties have been detained after entering the country from Mexico but released for lack of jail space, said U.S. Rep. Solomon P. Ortiz, the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness.

"It is true. It is very reliable information, from the horse's mouth, and it's happening all over the place," Ortiz, D-Texas, told The Herald on Thursday. "It’s very, very scary, and members (of Congress) know about this. We have contacted several agencies, and I have talked to some people, but I can't say who."

Ortiz’s comments come amid Thursday's release of the 9/11 panel's report into events leading to the deadliest attack on U.S. soil and as the House Appropriations Committee passed an amendment to the Transportation-Treasury Bill to stop the use of Mexican identification cards in this country.

Currently, matricula consulars are used by Mexican nationals to open bank accounts in the United States and obtain driver's licenses in some states.

The matricula consular card fits the bill.

Some law enforcement agencies have recently announced that they would, after all, accept the Certificate of Driving as an identity document. Thus, an illegal alien - or a terrorist - can get a phony birth certificate in Mexico, cross the Rio Grande illegally, come to Tennessee, get a matricula consular card from the Mexican Consulate in Atlanta, which regularly hands them out in events held at high schools in the Nashville area unbothered by la migre, and then use the card to get a Certificate of Driving, which is, despite the law, accepted as an official identity document, complete with photo.

And thus can Mohammed the Terrorist pretend to be Martinez the Gardener, all with the help of the state of Tennessee. Ya think maybe al Qaeda is recruiting Spanish instructors? Let's continue with the news story...

The amendment, submitted by U.S. Rep. John Culberson, R-Texas, will go before the full House in September.

Culberson said the cards present a danger to national security, pointing to the June 26, 2003, testimony of Steve McCraw, assistant director of the FBI's Office of Intelligence, before a House Judiciary subcommittee.

"The ability of foreign nationals to use the matricula consular to create a well-documented, but fictitious, identity in the United States provides an opportunity for terrorists to move freely within the United States without triggering name-based watch lists that are disseminated to local police officers," McCraw testified. "It also allows them to board planes without revealing their true identity. … At least one individual of Middle Eastern descent has also been arrested in possession of the matricula consular card."

Culberson’s spokesmen Tony Essalih and Jeff Morehouse told The Herald on Thursday that U.S. Attorney Michael T. Shelby of the Southern District of Texas told Culberson that several Middle Easterners have used Hispanic surnames to enter the country undetected.

Michelle Malkin has more, including a link to a story about al Qaeda terrorists hiding out in Central America.

Another Bush Boom Indicator

Jeff Cornwall comments on recent venture capital investment data: "Deal flow is now starting to go to earlier stage ventures, a sign of increasing VC optimism for the economic outlook of the next three to five years."

Andrew $ullivan

Andrew Sullivan is having another of his regular "pledge drives" over at his increasingly less-interesting weblog. He's raised some $200,000 that way from gullible folks who actually thought he was a real conservative, rather than a self-aggrandizing pundit who thinks he can improve his own fortunes and standing among the pundit class by shifting his allegiance to the Democrats. (Kerry's a "conservative" now, according to Sullivan. No wonder his site's traffic is declining.)

Sullivan often holds his pledge drives, claiming the site can't stay up and running without raising tens of thousands of dollars. (That must be some gold-plated bandwith he's buying!) Last year, shortly after raising $120,000 dollars, he went on a month-long blogging hiatus.

Why do I care? Because I don't want you to waste your money. Sullivan is not a conservative and no longer a supporter of a proactive war on terror. He is now pushing the election of John Kerry, a "permission slip Democrat" who intends to pull American troops back from the front lines, and turn the management of the war on terror over to the United Nations and our "allies" France and Germany.

Do you want to donate to a blog? Donate to one of the blogs participating in Laurence Simon's Give Money to Anyone But Andrew Sullivan project. Or donate to this one, via the Amazon tip jar or the Paypal link in the button bar at the top of the page. What'll Andrew Sullivan do with the money if you give it to him? Live on it, and continue to blog in support of John Kerry, gay marriage, and tax increases. What'll I do with it? Donate 10 percent to church. Then take the next $20 and pay my monthly hosting charges. Give some to the Republican National Committee. And buy some stuff.

July 27, 2004

Conventional Blogging

I'm not blogging from the Democratic National Convention. I'm not blogging about the Democratic National Convention. I'm not even watching the Democratic National Convention. You can find all you need of that over at BlogsForBush.com, and many other fine blogs on the B4B blogroll and on my blogroll.

But I will blog about this: I saw a picture of Michael Moore sitting with Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter at the Democratic National Convention. That should tell you all you need to know about how far the Democratic Party has fallen. Under Carter, America was embarrassed abroad and impoverished at home. Carter was a disastrous president whose only achievement was to notice that Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin were about to make peace between Egypt and Israel, and invite them to sign the papers in Washington so he could grab a bit of the limelight.

Yes, Carter was a miserable failure, but he was an honorable miserable failure, and since leaving office he has managed to make me almost forget the Iranian hostage crisis, the burning helicopters in the Iranian desert, the debilitated military, the skyrocketing inflation and unemployment and interest rates, and the Carter-created "malaise" thanks to his humanitarian works and his efforts at global diplomacy.

Seeing him sitting next to Moore tells me that Carter has succumbed to the raving-lunatic conspiracy theory fever that grips the Democratic Party's Left and increasingly infests the rest of that once-proud party.

UPDATE: Jonathan Last has a look at Carter's intellectual incoherence on display at the Democratic National Convention.

Did Tony Blair Lie About the WMD?

Did Tony Blair really lie about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction? George Miller has the answer over at London Calling.

Bush Boom: Entrepeneurship On The Rise

Professor Jeff Cornwall comments on new data about the entrepreneurs at the core of the American economic recovery...

Almost one out of every eight Americans (11.9%) is engaged in entrepreneurial activity. This is one of the highest rates in the world and the highest rate of the largest, most developed economies. Our culture remains the strongest force driving entrepreneurial activity that differentiates us from other nations studied. America outranks the rest of the world in all of the key entrepreneurial indexes.

One myth that the cynics like to perpetuate is that these are mostly people out of work who cannot find a job. This study found that 76% of new start-ups were created to pursue opportunities their founders saw in the market, while only 24% were folks looking to create some income between jobs, typically as self-employed consultants.

Who are these American entrepreneurs? They tend to be young, as the study found the highest rate of entrepreneurship (17.3%) in 25-34 year olds. African Americans and Hispanics have the highest rates overall.

There are many voices, especially in Boston this week, that are still looking to the old economy to move us ahead. This report offers more evidence that this is a new economic age. The new economy will require leadership that understands that the old strategies of duplicity between big government and big corporations no longer will create growth or progress. An age of entrepreneurship requires a strategy of truly free markets, and not a managed economy using tax policy and governmental corporate largess to pick winners and losers.

So, entrepreneurs are both powering the growing economy and benefiting from it. And just why are both growing? Anyone care to blame the Bush tax cuts?

East Tennessee's Clueless State Legislator

Tennessee legislator Bob Patton, a 10-year incumbent, is fighting for his political life in this year's election for his state House seat, thanks to his support a few years ago for a highly unpopular proposal to create a state income tax. In this story in a recent edition of the Kingsport, Tenn., Times-News, Patton tries to explain his vote in for the income tax by, in effect, asserting that he was stupid and duped by then-Gov. Don Sundquist.

"At the time I believed it was best for Tennessee, but I was not privileged to see behind the scenes to see how he (Sundquist) was jacking around the budget.

We knew, Rep. Patton, the things you should have known. We were not as you describe yourself: clueless. And we suspect, Rep. Patton, that you haven't had a real change of heart on the income tax, just a political one as you face a committed anti-income tax candidate in the race for the Republican nomination in the August primary. But even if you have, Rep. Patton, it doesn't much matter. East Tennesseans don't need a state representative who can't be bothered to do his job right. East Tennesseans deserve strong representation - rather than clueless representation - ought to vote for Matthew Hill on August 5, or in the early voting period now through July 31.

July 26, 2004

Required Reading

Just arrived from Amazon: Hugh Hewitt's If It's Not Close, They Can't Cheat: Crushing the Democrats in Every Election and Why Your Life Depends on It. A very quick scan tells me this looks to be an exceptional book, as Hewitt explores the core beliefes that distinguish the Democratic and Republican parties, including their critical differences on national defense, and provides an overview of how the Democratic party became "addicted to election trickery." Hewitt, a law professor, author, political adviser, radio host and blogger, also looks at how technology is changing political activism in the post-9/11 world, and explains America's six-party political system. Order your copy today. It's not required reading, but it ought to be.

The Starbucks Economic Indicator

Dave Sheridan says rising same-store sales at Starbucks indicate a strengthening economy. This and much more econo-bloggage can be found at this week's edition of the Carnival of the Capitalists.

Hawks

Nashville newspaper The Tennessean urges the Bush administration to "deal now with Iran" Hawks? Urging military engagement with the mad nuke-seeking terrorist-funding mullahs of Tehran? No. The editorial urges that America engage Iran diplomatically, and echoes a recent Council of Foreign Relations report on Iran that recommended "constructive engagement" with the Iranian regime and "use areas of mutual interest to draw Iran into a constructive dialogue," in the belief that those contacts would "help promote political evolution from within Iran."

It's good to see the paper urging the nation to deal with the growing Iranian threat sooner rather than later, but I don't accept that the CFR has the right approach.

The Iranian mullarchy has shown no signs of willingness to cease its ceaseless pursuit of nuclear technology and, as oft documented by Michael Ledeen, the regime has of late been making serious and specific threats about terrorist attacks inside the U.S. I fear that a policy of "constructive engagement" will simply cost us time and we'll wake up one day to find a nuclear-armed Iran.

Given Iran's role in creating and sustaining the Islamist terror organization Hezbollah, it is certainly within the realm of possibility that a nuclear armed Iran woould provide such a weapon to terrorists.

The good news is, the population of Iran is young, pro-democracy and pro-American. The aging mullahs are running out of time. We don't need to invade and occupy Iran - but we ought to be providing arms and assistance to internal revolutionaries, to be helping organize a new government-in-exile, and to be making it crystal clear through presidential statements and a congressional resolution that America will support the overthrow of the Iranian regime by the Iranian people.

Movie Review

Had a chance to see The Bourne Supremacy this weekend. I love spy thrillers, and enjoyed it a lot. I agree with this review and this review and this review of the film. My wife hated it for all the same reasons I enjoyed it. Now I've got to rent the DVD of The Bourne Identity, which I haven't yet seen.

The Right Test

Stephen Sestanovich, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a professor of international diplomacy at Columbia University, writing in the New York Times last week:

When policymakers have imperfect information about a serious problem (which is almost always), what should they do? The answer, then as now, is to shift the burden of proof to the other guy. ... , but what the Bush administration did with Saddam Hussein in the run-up to war followed the same rule: it challenged him to prove that American intelligence was wrong, so that the responsibility for war was his, not ours.

Clearly, President Bush and his advisers did not expect Saddam Hussein to cooperate in this test, and might still have wanted war if he had. But even if the administration had handled other aspects of the issue differently, it would still have been necessary to subject Iraq to a test. In our debate about the war, we need to acknowledge that the administration set the right test for Saddam Hussein - and that he did not pass it.

July 25, 2004

Six

If it was a movie, no one would believe it.

July 23, 2004

Bet On Iraq

HobbsOnline welcomes its newest advertiser, BetOnIraq.com, which is offering you the opportunity to speculate on Iraqi currency for as little as $19. The Iraqi dinar is worth little today but, if Iraq becomes more peaceful and prosperous in the months and years ahead, that could change. It's an extremely speculative investment, but at $19, what have you got to lose?

Speaking of advertising on this blog, the top three ads in the top left-side ad strip all expire on or before July 31, and all five ads in that space expire by August 3. If you're interested in reserving that space, please contact me at bill@billhobbs.com.

Berger Might Have Stopped 9/11 - But He Failed To Act

Today's New York Sun has a devastating article detailing how Sandy Berger, Clinton's National Security Adviser, contributed heavily to the Clinton administration's miserable failure to get Osama bin Laden during the 1990s. Drudge and Instapundit both linked to it, so the Sun's servers may be overloaded. Here's the key excerpt from the article, which is based on information in the 9/11 Commission Report:

The report cites a 1998 meeting between Mr. Berger and the director of central intelligence, George Tenet, at which Mr. Tenet presented a plan to capture Osama bin Laden.

"In his meeting with Tenet, Berger focused most, however, on the question of what was to be done with Bin Ladin if he were actually captured. He worried that the hard evidence against Bin Ladin was still skimpy and that there was a danger of snatching him and bringing him to the United States only to see him acquitted," the report says, citing a May 1, 1998, Central Intelligence Agency memo summarizing the weekly meeting between Messrs. Berger and Tenet.

In June of 1999, another plan for action against Mr. bin Laden was on the table. The potential target was a Qaeda terrorist camp in Afghanistan known as Tarnak Farms. The commission report released yesterday cites Mr. Berger's "handwritten notes on the meeting paper" referring to "the presence of 7 to 11 families in the Tarnak Farms facility, which could mean 60-65 casualties." According to the Berger notes, "if he responds, we're blamed."

On December 4, 1999, the National Security Council's counterterrorism coordinator, Richard Clarke, sent Mr. Berger a memo suggesting a strike in the last week of 1999 against Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan. Reports the commission: "In the margin next to Clarke's suggestion to attack Al Qaeda facilities in the week before January 1, 2000, Berger wrote, 'no.' "

In August of 2000, Mr. Berger was presented with another possible plan for attacking Mr. bin Laden. This time, the plan would be based on aerial surveillance from a "Predator" drone. Reports the commission: "In the memo's margin, Berger wrote that before considering action, 'I will want more than verified location: we will need, at least, data on pattern of movements to provide some assurance he will remain in place.' "

In other words, according to the commission report, Mr. Berger was presented with plans to take action against the threat of Al Qaeda four separate times — Spring 1998, June 1999, December 1999, and August 2000. Each time, Mr. Berger was an obstacle to action. Had he been a little less reluctant to act, a little more open to taking pre-emptive action, maybe the 2,973 killed in the September 11, 2001, attacks would be alive today.

It really doesn't matter now what was in the documents from the National Archives that Mr. Berger says he inadvertently misplaced. The evidence in the commission's report yesterday is more than enough to embarrass him thoroughly. He is a hardworking, warm man with a wonderful family, but his background as a trade lawyer and his dovish, legalistic and political instincts made him, in retrospect, the tragically wrong man to be making national security decisions for America in wartime. That Senator Kerry had Mr. Berger as a campaign foreign policy adviser even before the archives scandal is enough to raise doubts about the senator's judgment.

A Little Light Reading

Searchable version of the 9/11 Commission Report here. Also, here is a link to the 521-page Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq, and a shorter 30-page summary of the findings, here, courtesy of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

July 22, 2004

John Clueless

Did you see John Kerry interviewed by Tom Brokaw the other night? Neither did I, but I read part of the transcript. This part screams off the page:

Brokaw: "Did you know that [Berger] was under investigation?"
Kerry: "I didn't have a clue, not a clue."
Brokaw: "He didn't share that with you?
Kerry: "I didn't have a clue."

And he wants you to think the Bush administration has bad intel?

Of Blogs, Poltics and Media

If you are interested in how the political blogosphere is impacting politics and media coverage of politics, you must read this 27-page paper, The Power and Politics of Blogs, by Daniel W. Drezner, assistant professor of political science at the University of Chicago, and Henry Farrell, assistant professor of political science at George Washington University. Excerpt:

We predict that as blogs become a more established feature on the political landscape, politicians and other interested parties will become more adept at responding to them, and, where they believe it necessary, co-opting them. To the extent that blogs become more politically influential, we may expect them to become more directly integrated into ‘politics as usual,’ losing some of their flavor of novelty and immediacy in the process. The most recent evidence of co-optation was the decision by both major parties to credential some bloggers as journalists for their nominating conventions.

The 9/11 Commission Report

The 9/11 Commission's report can be found here. It's a 585-page PDF file. Somebody ought to put the whole thing online, filled with relevant hyperlinks. Also, perhaps it should be reformatted in "parallel" style, comparing passages of the report to the many, many lies it debunks.

Just a couple ideas for the blogosphere...

TdF Update: No More Gifts

Lance Armstrong won again today in the Tour de France in spectacular fashion, taking today's 17th stage with a final sprint and catching German cyclist Andreas Kloden just 25 meters from the finish line to win by half a bike length.

With an amazing sprint finish, Lance Armstrong won his third stage in three overpowering days Thursday at the Tour de France, pulling even further ahead of his outclassed rivals as he marches toward a record sixth crown. The stage win was the Texan's fourth at this Tour - matching his previous best in other years where he also dominated - and perhaps the most incredible. He literally snatched victory from German Andreas Kloden at the line, pedaling so hard that his bicycle swung from side to side beneath him.

"No gifts this year," he said. "I want to win."

Getting It Right

The Nashville City Paper's Skip Cauthorn, in a report updating the status of a commission studying Tennessee's tax structure, has become the first reporter to accurately report the size of Tennessee's tax revenue surplus:

Currently the state is sitting on a roughly $380 million surplus, which depending on whom is asked, may or may not be an indication that the state's tax structure is sound."

Cauthorn, who I've criticized on this blog before for getting the number wrong, deserves praise for getting the number right. [The City Paper's website appears to be down right now. When it is revived, I'll add the link to the story.]

The rest of Cauthorn's story is worth reading, too. Reporting that the report from the Tennessee Tax Structure Study Commission is likely to "make little difference in state policy," Cauthorn notes that the commission's members have already agreed that the state's tax structure

has an "elasticity" problem. It doesn't grow with the economy, the sales tax is burdensome to poorer families, the sales tax is too high, and business franchise taxes are too high...

Of course, the "elasticity" claim is a lie. During the recent recession, states that relied on income taxes suffered larger revenue declines than did states that relied on sales taxes, as I wrote about here in August 2002 and here in August 2003.

Tennessee's tax structure, heavily dependent on a sales tax, regularly produces year-over-year revenue growth that mirrors the growth of the state's economy and provides more than enough revenue to offset rising costs due to inflation and population growth. It is only "inelastic" in the sense that it doesn't keep up with the big-spending dreams of legislators and governors who regularly exceed the state constitution's cap on the growth of spending, which is tied to the growth rate of the state's economy.

Unfortunately, the commission was set up from day one to examine only the revenue side of the equation. It has not spent one day looking at how spending has grown faster than the economy, outstripping the ability of taxpayers to pay for it. It is not spent one day examining the frequency with which the legislature and every governor since Lamar Alexander in 1985 has exceeded the state constitution's limit on the annual growth of spending, by a cumulative first-year total of more than $3 billion - including this year by $105.1 million. Nor has the commission spent one day investigating how various governors - including current Gov. Phil Bredesen - routinely spend surplus revenue in a process that appears to circumvent the state constitution.

And because it has not, the Tennessee Tax Structure Study Commission's report is worthless even before it is finished.

Hey Glenn, Ketchup Will Ya?

So, Glenn Reynolds is blogging about ketchup, specifically Heinz and a new alternative ketchup for those who would rather not purchase Heinz for political reasons. Indeed, he's touched off a ketchup debate in the blogosphere. The big question is, how could the king of all bloggers write about ketchup and politics without mentioning the original anti-Heinz/pro-Bush ketchup?

July 21, 2004

TdF Update: Lance Smashes Last of His Rivals

Lance Armstrong now has no rivals left in the Tour de France. None. Not after catching Ivan Basso and then leaving him behind in an amazing performance in today's 9.6-mile individual time trial up the steep mountain climb to the L'Alpe d'Huez ski station.

In an individual time trial, riders leave the start one by one, separated by a minute or two. Armstrong left the start 2 minutes after Ivan Basso - and caught him a little more than halfway up the mountain.

He was the only rider to finish the stage in under 40 minutes, at 39:41, which was 1:10 faster than Jan Ullrich, $1:41 faster than Ullrich's teammate Andeas kloden, and 2:22 ahead of Basso.

In the overall standings, Armstrong now leads Basso by 3:48, Kloden by 5:03 and Ullrich by 7:55, with his own teammate Jose Azevedo, in fifth at 9:20 back. With only one tough mountain stage to go, and one long but flat individual time trial, it's highly unlikely that, barring a crash or other unfortunate incident, that Basso, Kloden or Ullrich could catch Armstrong.

Thursday's stage is considered one of the toughest stages in this year's race, a 127 mile stretch of mountainous roads that includes five climbs, one of them rated as "beyond category." It's Basso's last chance, and a very slim one. He's not as a good at the individual time trial on a flat course as Armstrong. Realistically, Kloden and Ullrich are both too far behind to think about victory. The two teammates are now rivals for the third-place spot.

Congratulations, Lance. Even if this dumb collegiate columnist from Colorado doesn't think you deserve to win.

Sandy Berger

Sandy Bergler Berger "inadvertently" stole highly classified documents from the National Archives. On multiple occassions.

July 20, 2004

City Paper Misses The Real Story in Ecommerce Tax Study

A few days ago I wrote a post, titled The Myth That Won't Die ... Might, which reported that University of Tennessee economist Dr. Bill Fox had lowered by more than half his long-term forecast for the amount of revenue Tennessee and other states stand to "lose" from ecommerce due to sales taxes not being collected on a lot of online purchases.

I suggested that the Tennessee news media, which in the past has hyped the dire forecasts in Fox's studies, ought to take special care to report the new, lowered, forecast of "lost" revenue. I also suggested they should also balance their reporting by pointing out another good research study that was released a year ago that found several flaws in Fox's methodology and conclusions - he uses inaccurate consulting-firm forecasts of ecommerce instead of actual government data, for example, and tends to confuse different kinds of online sales that are not all taxed the same. As I wrote last Friday:

That Fox has admitted he was wrong is (or at least ought to be) major news in Tennessee, where Dr. Fox is a tireless cheerleader for the creation of a state income tax.

Of course not. They simply reported Fox's latest forecast without a trace of awareness or irony:

Tennessee lost between $436.3 million and $454.7 million in Internet sales taxes in 2003, an amount that University of Tennessee (UT) researchers estimate could grow up to close to $1 billion by 2008. In a report released Thursday, Dr. William Fox, director for the UT Center for Business and Economic Research, and research assistant professor Dr. Donald Bruce found that by 2008 Tennessee could lose between $612.5 million and $957.9 million in state and local revenue losses from e-commerce

The latest Fox report says sales tax losses due to ecommerce are not growing very fast - and, in fact, are likely to be less than previously forecast:

The experience of the last several years indicates that e-commerce has been a less robust channel for transacting goods and services than was anticipated when we prepared the earlier estimates. The findings provided here are based on lower estimates of e-commerce, and the result is a smaller revenue loss than we previously anticipated.

Here's what the City Paper didn't tell you: Three years ago, Fox and Bruce were forecasting $1.242 billion in lost revenue - and not in 2008, but in 2006.

You didn't see that information in the City Paper's report. You also didn't see a reference to the other study, the one that exposes the flaws in Fox's methodology and conclusions. Why don't you get the whole picture from the mainstream media? Why do you have to rely on HobbsOnline to get it? I dunno. Feel free to ask them.

UPDATE: Nathan Moore writes:

So much for intricate understanding of a two-level issue. It'd be nice to at least scratch the surface. The movement and direction of a story is as or more important than the raw facts, especially when those facts are not give the appropriate context.

TdF Update: Lance Leads

Lance Armstrong is now the leader of the Tour de France, after winning stage 15 of the 21-stage race. Ivan Basso appears to be the only rider capable of hanging with Armstrong. If Basso can't match Lance in tomorrow's individual time trial, a climb up the very steep l'Alpe d'Huez, the race may very likely be, essentially, over.

Ants Classified Documents in His Pants

Instapundit is the place to go for comprehensive coverage of the criminal investigation of Sandy Berger, one of John Kerry's advisers on foreign policy, stealing classified documents related to 9/11 and the Clinton administration's handling of al Qaeda/Osama bin Laden, from the National Archives - and withheld them from the 9/11 Commission.

Berger was Clinton's National Security Adviser. He stole the documents by stuffing them into his (rather large) pants. Some documents have been returned, but according to the AP, "some drafts of a sensitive after-action report on the Clinton administration's handling of al Qaeda terror threats during the December 1999 millennium celebration are still missing."

It's not been a good two weeks for Kerry. First, his foreign policy adviser Joe Wilson is exposed as a complete fraud by the Senate Intelligence Committee, which confirms British pre-war intel that indeed Saddam Hussein DID try to buy uranium in Africa. As a byproduct, the Senate Intelligence Committee report exposes Wilson, whose statements have been cited as "proof" that Bush lied us into war, as lying himself and possibly giving false testimony to Congress.

And now, Berger is caught stealing classified national security documents - for what reason we don't yet know. But we do know that Berger, as a former NSA, knows the very strict laws governing the handling of classified documents, and it is beyond silly to believe that he "inadvertently" jammed such documents down his pants. He took them on purpose, for a reason.

These are the people John Kerry proposes to put in charge of your national security? President Bush should use Berger and most especially Wilson as hammers to bludgeon Senator Kerry. Jay Bryant is right:

Lies, like ideas, have consequences, and the lies of Joseph Wilson have had devastating consequences not just for Bush's re-election prospects, but also for the War on Terrorism, the prospects for a free, peaceful and prosperous Iraq, and the security of the American people.