Tropical Storm Ernesto (III)

Barreling its way westwards across the Caribbean. Looks right now like it will miss Cancun, crossing into the Yucatan south of there, and then re-emerge into the Bay of Campeche. Then, its forward momentum will slow, and it will drift north, then move west again, crossing the Mexican coast again, south of Matamoros.

My question is whether it will drift north far enough to menace Texas, or not. I see no reason why it couldn't, but it all depends on how quickly a high pressure system settles across the Great Plains, and how strong it will be.

Happy 31st Birthday, Sierra!

A Train

No particular reason. I just like trains.

Drought Means Ethanol Takes A Hit

About time:

But now, with this summer’s drought killing off America’s most valuable crop, the ethanol industry is finally facing critics with actual political clout — meat producers, auto companies and the average American family. One bad crop of summer corn won’t dismantle the business ethanol producers have built. But it could herald the decline of an industry that’s been propped up for years by political convenience rather than economic or environmental sense.

Tropical Storm Ernesto (II)

Latest forecast suggests NE Mexico is the ultimate target.

Whatever it takes to get moisture in the desert, I guess....

Congress Throws Farmers Under The Bus

One reason why the Election Year cycle is so dangerous is that the politicians become mesmerized by it. They are essentially paralyzed for an entire year. By the time the country is actually ready to vote, in November, it's literally a different country than it was at the start of the year. And in their hypnotic state, the politicians can't tell.

This summer's drought came on fast and fierce, but the politicians have yet to notice:

A catastrophic drought has impelled the federal government to designate more than half the nation’s counties as disaster areas. Yet even in the face of this historic disaster, Congress has proven itself incapable of passing legislation, large or small, to help the farmers affected by the drought.

The big failure is Congress’ inability to pass a new farm bill. The Senate did manage to rally the votes to get a comprehensive trillion-dollar five-year bill through its chamber, but House Republicans refused to go along because the bill includes too much funding for food stamps.

Then, on Thursday, the last day before shutting down shop for August, the House passed a much more limited bill that would revive four disaster aid programs that expired last September. Much smaller in scope than the Senate’s bill, the House’s package includes aid to livestock owners who can no longer make a profit on their animals because the cost of feeding them has risen too high.

The Senate, however, is unlikely to take up the House’s bill because it pays its $383 million price tag by gutting $650 million from two environmental conservation programs. The point is moot, anyway, because the Senate has also closed down for the rest of August. The drought will continue, but Washington can’t be bothered.

The Heat Is On!

And why do we have global warming skeptics?:

The average global temperature across land and oceans during June 2012 was 0.63°C (1.13°F) above the 20th century average of 15.5°C (59.9°F) and ranked as the fourth warmest June since records began in 1880. June 2012 also marks the 36th consecutive June and 328th consecutive month with a global temperature above the 20th century average. The last below-average June temperature was June 1976 and the last below-average temperature for any month was February 1985. It was the second warmest June in the Northern Hemisphere, behind only the record warmth of 2010. The Southern Hemisphere had its 12th warmest June on record.

Mitt Romney Plans To End The Home Mortgage Interest Deduction

For which we will have to clap loud enough to drown out the screaming:

Here’s how the plan would work, according to a well-placed Republican aide.

The Bush-era tax rates will be fully extended through 2013. By the end of April, the House Ways & Means Committee would be required to introduce tax reform legislation in accordance with the budget the House GOP adopted in 2012. That includes collapsing individual tax rates in two brackets with a top rate of 25 percent or less, slashing the corporate rate to 25 percent, repealing the Alternative Minimum Tax and expanding the taxpayer base to keep revenue at 18-19 percent of the economy.

The Ways & Means Committee, which has jurisdiction on taxes, would be required to approve that bill late in May. The following month, the Rules Committee would either send the bill to the floor or House GOP leadership would move to consider it directly. The debate would be four equally divided hours with amendments allowed.

...The GOP’s new road map contemplates the possibility that the legislation would fall to a Democratic filibuster in the Senate, but contains no contingencies, suggesting Senate Republicans might have to fast track it through the budget process to avoid a super-majority requirement.

If the reforms passed both the House and Senate, a conference committee would convene to resolve any differences, and the legislation would soon be signed by President Mitt Romney in August, under the tentative plan. The new GOP law would replace the existing tax code in January 2014.

While this road map is contingent on a hoped-for GOP sweep in November, the House passed legislation on Thursday to create this process. And if Republicans take over the Senate and the White House in January, they would be strongly positioned to follow through with its requirements.

But even assuming a sweep, there are some harsh political realities that would confront a Republican colossus standing astride Washington. Is it truly viable politically to maintain revenues at existing levels? To do so — while cutting tax rates — inevitably requires ending popular deductions for the middle class, like the home mortgage deduction. In cloistered conservative economic circles, it’s considered a no brainer. Mitt Romney has embraced eliminating popular deductions in principle.

Right Back Where We Started From

California Zillow Home Value Index

California real estate info

Home values in Sacramento, as well as the rest of California, are now about the same in 2012 as they were in 2002.

My experience is in line with these numbers:

Start of 1998: About $114,000.00
March 2001: $166,500.00
November 2002: $216,000.00
June 2012: $225,000.00 (or $212,000.00, depending on method followed)

Arriba! Arriba!

Prove It, Mitt

PROVE IT!:

In a rare press availability Friday, Mitt Romney took aim at Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), who for days has been hammering Romney to release more of his tax returns, while claiming he has secret information that Romney went 10 years without having to pay any taxes.

“I have paid taxes every year, and a lot of taxes,” Romney said. “So Harry is simply wrong.”

Tropical Storm Ernesto

Opinions vary, of course:

Most likely, Cancun will get it, then later, the Texas coast.

Marc Valdez Musical Theater Reels (2001 - 2006)

In October 2006, the folks at Davis Musical Theatre Company (DMTC) helped me celebrate my 50th birthday.

DMTC Producer Steve Isaacson assembled a reel of some of my more-memorable DMTC contributions from the period 2001 - 2006 (all but "Titanic" at Davis' Varsity Theater).

Reel 1 features Marc Valdez and a bevy of DMTC regulars:

"Grease" (2003): Opening of the show, as 'Eugene', speaking at the Rydell High School Class of '59 Reunion.
"A Chorus Line" (2003): 'Bobby's' monologue.
"Titanic" (2006): With Lauren Miller as Second-Class passengers 'Edgar & Alice Beane'.
"How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying" (2003): As Mr. Gatch, with Lauren Miller as Hedy LaRue and Jan Isaacson as Miss Krumholz.
"Carousel" (2002): As the Carnival Barker, with Stephanie Skewes as Louise.
"Grease" (2003): The big dance, with Claire Lawrence as Cha-Cha deGregorio, and Lori Holmes as Patty.
"Oliver!" (2001): Dancing with Lori Holmes
"How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying" (2003): As Mr. Ovington, with Arthur Vassar as J.B. Biggley and David Holmes as J. Pierrepont Finch.


Reel 2 features Marc Valdez and the cast from "Annie" (2005).

"Annie" (2005): As 'FDR', featuring Kaylynn Rothleder in the title role and Michael Jones as Oliver Warbucks.

Let Them Eat Chicken

Usually business critters don't like controversy, because it can drive customers away, but with a heated issue, it can drive customers to you as well:

Seems like quite a few chicken-loving, same-sex marriage foes turned out for Wednesday's Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day.

Based on reports from around the country, many Chick-fil-As had lines out the door come lunchtime. Attendees emphasized a mix of support for the company's stance against equal marriage rights and for what's being billed as an underlying free speech issue in the initial backlash against the fast food chain's officially outed politics. Mayors in a handful of cities, including Boston and Chicago, responded to president and COO Dan Cathy's recent remarks on his "Biblical" view of marriage by insinuating that the chain was not welcome within city limits.

Well, then, it's time to gird for battle. We are under no compulsion to eat their chicken.

And there's always the Colonel....

A Truly Originalist Approach To The Constitution Would Allow DC To Impose Gun Control

Conservative Richard Posner explains why the Founding Fathers would have permitted gun control in the District of Columbia:

It justified this decoupling by arguing that the word "people" in the expression "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms" (the amendment's second clause) must encompass more than just militiamen, because eighteenth-century militias enrolled only able-bodied free men--a mere subset of the people of the United States. But obviously the Framers did not mean to confer even a prima facie constitutional right to possess guns on slaves, criminals, lunatics, and children. The purpose of the first clause of the amendment, the militia clause, is to narrow the right that the second clause confers on the "people."

...Heller gives short shrift to the values of federalism, and to the related values of cultural diversity, local preference, and social experimentation. A majority of Americans support gun rights. But if the District of Columbia (or Chicago or New York) wants to ban guns, why should the views of a national majority control? Is that democracy, or is it Rousseau's forced conformity to the "general will"? True, a member of a national majority can be a member of a minority within a local area: gun buffs in Washington, D.C., for example. But a person who is a member of a local minority but a national majority can relocate to a part of the country in which the national majority rules. A resident of Washington can move to northern Virginia. This is not to say that there should be no national rights--that Mississippi should be permitted to stone adulterers, or Rhode Island to ban The Da Vinci Code. But the question of whether to nationalize an issue in the name of the Constitution calls for an exercise of judgment; and when the nation is deeply divided over an issue to which the Constitution does not speak with any clarity, and a uniform national policy would override differences in local conditions, nationalization may be premature.

We'll Never Know How Much Was Lost

It was hard to believe it even at the time, but NOT accounting for how money was spent in Iraq was the Bush Administration's entire PLAN. To keep things simple, you know!:

In what it called its final audit report, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Funds on Friday spelled out a range of accounting weaknesses that put "billions of American taxpayer dollars at risk of waste and misappropriation" in the largest reconstruction project of its kind in U.S. history.

"The precise amount lost to fraud and waste can never be known," the report said.

The End Of Israel?

David Shulman sees the end of Israel down its current path, and he may well be right:

By “ethnocracy” he means “a place where Jews enjoy citizenship and Palestinians do not”; it is a mini-state run by settlers, some of them violent and fanatical, that disenfranchises a huge Palestinian population and continually appropriates Palestinian land in the interests of expanding and further entrenching the colonial project of the settlements. Inevitably, the ethos of the occupation, now in its forty-fifth year, spills westward over the Green Line: “Illiberal Zionism beyond the green line destroys the possibility of liberal Zionism inside it.”

The evidence for this observation is overwhelming; Beinart discusses recent research that shows a dangerous erosion in the commitment by ordinary Israelis to basic democratic values and the concomitant rise of hypernationalist, racist, and totalitarian tendencies, some of them well represented in the ultra-right parties in the Knesset and in the current Israeli cabinet. In the last year or so, we’ve seen a spate of antidemocratic, “ethnocratic” legislation all too reminiscent of dark precedents in the history of the last century.

...Even apart from the disastrous political consequences of current Israeli policy, it is critical to recognize that what goes on in the territories is not a matter of episodic abuse of basic human rights, something that could be corrected by relatively minor, ad hoc actions of protest and redress. Nothing could be further from the truth. The occupation is systemic in every sense of the word.

...These Palestinian Bantustans now exist, and no one should pretend that they’re anything remotely like a “solution” to Israel’s Palestinian problem. Someday, as happened in South Africa, this system will inevitably break down. In an optimistic version of the future, we may be left with some sort of confederated model that is more than one state but somehow less than two—and in which the Jews will soon become a minority. I do not see how that can happen without a struggle, hopefully nonviolent at least to some degree, in which Palestinians claim for themselves the rights that other peoples have achieved.

...To prolong the occupation is to ensure the emergence of a single polity west of the Jordan; every passing day makes a South African trajectory more likely, including the eventual, necessary progression to a system of one person, one vote. Thus the likelihood must be faced that unless the Occupation ends, there will also, in the not so distant future, be no Jewish state.

Muslims In The GOP Tent

The GOP's fervent pre-9/11 efforts to curry favor with Muslims runs smack into its frantic post-9/11 efforts to paint all Muslims as terrorists. It's all quite odd, but it does demonstrate that Michelle Bachmann's recent flirtation with McCarthyism was actually an old-fashioned power play:

It turns out that there are big intra-wingnut differences over Michelle Bachmann’s attempt to assassinate the character of Huma Abedin, with Limbaugh and Gingrich on Bachmann’s side [She’s not making any accusations, just asking questions. Why is it bad to ask questions? Shouldn’t we be concerned about the security of the country? What are you afraid of learning?] and McCain and Boehner (!), supported by Rubio and Scott Brown, speaking up for elementary decency

...It turns out that Bachmann (and her four fellow Teahadi Congresscritters) didn’t invent the smear against Abedin. Its part of the much bigger Muslims-under-the-bed fantasy invented just after 9/11 by a washed-up Reaganoid named Frank Gaffney. And one of Gaffney’s early (and continuing) targets was none other than the Godfather of the anti-taxers, Grover Norquist.

Now it happens to be true that, in the early days of the W usurpation, Norquist identified Muslim-Americans as a potentially Republican-leaning voting (and contributor) bloc, and pushed his fellow-GOPers to reach out to them. I’m not sure whether any of the outreach was supposed to involve Middle East policy as opposed to patriarchy, though it’s worth remembering that, pre-9/11, W himself treated the Saudi Ambassador as virtually a member of his family, and after 9/11 did everything he could to cover up Saudi complicity in planning the attack.

In any case, Norquist clearly wanted to add Muslims to the Big Tent the GOP was trying to build before it settled down to become the Party of Straight White Christians. Gaffney disagreed, and was more than willing to get ink and raise money by questioning Norquist’s loyalty, with frequent references to Norquist’s Muslim wife. And Gaffney hasn’t given up on Norquist as a target; Grover the Untaxable is prominently mentioned in the same “documentation” Bachmann cited in her attack on Abedin.

Tropical Depression Five

Starting to keep an eye on this. Still way out there, but on a path that might eventually trouble the Gulf of Mexico.

Taking "The Wealth And Poverty Of Nations" Out Of Context

The reverberations from Mitt's glorious tour continue:

First and most important, talking up the innate superiority of the Israelis over the Palestinians isn’t, by any definition, a gaffe. That’s real, with real geopolitical consequences. He didn’t misspeak (and I’m not sure one can “misspeak” about such things anyway), and his initial claim to have been misinterpreted has been trumped by his decision to reiterate all the same points to the conservative audience at National Review.

Mitt Romney cited David S. Landes' "The Wealth And Poverty Of Nations" as part of his analysis. As it happens, I have that book on my desk. Does Landes have any thoughts about the Israeli/Palestinian situation? Let's take a look!

In his book, Landes discusses the corrupting influence of oil wealth in recent Middle East history, and also talks about the importance of women reaching influential positions in Islamic societies. Landes also discusses Orientalism and the poverty of modern debates about the Middle East. With his defense of writer Bernard Lewis, it appears that Landes would probably qualify as a conservative in the American intellectual universe.

Nevertheless, Landes doesn't mention Palestine at all in his book, and makes only glancing references to Israel. Thus, it looks to me like Romney has taken Landes' big-think, Global Civilization approach and applied it to a very specific case (the Israel/Palestine quarrel) in a way that Landes didn't intend, and might not approve of.

It's hard being taken out of context, particularly when you spent so much time writing 650 pages of material, and trying very, very hard not to be taken out of context.

Fundraising To Subsidize 'Music Circus' Tickets

Intrigued by the concept, but think the money is better spent at community theaters:

Lara Kong is fairly typical of a high-achieving high school student. ... What’s not typical about Lara, who is just 15 years old, is that she is an ardent fan of live musical theater.

...What bothered her most about their theater outings, however, was the noticeable absence of young people in the audience. “She said to us, ‘Everyone here is in their 80s!’” recalls Lara’s mom, Mindy. “She asked, ‘Why can’t we introduce my generation to musical theater?’” ... [H]er father contacted California Musical Theatre, the nonprofit sponsor of the Broadway Series and Music Circus. ... “He said that she wanted to raise money to buy tickets for kids who couldn’t afford to see our shows.”

Cagley was familiar with Breakthrough Sacramento, a yearround program on the Country Day campus that provides tuition-free college preparation for promising students from underachieving Title 1 schools who want to better their lives and stay on track for graduation and college admission. “When we tried to identify groups that would benefit from Lara’s program, this seemed like a natural fit,” she says.

...It was clear from the start that this would be a win-win for everyone.

...Through her own perseverance, as well as some of her father’s business and political connections, Lara succeeded in raising more than $27,000—enough to enable 17 Breakthrough students to attend ‘Wicked’ and to meet the cast and crew after the show, enough to send the entire Breakthrough middle school class to at least three Music Circus shows this summer, and enough to underwrite additional tickets for deserving arts students in San Juan Unified School District....