President Elect Obama's First Youtube Address

Predicted by many, Barack Obama has now given his first youtube address as president.  Hopefully, this is the beginning of a new open era of government, in which our president will come to us and speak to us like adults when discussing major issues our country faces.

Confirmation of what we already knew

The Mormons were deeply involved in getting prop 8 passed.

PJ's Manifesto

PJ O'Rourke, one of the best libertarian/conservative humorists of all time has written a great manifesto against the GOP, in only the way he could do it.  Recommended for all.

Depression Economics

In today's NY Times, Paul Krugman argues that while we are not yet in a depression, we are in a time when "depression economics" should be followed.  

In other words: forget the deficit, do not spend cautiously, bail out everyone and everything.  Increase government spending like FDR did.  

While I think that the government, per Greenspan's policies, are the ones that got us into this mess, I am now thinking that it may take some more government action to hasten the resolution of this mess.  While I am definitely not a fan of out of control spending, we must take everything into context.  George W. Bush, fiscal conservative (ha!) has added trillions of dollars to our national debt.  Right now, we are in a world in which every country's economy is in shambles.  I'm not convinced that the free market alone will work for the US when the EU, China, and others are getting huge government help.  What's another $600B anyway; at this point it's a drop in the bucket.

Romney will not lead the GOP in 2012

Despite what CNN may tell you, Mitt Romney will not lead the GOP.  Why?  Because the Republican Party is now the party for southern, white, elderly, Christians (and certain acceptable Jews for them like Joe Lieberman, sometimes.  Except he's a bit too "liberal" for them despite supporting Iraq and wanting to ban all violence from TV).

So, Mitt is rich, he's white, he's not young.  But he's not Southern.  That can probably be overcome, but his biggest problem is that he's not a Christian, he's a Mormon.  Now, to me, its all the same thing.  Jesus, Mohammamed, Yahweh, Brigham Young, whatever.  Same roots, same underlying religion.  But not to Sarah Palin and Bobby Jindal.  Mitt might as well be a Buddhist monk to them.  And the same applies to the Republican Party's constituents, who are now mostly southern, white, elderly, Christians.

So long Mitt!

Isn't there a clogged toilet to fix?

Sam the tax evading, non-licensed toilet plunger has his own website now, unless it's some type of joke.  This sad, sad man is obviously trying to make the most of his 15 minutes and has managed to turn it into 15 days.  Apparently he's got a book coming out, and you can buy a subscription to his website for $15.  I guess that will help him pay his back taxes.

Secretary of State Clinton?

Rumors are swirling now that Hillary Clinton is being seriously considered for the Secretary of State position in the new administration.

I'm not quite sure of my position on this.  I'd much rather see Bill Richardson or John Kerry, but Hillary would probably not be bad.  As long as Obama kept the leash tight enough so that she won't go against his policies, I think she could be a very strong SOS.  So right now I'll say that I'm not sold on it, but not worried either.

Sorry all you conspiracy theorists

Yet another study has concluded that there was only one shooter in the JFK assassination.  

Climate Czar

Several names are being dropped for Obama's Climate Czar.  My personal vote would be for Al Gore.  He knows more about this issue than anyone else and it would be good to give him something to focus on.  The man is too smart to just go around giving speeches, I'd like to see him actually work on some policy.  Climate change is definitely an issue that does require government intervention.  No way around it.  So let's put someone in there who will work for the most effective solution.

Sarah's Party

Is there anything more depressing than a conference in which Sarah Palin outshines everyone else in the room?  My favorite republican governor is probably Arnold, not because I agree with everyone he does, but I think that he has been able to successfully lead as a moderate, albeit one who backed the worst presidential candidate in my lifetime.  Bobby Jindal is probably just as much as a nutjob as Palin, but at least he seems to be somewhat intelligent.  

But not, these guys don't take the spotlight, the former mayor of Wasilla is numero uno.

Speaking of GM...

Thomas Friedman has some great thoughts on why the Big 3 suck, and what hoops they should jump through to get any money.

Secrets of the Campaigns

If you've got an hour or so, and want to know about a lot of backroom deals that went on during the 2008 election, Newsweek's got the story for you.  

A 7 chapter long article, reporters were allowed very close access to the campaigns but were not allowed to report until after the election.  Very worthwhile, IMO.

Here it is.

Palin for Court Jester

Sarah Palin is so desperate to save her good name (did she ever have one?) that she is now publicly stating her desire to help Barack Obama.

She's given more interviews after the election than she did during it.  Obviously, she's a bit concerned about some of the details that are leaking about her activities during the campaign (like meeting with staff wearing nothing but a towel).  She makes a complete mockery of our government and does even worse things in her spare time.

Then again, every organization needs some comic relief.  She'd sure make a great Press Secretary.

No Passenger Bill of Rights

Remember when all those Jetblue passengers were caught on the tarmac for 8 hours or more?  The outrage of those people coupled with extensive media coverage led to the creation of a task force to look into implementing a "passenger bill of rights."  

The whole thing failed, and that's probably a good thing.  What other industry has government oversight into how they can treat their customers?  By and large, if you are a paying customer, you voluntarily entered into an agreement with a certain party.  If you don't like the way you've been treated, you don't have to patronize them again.  I'm sure many people will never fly Jetblue again.  But should the government be stepping in and mandating a certain amount of time passengers can be kept in a non-moving plane?  And if they mandate a certain time what are the unintended consequences?  If bad weather is on the horizon, more carrier may just cancel all the flights, instead of risking fines by the government.  This may lead to more displaced passengers and more anger than the situation before, which only affected a small handful of people.

Should we let GM fail?

General Motors is now teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. It currently has about $16B in available cash but its burn rate is close to $2B per month. When you add to this the fact that the majority of Americans will not buy a car that is made by a struggling company due to potential warranty and service issues, you create a negative feedback loop that will likely bring GM down.

This is nothing new. I wrote about GM's problems over three years ago. All auto companies, including the venerable Toyota, are hurting now. But American companies are even worse off. Why? Because of the union contracts they've had for the past half century, including the socialist JOBS BANK, which pays workers to sit in a room and not work. GM complacency during boom times gave the union these types of benefits that are practically unheard of in any industry.

It is not so simple to just allow GM to fail. If GM goes under, parts suppliers will probably have to close as well, which has the potential to hurt the other automakers. Furthermore, close to 10% of US jobs are in someway connected to the auto industry, when you include dealership personnel, parts manufacturers, and the entire dealership industry.

What they want is a couple dozen billion dollars to continue operating, but I'm not sure that would do any good. I think that a bankruptcy may be their best chance at survival, as that would allow them to renegotiate a lot of their contracts, likely including their UAW contracts.

I don't have any quick term solutions to propose and neither does our current president. Our next president favors a bailout, since you don't want to start your term presiding over a meltdown just as bad as the financial crisis.

Standing up to bigotry

Today when I got home a nice young man approached me.  He offered to help me carry some groceries up the stairs to my apartment.  His name tag identified him as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormon).  I told him no thanks.  He kept pressing me to talk to him, so I politely said:

"I'm very upset about your church's involvement with passing Prop 8.  It was a horrible thing to do and I lost any respect I had for your church."  He wished me a good night and I shut the door.

Keith's Comment on Prop 8

Below is Keith Olbermann's comments on prop 8.  I understand not everyone likes him, but his words on this issue should really strike a chord.  I am in complete, total, 100% agreement with him on this, and truly despise anyone who is not.  Prop 8 is not about protecting marriage, it is about denigrating human rights, and nobody has the right to do that.  If you aren't gay, or don't agree with it, that's fine.  But don't for a second assume that you have a right to enforce that belief on others through the law.  We live in America, not in apartheid South Africa.

Undoing the damage

Barack Obama plans on reviewing all of Bush's executive orders and repealing the ones he does not agree with as quickly as possible.  

Some of the more nasty ones:

• Bush has said that climate change is not a threat to humans, which severely limits the steps agencies will take to reduce or regulate carbon emissions.  
  
• Bush has not allowed California to enact its own environmental policies relating to carbon emissions from vehicles.  Obama will definitely repeal this.  As California is the biggest state, its emissions policies will be forced on the other states.  In this case it is a good thing as their proposal would require an average of 36MPG in cars within a few years.
  
• Repealing the religion based stem cell rules.
  

Expect these and many more to be reviewed and repealed.