Person of the Day: Eric Holder

Attorney General Holder limits civil seizure process that splits billions of dollars with local and state police. 

Today we are a better country, a less hypocritical country, a less dangerous country.
Today we reaffirm the foundational American tenet of innocent until proven guilty.

No one can be trusted with unchecked power, the power to coerce, the temptation of easy money. Not me, not you. Without checks, we walk the streets as thugs, using power and fear and the system to dehumanize citizens, to affirm that while all are created equal, not all will be treated as equals.

Today's move reaffirms our corp principles, corrects corrupt practices of the power-state against the individual, and helps ameliorate damaging perceptions (by those individuals against the power-state).

If police departments cannot fulfill their duties without stealing from citizens, then we either need to realign their duties or raise the necessary taxes to support them.

I am sure this will be twisted, will be spun; claiming that we are a weaker and a more dangerous country when police lose the legal right to steal. But protecting citizen rights is a form of courage, not a weakness. Danger is the inherent reality of a people who accept security over freedom, who give up their rights to those paternalistically wishing to keep us from harm. In contrast, we are collectively more secure when we embrace freedom over safety, when we remove the cynicism birthed in unjust search and seizures. We are secure when we no longer provide the motivation of revenge, bitterness, and fear to those who may do us harm. In destroying those our enforcement agencies believe may do us harm, we validate a dozen other's reasons to do so.

For my entire adult life, our governments (federal, state, local) have marched steadfast towards a controlled state, and we have traded perceived security for our personal freedoms. We live in a world our forefathers would barely recognize, not because of the gains of technology or other shiny objects, but by the loss of our personal freedoms and the individual responsibilities born by them.

This small but real step encourages me like very little I've seen in the public sphere of late.

tGbtg

Electoral College, part 2

I haven’t written part 1, which would include an explanation of

1. why there is an Electoral College,
2. why it is of value,
3. why it is particularly American in its essence, and
4. why you should get used to it (because it is not going anywhere).

Not sure if I’ll get around to that column, as there’s a lot to it. However, I was playing around with Excel (an Engineer’s good buddy), and curious of the effect of changing all 51 states (including D.C.) to mimic Maine’s Electoral College voting law.
There are 538 electoral votes, matching the 538 congressmen we all love to hate in D.C. The 50 states have 2 votes representing their Senators, with the remaining 438 apportioned out based upon census population, in the same manner as the 438 House of Representatives.

The typical voting method for the Electoral College is for each state to vote all of their votes to the one candidate who won the popular vote in that particular state, winner-take-all style (i.e. Bush won Florida by ~537 votes, and received all 25 of Florida’s electoral votes).

Maine and Nebraska employ a  proportional method of casting their electoral votes: whoever wins the state popular vote gets the 2 electoral votes, while the rest of the state's electoral votes are cast based upon whoever wins each congressional district.
In essence, our nationwide election is currently resolved at the state level. Under a proportional system, the election would be held at the congressional district level, with the candidate who wins the state getting a 2 ‘bonus’ votes. 

In today’s system, we hold 51 state elections simultaneously and combine them to get the result. A Congressional District apportionment of electoral votes would entail 489 separate elections (438 congressional districts + 51 states), combined for a single result. Simple enough;)

The following are the of the last 3 elections, data from here and here, using the Congressional District system:

Notice that the Net Change doesn’t work perfectly. This is the best I can do with the data I have. No politics here, just looking at the results, and how they would have changed the national ‘spin’ on the election. I’ve no dog in this fight (and didn’t vote for any of the candidates above), but you could see from these results how the feel of the results would have clearly changed.

1. No results would change. This is likely true for almost all of our nation’s election history, with rare exception.
2. 2000 – Bush would have won with a more clear mandate. Florida’s permanent place in election history would not have had the extreme histrionics, and would not have mattered near as much.
3. 2004 – A win turns into a route.
4. 2008 – A route turns into a win.

Forest and Trees

Tea Partiers disdain the government as a consistent and continual waste of money, except in areas of government that benefits them… my dad’s a cop, my wife’s a teacher, I sure enjoy driving on this road and flushing my toilet. Progressives (it seems both parties have rebranded) disdain whoever has scored higher than them in life, claiming as rights what are more accurately privilege (and not always that), all the while aiming to advance to the heights of the very people they hold in contempt. Surrounding our eyes and ears with the like-minded, we create bogeyman of people through isolation and distance. We define them as ‘they’, and they as ‘them’. Marginalize. Stereotype.

Blacks. Rednecks. Unions. Wealthy. Homosexuals. Christians. Skinny-Jeans-People (well, maybe that one is pretty accurate). Groups containing people we don’t know, defined by inaccurate notions of our own strengths against their weaknesses.

We would do well to meet these people, separate the individual from the pack, and break down our own walls. Real people are, well, real. Their presence reveals an identity in contrast to our notioning, initiates comprehension, distances her from them, separates him from they. And maybe in such an encounter veils are lifted from both sets of eyes. Lest ye forget, to others, you are in one of these ill-defined groups as well.

Keynes and Hayek: the Great Debate

This post is as much about me wanting to keep available a good series of opinion pieces as adding any thoughts of my own, excepting the implicit thought by me posting these pieces that said discussion is worth consideration.

Keynes and Hayek: the Great Debate, part 1

Keynes and Hayek: the Great Debate, part 2

Keynes and Hayek: the Great Debate, part 3

Keynes and Hayek: the Great Debate, part 4

How to Prevent Economic Recessions

Hayek vs. Keynes, Round One

Beyond well done.

Politicize the Truth

I will do my best not to judge here; it is not my intent.

Had I been able to extend this chart from the beginning of Bush's presidency, we would see that US average prices when he began in office was ~$1.65/gallon. Across his 8 years in office it consistently rose until its peak just before the 2008 election to ~$4.10/gallon, when crude oil fell precipitously from $147 to $37/barrel. One might remember this time as the world brinking economic collapse, Detroit at the door of the Fed seeking bailouts, and the oil industry, traded in a speculative market, reacting with a short-term collapse of crude prices.

The world didn't collapse, the 1 billion + cars continue to drive their streets, and prices rebounded. In this election year, this truth and history do not serve the Republican voter (of which I will be one). Rather, we blame the President for the world crude oil market, of which the U.S. accounts for ~22%.

It is rather cute.

President Obama can be blamed for many things (including a now-tested lack of leadership capacity), and he has failed to develop a national energy policy just as his many predecessors did. Each of these justifies his removal from office in a short while. 

However, we would do well to be honest with ourselves and hopeful constituents and acknowledge that crude oil is a profitable industry in locations throughout the world with less regard for environmental conditions than the US Federal government (which is not the same voice as the citizens of said government). Prices have steadily risen across TIME, which happens to include the presidential terms of both Bush and Obama. They will continue to rise (relative to inflation) through our next presidential term, be that Obama or Romney, as the industrial growth rate and increases in worldwide standard of living exceeds the US inflation rate. 

There are national choices that effect this situation (that can be adjudged elsewhere), and it would be a pleasure if some form of leadership took root in Washington. But the days of $1.78/gallon are history, and would only return under dire economic circumstances that would cause more heartache than said gasoline savings would justify. 

Left, Right, and Wrong

Micah 6:8 

He has told you, O man, what is good. 

And what does the Lord require of you? 

To do justice, 

To love kindness, and 

To walk humbly with your God. 

The religious and political right focus upon justice, making sure we believe what we are supposed to believe and do not do whatever we are not supposed to do. Rules dictate. This justice is used to protect God, keeping Him and His people sacred.

The religious and political left focus upon kindness, allowing us to believe whatever we want to believe and do whatever we want to do, as long as we are nice about it. Freedom dictates. This kindness is used to endlessly extend God, defining Him and His creation such that all is sacred (and therefore, nothing is).

The right are blind to doing right to the over-extenders. The kind are blind to being kind to the over-righteous. Neither seems cognizant of their hypocrisy, sufficiently humbled by out walking with God

155 day Election prophecy

This isn't at all political... just some rudimentary analysis of trends:
In the last four elections (1992-2004):

• 36 of 51 states (incl. D.C.) voted completely consistent from '92 - '04 election to election... either voting four times for Democrats or for Republicans;
• these 36 states account for 244 electoral votes for Democrats (18 states + D.C.) and 148 electoral votes for Republicans (17 states), providing a pretty solid starting base for each party going into a national election;
• by law, a candidate needs 270 electoral votes to win the election;
• therefore, if we make the initial assumption that these 36 states will continue their voting trends over the last 20 years, the democratic candidate for President will need 26 electoral votes or the republican candidate for President will need 122 electoral votes to win the election.
• these votes are coming from 15 states, with 146 electoral votes (state, # of electoral votes, and the last four election results):
• Arizona (10) (3R, 1D)
• Arkansas (10) (2 R, 2D)
• Colorado (9) (3R, 1D)
• Florida (27) (3R, 1D)
• Iowa (7) (1R, 3D)
• * Kentucky (8) (2R, 2D)
• * Louisiana (11) (2R, 2D)
• * Missouri (11) (2R, 2D)
• Montana (3) (3R, 1D)
• * Nevada (5) (2R, 2D)
• New Hampshire (4) (1R, 3D)
• New Mexico (5) (1D, 3R)
• * Ohio (20) (2R, 2D)
• * Tennessee (11) (2R, 2D)
• * West Virginia (5) (2R, 2D)

* These six states have correctly voted for the election winner in each of the four elections. They are batting 1.000.

• there are a couple of points in the above that are make their outcome in this '08 election pretty easy to predict:
• Arkansas and Tennessee were carried by the home-state Clinton/Gore tickets of '92 & '96, but were handily won by Republicans in '00 & '04. It is likely they will go Republican;
• Montana's single Democrat vote was in '92, but has continuously trended more Republican in each subsequent election;
• New Hampshire went all 1792 on us in the '00, but won't be found making that diversion of character again - pretty easy to bet Democrat here;
• a revised likely projection of the electoral votes without either candidate spending a dime on spin after accounting for the first 40 states (the 36 original and the 4 above) has the Democratic candidate for President needing 22 electoral votes or the Republican candidate for President needing 99 electoral votes to win the election.

For the final 11 states, I must say that things are looking pretty good for Obama... if he picks up Florida and sleeps through the rest of the campaign, it would look like a pretty reasonable win. Before we write McCain off however, I need to mention that the Republican candidate won 9 of these 11 states the last two elections (including "my precious", Florida). Six of these states (AZ, FL, KY, LA, MO, WV) have grown consistently more Republican in their voting over the past four elections (including Florida), giving the Republican candidate a strong shot at their 67 electoral votes. 
Result: there is a large lead for any Democratic candidate in 'guaranteed' electoral votes, but the 11 swing states have favored the Red Elephant in recent years. With Florida and Ohio carrying 47 total electoral votes and the remaining nine states carrying 77 (of which 40 are trending Republican), these two states will be the battleground of the election. If a single candidate wins both of these states, they will certainly win the election. If they lose them, there is almost no chance of them winning the election. If they split (which hasn't happened since '92), the college will implode and we'll play King of the Hill to see who will lead us.

Conclusion:

• McCain will cover the spread on his initial 17 states and 123 electoral votes,
• He will take care of the three anomaly states and their 24 electoral votes,
• He will carry the six Republican trending swing states (including Florida) and their 67 electoral votes,
• He'll pick up his three western neighbor swing states (CO, NM, NV) and their 19 electoral votes,
• He will lose the tenth swing state (IA) because eventually luck runs out,
• and His realistic understanding of the globalization of the world manufacturing economy will be exploited by the Obama campaign to the effect of Ohio and its 20 electoral votes being won by the Democrat;
• McCain: 29 states, 263 electoral votes;
• Obama: 21 states (and D.C.), 275 electoral votes.

	John McCain Score: 27	Agree Taxes Stem-Cell Research Abortion Social Security Line-Item Veto Energy Marriage Death Penalty Education	Disagree Iraq Immigration Health Care Gun Control Environment
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