March 2003

I Highly Recommend

ArchPundit March 31, 2003 0 Comment

this article from the Illinois Leader.

Don’t get me wrong, I think the Choose Life license plate obsession of the right wing is weird and completely out of whack to important issues, but whatever. What it does do is show very well how bills get killed in the Illinois House. The creation of sham committees that never meet are used quite often and are an easy way to avoid legislative responsibility.

On the other hand, this whine by Kevin McCollough is poorly informed as usual:

Last Wednesday U. S. Congressman from New York Charlie Rangel said on FOX News Channel, "I don’t think we should be bombing women and children…" Even for the mildly maniacal Rangel this was a moment in which he seemed crazed even by his operating norms. The sidewalk warriors went into action and by the end of the week the lunacy had been denounced at every water cooler in the nation.

McCollough might have noticed that Charlie Rangel served in combat in Korea. Whiny punks who have delusions of being sidewalk warriors might criticize his ideas, but damn well not his sanity or right to express himself about war.

Who Is To Blame for the School Funding Crisis

ArchPundit March 31, 2003 0 Comment

Well, Democrats can’t blame Pate Philip anymore.

What would be most unfortunate is for the courts to decide this instead of the legislature. But it looks like it might come to that if Democrats don’t take principled stand. Given Blagojevich was even more hostile to tax increases to solve the problem, as the last three governors have pointed out are necessary, I don’t have much hope.

Blagojevich and the Emerald Licence

ArchPundit March 31, 2003 0 Comment

Up at the Political State Report

Let American Die

ArchPundit March 31, 2003 0 Comment

Conventional wisdom in St. Louis is that American Airlines must be saved to save the hub status in St. Louis. Regular readers know that I think this is incredibly stupid and anti-consumer, but more importantly, efforts to keep inefficient airlines alive hurt consumers by keeping inefficent business models alive. Fortunately, Daniel Gross at Slate agrees.

But maybe they shouldn’t. What if we’re in the midst of a several-years-long era of lower demand, transparent pricing, and rising competition from upstarts free of expensive contracts and airplane leases? These airlines might emerge from bankruptcy with lower debt loads and better union contracts and find they still can’t compete. They might be setting the stage for a round-trip journey to Chapter 11?call it Chapter 22. Perhaps instead of trying to save all our airlines we should let some of them die off.

Amen.

Mubarak’s Hypocrisy

ArchPundit March 31, 2003 0 Comment

Via CenterPoint:

Mubarak claims the Iraqi war would produce 100 Bin Ladens

Sure and Mubarak’s government’s continuing repression will lead to 100 Ayman al-Zawahiris.

Bush League Move By Blago

ArchPundit March 31, 2003 0 Comment

While I think some of the whining about a New York aide is a bit silly, Rich Miller rightly takes Blagojevich to task for the faux pas of going to a legislative district in a negative mode when there is no campaign.

Rutherford was not amused. "To physically appear in my hometown, a half a block from my legislative office, on a day that I physically cannot be present to talk about something legislatively maybe isn’t the best way to encourage something to be accomplished," Rutherford told the Bloomington Pantagraph. "The way to work with Dan Rutherford is to pick up the phone and call."

Rutherford is a straight shooter and this sort of tactic is a good way to piss him off. To make matters worse, Blagojevich isn’t going to get far in Pontiac without some nod from one of the state Republican Represenatives or Senators. Pontiac is rock solid Republican town that a Democratic Governor needs to work with not against for support.

Hello Gary!

ArchPundit March 31, 2003 0 Comment

Gary Hart has added ArchPundit to his blogroll.
Why thanks! and I’ll be returning the favor!

I’ll be adding Dean’s as well, and well one can hope that I’ll be able to add a blog by Alan Keyes for the humor value.

Up DATE: It might be helpful to point out that despite writing a book with William Lind, Hart thinks he is a fruitcake.

Good News over at Cooped Up

ArchPundit March 31, 2003 0 Comment

Well to me at least…

CUBS WIN! CUBS WIN!

Neal Bites for the Guv

ArchPundit March 31, 2003 0 Comment

The Sun-Times came out in support of Blagojevich’s plan to restructure Illinois’ pension debt. Now, Steve Neal has jumped in trying to sell it as an obvious choice.

The problem is that it isn’t clear that the deal is that great and the profits are taken up front. The revenue crunch isn’t likely to be one year, though this will be the worst. If a 10 profit is booked upfront, why is that a good thing? It continues the states’ tendencies to take one-shot deals to cover continuing expenses.

Not to be overlooked, it assumes that the return will be 6%. While that might be likely, the State of Illinois needs to fully examine the effects if that assumption fails and what it will do to Illinois bond ratings.

Finally, the fact that business supports the idea shouldn’t be surprising given Illinois state businesses will benefit from the sale and transactions.

Neal overlooks all of these issues which a responsible legislature should.

Watching MSNBC

ArchPundit March 31, 2003 0 Comment

Why does anyone care what Michael Savage thinks about embedding reporters? Admittedly, I’m happy to criticize the military on some things, but I think the generals are capable of making the correct operational security issues.

On the Arnett issue, yeah, Arnett said some pretty stupid things. I think the biggest issue from National Geographic is probably that he didn’t clear it and for MSNBC, well, he should have known to parse his comments better. There is a serious question of journalist ethics at issue, but let’s be real, the problem was his specific comment.

I’m not even that particularly comfortable with as strong of a conclusion as he made being said over Iraqi television. If he had qualified that a particular tactic hadn’t worked, that would be different.

From the journalistic ethics point of view, he became more of a story than a reporter and that is never good.

Finally, the good news, Nathan Bierma confirmed to me that Keith Olbermann is back on MSNBC. That almost makes up for hiring Savage.

On a note about Nathan, I’ve long been confused as to why the Redeye in Chicago is so concentrated on the deadtree version. I think that might be a part of increasing young readership, but a key component of building young readers is interactivity. A blog, like Nathan’s, would be an excellent tool to build the brand. Apparently, the Trib Company doesn’t get that. Too bad.