The Dems are being rocked by scandals; remember the role Foley's unwelcome texting played in the GOP problems of 2006? There is a perfect storm of circumstances brewing, perhaps portending a big Dem loss in November. Still, we must be vigilant.

Gov. Patterson has announced he is suspending his election campaign following allegations he improperly interceded in an assault case on behalf of a close aide. Remember Patterson succeeded Spitzer after it was revealed he had encounters with prostitutes.

Charlie Rangel's problems continue as the House ethics committee released its first report concerning allegations that junkets he attended were paid for by lobbyists and corporations in violation of ethics rules. Investigations are still under way regarding income from his Dominican villa and un-reported income on financial disclosure forms. I saw a snippet of Rangel's conference yesterday where he in essence blames his staff. Remember, Rangel chairs Ways & Means, which has oversight on tax laws. I have never liked Rangel; he always seemed slick, and his push for Federal funds for City College of New York (which then named a building after him), was slimy.

Desiree Rogers- the social secretary who was blamed for the Salahis crashing the White House state dinner for India - has 'quit'.

Biden's gaffe at the 'Health Care summit' while the microphone was still on, Harry Reid's comments about abusive men... the joy just keeps piling up!

Nancy Pelosi is in denial as well; she still claims she is overseeing the most ethical House ever. If by ethical you mean locking out the Republicans, looking the other way when members from your own party misstep, enjoying perks for yourself and your family, wantonly spending taxpayer money and using parliamentary tactics for situations that they weren't intended for then yes, the House under your leadership has been VERY ethical.

In a piece of good news that followed the terrible announcement about the cancellation of NASA's programme to return to the moon, it looks as if progress in some areas is coming from the private sector. If things pan out, the VASIMR rocket has the potential to ferry humans to Mars in only 39 days. Hope springs eternal; Mr. Man and I want to go in to space, dammit!

Top sites to check for news on the results:

Fox News
Ace of Spades (Ace is on the ground in MA at the Brown campaign)
Hot Air (Lots of traffic today, may take a second to load)
Michelle Malkin

Haiti is still suffering from the aftermath of the 7.0 earthquake earlier this week. They are still working hard to pull people from the rubble, and although we now have troops on the ground that are creating order and organising efforts, the need is great, many people have lost what little they had, and more supplies and personnel are needed.

Mr. Man and I donated to 'The Haitian Health Foundation', a charity that Bill O'Reilly supports. There are many good organisations, but when he said that most of the money received goes directly to help people, I was interested and decided to take a look. They service families in very poor mountain areas in particular, with 92% of donations going to help the people. This is great, because it is direct; we have sent $3 billion dollars in aid to Haiti over the past two decades, and most of it has gone to lining Baby Doc & Aristides' pockets. Donate to the Haitian Health Foundation (or other charity), if you can.

We also donated to Scott Brown, and his campaign for the Senate seat in Massachusetts. Scott is an eminently likable guy, well spoken, affable, bright; he's been in the military for thirty years and is still in the National Guard. He doesn't come off at all like a smooth politician, but just a decent, pretty average American running for public office. We like that, and think he many have national potential. Martha Coakley, his opponent, appears to be nothing more than a hack, who let a connected criminal go free without bail after raping a two year old with a curling iron, while keeping Gerry Amirault behind bars, even though there is good evidence he was railroaded and didn't get a fair trial. Coakley wasn't interested.

Scott's got some great ads, and the momentum is definitely in his favour - go to his website here for more information.

Comment: “Insurers are just greedy companies”, “Insurers charge too much for coverage”.

Answer: Last year insurance companies posted profits of 2.2%, but generally profits average about 6%. Network equipment manufacturers, railways, Tupperware and Molson beer posted higher profits. Health insurance ranked #35 on Forbes’ list of top industries. Drugs and medical supplies both ranked in Forbes’ Top Ten.
(Source: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20091025/D9BI4D6O1.html )

Comment: “Insurance companies only care about profits and so they deny people treatments they need”.

Answer: Medicare is the largest denier of claims in the medical system at 6.85%. Aetna is a close second with 6.8%. The next highest was BCBS Anthem with 4.62%. The remaining companies all averaged under 4%, with the lowest being United Healthcare at 2.68%, according to the AMA, which supports Obama’s health care plan.
(Source: http://www.ama-assn.org/ama1/pub/upload/mm/368/reportcard.pdf )

Followup: “But Medicare has a lot of subscribers”
Reply: True, but this a percent. Medicare denies a higher percentage of their subscribers than private companies. United Healthcare, which had the second most subscribers, has the lowest rate.

Comment: “According to the studies, other countries who have single payer systems have better healthcare”, “Regular checkups guaranteed by a single payer government run system means people get diagnosed earlier because they can go to a doctor whenever they want”.

Answer: It depends on what you use to rank healthcare. The WHO study focused on a handful of criteria, including ‘responsiveness’ (the US ranked #1). The criteria did not focus on survival rates and favoured single payer systems because it included factors such a government contributions to health care.

Lancet, the renowned journal of medicine, used different metrics. American women have a 63% chance of surviving 5 years after a cancer diagnosis, where European women have a 56% chance. For men the numbers are more stark; in America you have a 68% chance of surviving 5 years after a diagnosis compared with Europe’s 47%. Patients have a better chance of surviving 13 of 16 of the most common forms of cancer if they are treated in the United States as opposed to anywhere else in the world. For 5 cancers, survival rates top 90% in the United States; Europe has one (testicular), which hits 90% survival.

‘Guaranteed’ health care doesn’t appear to translate to quicker diagnosis and more successful treatment. In the United States, 84% of women aged 50-64 get mammograms regularly, which is higher than Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Britain.

According to the Annals of Oncology, the countries with the best access to drugs are Switzerland, Austria, France and the United States.
(Sources: http://www.washingtonpolicy.org/Centers/healthcare/opinioneditorials/WhatsNotWrongwithHealthCare.html
http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba596
http://www.greenwichtime.com/ci_13247035?source=most_viewed )

Comment: “Overall care for everyone is better under a single payer system”, “Under a single payer system treatment is just as good as under private insurance”.

Answer: See the statistics above. Single payer systems, where supposed baseline treatment is ‘guaranteed’ does not increase survival rates or guarantee that preventative care (such as screenings), will be accessible in a timely manner to everyone.

Comment: “This bill will make health care cheaper for everyone”, “This bill is deficit neutral”, “This bill will reduce our deficit”.

Answer: The current Senate bill relies on huge cuts to Medicare, a large tax increase (including an increase in the Medicare tax), fines, and a lack of Medicare payout adjustment for doctors (which is anticipated to be in a second bill, thus negating it’s negative deficit impact), in order to get the ‘deficit neutral’ or ‘cutting the deficit by 100 billion’ numbers (depends on which version of what Congressional bill you cite). Let’s examine this in detail.

According to the CBOs own breakdown of the ‘manager’s amendment’ (the non-legislative outline on the bill) in the Senate, the ‘deficit reduction number’ is achieved through taxation of people with current plans, fines for non-adherence, and “…$108 billion in net savings from other sources”. It is unclear how these ‘savings’ are achieved when you are ostensibly adding millions to the rolls, because in addition to the current medical infrastructure, a new government agency will have to be created and maintained. New enrollees who would be entitled to participate in Medicaid would have 100% of the costs paid by the government for two years and afterwards at a rate of 90%. (Currently the Federal government pays 57% of the cost of Medicaid benefits).

From the CBO, “…Beginning in 2013, insurance policies with relatively high total premiums would be subject to a 40 percent excise tax on the amount by which the premiums exceeded a specified threshold. That threshold would be set initially at $8,500 for single policies and $23,000 for family policies (with certain exceptions); after 2013, those amounts would be indexed to overall inflation plus 1 percentage point.” In other words, if the family policy that you have has a yearly premium of $30,000 that your company pays (not difficult to imagine… that’s $2500 a month for a family), you will be taxed at a rate of 40% of the difference, which would result in $2800 of additional taxes per year. Currently medical costs outstrip inflation, so the built in adjustment (inflation + 1%), doesn’t seem realistic. Unless we spend more money than we are now, we cannot both insure more people and guarantee them the same great medical care people receive now. So we can either insure ‘everyone’ (even this bill doesn’t do that), and there is rationing or reduced services, or we can try to maintain the same standard of care, and the deficit will go up. So most of the main selling features – that the bill isn’t detrimental to the economy or deficit and won’t impact the middle class or hurt small business – is incorrect. Many people have what are considered ‘Cadillac’ plans. Most labour union members (some unions have managed to get an exemption from this health care plan tax provision), and people working for large companies (most of whom are middle class), would be dramatically affected adversely by this bill.

Shortly after the initial CBO announcement, they altered their statement and added that there had been a double-count, which made the bill appear to be deficit negative or neutral when in fact it is not and either Medicare services will be substantially impacted or Medicare will stay as is and the deficit will spike.

(Sources: http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/108xx/doc10868/12-19-Reid_Letter_Managers.pdf
http://cboblog.cbo.gov/?p=448
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/ID/217331 )

Comment: “People go broke and lose everything because of paying for health care!”

Answer: Some of the studies citing this have been controversial, because of allegations that if ‘medical bills’ is listed by the debtor as one of the reasons for filing bankruptcy, they are counted as a medical bankruptcy. In truth, among people filing for bankruptcy who cite ‘medical bills’ as a contributing factor, the medical bills account for between 12% and 13% of the debt they owe. In an article in Health Affairs magazine, researchers state that a more thorough examination of a 2005 study regarding this exposes that in bankruptcy, medical costs play a part in only 17% of cases (and predominantly affect the poor), a far cry from the 50% - 62% figure many studies have touted.

(Sources:
http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/short/25/2/w74
http://www.american.com/archive/2009/august/the-medical-bankruptcy-myth )

Comment: “There is no alternative”, “The other side doesn’t have any solutions”.

Answer: That’s not accurate. John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods, wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal about fixing health care and then followed it up with an extensive interview with Reason (Whole Foods offers a terrific plan for its employees; Mackey practices what he calls ‘conscious capitalism’).

In 1977, the Heritage Foundation published a study that examines in detail the factors that drive up cost and what effect government intervention has on inflating the cost of health care (see link below). The notion that ‘the right’ hasn’t thought about health care until the Democrats brought it up is fallacious.

More recently, at a 2007 symposium, Grace-Marie Turner – an advocate for free market solutions to health care– discussed President Bush’s health reform initiative, which would have given tax credits in order to make health care insurance more affordable, (a family without insurance would see their taxes lowered by $3350), while allowing people more input into their treatment. Suggestions by ‘the other side’ generally focus on competition, tort reform and reduction of administration cost by removing expensive compliance requirements.

Competition keeps prices lower. Case in point… federal employees have access to over 280 plans from across the country to choose from; average Americans should have that kind of choice. While health care costs for private sector workers rose in 2006 by 7.7%, 63% of federal employees enrolled in FEHBP saw no increase in costs, while the remainder saw an average increase of 1.8%.

In the 1970’s, malpractice insurance had increased in cost by 600% over 3 or 4 years, and it has continued to play a huge factor in expenses doctors incur. While some claim that other, non-physician factors (such as the bottom line of an insurance company and anticipation of future claims), contribute to this increased cost and there is some evidence for that, there is no doubt that a huge factor is the risk insurers feel they incur when they cover a physician. The St. Paul insurance company stopped offering physician malpractice insurance because they could no longer afford to. An indirect result of the disproportionate increase of malpractice insurance for some specialties (such as Ob-Gyn), has resulted in fewer doctors specialising in that field.

The lack of variety within and competition between plans, mandates that require minimum coverage for medical costs (even so-called ‘catastrophic plans’ aren’t allowed to cover just dire medical emergencies, in other words), regulation/litigation and government social programmes that cover tens of millions of Americans have conspired to give us a quasi-privatised insurance system with varying rates of reimbursement and coverage, higher costs, disparate levels of quality and a lack of portability. Far from reducing costs, the new health plan, which guarantees insurance regardless of pre-existing conditions, will not bring in the much-needed low-risk subscribers (who would reduce the cost of insurance rates in general), because the bill would allow you as one expert put it, ‘…to sign up in the ambulance on the way to the hospital’, while fines for not having health insurance begin very low compared to the cost of signing up for a plan. The proposals are really a panacea, and when examined, fail to solve the very issues that are claimed to be at the heart of the health care insurance ‘problem’, while introducing more regulation, which always increases costs.

Free-market proponents, including some Republican members of Congress, have seen difficulties with business as usual in healthcare, yet the easy-to-implement solutions they proffered were rebuffed in the past despite the fact that the process and debate surrounding them enjoyed a great deal more transparency than the current bills being considered in Congress. The greatest risk isn’t of inaction, but of doing something that is both monumental and wrong, and not easily rectified. We can ill afford to institute a costly programme that won’t fundamentally solve what ails the system.

(Sources:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204251404574342170072865070.html
http://reason.com/archives/2009/12/15/whole-foods-health-care
http://reason.com/archives/2009/07/30/the-myth-of-free-market-health
http://www.heritage.org/Research/SocialSecurity/bg11.cfm
http://www.heritage.org/Research/HealthCare/hl1019.cfm
http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed101206c.cfm
http://www.heritage.org/Research/HealthCare/bg2239.cfm
http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=4968&type=0
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0843/is_2_28/ai_84236557/ )

Personally the zeds were a mix of good and bad, mostly bad. Mr. Man and I got engaged and married, which was wonderful, but we had multiple family deaths, serious family illnesses, the death of a childhood friend of mine; our first pet, Klaatu, was diagnosed with FeLV and died a year later and our beloved cat Mutex 2 years later squeezed out a window while we were away at my father in law's funeral and we never got him back. People spotted him - he's a very unique looking boy, a pure bred - and we think someone took him and kept him. A 'lost' family member of mine died, and sweetie broke a bone, 9/11 happened, the market declined, a handiman cheated us and took off. So there's been a bit of loss, disappointment, sadness over the past decade, mingled with the happiness of starting our lives together, with the joy our other boys (cats), have brought us, with the excitement of going back to school.

What the X's bring us (as in the Roman numeral X), I don't know. Anyone who has read this blog knows I worry about the future; I don't want the government making decisions for me and my family about our health, and I want the fruits of our labour to be preserved so we can enjoy them. Mr. Man especially has worked extremely hard and he deserves to enjoy what he has earned. I just want people to leave us alone, so we can live our lives the way we want to. If we're not hurting anyone, if we're just decent, hardworking people (which I think we are), I don't want the government, or anyone else, to control my life. That's not wrong; that's what you come to expect in a free society, but each day it appears the control we have over our own lives is slipping away. That's why I believe this decade will be an important decade in determining the face of this country for the rest of this century.

We can chose the path where we each feel we have a right to exert control over one another's destinies or the path where we allow others to enjoy their own life as they see fit. One path leads back to the principles of our founding, while the other leads to European style socialism, where everyone's life is the business of, and owned by, the rest of the community and individuality is lost. It's clear which one I choose, and I urge everyone to put aside their partisanship and political affiliations and honestly ask themselves a simple question: Do you want someone dictating a large part of your life? Congress changes hands, politicians and bureaucrats come and go. Acknowledging this, do you, personally, want someone in government to tell you what to do? To own your time? To force you to spend your money a certain way, to restrict what you earn, what you can own, what treatments you can get? Do you want some bureaucrat, regardless of party leaning, to be able to punish you if you don't obey some edict?

That's what it comes down to - control. That's what all this legislation is; the framework to control how much we make, what we can spend our money on, what services are available to us. If you can't see that's what cap & tax and healthcare are, you're deluding yourself, and I wish I could help you. If you know that what's really going on is a power play and you're okay with it, then I invite you to live in someplace more socialist, like Europe, and leave America to the rest of us; there's only one of us, and plenty others that follow your ideology. If you know this play for control is for real and it repulses you, but you can't bring yourself to break away from your party allegiance, then I urge you to think about it privately, and thwart these measures with whatever means your courage can muster.

Here's to 2010 being the year where freedom shakes free of its bonds and is renewed.

Possessed Cat Makes Freaky Noises - Watch more Funny Videos

If you're the Federal government, you pass bills that authorise a 10% spending increase during a recession, (well above simple inflation), when unemployment is double digits. If you're the Federal government you continue your porcine ways and funnel federal money to needless things. If you're the Federal government you raise the debt ceiling and print money and spend spend spend. The rules of finance and economics still apply, but being the government with the people as your ATM, you are heedless of that fact and engage in reckless behaviour.

Shovel ready projects are absurd; they are busy work, they aren't long term. Mr. Man saw one on our road trip this past summer; it was a widening of the road between a small town in New Mexico (I believe it was Farmington) into another small town in Colorado (I think that was Durango). The existing pavement, which we traveled on as they widened the road, was in great condition and even with the construction delay the traffic was light. These shovel ready projects are sound and fury signifying nothing. There are a panacea for an administration that is failing about in waters well over its head.

See here, here and here.

Unfortunately in my state there is an election system for dummies. You can't go to a polling place to vote; they've done away with it, and now mail you your ballots whether you like it or not. Unfortunately, however, Mr. Man and I had to go to a polling place set up for disabled people, because our ballots got wet in the mail and the envelopes are fused shut. So much for Washington states' absurd new voting process. It's obviously fraught with technical pitfalls, and with the shenanigans in the last two gubernatorial elections, I'm not confident in its security. Poll workers were found with stacks of ballots in their cars, and in 2004, Dino Rossi was leading until after a spate of recounts (including an extra one that should have been prohibited by law), after which Christine Gregoire was ahead and Dino caved. Yesterday at Bellevue City Hall it was almost comical; since we brought all our voting accoutrements including the ruined ballot envelopes, they said we could use them or do electronic. I love computers but love the tradition of colouring in a circle even more, so I opted for the paper ballot. Their solution to the ruined envelopes? Slice them open with a scissor, put the ballot in and sign a piece of tape and put it over the slit.

The precedent for recounts and bending of election rules has a long ignoble life, with one of he most egregious in recent memory being the replacement of of Bob 'The Torch' Toricelli with Frank Lautenberg in the 1994 New Jersey Senate race. After winning the Democrat primary, Torricelli was indicted on corruption charges, and against New Jersey law, Lautenberg was appointed to replace Toricelli on the ticket. The GOP complained, citing rules that prohibited such a change so late in the game. The NJ Supreme Court unanimously upheld the Dems, saying that it was an unfair advantage to the Republican, Doug Forrester. To that I say, well then, perhaps The Torch should have kept his nose clean, and when the scandal was brewing, perhaps the Democrats should have encouraged him to drop out of the primaries. The law also never cited exceptions to it, but one was created out of whole cloth anyway. Needless to say, Lautenberg won. Keep in mind how an alleged scandal around Ted Stevens (R), the former Alaska senator, cost him HIS job, but after the election and the charges were dropped, no one cared to see how a unsubstantiated charge of misconduct had given an unfair advantage to his opponent. It's called stacking the deck, and brings me back to New Jersey.

I grew up in Jersey City, NJ, when it was still a truly incredible place, and I stayed there until shortly after my 18th birthday. I spent my entire life in a little house in a good section of the city, on a street filled with families from various ethnic backgrounds (Italian, Ukrainian, Polish, Irish, Indian/Hindu, Persian, etc). My best friends had names like Meetra, Christy, Carmina, and Maria, and were Hispanic, Persian, black. New York was two hops away; the first a short bus ride to Journal Square from the stop around the corner, the second the PATH train to WTC (World Trade Centre), or Christopher Street. Another train could take you all the way uptown to the museums, and my schools frequently had field trips to them. On the whole, I had a great childhood.

The world, however, changes, as much as we might wish otherwise on occasion. As I became older and inevitably took after school jobs, it was hard to not be aware of the gradual change in the city. Crime was up, it became more crowded. The refuse and vandalism you were accustomed to seeing on the periphery of your 'good' neighbourhood started encroaching into it. Houses that had been one family now housed two, in cramped quarters. Trees, like the lovely sycamores that dotted the street and proffered welcome shade during the summer began to disappear, and today, on my once tree lined street, they are few and far between, with 'kerb cuts' for carports replacing them.

Friends of mine probably wonder how I could possibly be a Republican. I have my flaws, but I don't cheat or steal, do my best to be honest and am very loyal; I love animals and I donate to charities and am sentimental to a fault. How can I possibly be one of those hard edged, greedy and thoughtless Republicans? Aside from the fact that those stereotypes are a mischaracterisation of what Repulicanism stands for, there were two great influences in my life that have convinced me there is no other way to be. One is my father, and the other is New Jersey.

In other blogs, I've touched on my father's experiences; his life under totalitarianism, friends dying or being led off to jails as dissidents, his time in a fascist labour camp, his fear of being detained that kept him from ever seeing his young sister again, or visiting Ukraine when his parents died. He felt that America, with its elections and focus on rights of the individual, (including the Second Amendment, which he said was key) was the bulwark that could prevent my brother and I from seeing the horrors he saw in Communist Ukraine. I know none of my liberal friends like to hear this, or care what my father saw or believe it even, but the philosophy behind socialism and communism is evil, and I know this firsthand, in my bones. I saw how it affected my father.

I have seen the encroachment of liberalism as it marches towards communism by confiscation of property in New Jersey. The Democrat stranglehold on New Jersey has only become stronger over the decades, and the conditions have become worse, with corruption endemic and so commonplace as to be expected. Years after my father died, my mother, a poll watcher at the time, saw his name in the voting books with a signature next to it. She was told to 'drop it', when asked about it. Recently a bunch of Jersey City political leaders were arrested in a sting; they have ties to an organ black-market ring in New York. Anyone who knows anything about the conservation and rebuilding efforts on the Jersey City waterfront will tell you of back room deals that benefit developers and politicians but not the people. There have been a few Republican governors over the past 30 years or so- Tom Kean and Christie Todd-Whitman notably - but the local politicians are Democrats, Senators are invariably Democrats and Democrats are the rule in NJ politics, with Republicans being the exception.

In a state that has about 1/4 the land mass of Pennsylvania and 4 million fewer in population, New Jersey spends 4 BILLION more on government infrastructure than Pennsylvania. It is one of the most heavily taxed states, yet it is in shambles. The roads here in Washington state are far better, and Tonnelle Avenue, once a slightly dirty main thoroughfare, has decades of accumulated trash lining its sides. Shops that were occupied when I was a child are in disrepair, or empty, for rent. The Pulaski Skyway is rusting and the US1-9 exchange in Jersey City has crumbling concrete barriers. Buildings are dilapidated, pieces of land that were razed (sometimes destroying an historic building like the Lorillard Tobacco factory), aren't developed and sit empty, with grass growing up between the pieces of rubble that are the only reminder that a structure once inhabited the space.

I don;t need to hear about California and its problems of overspending and high taxes; I've seen it and I've lived in it, in New Jersey. The crowding of neighbourhoods is due to the high property taxes; the neighbour next to my old house converted a garage shed next to a carport into an apartment (illegally). What we might pay in property taxes here for a $700,000 house, you pay for a $300,000 house in Jersey City.

Moving towards a more liberal environment, where government ostensibly supplies more services just creates a power class. Politicians are the new aristocracy in such an environment. Because government controls more and more, they fear the ire of their constituents less and less. Controlling someone's income through confiscatory taxes is denying them their liberty and tipping the balance in government (and the politicians) favour, and this is exactly what America is NOT supposed to be all about. Our productivity should be the fuel for our life, not fodder for government spending.

Now Chris Christie is New Jersey's next governor and I hope things change. Corzine raised taxes last year (during an economic downturn), and Christie has pledged to repeal them and go to work finding out how NJ can spend so much money with little to show for it. New York City - which also has a high tax rate - and New York state are looking at ways to bridge budget shortfalls. Paterson has suggested more taxes on so called 'wealthy individuals'. Look for people to migrate to New Jersey if Christie keeps his promise and New York politicians keep theirs.

I guess it comes down to this; I don't want to deny anyone the right to enjoy their life the way they want to. Buy your nice time share, send your kid to summer camp, buy a boat, retire early, start a business; I don't care. But don't tell me how to spend my money, or that I should prioritize some government programme or initiative over my family and my dreams. If something is important to you, donate your time and money to it, but don't commit my resources and life; you have a right to neither. Liberals are quick to point to the failure of the war on drugs (and to a degree I agree with that sentiment), but they refuse to see that the so called war on poverty, which we have spent far more on, has done little to 'cure' poverty. I heard Rudy Guiliani say something profound when he gave a talk locally and I'll paraphrase. He said he didn't consider charity to be money you throw at someone without an idea of how they will get our of their situation. It is easy for us to throw money at the 'war on poverty' and think that's enough. Money alone doesn't solve problems. How many more decades or mismanaged government social programmes will it take? The only real cure for poverty is opportunity, but it requires you to take its hand when it is offered; no one can do that for you. A government that does everything for you will only guarantee you live as well as it thinks you should live, and to me, that's not very good at all. That is why free enterprise, free markets and a classic Republican mindset, in the tradition of libertarians like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, is the only road for me.

Good luck, New Jersey. You're in better hands now.

What he won it for, I have no idea. Because he met with Iran, without preconditions, perhaps? Sean Hannity drilled home during the campaign that Obama said he was open to meeting without preconditions and took a lot of heat for it; people claimed that wasn't what Obama meant. That may be, but it IS what he did. That whole civilian nuclear thing worked out really well with North Korea, didn't it? It didn't? Oh, fetch.

Part of the deal is that we allow Iran to ship fuel to Russia, who then enriches it to nearly 20% and ships it back to Iran, ostensibly for a civilian nuclear reactor programme. I am not an expert in nuclear reactor design, and the reference books I have are older, but I did find this article on the web about uranium enrichment for bombs and reactors, and it jives with my book at home.

Basically, standard reactors (Type I for instance, graphite or heavy water moderated), require uranium enriched to approximately 3%. (Fissile uranium isotopes make up only a fraction of a percent of the composition of naturally occurring uranium). Fast neutron reactors (a more advanced design) require 10% enrichment and above.

A nuclear bomb could be made with material with enrichment as low as 20%, but it would be prohibitively large, although I would add at that concentration, there is a potential dirty bomb scenario, I believe. In order to make an efficient nuclear weapon, you are looking at enrichment in the 80%-90% range.

At the recent talks with Iran, a deal was struck whereby Russia would enrich Iran's 1500 kg of enriched uranium to 19.75%, which according to what I have read, is a higher enrichment level than they would need for a reactor, but not high enough for bomb grade. With the revelation of another Iranian secret site, I am not convinced that Iran couldn't improve on the enrichment percentage. I don't trust them, not when Ahmadinejad vows to wipe Israel off the map and Iran has supplied al Qaeda and the insurgents in Iraq with weapons. Colour me suspicious.

So is that what the Messiah won the Nobel Peace Prize for? Because you know, there are true heroes who deserved the award:

Potential laureates included Hu Jia, locked up since December 2007 after exposing government abuses and the plight of China's AIDS sufferers, and Wei Jingsheng, a onetime electrician who spent 18 years in prison after brazenly challenging former leader Deng Xiaoping to bring democracy.

But she said of the decision: "It is both a pity for the Chinese people and a danger to world peace."

All this after Obama snubbed the Dalai Lama too.

I heard a commentator on Fox state it perfectly; a Nobel Prize seems to be awarded to those who diminish America's standing in the world. Whether it's Al Gore who pushes global warming and Kyoto, which would cripple our economy and damage our standard of living, to Jimmy Carter, who was highly critical of the US during Bush's term, to Obama, who seems intent on emasculating America. As Mr. Man said last night, the Nobel Peace prize has become a barometer for whether you are doing something good; in other words, if you're pushing for positive changes, don't expect to win it.

Obama's change (and the world's applauding of it) is not anything I can believe in.

The result was that only 10 post-1990 tree samples were used; not only is this sample set too small, but those 10 samples were hand picked from a larger set. Steve at Climate Audit found valid samplings from a nearby site and used them as another data point, in the tradition of previous data collections of tree samples (which he enumerates by way of comparison), and the results are staggering. When compared to the hand-picked core samples, there is no 'hockey stick'.

If you're interested in all the nitty gritty, visit Steve's article at Climate Audit . Pay particular attention to entry #10 in the Comments section, which gives a timeline of events and a better synopsis than I am capable of!

Here's an excerpt from the beginning of the post.

Yamal: A "Divergence" Problem
by Steve McIntyre on September 27th, 2009
The second image below is, in my opinion, one of the most disquieting images ever presented at Climate Audit.

Two posts ago, I observed that the number of cores used in the most recent portion of the Yamal archive at CRU was implausibly low. There were only 10 cores in 1990 versus 65 cores in 1990 in the Polar Urals archive and 110 cores in the Avam-Taymir archive. These cores were picked from a larger population - measurements from the larger population remain unavailable.

One post ago, I observed that Briffa had supplemented the Taymir data set (which had a pronounced 20th century divergence problem) not just with the Sidorova et al 2007 data from Avam referenced in Briffa et al 2008, but with a Schweingruber data set from Balschaya Kamenka (russ124w), also located over 400 km from Taymir.

Given this precedent, I examined the ITRDB data set for potential measurement data from Yamal that could be used to supplement the obviously deficient recent portion of the CRU archive (along the lines of Brifffa's supplementing the Taymir data set.) Hantemirov and Shiyatov 2002 describe the Yamal location as follows:

The systematic collection of subfossil wood samples was begun, in 1982, in the basins of the Khadytayakha, Yadayakhodyyakha and Tanlovayakha rivers in southern Yamal in the region located between 67°00 and 67°50 N and 68°30 and 71°00 E (Figure 1). These rivers flow from the north to the south; hence, no driftwood can be brought from the adjacent southern territories At the present time, the upper reaches of these rivers are devoid of trees; larch and spruce-birch-larch thin forests are located mainly in valley bottoms in the middle and lower reaches.

Sure enough, there was a Schweingruber series that fell squarely within the Yamal area - indeed on the first named Khadyta River - russ035w located at 67 12N 69 50Eurl . This data set had 34 cores, nearly 3 times more than the 12 cores selected into the CRU archive. Regardless of the principles for the selection of the 12 CRU cores, one would certainly hope to obtain a similar-looking RCS chronology using the Schweingruber population for living trees in lieu of the selection by CRU (or whoever).

So what?

That’s what a lot of people say. I’m not one of them.

I believe in the space programme completely. I think it is vital to our development as a country, as a race, to our very continued existence. If we inhabit just one planet sooner or later our species –as well as every other species on this planet – will be wiped out by an asteroid, gamma ray burst (GRB), or the death of the sun. The only life in the universe (as far as we know), could be gone then, forever. Mozart, Da Vinci, the Constitution, the bald eagle, all obliterated. That would be a shame.

As far as development as a country, the advantages of space exploration are obvious. If there weren’t any, why is it that China and Russia are still spending billions of dollars to try to achieve what we did 40 years ago?

I think the advantages to us as a race are patent as well, but here people try to disagree so I want to elaborate.

I believe a rising tide lifts all boats. The technology developed for the space programme – everything from cordless tools, new materials, research into health and the human body (especially in extreme environments); everything that was advanced and utilised, like Velcro and computers, were promoted and we have reaped the benefit. Technologically we took off in the 70’s and 80’s and we are still the technology leader because of the space programme and I believe that with my whole heart. The shuttle has continued that tradition with research in zero gravity on medicine, fire fighting, breeding of animals, and a whole host of other things.

But there’s something just as key but very often overlooked, although no less important… inspiration. It’s what makes men and women fashion rickety boats and travel from Cuba across rough waters, just for a shot at America. It’s what made Americans take arms up against tyranny, and what made people contrive crafty plans to cross a divided Berlin. And it is what made one quarter of the entire Earth’s population tune in to the Saturn V/Apollo launches more than 40 years ago.

Why do we live, sacrifice, thrive, survive? We have dreams. Why do we, as Hamlet put it, tolerate, “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune”? We believe. We believe that things aren’t hopeless, that most men are good, that hard work yields fair results, that risks can lead to reward, that by our efforts we can leave things a bit better than the way we found them.

Well what inspires us when things are difficult? Men of incredible courage. Men who risk their lives for freedom, who face daunting tasks with unblinking resolve, men who fail to take the easy, ‘safe’ route and instead opt for the magnificent, the Dream.

People talk of a will to live; we get the example of bravery and courage from people who do things we don’t have the stomach for. That’s okay; we appreciate and understand the sacrifice. I believe it was Frank Borman (Apollo 8, the first manned flight of the Saturn V/ Apollo vehicle), who said they figured they have a 1 in 3 chance of returning home without a problem and a 1 in 3 chance of never getting back at all, but this achievement, this advancement was ‘more important than our lives, our families… anything’.

Who would go to their job if they thought there was a 1 in 3 chance they’d die before they got home? Not too many of us, but we are better people as a race, as a species because we understand that people WILL take that risk to try and make life a little bit better.

We need to celebrate this, encourage this, revel in it; it’s a completely human trait. We need to cultivate it, rather than the self absorption and vapidity that percolates through the youth today and has translated into a disaffected culture who thinks little of greater things that could perform more ‘greater good’ works than all the government programmes in any country on the face of the Earth, combined.

I salute the Apollo 11 astronauts, and all the men of the Apollo programme, especially White, Chaffey and Grissom who gave their lives in the pursuit of the lofty, noble goal of space exploration.

May all of their sacrifice never be forgotten.

God bless them all.

For starters, let me get this off my chest; I voted for John McCain because I didn’t think he was as bad as Obama. This is an odd thing for me to do, because I’m not above leaving a position blank on my ballot because I don’t like any of the candidates. In this instance I felt that the potential threat to the America I know and love was so great that I had to vote for McCain, because to do otherwise would be to tacitly approve of Obama, which I did not.

Perhaps it’s odd to people who know me, who would undoubtedly call me an ‘idealogue’, that I had to think about voting for, (ostensibly), ‘my’ candidate. I don’t see politics through that prism, however, and align myself with Republicans because I believe it’s the party that comes closest to protecting what I think America is all about. Because the genesis of my loyalty wells from that spring, as opposed to a blind adherence to all things Republican, each election consists of many choices for me; it’s not as simple as ticking off all the candidates with an “R” next to their name. There have been a few times where I’ve declined to vote for the Republican or Republican endorsed candidate because I’m not particularly enamored with them, and in the last election I voted for Brian Sonntag, a Democrat, who has actually been working hard to try and make my state more fiscally responsible; I believe in rewarding that.

To take that thought further, there are many things that George W Bush did as President that I strongly disapproved of; moreover, I was vocal in my disapproval. I was so vocal, in fact that a connected woman in a local conservative group I belong to was going to Washington DC two years ago and after hearing me rail about my frustrations, approached me and asked me to write a letter that she would try to hand deliver to the President while she was in meetings in DC. Unfortunately, her tentative meeting with the President fell through, and the letter was never delivered. My disappointment with President Bush came despite the fact that Mr. Man and I both donated quite a bit to his re-election campaign.

So what roused my ire? President Bush’s lack of adherence to the principles of the Republican party and by extension, the principles America was founded on. I strenuously objected to the prescription drug programme that he pushed and eventually signed in to law. I believe in self-sufficiency, and the government is one of the most inefficient and cumbersome agencies on this planet, and therefore not an enabler for self-sufficiency. Also twisted in the whole drug programme were political concerns; many industries that were unionized (for example the auto industry), yet struggling to succeed in America (due to onerous taxes, regulation or poor trade agreements), were being further crippled by the generous compensation and health packages for retirees. With the government shouldering some of the responsibility for that compensation through the prescription drug programme, the pressure on industry was slightly lessened. Furthermore, the AARP is a powerful lobby group that tends to support Democrat candidates, and in the past the Democrats have used seniors as a cudgel to batter Republicans with. Despite the fact that there aren’t scores of destitute seniors and most retirees have a quite good standard of living, the potential for damage to the Republican brand by seeming to turn a blind eye to seniors was palpable. These considerations, not principle, were what I felt motivated President Bush and the (then) Republican Congress to pass that bill. To me, this seems like a poor reason to create a new government bureaucracy that forces taxpayers to fund services for strangers and pick up the administration tab to boot.

The other cause celebre that President Bush championed that I was vehemently opposed to was his proposal to handle the illegal immigrants in our country. I think people should obey the law. Saying it is okay for people to lie, steal and commit illegal acts because they are poor is wrong.

Mexico has problems, most of them brought on by the Mexican government and citizens. The citizens refuse to demand accountability, fairness, investigations into corruption, and allow their politicians to explore a level of deception and selfishness that is incredible. The population is satisfied with promises of bread and circuses, satisfied when their elected officials claim the conditions in Mexico are not the government’s fault but more often than not, the result of American decisions.

Mexicans should be enjoying a better standard of living, yet refuse to demand it. Mexico has incredible oil reserves, NAFTA opened the door for all sorts of American industry to move there (which it did), and they receive massive revenue from tourism. Yet because of the corrupt government, this revenue seems to go into politician’s pockets more than infrastructure, and Mexicans, instead of changing their condition, illegally cross into America. The Mexican government sees a boon in this, in that it has to support even less infrastructure and citizens and as a result publishes comic books that give tips on how to enter America illegally; aliens then come to America and demand rights they never required from their own government. Interestingly, Mexico imprisons and brutally treats any illegal alien it finds in its country, but in the past several years, more and people have managed to come from elsewhere in South America and make it to America through our porous border with Mexico. There is even some evidence that Adnan el-Shukrijuma, wanted by the FBI, trained in nuclear technology and an al-Qaeda operative, entered the United States through this path and used the illegal document trade to obtain a new identity.

On a more basic level of ‘fairness’ why should illegal behaviour be rewarded? People flee oppressive regimes, yet the United States sometimes takes years to legitimize their status as defectors, and we regularly turn away Cubans who brave the sea to come to America yet face brutality if they return. There is no evidence or poll that supported Bush’s notion that these were jobs ‘Americans won’t do’; illegal aliens make up only 4.9% of the entire labour force, their presence has pushed down wages for unskilled workers and illegal aliens receive one and a half times the amount in benefits from the government as they pay in taxes ($16 billion to $26 billion). These statistics are real, culled from the CBO, Centre for Immigration Studies, Pew Hispanic Centre and other places. Why should illegal aliens get jobs ahead of legal immigrants, who have been made redundant by the recession and face deportation back to their country of origin? Legal immigrants need medical certificates, proof of employment (or a waiver for school), undergo checks and often have to wait for years just to enter the country, whereas the proposed ‘immigration reform’ would have levied a small fine, not required medical checkups, (despite growing incidence of parasitic disease in California which has been linked to the burgeoning immigrant population), had only the most rudimentary of background checks and granted benefits and opened our borders to the extended family of illegal immigrants.

Again, the reason was partly political. Democrats and the press have done an admirable job of painting the GOP anti-minority, despite the fact that Republicans were the first to welcome blacks to their voting ranks, (Condoleezza Rice’s father, like many other blacks in the south, was barred from voting by Democrats who refused to register them ), nominated the first Hispanic to serve on the Supreme Court (Miguel Estrada) and President Bush appointed two black Secretary of States and the first Hispanic Attorney General (Alberto Gonzales).

Yet because the GOP opposes affirmative action, it is seen as ‘anti-minority’ and has now bought into the media’s theory that the party cannot survive without the Hispanic vote and that is most effectively obtained by ‘bribing’ the community with very favourable immigration laws. I reject this rationale and don’t think it justifies compromising our principles even if a shred of it turned out to be true. Leaders should not be so easily bent by political motives, and I was disappointed that President Bush (and John McCain among others), supported the bill, and that some even began to intimate that those of us in the party who opposed it were racists. Luckily the American public made their voices heard, and I was one of them; I called the White House, my Representative, my Senators, emailed a letter to the President and hand wrote a letter to the Vice-President (his correspondence secretary sent me a reply). As it turned out, despite being a co-sponsor on the immigration bill, John McCain did not garner the majority of the Hispanic vote last November.

Despite the few disagreements I had with President Bush’s policies, he appears to be a man with convictions. He believes people should be free and oppression is wrong; as someone whose father lived under the yoke of communism, I applaud that. He loves America, and values the service of our men and women in uniform, and he and Laura have spent a lot of time at Walter Reed. He has a genuine compassion for people, and while some of his decisions were influenced to a degree by political concerns, he was also by suffering people, channeling more government funds to AIDS relief in Africa than any other President. Despite the unpopularity of the Iraq war at various times, he didn’t abandon that effort in order to further his political image. He used government funds for stem cell research, which had never been done before, but stopped short of approving further embryonic stem cell research because he questioned the morality of it. He was fairly frugal with taxpayer money with regard to the Executive Branch; he didn’t embark on superfluous trips, throw lavish galas or endless state dinners. He was an early riser and a late worker; even during his much derided trips to Crawford, he worked every day and received his regular briefings. Early on he extended a hand of friendship to various Democrat leaders like Teddy Kennedy, inviting him over for hot dogs and a movie screening of ‘JFK’; he later worked with Kennedy on the education bill. He was never above the hardworking Joe and Jane American; he laboured on his ranch clearing brush and wasn’t an elitist; this common touch was very evident particularly in the days after September 11th. He made an effort to avoid what he thought could be construed as politically motivated attacks, and was satisfied with misdemeanor charges and a slap on the wrist for Sandy Berger, (Clinton’s former National Security Advisor), even though Berger knowingly removed classified information just prior to his testimony in front of the 9/11 commission, and Republicans were outraged there weren’t strong penalties for Berger.

I have no problem calling a spade a spade; I disagreed with the previous administration and made my voice heard, even though I am a Republican. I believe issues and conduct should be examined in light of what my principles and values are, and those are pretty simple. People should obey the law as closely as possible, (I’m talking about the big things, not speeding tickets), and live moral lives where they do not steal from or harm another person. People should not use their power and position to enrich themselves by questionable means (insider trading or pork projects to political supporters), or grant themselves privileges that are denied to others (like sweetheart mortgages), or attempt to gain control over another person’s life, which they are not entitled to (nationalised medicine). Justice should be blind and the same rules applied to everyone because to do otherwise is to invite favouritism and corruption. The same opportunities should be available to everyone, and results should come from individual effort and not some government entity trying to enforce its version of ‘equality’. We should strive to be fair and just in our dealings with other humans and other countries, champion liberty and use the Constitution as our guide when we create laws. People can make better decisions for themselves than some faceless bureaucrat 3000 miles away.

This is one of the biggest problems I have with Barack Obama; hope is not a principle and change is not a value. I don’t know what drives him, what he uses as a guide when he makes decisions. ‘Hope’ and ‘Change’ are feel good words that mean nothing, that don’t show me the character of the man or what is important to him.

I respect many people who I disagree with because otherwise they are people of principle, but I cannot respect someone who doesn’t seem to have any principles at all.

Next Installment: The Democrat’s Double Standard.

I always think about my father a lot this time of year, and the sad news from our friends makes me think about it even more so. This June marks the 25th year since my father died, suddenly, just a few days after Father's Day.

It's been so long since it happened that no one close to me now knew me when he was alive. I've recently made contact with some friends from 7th grade, people who I haven't spoken with in twenty years, and they only knew me for a year because we had all transferred into a gifted program for 7th & 8th grade, so we were new to each other.

If I wasn't here as proof, if I didn't have pictures and some (albeit fading) memories, there wouldn't be much to remind me of my dad.

As much as the threads tying me to my father are stretched with every year, they are still there. Supposedly, I look like his mother. I'm sentimental and he was, too, although I am probably sentimental to a fault. I'm taller than the average woman, and that runs on his side of the family. I don't know whose side I got my green eyes from, or my nose. I have many great traits from my mom and her family to be sure, some even from her grandmother, who I adored, but there is no doubt that I am my father's daughter too.

Both of my parents are (were in my father's case) artistic, and I picked up some great cooking skills from my mom. I picked up an odd curiosity from my dad, however (we called him Tato). I remember Tato coming home from a hunting trip and he had saved me the heart when he cleaned a deer. I was fascinated by it, and I don't know how he knew I would marvel at it, but he did. I rinsed it out and cut into it and examined the chambers, the still attached aorta. It was miraculous to me, and Tato laughed. He knew me a bit better than I knew myself. He knew I would be interested in what he was working on, (he designed cooling/fluid handling systems for power and chemical plants), so he would make copies of some of his drawings, bring them home and spread them out on the floor and try to explain things to me. I remember feeling such gratitude that he would do that, considering I was about 10 and understood very little, if anything, of what he said. He knew I liked science and loved the shuttle and space, and that was one way he could nurture my curiosity.

We didn't have a lot of money and our house was only 1400 square feet and five of us lived there, but my brother and I didn't notice that too much. Christmas always seemed magical and full to us and it was only after I was on my own for a while that I realised what an amazing feat my parents pulled off, considering the resources they had.

Of course no one is perfect, and Tato was a strict disciplinarian, and he and my mom expected a lot out of us. Still, I always think of my childhood fondly, as a very happy time, a very good time, and my brother does too. (Even if we did pick on each other sometimes).

My brother was graduating grammar school (from the same gifted programme I was in), and it was a few days before graduation. We went to a ceremony at Jersey City State College where they handed out certificates for the college courses the graduates had completed. I remember I drank too much (non-alcoholic) punch and felt weird from all the sugar.

I awoke at around 2AM to my mom calling my father's name. Paramedics were called and they tried to revive him, but it was no use. I still remember the pattern on the spread that covered him as we waited for the mortician to come and take him. We sat at the kitchen table to wait, and I sat in his chair and looked at the Father's day cards that he had propped up there. It was at that moment that what had just happened began to sink in; I had given Tato his last Father's Day card.

Just a few days before, as he was driving us to school, he mentioned the prospect of going fishing. Every summer my brother and I, Tato and my uncle (my mom gets seasick), would go fluke fishing on the Palace II, which was docked in Hoboken. I remember having a bit of a casual attitude about it, not wanting to be pinned down to a date just on the cusp of summer vacation. We would go, we always did, I thought to myself.

Perhaps what happened in 1984 is what made me so sentimental. I realised young that you can't take anything for granted, particularly as it concerns the people in life you love. Perhaps it's why when I was younger I tried hard to fill my life full of people and get togethers (often running late in the process). Maybe it's why my husband and I spend so much time together - I treasure being with my best friend and I don't know what the future holds. Maybe it's why I save receipts from trips that other people would throw away, and perhaps its why I still have the bathrobe my mom made me when I was 4; blue and yellow terrycloth with butterflies stitched on to it. For all intents and purposes it's long since lost its usefulness, not only because I've grown out of it, but because the fabric has separated and it looks shredded. I still treasure it just the same; it's in the top drawer in the dresser next to our bed.

Perhaps this seems like an odd entry for a political blog, but Father's Day is tomorrow and C&M losing "Tom" Friday brings it full circle. They spent time with him the past few weeks, and I know they treasured it. It is so easy to be caught up in life, when in truth the things we occupy ourselves with are, on the whole, trivial in the grand scheme of things. Work and grocery shopping and TiVOing your favourite programme are important in terms of providing money, diversion and sustenance, but the store will still be there in twenty minutes, or the next day or even twenty years from now, whereas our time is limited.

We all have regrets in life and none of us are perfect, though we try to plan and organise. I find the memories I treasure most come from unscripted and unguarded moments. Be open to having more of that happen in your life; you won't regret it.

I may not remember what my father's voice sounded like, but I will never forget him shaving with the bathroom door open as I watched a shuttle launch on TV. I jotted down notes on one of his pads of graph paper and relayed to him what was going on during the launch countdown. When I was overcome with excitement and tears of joy as the shuttle took to the sky, he didn't think I was silly, he just smiled. That's a memory I wouldn't trade for all the money in the world.

Happy Father's Day everyone.

While her story is certainly one of triumph over adversity, on a macro level, it is also the story of America. I have friends who have had a family member die suddenly while they were young (myself included), leaving the family in shambles; friends who had parents battle addictions to alcohol; other friends who had one of their parents leave whilst they were young, causing hardship. Every single one of these people have grown up and become successful (everything from marketing managers to engineers), and they are decent, fair-minded people to boot. So while I will say Sotomayor faced difficult times, I'm also saying that doesn't suddenly make her SCOTUS material, any more than the hardship my friends have experienced does. There are thousands of judges and lawyers in the United States who have as impressive, or even more impressive, legal and educational credentials; that is more germane than her 'personal story'.

We're not trying to appoint someone who is a social worker or a care-giver; we're trying to appoint a brilliant and thoughtful legal mind who is able to wade into cases that set precedent for the entire land. We need someone who is able to adjudicate cases without bias (remember, the statue of Justice is shown blindfolded for a reason), and evaluate it on its merits vis a vis the law, mainly the Constitution.

This even-handedness with regard to jurisprudence is what separates civilised countries from oppressive ones. Once law and justice are applied based on the whim of courts, there is no confidence in the legal system. It's worrisome when Sotamayor says she believes that being a Latina allows her to make better decisions, and her rulings are based on her feelings and not law.

Earlier this year, she ruled that the Second Amendment's right to bear arms did not apply to states putting restrictions on weapons, despite the 2008 SCOTUS ruling that affirmed that owning a gun is a personal right, and cannot be interfered with by the government. Her ruling is also in direct contravention to the 14th Amendment, which prohibits states from restricting rights that are guaranteed by the Federal government. Unprincipled and knee-jerk rulings like this this one is probably the reason Sotomayor has a has been reversed 60% of the time.

Sotamayor was also involved in reviewing a decision concerning the promotion of firefighters in New Haven, Connecticut. Due to a limited number of open captain and lieutenant positions, only the top 19 of the 59 firefighers who passed the promotion exams were to be promoted; 17 whites and 2 Hispanics. Because no blacks had scored among the top 19, the the board was cautioned to not certify the results; the firefighters who were likely to be promoted sued, claiming their civil rights had been violated. Sotomayor and her two colleagues upheld the lower court decision that the firefighter's rights hadn't been violated (I believe the case is now before the Supreme Court).

The firefighter tests for promotion are difficult; there was no purposeful engineering to exclude blacks from the top scores. Denying these firemen their promotions simply because you're not excited about the ethnic mix is appalling. There's talk about re-writing the test in order to elicit a different outcome, which is tantamount to changing the rules of the game mid-stride; how can anyone claim this is fair? Sotomayor and her colleagues think its perfectly fine to stack the deck in certain people's favour, however. Everyone is equal, except some are more equal than others it seems.

Even Sotomayor agrees that she sees being a judge differently than the Constitution defines the role; whereas she sees judges as creating policy, the Constitution is clear that the Executive branch does that, the legislature enacts new laws and the judicial branch evaluates cases based on the law. Judges, who are not elected on the Circuit Court level or the Supreme Court level, are not supposed to take it upon themselves to create and enforce new policy because they are not answerable to the people.

With her 'breadth of experience', Sotomayor should be a champion for equality, fairness and equal application of the law. Instead she has positioned herself as some great arbiter who doles out her version of justice based on factors such as race and sex. She is a bureaucrat on high, able to pass sentence and alter people's lives based not on a set of agreed upon rules of conduct (called laws), but on her personal preference and feelings of empathy. This is absolutely wrong and her appointment should be opposed strenuously.

As for her being a Latina, a minority, and the GOP would be stupid to oppose her, I say, what good are principles if you refuse to stand for them? Many in the GOP didn't think Harriet Meyers was a good pick and said so; Miguel Estrada was nominated by President Bush and the left tarred and feathered him, and his bona fides were better than Sotomayors. Where was the outrage for the Democrats during that go round? We need to stand for something or surely, soon, we will stand for nothing. Sotomayor is a bad pick not because she is a Latina, but because she doesn't believe in the rule of law, and therefore won't be able to uphold the oath she is compelled to take:

"I _______, do solemnly swear that I will administer justice without respect to persons and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as [Supreme Court Justice] under the Constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God."

UPDATE:
Surprisingly, the liberal magazine Mother Jones is critical of Sotamoyor's writing ability and points out Scalia's far superior writing skills. An excerpt:

The court's influence and lasting legacy is what it commits to paper. Sotomayor may be a force of nature in the courtroom, where she's said to shine, but it's hard to imagine her going head to head in print with, say, Antonin Scalia. The conservative justice is the master of the wicked one-liner and, while something of a smart aleck, he influences the public debate on so many issues because of his writing—whether he's in the majority or dissenting and whether he's right or wrong. Scalia's opinions are cited in leading constitutional law casebooks more than any other sitting justice. In the 2002 case Republican Party v. White, for instance, he quipped, "campaign promises are—by long democratic tradition—the least binding form of human commitment."

But it's not just his one-liners that make Scalia's writing so influential. It's also the way he frames his arguments. Take his dissent in PGA Tour v. Martin. That's the 2001 case in which the court ruled in favor of golfer Casey Martin, who suffered from a birth defect that prevented him from walking 18 holes and who wanted to use a golf cart in professional tournament play. Scalia wrote, "If one assumes, however, that the PGA TOUR has some legal obligation to play classic, Platonic golf…then we Justices must confront what is indeed an awesome responsibility. It has been rendered the solemn duty of the Supreme Court of the United States…to decide What Is Golf. I am sure that the Framers of the Constitution…fully expected that sooner or later the paths of golf and government, the law and the links, would once again cross, and that the judges of this august Court would some day have to wrestle with that age-old jurisprudential question, for which their years of study in the law have so well prepared them: Is someone riding around a golf course from shot to shot really a golfer? The answer, we learn, is yes. The Court ultimately concludes, and it will henceforth be the Law of the Land, that walking is not a 'fundamental' aspect of golf."

and:

Her opinion in the case {Entergy Corp v. Riverkeeper] runs 80 pages; reading it might be good punishment for law students who show up late for class. Early on, she devotes nearly an entire page to quoting EPA rules that instruct power plants on how to comply with the Clean Water Act. And it takes her 2,500 words just to sum up the basis of the case. A layperson would be hard pressed to glean from the opinion that Riverkeeper is a significant environmental opinion that puts Sotomayor squarely in the green camp. She rules against power plants and in favor of preserving aquatic life at almost any cost, yet the opinion is remarkably passionless. For all President Obama's talk about appointing a justice with a sense of empathy, the Riverkeeper opinion suggests that what he appointed is a technocrat. The most quoted paragraph of Sotomayor's majority opinion is this one:

The Agency is therefore precluded from undertaking such cost-benefit analysis because the [best technology available] standard represents Congress's conclusion that the costs imposed on industry in adopting the best cooling water intake structure technology available (i.e., the best-performing technology that can be reasonably borne by the industry) are worth the benefits in reducing adverse environmental impacts.

It's hardly one for the ages. While the Riverkeeper opinion itself is a drag to read, it makes for an interesting point for comparison because Scalia wrote the Supreme Court opinion overturning her. His entire opinion runs only 4,800 words, including the footnotes dissing Justice Stephen Breyer for perceived weaknesses in his dissent. Scalia's opinion is also laden with the technical language endemic to these sorts of regulatory cases, but it manages to be clear and concise and, more important, convincing, because there's actually some original writing tucked in among all the references to section 316(b) and other regulations.

I've periodically read Scalia's opinions- he is brilliant. At various points witty or a tad sarcastic, his decisions are always well thought out, footnoted, clear and interesting. Whether you agree with him or not, he is also something Sotomayor isn't: an originalist who looks to the Constitution and not the laws of foreign governments for guidance (as Ginsberg does), or allow emotion to influence his decisions.

These past few weeks have been incredibly busy. I had a huge paper due Tuesday for Microbiology and a math assignment due this morning; tomorrow a Microbiology project is due (identification of two unknown bacteria), and Friday is my second major math test (only one more to go). Mr. Man and I did manage to spend about an hour and a half Sunday at a local cemetery, putting iris' on the grave of random veterans (we really like it when we come across a WWI vet's grave).

I have been writing blogs in between all this, however; I have two currently in work. People who don't write blogs may not realise it, but they can take a lot of time. Many of the blogs I write take days, in fact. I decide on a topic, ruminate on it, (to decide on the approach), research it, write, and then let it gel for at least a few hours. Later I revisit, revise, re-read, verify data and post. Most entries I post take about 5-7 hours in total to generate, and I have many I've started and never posted, either because I wasn't happy with them, or I realised that the topic felt outdated to me.

The long and the short of it is that I am worried about things, worried about the path we're on, but school (primarily), has been so pressing I've had little time for anything else.

I will return soon.