17 Oxen

4 years ago,, by Fred (, No Comments »
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One last bit of farewell to "Arafat the monster" to which I have nothing to add:

It would take an encyclopedia to catalog all of the evil Arafat committed. But that is no excuse for not trying to recall at least some of it.

Perhaps his signal contribution to the practice of political terror was the introduction of warfare against children. On one black date in May 1974, three PLO terrorists slipped from Lebanon into the northern Israeli town of Ma’alot. They murdered two parents and a child whom they found at home, then seized a local school, taking more than 100 boys and girls hostage and threatening to kill them unless a number of imprisoned terrorists were released. When Israeli troops attempted a rescue, the terrorists exploded hand grenades and opened fire on the students. By the time the horror ended, 25 people were dead; 21 of them were children.

Thirty years later, no one speaks of Ma’alot anymore. The dead children have been forgotten. Everyone knows Arafat’s name, but who ever recalls the names of his victims?

So let us recall them: Ilana Turgeman. Rachel Aputa. Yocheved Mazoz. Sarah Ben-Shim’on. Yona Sabag. Yafa Cohen. Shoshana Cohen. Michal Sitrok. Malka Amrosy. Aviva Saada. Yocheved Diyi. Yaakov Levi. Yaakov Kabla. Rina Cohen. Ilana Ne’eman. Sarah Madar. Tamar Dahan. Sarah Soper. Lili Morad. David Madar. Yehudit Madar. The 21 dead children of Ma’alot — 21 of the thousands of who died at Arafat’s command.

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4 years ago,, by Fred (, No Comments »
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In all the post-election hype and hand-wringing it took the Infinite Monkeys to remind me that Tuesday was the 15th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. It is appropriate to remember that day as we celebrate this day dedicated to the veterans who have both kept us free and spread freedom to the dark places of the world. And we should not forget how important American leadership can be in the spread of that freedom. Where would the world be had not President Reagan stood up to the Soviet Union, had he not called upon the Soviets to act with honor. Read these words again from his June 12, 1987 speech at the Brandenburg Gate:

In the 1950s, Khrushchev predicted: "We will bury you." But in the West today, we see a free world that has achieved a level of prosperity and well-being unprecedented in all human history. In the Communist world, we see failure, technological backwardness, declining standards of health, even want of the most basic kind–too little food. Even today, the Soviet Union still cannot feed itself. After these four decades, then, there stands before the entire world one great and inescapable conclusion: Freedom leads to prosperity. Freedom replaces the ancient hatreds among the nations with comity and peace. Freedom is the victor.

And now the Soviets themselves may, in a limited way, be coming to understand the importance of freedom. We hear much from Moscow about a new policy of reform and openness. Some political prisoners have been released. Certain foreign news broadcasts are no longer being jammed. Some economic enterprises have been permitted to operate with greater freedom from state control.

Are these the beginnings of profound changes in the Soviet state? Or are they token gestures, intended to raise false hopes in the West, or to strengthen the Soviet system without changing it? We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace.

General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

It would do us all well to remember on this day of all days that we owe a profound debt of gratitude toward those who would pay the ultimate price to defend freedom, whether it is against an enemy that would foist upon its people "failure, technological backwardness, declining standards of health, even want of the most basic kind" in the service of a bankrupt ideology or against an enemy that would bring death to thousands (or, god forbid, exponentially more than that) upon the world in the service of a perversion of religion. And that American leaders can rise to greatness when using the powers of the Presidency in the cause of freedom.

I’ve said before that America is the last, best hope for mankind. I still believe that. And our veterans, who we salute today, are a large reason why.

Dean Esmay has more, including quotes from the White House. And Armed Liberal explains what veterans mean to him.

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4 years ago,, by Fred (, Comments Off
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Wow. In the course of 45 minutes, Crooked Timber manages to reduce Arafat’s life of terror to "many disreputable actions" and uses a post "on the occasion of Arafat’s death" to quote a three year old opining that "George Bush is too stupid to have so much wesponsibility."  At least my five year old say on November 1 that he "wish[ed] he was 18 so he could vote for George Bush."

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4 years ago,, by Fred (, No Comments »
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Because there is little practical difference between a terrorist and a so-called leader who refuses to take any action to rein in the terrorists who act based upon his "leadership", I can’t see how Arafat shuffling off this mortal coil is anything but good news (in the long term).  Captain Ed says it best:

Maybe God will forgive him; I don’t presume to know His will and judgment. All I know is that Arafat hastened a whole lot of innocent people into His personal audience. Arafat may be hoping He’s grateful for the business … but I rather doubt it.

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4 years ago,, by Fred (, No Comments »
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Jeff Jarvis notes that the divide between red and blue isn’t North and West vs. South, or Jesus vs. Canada, but urban vs. everyone else:

This isn’t about state vs. state. This is about urban vs. everybody else. Urban is blue, everybody else is red…

Most of America lives in the suburbs now, but we don’t talk about that, we don’t admit that. We in the media elite still act as if they’re going to go away: Levittown will crumble. We act as if cities are still the center of the action in America and as if farms are what’s left. No, most Americans are suburbanites today. And proud of it. Almost….

When the majority of the country who voted for Bush talk about being demeaned it’s not really about religion (we’re not a nation of Bible-thumpers), it’s about being from the boonies. The city slickers look down their noses at us ‘burbans. They don’t venture out here. They act as if it’s a wasteland when it’s our home. They are out of touch with the majority of America. The cultural reality yields the political reality.

The reality is more complicated than that - inner suburbs around urban centers are often blue, whereas the dividing line actually starts with the "exurbs" around the megalopoli. But there’s a big chunk of truth. It’s to be expected to a degree - the sorts of things that New Yorkers or Washingtonians or San Franciscans believe are appropriate uses of government revenue and power — think public transit, rent control, subsidies for public culture — don’t resonate in the burbs. And in my experience, urban advocates decry the suburbs and all that comes with it, the malls and big box stores, the soccer moms, the autocentric culture, the relative isolation from neighbors, without attempting to understand why suburbanites actually like those things, to a degree that suburbanites don’t in the opposite direction.

At the risk of overgeneralization, most people I know who live in the suburbs readily acknowledge the benefits of city life. We see why you want to live near great restaurants and museums and theatre. We know the shopping in Manhattan or on Michigan Avenue provides opportunities not found at Mall of America. That’s why we take vacations there, after all. We just believe that based on our individual circumstances, the costs outweigh the benefits. And there really are costs, whether Manhattanites want to acknowledge it or not.

Think of it as a suburban manifesto - we not only are not that concerned with "sprawl" but actually like it. I can’t walk to the neighborhood grocer, but in return I get a half-acre lot and a larger house. I can’t walk to a neighborhood park, but I can stick a playset in my backyard and make my own playground. My kids won’t walk to school or see their classmates on the front stoop, but they get a better school, or even a private one, since I can now afford it. Many of us have taken it a step further, and not only left the suburbs but left the megalopolis area altogether. I can’t walk from my office to Vidalia for lunch, and I traded the Kennedy Center for the Kentucky Center, but in return I get to trade a 90 minute commute for a 15 minute one. I got to trade an 80 hour work week for a 45 hour one. I got my weekends back. That’s 2400 hours a year I get to spend with my family instead of my car and my office. There’s no clear sign that the Democrats of 2004 understand this, but they best learn real quick.

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4 years ago,, by Fred (, 2 Comments »
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Unfortunately, it appears Warren Ellis’ Global Frequency will not be headed for the small screen quite yet (via the Bad Signal mailing list):

So the news got out while I was away.  The WB passed on the GLOBAL FREQUENCY pilot. From what I can gather, we fell foul of a change of network execs and general network politics. Which happens all the time, without rancour. It’s my understanding at this time that The WB are releasing the pilot back to us and the studio, Warner Brothers (yeah, I know — TV and corporate structure are not for the likes of us to understand), and we’re going to enter the process of shopping the completed pilot to other networks. Including the ones that bid on the show in the first place. So we’re far from dead yet.

Josh Whedon doing comics and Warren Ellis doing TV. I’m very confused. I’d still rather see Planetary on TV than Global Frequency.

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4 years ago,, by Fred (, No Comments »
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I’m really bored with the whole Jesusland argument, so one last quick bit of analysis, and then I’m done. Did the religious right win the election for Bush or not? The facts tend to suggest not. First, did Christians really turn out in droves and drive the election to the President? Overall, religious identification among voters is almost unchanged from 2000 (source: CNN 2000 and 2004 exit polls):

Among these groups, President Bush improved more among Catholics (+5%) and Jews (+6%) than among Protestants (+3%). It is also not clear whether "Evangelical" turnout was substantially higher in 2004 than in 2000, primarily because the exit poll question changed.  In 2000, 14% of voters self-identified as "White Religious Right". Of these, 80% voted for Bush.  In 2004, exit pollsters asked voters whether they were Evangelical/Born-Again and whether they were White Religious Conservatives. More voters self-identified as Evangelical (23% with 78% for Bush) than as White Religious Conservatives (8% with 96% for Bush).  This is a significant increase, but only if you assume that White Religious Right is equivalent to Evangelical, which is not necessarily the case.  In any event, religious affiliation among whites is also little changed from 2000, so in order for white evangelical turnout to have increased substantially, white protestant non-evangelical turnout must have decreased:

Much has been made of the fact that 22% of voters identified "moral values" as the most important issue in deciding whom to vote for.  This, combined with the eleven gay marriage amendments passed last Tuesday, is said to indicate that red staters are ignorant homophobes driven to vote for the President out of fear and hate. Exit poll differences again compound the problem. The 2000 exit poll did not include moral values as an option. How many 2000 voters would have selected this option had it been offered? Unlike the VNS, the LA Times exit poll in 2000 did provide a choice of "moral/ethical values".  Allowed a choice of two most important issues, 35% of the sample selected moral values. If forced to choose only one alternative, it seems likely than more than half of this 35% would choose moral values as the most important consideration in their vote. So moral issues voters seem not to have increased as a proportion of the total voting population.

If not evangelicals, and not "moral issues" voters, than what? Surely it’s the anti-gay marriage homophobes from Red America, right? There were eleven marriage-related amendments on the ballot. Nine were in Bush states: Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma and Utah. The others were in Kerry States (Michigan and Oregon). Turnout was up 16.7% in these eleven states, as compared to 10.4% nationally. But did it really affect the election?

None of the "gay marriage" states changed sides from Blue to Red. In fact, Bush lost support in Arkansas, a red state, as compared to 2000. The average increase in support for Bush in these 11 states was only 3.6 percentage points.  In fact, Bush improved his performance over 2000 more in Massachusetts than in Arkansas, Michigan, Mississippi, North Dakota, Ohio and Oregon. Of the nine states voting for both a marriage amendment and Bush in 2004, eight were entirely unsurprising - excepting Ohio, Michigan and Oregon, these states voted 58.3% Bush in 2000. In Ohio, Bush received 444,938 more votes than in 2000. Kerry received 473,474 more votes than did Al Gore. Even if 100% of the Bush voters also voted for the amendment (a doubtful proposition), nearly 600,000 Kerry voters did as well. It is therefore not at all clear that it was the marriage amendment(s) that swung any state for Bush, including Ohio.

If it wasn’t homophobia or evangelical turnout, what was it? 53% of voters approve of the job Bush has done as President. 54% believe we are safer from terrorism. 52% approve of the decision to go to war in Iraq. 55% believe the war in Iraq is part of the war on terrorism. More voters believe they are better off financially than believe that they are worse off.  Of those expressing a preference, more trust Bush to handle the economy than trust Kerry. On the other hand, more voters believed Kerry attacked Bush unfairly than vice-versa. 56% believe Kerry says whatever he thinks the voters want to hear.  Given all this, do we really need Jesusland as an explanation, other than to make liberals feel superior to the untrodden mass of ignorant red staters?

UPDATE: For more on this issue from people who are more impressive than me (not a high bar) see this Asymmetrical Information post.

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4 years ago,, by Fred (, No Comments »
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Head, meet Mr. Wall. Brick Wall, this is Mr. Head.

This is what’s wrong with the public school system in a nutshell: we have been researching education options for our soon to be first grader. He’s in an independent private school now, but we want to make sure we make the right choice for first grade (at least part of the reason he is in the school he is in is a hesitancy to move schools yet again after three preschools in three years and a 600 mile relocation). We’re both products of the public school system, so we want to look at the local public schools. First, we have to wade through the incredibly complicated system that was produced by Louisville’s experience with busing.

What school would he attend were he to enter the public school system? Let’s start with the JCPS SchoolFinder, which produces this result:

Your resides school is Norton Elementary School, which is in the Byck Cluster. Click here for a list of schools in the Byck Cluster and descriptions of their programs. Transportation is provided to most schools within the cluster.

Call Norton Elementary School at 485-8308 to register or obtain information regarding placement in other schools within the Byck Cluster. Unless the student has been accepted into an Optional or Magnet program, or granted a transfer, the student is assigned within the cluster based on one or more of the following considerations:

1. specific program needs of the student
2. building capacity
3. racial-balance guidelines

The days of the neighborhood school are gone. We might end up at our "resides school", which is 3.76 miles from home. We might end up, however, 11.26 miles east of home or 16.43 miles west. These schools are not only far apart on the map, but far apart on performance - on the 2004 Commonwealth Accountability Testing System normed performance test, one has a total Academic Index of 96.8 and the other 67.4. Tests don’t tell the whole story, but they do tell a story. Still, assume the best, and consider the resides school (CATS Academic Index 95.8).

We call the school and ask to take a tour, meet the principal, etc. And are informed that we can’t take a tour, and that if we want to visit the school, we have to come to the upcoming Open House. Which is scheduled for 9:30-11:30 a.m. On a Thursday. When asked about the scheduling, we are informed that "most people come on their lunch hour." Unless you’re paid by the hour, or find it hard to schedule lunch for 9:30 in the morning.  Compare this to the private schools we’ve visited, which schedule open houses for the weekend, and encourage parents of students or prospective students to drop in at any time, even without an appointment.

Maybe we get what we pay for. Or maybe not - according to JCPS, in 2003-2004, they spent $6,769 per pupil. The Courier-Journal reports that 2004 private school tuition ranges from $3,700 for local parochial schools to more than $13,000 (Louisville Collegiate School tuition ranges from $8,450 for half-day kindergarten to $13,500 for high school). No wonder there’s support for school choice, and resistance to the KEA calls for a strike.

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4 years ago,, by Fred (, No Comments »
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In response to the post below, a commenter correctly notes that the comparison of popular votes received by Presidents-elect does not account for the effect of third-party candidacies. This is true, of course. The problem with third party effects is how to account for such campaigns in drawing conclusions about major party victories.  Take Clinton’s 1992 victory, in which he received 43% of the popular vote. Because Perot’s campaign disproportionately drew votes from G.H.W. Bush, one can either say that Clinton achieved a sizable proportion of the two party votes or that more than half of the electorate voted "Not Clinton." One could parse the third party votes to draw a conclusion about mandate - Clinton had a mandate on certain economic issues where his views were aligned with Perot’s, but not on other issues where Perot’s views aligned with Bush’s, but that calculus seems unnecessarily difficult.

Rather, I think it points to the larger point I was trying to make - a President’s authority to govern should not be won or lost based on whether the candidate wins 45 or 50 or 55% of the popular vote. The reality is more complicated.  A President-elect’s ability to move an agenda is based upon his support in the Congress, and is tempered by several factors, including voter response in the off-year elections, concerns about re-election (or successors, in the case of a second-termer), and the need to have popular support in order to successfully implement controversial policy actions. Bush’s 52% gives him all the authority he needs, mandate or not. If he is to effectively govern, he will need the support of a coalition that includes the religious right, libertarians and center-right moderates. If he loses support of some by appeasing others, he will lose effectiveness in pushing his agenda.

Overall, however, I still believe that the GOP victory in 2004 represents a clear electoral statement of support for the President. Clear, but not overwhelming. Consider that Bush won both a popular vote majority and increased his party’s representation in the Senate by 5 seats. Since 1960, only two Presidents-elect have received the benefit of larger swings in the party makeup in the Senate:

So does Bush have a "mandate"? I don’t know, because I don’t know what that is. He has authority to put forth an agenda, and he will be judged upon his performance. Voters have the ultimate control, and can punish or praise in 2006 and 2008. The talk about mandate still seems an attempt to handicap the incoming President, just like it did when Republicans did it in 1992 and 1996.

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4 years ago,, by Fred (, 1 Comment »
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I’ve been reading lots of commentary from Democrats along these lines:

The country is bitterly divided. And as much as anyone President Bush has divided it. But president Bush got 51% and if there’s anything I’ve learned from watching him for the last four years-plus, it is that his team will take this as a popular mandate for an aggressive push for their agenda — notwithstanding the profound division in the country or what has happened over the previous four years.

The theory that President Bush is somehow diminished by “only” receiving 51.5% of the popular vote is bunk, and Josh Marshall knows it. First, some history. Here’s the total percentage of the popular vote received by the electoral college winner since 1948:

So over the last 15 presidential elections, receiving as high a proportion of the total votes cast as did Bush in 2004 is the exception, not the norm. Specifically, eight of the presidents-elect in the previous fourteen elections received less than 51% of the popular vote.

The idea that a President needs to receive 53% or 55% or 60% of the popular vote to be granted the all-important mandate and key to the executive washroom makes no logical sense. Rather it’s a preemptive strike on the new Administration by those on the losing side. By putting the incoming President on the defensive, the minority party enhances its own power. Did Democrats believe Truman, Kennedy, Carter and Clinton all lacked a mandate to govern? The last Democrat to receive more than 51% of the popular vote was LBJ in 1964. Forty years ago.

Frankly, if President Bush is looking for a mandate, he found it - a majority of the American electorate, armed with four years of experience about what the President stands for and proposes to do, not only returned him to office, but expanded his party’s legislative majority. That he did this in the face of an unprecedented onslaught ranging from Michael Moore’s polemic to George Soros’ 527s, from Hollywood and the music industry arrayed against him to a media that gave his opponent the most favorable coverage in a lifetime or more, speaks to the relative power of Bush’s candidacy. He needs to work with the opposition to ensure that his legislative priorities are enacted, but he needn’t kowtow to the opposition for lack of a “mandate”.

I also don’t think the President need refrain from spending his political capital for fear of dividing the country. First, it’s not at all clear that the country is really as divided as Democrats like to claim (more on that later). Even if true, however, there is a natural check on GOP partisanship. There will be 469 congressional and senate races in 2006 and another presidential election in 2008, at which time voters may punish Republicans for their misdeeds.

Another frequent refrain is that Bush’s 51.5% is even less than it seems, because a sitting president during wartime shold receive even more. It’s hard to draw statistical conclusions with such a small sample. There have been four U.S. Presidents up for reelection during a prolonged conflict since popular votes were recorded (Madison’s reelection in 1812 following the outbreak of war in June 1812 excluded, but he did receive 128 of 217 electroal votes). There are five if you count FDR in 1940, when the world was clearly at war, even as the U.S. had not joined the conflict.

Again, the conclusions aren’t easy to draw. Lincoln, Roosevelt and Nixon all drew a higher percentage of the popular vote, but Lincoln was President while Americans fought other Americans. Roosevelt’s total in 1944 was the smallest of his three reelection victories, and Nixon faced a spectacularly bad candidate in 1972. Bush got more of the vote than did Wilson. It’s all more or less a wash, certainly not enough to somehow invalidate a victory decided by 4,000,000 votes.

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