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Name: Ed Lilly
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Name: Disgruntled in NY
Email: disgruntled.blogger1@gmail.com
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Re Congressional Censure for Lack of Civility

Posted by Ed Lilly on Friday, September 18, 2009 7:00:19 AM

In reply to Disgruntled in NY's fair comments:

Good post. Not sure we necessarily disagree overall, or if we do it may largely be a distinction without a difference.

I'm just not all that bothered by what Wilson said.

I agree he shouldn't have said it in that forum, but the fact that he did, and quickly apologized, makes it a non-issue for me.

If he ran around saying he's proud of what he did and stands by it, that would be a big mistake.  But that's not what has happened.


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Re: Congressional censure for lack of civility?

Posted by Disgruntled in NY on Thursday, September 17, 2009 1:59:29 PM
Ed:
 
Have to say that I'm not in complete agreement with you re. Joe Wilson.  At least you called him a bonehead.  I think the dismissive attitude toward our president is very similar to the attitude of the crazies who would not recognize Bush (#43) as a "legitimate" president or of Alec (the Bloviator) Baldwin who wanted to move out of the US.  I think that part of being a patriot means loving your country and respecting the presidency, the office of the president and its occupant even in those moments when you disagree with those of your fellow citizens who elected him.  The last thing we want is to seem like a bunch of 60s-era protesters whose lack of civility and general rudeness should be castigated and not imitated.  Even Joe Smith's wife referred to the person who disrupted Obama's address as a "nut."  Even though she is now supporting her husband (as she should), we should all recognize that he made a mistake.
 
There are lots of valid reasons, consistent with what we all have been saying for years, to oppose ObamaCare.  However, those reasons don't give us license to abandon the principles we have used to come to the conclusion (in good faith, I would add) that many (most?  all?) of the proposed changes to our healthcare system would only make things worse.
 
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Congressional censure for lack of civility?

Posted by Ed Lilly on Thursday, September 10, 2009 7:13:43 AM

So apparently some Republican clown yelled "you lie!" at BHO during his political rally speech at the Capitol last night, and now the online world obsessed with high school civics class lessons thinks he should, and will, be censured.

Whatever.  Given the esteem with which I hold Congress, I think I'd wear their censure as a badge of honor.

And something tells me the bonehead who yelled during the speech will do the same thing.

I guess the difference between my boneheadedness and the congressman's is that I wouldn't have bothered to show up for the speech, much less yell during it.

I mean, come on, U.S. Open night coverage was on again last night!  Who in their right mind wouldn't prefer that to a political rally?


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Could George Costanza make it on the Supreme Court?

Posted by Ed Lilly on Thursday, June 12, 2008 6:33:30 AM
I only ask because that's who I was reminded of when I read this post at Hot Air:

The chief justice of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals[,] ...  Alex Kozinski[,] stored sexually explicit photos and videos on his personal web site, stating later that he thought no one could access the materials.

As George asked when caught when confronted with his own inappropriate sexual behavior, "Was that wrong? Should I have not done that? I tell you I gotta plead ignorance on this thing because if anyone had said anything to me at all when I first started here that that sort of thing was frowned upon, you know, cause I've worked in a lot of offices and I tell you people do that all the time."

At the risk of improperly mixing pop culture references, I think this could really put the Marv Albert phenomenon to the test.  Many people thought Albert was done as a broadcaster after his hotel assault on a woman while wearing ladies’ underwear and having his wig pulled off in the tussle.  Seems like a pretty difficult thing to live down.

But, Albert had the benefit of being a public figure in the age of Bill Clinton.  I predicted at the time of Albert’s fall that he would be back in broadcasting after a short time to let things simmer down.  Guys I worked with thought I was nuts and that Albert’s career was so clearly over it was laughable to think otherwise.

Turned out, Albert was gone from network tv for about 2 years, then was hired back as NBC’s prime NBA announcer, and is now doing Nets play-by-play on the Yes Network.  Who’s laughing now?

If Kozinski were one of the 9th Circuit liberals who are continually getting overruled by the Supreme Court, my guess is he would have a decent shot at still getting the call for a Supreme Court seat in an Obama administration.  But as a Reagan appointee, even if McCain wins in November, no chance in the world the media would let him survive a nomination for the Supreme Court.

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I have my doubts about academic research like this, but it's an interesting and amusing possibility...

Posted by Ed Lilly on Sunday, March 16, 2008 9:15:50 AM
I’m guessing Eliot Spitzer and Bill Clinton, among others, would be none too happy to have the behavioral economics research described in “Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions” applied to their behavior while in office.  From the book review:

Take Ariely's unusual experiment on sexual arousal. A group of 20-something male college students were asked to predict how they would answer a set of questions about sexual attitudes and behavior when sexually aroused. They were asked the same questions twice -- first in a “cold, rational” state, and again while they were viewing pornography Web sites.

No Difference?

“If we know ourselves, then there should be no difference between those two conditions, but as the results show, we don't really know ourselves. In a cold state, people thought they would always respect women, always use condoms and their sexual preferences were rather conservative,” Ariely said. Once they were aroused, their answers changed dramatically -- a willingness to engage in risky activities replaced normal caution.

So what does this have to do with economics?

“Imagine a stockbroker, who is at a particular moment making a lot of money or losing a lot of money,” Ariely said.  “He's gripped by emotion. Is he going to make the same decision as he would in a cold, rational state?”
Or imagine an elected official, who is at a particular moment faced with making a decision about national security.  He's gripped by ... emotion (wink wink).  Is he going to make the same decision as he would in a cold, rational state?  Interestingly, perhaps Richard Miniter's musings on Pajamas Media approach this issue on the Spitzer drama.  Here’s his post in full:

As usual, the press took the easy way out of the Spitzer-sex scandal. They wore out their shoe leather finding out who the poor girl was servicing the New York governor. The New York Times stooped for the scoop.

The less-sexy, more important angle is: Who was paying for these $1,300-hour services?

The common assumption is that Spitzer himself paid. And maybe he did. But it seems unlikely. He is not personally wealthy (unlike his father) and, indeed, got into some trouble for apparently violating campaign finance rules for borrowing from his father for his campaign.

If Spitzer did not pay, who did? Now things become interesting. What if the tab was paid by a lobbyist? What, ahem, favor was expected in return? Did Spitzer give it to him?

And what if the favor-seeker was not an American citizen or represented a non-American interest? What if we represented say Chinese intelligence? Or the Saudis, who are well-known to pay for services at the “Emperors Club VIP” and other call-girl services? What did they want?

One thing that might interest the Saudis is the work of the New York Police Department’s elite counter-terrorism division. They might be interested in burying intelligence linking a prince’s unfortunate donation to an Islamic charity.

The possibilities are endless and the question is worth answering: Mr. Spitzer who paid your bill at the Emperor’s Club?

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Whatever can be done to address a crippling 1% revenue shortfall?!

Posted by Ed Lilly on Saturday, March 15, 2008 10:05:05 AM
The weekly local paper in Lawrence Township, the Lawrence Ledger, ran a front page story on Thursday explaining the Township Council has been "stunned by the loss of $391,000 in state aid..."  Certainly, I can think of plenty of things I could do with a nice chunk of change like that.  But reading the rest of the sentence only serves to make my blood boil once again as I ponder the effectiveness and overall competence of elected officials.  For the remainder of the sentence explains that "Township Council has directed Municipal Manager Richard Krawczun to re-examine the proposed $39.9 million budget for 2008."

Wow.  The Township Council is running things so tightly that they are "stunned" by the loss of a grand total of 1% of the PROPOSED budget?!  Reading the story carefully, it is never explained what the 2007 budget figure was, and I'll bet dollars to donuts that the $39.9 million proposal is an increase of more than 1% over the previous year's budget.

Yep.  A quick noodling around on the Lawrence Township website shows that the 2007 budget figure was $38,266,244.  Taking the $39.9 million figure as accurate, that's a proposed INCREASE of $1,633,756 from last year's budget.  That's a 4% increase being proposed.  And obviously there's simply no way in the world that the Township could get by if they only increased the budget by 3%.

No doubt Mr. Krawczun and Township Council will now spend weeks and hundreds of man-hours trying to figure out how to reconfigure the proposed budget to avoid a complete meltdown of life in Lawrence Township.  Any resident with common sense could probably spend a couple of hours on Wednesday afternoon and figure out a dozen different ways to cut out at least $400,000 from the proposed budget that would work just fine.

Prediction?  No way in the world a bunch of elected officials and bureaucrats find a way to get by with a little less.  Taxes and/or fees will be raised in hopes of generating more revenue from the taxpayers.
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