Daily Archives: January 22, 2004


A Proper Response to the SOTU

James Landrith has cosigned Jonathon Wilde’s fine response to the SOTU reading:

It is a spectacle millions watch on air with tremendous involvement and pointless excitement, but is ultimately an act of fakery.
Message to politicians:
I don’t want your ‘strengthening of the economy’. You have screwed it up enough already.
I don’t want your ‘sanctity of marriage’. It’s not your business.
Quit trying to define everything as right or left. The world is not binary.
….

Do go read the rest. His summation should be constantly visible to every politician.


The Bush Economic Development Plan

Buy ribs.
This interchange is much better then the State of the Union reading:

Remarks by the President to the Press Pool
Nothin’ Fancy Cafe
Roswell, New Mexico
11:25 A.M. MST
THE PRESIDENT: I need some ribs.
Q Mr. President, how are you?
THE PRESIDENT: I’m hungry and I’m going to order some ribs.
Q What would you like?
THE PRESIDENT: Whatever you think I’d like.
Q Sir, on homeland security, critics would say you simply haven’t spent enough to keep the country secure.
THE PRESIDENT: My job is to secure the homeland and that’s exactly what we’re going to do. But I’m here to take somebody’s order. That would be you, Stretch — what would you like? Put some of your high-priced money right here to try to help the local economy. You get paid a lot of money, you ought to be buying some food here. It’s part of how the economy grows. You’ve got plenty of money in your pocket, and when you spend it, it drives the economy forward. So what would you like to eat?
Q Right behind you, whatever you order.
THE PRESIDENT: I’m ordering ribs. David, do you need a rib?
Q But Mr. President —
THE PRESIDENT: Stretch, thank you, this is not a press conference. This is my chance to help this lady put some money in her pocket. Let me explain how the economy works. When you spend money to buy food it helps this lady’s business. It makes it more likely somebody is going to find work. So instead of asking questions, answer mine: are you going to buy some food?
Q Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Okay, good. What would you like?
Q Ribs.
THE PRESIDENT: Ribs? Good. Let’s order up some ribs.
Q What do you think of the democratic field, sir?
THE PRESIDENT: See, his job is to ask questions, he thinks my job is to answer every question he asks. I’m here to help this restaurant by buying some food. Terry, would you like something?
Q An answer.
Q Can we buy some questions?
THE PRESIDENT: Obviously these people — they make a lot of money and they’re not going to spend much. I’m not saying they’re overpaid, they’re just not spending any money.
Q Do you think it’s all going to come down to national security, sir, this election?
THE PRESIDENT: One of the things David does, he asks a lot of questions, and they’re good, generally.
END 11:29 A.M. MST

I agree with Eugene Volokh that bush is actually handling this interchange well. We should not discount the possibility that Stretch is not a member of the press corps but rather a local alien. Perhaps bush should retire now to Roswell.


Where’s that Corruption

The Corporate Crime Reporter has ranked the 50 states by their rate of corruption.
Then there is the state wannabe The District of Columbia

We calculated the District�s corruption rate as 79.33. This is more than ten times what Mississippi�s corruption rate is……
But we didn�t include the District in the list for one obvious reason � the District is the seat of the federal government, and because of this, there are more criminal prosecutions for public corruption than anywhere else in the country.
It can be said that the District is the most corrupt political entity in the nation � but that�s only because it�s the seat of an apparently actively corrupt federal government � with 453 public corruption convictions over a ten-year period.

Even though there are some deficiencies in the data (noted in the full PDF report) this is an interesting indicator of the quality of government officials.
Via A List a Day.


Whew….

As I mentioned last Sunday I have been working to wrap up a volunteer project.
Well, it took through yesterday to get the bulk of it done and this has consumed all available time outside my real job. I made a presentation last night and will hand it off to new ‘owners’ in 3-4 days.
Blogging will move back to its regular pace over the next couple days…it will take a bit to catch up on what you all have been talking about.
Luckily I have undoubtably missed most of the commentary on w’s state of the union reading.