Morning Fog

DST (Deranged, Spurious Time) Ends

Tomorrow, Americans -- those who remember to change their clocks, and who arise before midmorning -- will awaken to find dawn occurring at a different hour.  The breaking light may not be bright and cheery (more like wan and subdued), but it will at least not be pitch black and foreboding.  That's because our Orwellian masters have decreed that the nonsensically named "Daylight Saving Time" ends during the wee small hours of Sunday morning.

But relief will be temporary.  Big Brother himself (otherwise known as Rep. Ed Markey, chair of the House Energy Committee's Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment) decrees this brief hiatus in DST as a form of mental torture.  In the fall, now that it's still dark until almost 7:00 AM DST, he permits us a handful of tantalizing days when we can see a few pitiful glimmers of weak indirect sunlight (if it's not too cloudy) at 6:00, before the continuing winter shortening of the daylight hours deprives us of it again.  And, just when it begins to get light by 6:00 AM in the spring, the shutters slam shut, we shift to DST, and are condemned to another 45 days of early-morning darkness.  It's a lot like keeping a man in a cell on a bread-and-water diet, but letting the aroma of a sizzling grilled steak waft in on him every 9 months or so. 

Big Brother enjoys this kind of mind game, but of course it's important to have a way of justifying it.  So, if "War Is Peace," "Freedom Is Slavery," and "Ignorance Is Strength," now  "Darkness Is Light."  To which I might add, "Idiocy Saves Energy," since the energy-saving benefits of DST are much touted but little demonstrated.   

Care to read another classic about DST?  Check here.  Or a book about DST? See the right-hand margin for links to buy.

 

Reid's Approach To Healthcare

Still more commentators are calling attention to the political flaws in Sen. Harry Reid's plan to jam the public option into the House health care reform bill by making it optional for states.

Today my job is easy, because David Broder's column today has pretty well nailed some of the problems, including the fact that it's far from assured of passage.  A more important objection is that Reid's state-option could weaken health care reform far more than a bill that included no public option at all.  It's a clever political ploy, enabling Reid to say he got the "public option" into existence; but if any state (say, all reliably Republican states with Republican governors) could bow out, that could defeat the broad, all-inclusive nature of the reform.  Wasn't universality the idea of reform, and of the public option?  Won't the costs of the reform package shoot up dramatically if only half or one-third of the states opt in?  Even if popular pressure over time could cause more and more states to opt in, is it reasonable that large numbers of people in some states might not be covered for years to come?

As Broder also points out, it's a rather dangerous precedent -- a national law put into effect with built-in withdrawal rights for states just doesn't make sense, and would seem to violate principles of fairness and equality, if not the equal-protection provisions of the Constitution. 

If there must be an option, I think the trigger -- by which the public option would automatically be put into effect after a period of time, if private companies failed to provide broad, affordable coverage -- is far better.  This option would put the focus of the law where it belongs, on shaping the actions of the private sector. 

Conservatism On The Uptick?

Columnist William Kristol today ran with the view that it's A Good Time To Be a Conservative, by which he means a recent Gallup poll suggesting that about 40% of Americans identify themselves as conservatives.  The question, I guess, is how meaningful that is; I'd suggest that the Republicans have shown so little aptitude for, or interest in, appealing to the center that their chances of turning that 40% into consistent electoral victories may be pretty slim.  Kristol himself admits as much, concluding his piece by suggesting Republicans ought to stay right where they are (i.e., the Party of No) and not attempt to cater to those "liberal media elites" since (in his view) they only have to wait for the rising tide of conservatism to sweep them into office.

On the other hand, this still seems a risky strategy to me.  As one of Kristol's more liberal colleagues, E.J. Dionne, points out, the 40% figure represents a shift of only a percentage point or two in recent years; and when given a chance to declare themselves "progressive" rather than "liberal," the left side of the electorate is considerably larger.  And a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll found that only 20% of voters identify themselves as Republicans (though another 19% "lean" to the GOP). [Side note: the equivalent figures for Democrats were 33% identifying with the party and 20% "leaning."]

Long story short:  Statistics can be made to "prove" almost anything.  In fact, I'd guess that these changes are a bit like the up-and-down temperature fluctuations that cause some in the GOP still to deny "global warming."  This is an off year, after an election in which a liberal Democrat won the Presidency in a huge way.  It's completely predictable that the declared political loyalties of the voters will recede from that high tide, and that conservatism will show a relative gain.  But I don't believe there's a conservative surge of major consequence afoot.  That's not the real significance of these polling data, but I do have a few thoughts about making some sense of these numbers.

First, Mr. Kristol's hype about the surge to conservatism has a specific purpose:  To try to lay the groundwork for spurious claims that next week's elections in Virginia and New Jersey are harbingers of a national trend, a new era of conservative rule.  Sorry, that's just not so.

Second, it's interesting, in the Post/ABC poll, that only 20% of voters are willing to call themselves Republicans, when 19% more say they are "conservative." This suggests to me that the Republican party is not delivering for conservative voters, and that can't be a good thing for G.O.P. incumbents. (To be fair, Kristol makes this point too.)

But third, a corollary of point two is that voters just can't get excited by the likes of Mitch McConnell or John Boehner; they're looking for someone who can offer solutions to the country's problems rather than just standing on the sidelines refusing to take the field; and the thing that can excite them is a populist.  Here's where we come back to Kristol, who predicts in that same article, that the Republican future will depend on "outsiders" like Huckabee, Limbaugh, and Palin, and that the theme will be "populist."  I do think he's right on that point, but I wonder if the party or the nation can survive another Joe McCarthy. 

Health Reform: Reid To The Rescue, But Whose?

Lately Senate Majority Leader Reid has been talking the talk about walking the walk on including a public option in the Senate version of health care reform.  This is surprising, since many (including me) had thought months ago that any hope of the much-needed public option was dead in the contemporary political environment.  Can Reid really be the Knight In Shining Armor who rides to the rescue of the public option maiden? 

I doubt it.  Physically, Reid seems an unlikely knight (he looks more like that old Cervantes hero, "Donkey Hoadie") and his quest appears as quixotic as he does.  The token Republican supporter of the Senate Finance Committee package, Senator Snowe of Maine, has already suggested she'd drop out.  Of course the idea of using her to claim the bill is bipartisan is preposterous anyway and should be abandoned, but a vote is a vote and hers may be needed.  More important are other voices, including some on the Democratic side, who remain recalcitrant (more donkey talk, but hey, these are Democrats, right?).

I'd be happy to applaud if Reid can bring it off, but Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank probably has the right angle on this one.  He argues that Reid's announcement about the public option is largely a political move aimed at helping him, Reid, get reelected next year.  He'll get credit with his constituents for having tried, even if the effort is doomed to fail.   

Media Circus, Hoh Hum

Talk about "Much Ado About Nothing!"  The minor case of one Matthew Hoh's resignation from the Foreign Service over our war in Afghanistan (or Foreign Circus, as it is often dubbed by those who know it from the inside) is the kind of molehill our media (and admittedly, politicians too) enjoy blowing into something "significant."  It's not.

First, it's worth noting that Mr. Hoh had joined the Foreign Service "earlier this year."  Should we think that whatever policy views he managed to formulate in his few short months' experience are worth more than a passing glance?

Some will point out that Hoh had a more successful and somewhat longer career as a U.S. Marine, where he attained the rank of captain and had combat experience in Iraq.  Fine.  Certainly, a lot of the kinds of peacekeeping work the Marines and Army have taken on in these recent conflicts is germane; and people with Hoh's background will be needed as these basically civilian functions are transferred from the military to civilian agencies. 

But there are drawbacks to that experience, also.  Hoh wouldn't be the first military man to move into the civilian world to discover that there are some deep differences in the "institutional culture" of how things are done, how decisions are made.  Moreover, Hoh's experience was in Iraq, not Afghanistan, and few would argue they're the same; so how, in the space of a few short months, did he become "the senior civilian in Zabul Province?"  Afghanistan isn't Vietnam either, of course, but an equivalent position in Vietnam would have been held by the civilian equivalent of a one- or two-star general - four or five grades above Hoh's military rank, and about 20 years more than his total work experience.  It's hard not to conclude that those who appointed him to the job may have been too hasty.

Finally, look at what Hoh actually says about his reason for resigning:  "I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the U.S. presence in Afghanistan."  So, it's not about policy, it's about him.  As a foreign affairs professional, you get to have a hand in formulating policy, weighing pros and cons, arguing for your preferred course of action but (as in the military) once those who are charged with the political authority do make a decision, your mission is to execute it, not to second-guess it. There have been occasional resignations of junior officers from time to time, and in every case I can recall, there's been this prima donna element. 

From one perspective, perhaps it's good that if you really can't "understand" a policy, you should resign rather than trying to implement it.  But the fact is that our entire civil and foreign government service is built on the concept of nonpartisanship, i.e., that government officials (except at the very highest appointive levels) carry out legal policy decisions regardless of whether they agree with them politically.  Thankfully for the continuity and effectiveness of our foreign policy, the attitude that each employee should decide for himself whether to resign or to carry on with a course of action determined by wiser heads (as one hopes and assumes they are) has not caught on widely.  [Oh - except in Congress, where it's become the fashion to hold up or even reject the appointments of Foreign Service officials to senior slots because they may have implemented the orders of your political opponents.] 

None of this is to impugn Mr. Hoh's sincerity, or his motivation.  Nor do I mean to suggest that his opinions about our nation's approach to Afghanistan are wrong.  They're not news, but they may be right.  In fact, we are in the midst of a policy review/reformulation right now, and many people are expressing views like his.  Perhaps new decisions will bring a strategy for Afghanistan that is more in line with Hoh's, but patience doesn't appear to be one of his virtues, and he's eager to move on to the next chapter in his life.  If will be interesting to see what that is, and whether it may be in politics. 

Energy Is Not A Dirty Word (But How About "Energy Company"?)

The American Petroleum Institute, an oil industry trade group with a muscular lobbying arm, is back again with even more desperate efforts to fight off the pending "climate bill," or indeed, any changes that might reduce their profits or move us toward a better balance of fossil and renewable energy. 

There are two big API campaigns, especially visible and frequent on television (at least in the Washington DC area, where presumably API hopes they'll infuence Congress).  One series ominously proclaims "yet another unfortunate truth" about effects of the climate bill.  It turns out, however, there are only two unfortunate truths ($4 gasoline and 2 million jobs lost), both of which actually are fundamentally untruths.   

A second series offers different seemingly "average" people expressing various negative views about taxes on energy.  Look carefully on the screen for the disclaimer statement that these people are "real people," not paid actors.  Huh? You missed it?  That's because it isn't there.  Clearly, despite the slick Madison Avenue effort to make them look like home videos by using bad, echo-y sound and little framing corners visible onscreen, these are professional actors mouthing lines put in their mouths by API.

Both ad campaigns suffer from the same kinds of exaggerations and ridiculous assumptions:

• A small increase in taxes would bankrupt giant companies like Exxon.
• The government is purposely trying to ruin our economy by making energy expensive and scarce.
• Energy companies are the valiant defenders of economic growth; they are the consumer's best friend, and their only interest is keeping prices affordable.
• Four-dollar gas and the loss of 2 million jobs will be the result if anything about the current pro-petroleum energy system is altered. (But wait: Didn't we just have those problems, and didn't they arise out of the current system, which API wants to keep?)
• There is no such thing as climate change, and no need to be concerned about it.
• Only the short term matters; efforts to put our energy policy on a sounder long-term footing are unnecessary. (Corollary: Let's use up all the fossil fuels on earth before we even start to consider renewable and less-polluting alternatives.)

A separate API front, the Partnership for Energy (www.energypartners.org), proclaims on its website that "energy isn't a dirty word."  No, it isn't.  Energy is a huge and critical part of our economic well-being, just as API argues; it brings jobs and prosperity.  But the same might have been said of our American car manufacturers at one time, and now, of the Big Three, only Ford - more imaginative, more long-term oriented, and better managed than the others - seems likely to survive.  As Detroit once scoffed at foreign competition and remained complacent in the face of the growing challenge from alternative brands and models, Big Oil is now running the risk of becoming similarly behind the times, refusing to see changes that are inevitably coming until it is too late.  There's a clue in the fact that they call themselves the American Petroleum Institute, rather than the American Energy Institute. 

API's members are (or can be) fine companies that can make profits for their stockholders even while contributing to building the nation.  But basically, they've gotten too big for their britches, and their current short-sighted approach to the nation's energy problems threatens to make "energy company" a dirty phrase.  

Northwest's Overflight

Most of us would agree that the tale of a Northwest flight overflying its destination by 150 miles is more than a little bizarre.  The pilots say they were having a debate (which seems less than credible unless they closed their eyes and took off their headphones to do so); others suggest they fell asleep.  Neither explanation will enhance confidence in commercial air travel.

It will be a while before we know all the facts, so there is no need yet to rush to a judgment on the pilots, the airline, or the equipment.  While we await the results of an investigation by the NTSB, though, two points stand out:

We are already hearing from some quarters that the airlines and the FAA are to blame for setting rules that exhaust the pilots.  I find that a little hard to believe.  My impression is that the rules were set up years ago with pretty generous margins to allow for pilot rest.  Has something changed?  Are major carriers really ignoring the rules in these trying economic times? 

There's a question of how much danger passengers were in.  Again, I'm no expert, but my understanding from some I've known in the industry is that in normal conditions, a modern airplane will be flying on automatic from takeoff to landing, and that is considered quite safe.  So no immediate danger, perhaps, but as one talking head on television observed, it could be very dangerous if they outflew their fuel supply.  The safety question revolves around how quickly that could happen; certainly we can assume the carriers are trying to minimize fuel supplies onboard. 

Ultimately, though, these are exogenous factors and the focus must be on the pilots.  Autopilot may be safe, but it's probably boring as hell for the pilots...No wonder they fall asleep -- if they did -- it's as mind-numbing as driving on the interstate.   That's the challenge, for pilots and the airlines.

Poetic Justice: The Heene Family, AHIP, Chamber of Commerce

I'm not a big fan of poetry, but I do love poetic justice. 

A Side Note:
In the weirdly functioning synapses of my brain, that term conjures up images of Chief Justice John Roberts delivering an opinion in rhyme, possibly starting out like this:
I never met a corporation I didn't love quite madly
But if one should perchance turn up, I'll still rule for it gladly.
Or conversely, maybe some poet (quick...can anybody name one living American poet?) rendering a view on justice of some sort...
Ambulance at night
Lawyers chasing in its wake
Justice is left mute

Oh, but there I go, digressing again.  Poetic justice, as you know, doesn't have anything to do with those images.  Rather, according to several dictionaries I checked, it's a situation in which someone in the wrong gets his comeuppance, especially if he gets what he deserves in a way he would least expect.  It's a lot like being "hoist by your own petard," but the price of a good petard being what it is these days, we'll just stick with PJ.  Recent news brings several nominees for "poetic justice of the week," to wit:

Karen Ignagni and America's Health Insurance Providers (AHIP), the organization which she heads, and all the other industry groups that have spent billions to oppose any reform that would affect their profits.  AHIP made an ill-timed effort to quash the Senate Finance Committee's version of health reform by trying to scare people about its cost.  In a later statement the op-ed pages, Ignagni tried to walk this back, claiming the timing was not intentional, but accidental.  This bald effort to strangle an infant in its cradle was seen by most, including Congressmen, for what it was, and may have been the straw that overloaded politicians' patient backs.  It appears Congress is more determined than ever to pass meaningful reforms, and with public opinion polls still showing 57% of Americans favoring the "public option," and even some legislators who held back now saying a modified public option might be desirable, it's possible the various segments of the industry may even get the one thing they all opposed.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce.  Many U.S. companies, including some rather major ones, are increasingly reaching the conclusion that "green" changes are not only good for integral reasons, but also because they make good business sense.  Some of these companies are even bailing out of the U.S. Chamber.  Yet the Chamber has been almost berserk in its opposition to the Obama administration's climate bill, including the propagation of pure fabrication and distortion -- to the point where Adminstration officials seem ready to cold-shoulder the hot-headed organization.  The fake press conference in which The Yes Men announced that the Chamber was dropping its opposition to the bill was also deception, but it was done with humor, and there's a nice irony in having the Chamber's rabid reactionism brought to light in this way. 

The Heene Family, alleged perpetrators of the apparent fraud involving their son Falcon in the case that's now been dubbed "balloon boy." By most accounts now, except the Heenes' own, the alarm over the boy feared to be aloft in an errant hot air balloon was totally concocted - some kind of Colorado Rocky Mountain high? - for the purpose of getting the family more notoriety, and possibly another shot at a reality show gig.  The harm, of course, was in the false report, and the costs and efforts it entailed.  Whether the outcome will be any serious penalty for the Heene mom and dad or not, the FBI investigation of the incident should at least take some wind out of the Heenes' sails.  More broadly, maybe this incident represents the peaking of the craze for "reality" shows, and that would be a welcome development as well. 

E-Reading

The market for e-readers, or "electronic books," continues to heat up.  Amazon Kindle this week unveiled its newest version, which offers wireless connectivity not just in the U.S., but internationally (click-to-buy in the right-hand margin of this page).  Borders has been offering the Sony equivalent (mundanely dubbed the "Reader") for quite a while, and now Barnes & Noble has one too, coming out in November under the name "Nook." 

(What is it about this week, I wonder, that we get these new e-readers, Windows 7, and swine flu vaccine all at once? Our cup runneth over.)

I remain happy with my Kindle 2, about 9 months old now, and am unlikely to upgrade or switch any time soon.  Kindle for me is a green choice; 90% of the books I read are not ones I want to keep or refer to later, so they just pile up (and up and up) until I get around to donating them.  I'm just happy to have stanched this constant buildup, especially if it saves a tree or two.  Any of the readers would accomplish this, so I haven't tried the latest models, but for those interested, here are a couple of reviews, one on the international Kindle, and one on B&K's Nook (both are from Wired.com/GadgetLab). 

If I were shopping around, I'd probably still gravitate toward the Kindle, though their piecemeal updating of features one by one is getting a little annoying.  The Sony Reader seems almost an also-ran.  Borders's promotion of it has been halfhearted.  The website doesn't feature it on a homepage splash; and even in a Borders store, I found I had to go looking for it; you could shop in Borders all day and not know the Sony Reader existed.  Also, it's not clear whether Borders offers any price advantage on books; they don't say so, and you can't check out the e-books tab on the website until you download their e-reader software.  Nook might be a great product, but it's not here yet, and the above-linked reviewer's main enthusiasm seems to be that Nook promises to make it possible to lend your e-book to others.  I'm really not sure there are throngs of people out there who regularly lend books to others, and if you're not one of them, who cares?

I still think there is a future market for these e-readers (as opposed to reading things on your tiny cellphone screen) but there will have to be an effort sooner, rather than later, to settle on one format for e-books.  Consumers won't put up forever with proprietary hardware/software that ties them to a monopoly for book purchases.

The Prudent Saver And The Dinosaurs

Today, columnist Allan Sloan laments that the "prudent saver" is getting screwed (to use the technical term) by what's going on in the financial markets these days.  The government, he says, is spending billions to keep interest rates low; introducing new instruments like "Build America Bonds," which reduce the availability of municipal bonds, buying Treasury securities (which drives up prices and reduces yields).  All of which, he claims, hurts the prudent savers, mainly the aged and those on fixed incomes.  And he's absolutely correct. 

My questions:  Is this anything new?  Is something different now?

It's not new.  The kinds of instruments the prudent saver favors -- savings accounts, money management accounts, CDs, bonds, munis -- have always been the low end of the spectrum as far as returns are concerned.  Traditionally, the tradeoff was lower but steady gains, and greater safety, than in riskier investments.  But those days are long past, and any investor has to adapt to new conditions or go the way of the dinosaurs.

The "new conditions" include the ones Sloan talks about.  We are all well-advised to keep a certain amount of cash in some form of "savings" account for emergencies, but when you look at your credit union's rates on certificates of deposit as I did recently, and find that rates even for tying up your money for two or three years are a dismal 1.5%, even though there's supposedly a shortage of lendable funds, it's time to move your money elsewhere.  Elsewhere, these days, seems to be in such places as junk bonds (corporate paper) and in the especially attractive stocks of some major corporations that are selling at bargain-basement prices and (therefore) returning some pretty handsome dividends, as much as 5 and 6%. 

Wherever you find your alternate investments, the point is to adapt and find them.  In time some balance will probably be restored, as it has in the past.  Americans are reportedly saving more now than at any time in the past two decades, and that money will demand returns.  More important, foreign investors who have for many years financed our national lifestyle of living beyond our means, are not going to keep their money in low-interest U.S. investments forever.  That means that unless we want a far more serious economic crisis on our hands, the government will need to alter its low-interest policies fairly soon.

Even if that occurs, though, trying to rescue the kind of "prudent saver" Sloan is talking about is like trying to save the dinosaurs from extinction.