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Blame Is Not A Plan

You got to love the way the Left operates. *cough*

9-11 happens and Bush takes out the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Iraq is still in violation of UN sanctions, so we invade and remove Saddam from power.

President Bush acted. Because he acted he is blamed and will be blamed from now until the end of time by the Left.

If Afghanistan stays in the dark ages and stays embroiled in conflict, then the Left will say we failed and it is all Bush's fault. He must not have had a good enough plan or he lacked the required leadership. If terrorism rises or if extremists take over Pakistan, again the Left will blame Bush. Even if it all falls apart 10 or 20 years after Bush leaves office, it does not matter to the Left. Bush is to blame.

If Iraq falls into civil war, the Left will blame Bush. They will claim all the above things I have already written. The same holds true if terrorist attacks continue or if Iran exerts undo influence on the Iraqi government. Bush will be to blame. Again, even if all these things happen years down the road, Bush will be to blame. All because he acted.

This same scenario holds true for all the other pressing issues confronting Bush. If he acts in any way to rein in the North Koreans or if he takes action against a belligerent Iran or if he sells weapons to the Taiwanese. If whatever action he takes turns out to not work or have adverse consequences, the Left will blame him.

I guess one cannot fault them too much. After all, if you act, you do take on the responsibility for the consequences of that action.

However.

The Left wants it both ways. If Bush acts they are waiting to hit him upside his head if he fails. But he doesn't act...well then they will blame him for not taking action. Follow that?

Bush is already blamed for not taking action prior to 9-11. If he had not taken action in Afghanistan, the Left would have said he was weak and he should have attacked our enemy. If he had not taken action against Iraq and Saddam launch a chemical attack against Israel or invaded another country or gave WMD's to terrorists, the Left would have blamed Bush for not acting.

This line of thinking is carried out with Iran and North Korea as well.

The Left and by proxy, Democrats, have no plan for anything. The ONLY thing they have a plan for is to blame Bush and Republicans for anything that turns out not quite like we had hoped. If it is because of action or inaction, they will blame. But ask them what their plan would be for say North Korea and you will get some gobbly gook about seeking allies and the UN. Didn't we already try that and they basically gave the whole world the finger and did what they wanted anyway? The same for Iraq. Ask them what they would have done and they will claim they would have kept pressure on Saddam through continued enforcement of UN sanctions. Gee, we saw how good that worked. Ten years after the First Gulf War the Left was trying to end the sanctions and were praising the Oil For Food Program.

They have no plan. Leadership, real leadership means taking risks. It would have been so much easier for Bush, in the short term, to leave Iraq alone. Same with dealing with the Iranians and North Koreans. But he took the action he felt was in the best long term interests of the U.S. Have there been mistakes? Plenty. Could there have been better planning? Don't get me started. Could the President have used the bully pulpit better? Amen to that. Regardless, Bush led. He didn't have too, look at Clintons halfhearted attempt at fighting terrorism, but Bush took the risks.

I am open to criticism of Bush. There are many places that I am highly critical of him, but I will not fault him for leading the country. That is why we elected him and re-elected him. You may not like Bush, you may hate him, you may be so blinded by hate of the man that you do not see why he had to do what he has done, that is fine, this is America, but instead of blaming him from now until the end of time, why not have some realistic plans for how YOU would handle things. You never know, you may get a chance to be in power again. It sure would suck to find out that you had no plan. Being against Bush is not a plan.

Mike controls the world from his blog WunderKraut.com

Posted by Wunderkraut · 30 September 2005 07:14 PM · Comments (5)

U.S. Won't Relinquish the Internet

Let's see, the UN wants the US to relinquish control of the internet traffic governance.

Umm... NO.

Sorry, those guys couldn't manage a Jiffy Lube. I don't think that international oversight by, say, China, is in the best interests of free flowing information. For some reason, I don't see a reason to share this with the international community. It seems that Gross, the coordinator for international communications and information policy, doesn't see a need for it either.

"We will not agree to the U.N. taking over the management of the Internet....Some countries want that. We think that's unacceptable."

I think he sounds a little ambigous. What else does he say?

"The genius of the Internet is that it has been flexible (and) private-sector led."

"We've been very, very clear throughout the process that there are certain things we can agree to and certain things we can't agree to," Gross said. "It's not a negotiating issue, this is a matter of national policy."

Now while this has ruffled a few feathers at the UN, (I know it's hard to believe that the US isn't universally liked there) I have a feeling that this isn't going to change.

Information, and the control of it, secures our superpower status for the future. Just like Russia lost out to the US in the cold war due, in part, to economic power, we can now control a vast amount of the worlds economic power via information. You have to know that China, who is trying to ramp up, is very aware of this and would love nothing more that to regulate that flow both inside and outside that country. Likewise, other countries would as well.

This is something that will contine to creep along in the backpages of the news, but make no mistake it is an issue that is as important as the ones me make on North Korea, Afghanistan or North Korea.

Rob B. usually usurps the UN over at File it Under.

Posted by Hoodlumman · 30 September 2005 12:33 PM · Comments (10)

Wow, This Blog Is Much Classier Than Mine....

Greetings WILLisms readers!

Just a quick post to introduce myself to everyone. The other guest bloggers have been here before, but today is my first day.

My name is Mike and I blog over at WunderKraut.com. I have only been blogging since this past February, but I have had my site for several years. After reading all of Will’s stuff, go check me out.

In addition to the blog, I have a collection of essays and a couple of guest essays. I am always looking for new essays to post. If you have one burning a hole in your pocket, send it on to me.

A brief background on me: I am a Civil Engineer and my wife of ten years and I live in a small town in South Georgia. We have three biological children and are in the process of adopting our daughter from China.

That about sums it up. I will be posting my first real post later this evening. Just because it is the weekend, do not forget about us. With all the guest bloggers, we are bound to have something remotely interesting to say.

Mike is the proud parent of WunderKraut.com

Posted by Wunderkraut · 30 September 2005 11:25 AM · Comments (8)

The Future (finally) Is Now (sort of...)

Remember growing up and reading those "futuristic" books of how the future would be?

The books were probably printed in the 60's or 70's but they still were in public school libraries when I checked and rechecked them out, repeatedly, in elementary school in the early-mid 80's.

I loved the animated drawings of "Cities of the future" with all the futuristic things they entailed - robots, automated walkways, lots of tubes and really shiny buildings that didn't have things like... edges.

But the coolest thing of all was flying cars.

Between these books and Hollywood movies (Bladerunner had flying cars and it took place in 2010-ish Los Angeles; Back to the Future had flying car modification and it took place in 2015 Hill Valley) we should be on the brink of commuter skyways.

Where are our flying cars? We have no flying cars.

Or do we?

For a mere $3,500,000.00 you can own your very own flying car.

And as an added bonus, this baby runs on cleaner alcohol-based fuel and actually gets 21 miles per gallon - in case gas pump prices are taking their toll.

The fact that this sucker gets better economy than most SUVs and trucks is impressive.

Buyers must clear regulatory requirements, including International Traffic in Arms Regulations and Federal Aviation Administration authorization.

And then there's the issue of parking. But, hey... baby steps, right?

I'd just find it hugely entertaining to see the face of a state trooper as s/he clocks you going about 340 mph.

I think that we're still a long way off from affordable flying cars. Once again, technology, economics and real-life trump hollywood. But maybe that's a good thing. We've all seen morons not able to handle simple things like traffic signs, HOV lanes and not putting down their cell phones.

Do we want these people in aircraft?

Hoodlumman normally crash lands over at File it Under.

Posted by Hoodlumman · 30 September 2005 09:15 AM · Comments (6)

Vacation: Guest Bloggers.

The illustrious Mrs. WILLisms.com and I are flying to Los Angeles on Friday morning to pick up her 93-year-old Oma's car and drive it all over the country- ultimately to Houston-- where she is moving.

We're doing the winery thing in Napa, then Las Vegas, then Zion National Park in Utah, then somewhere yet to be determined in New Mexico, then my Meem's house in Oklahoma City, then down through Texas to Houston.

But we've got a great team of guest bloggers lined up for ya.

Ken from Am I A Pundit Now? blog.

The guys from File It Under blog.

And Mike from Wunderkraut.

Should be a fun time.

Thanks to all those guys for their help over the next 10-11 days or so. They'll take care of y'all "real nice like."

I will be gone until October 10-ish. When I get back there'll be some big site news. And I will choose 5 or 6 blogs to add the ole blogroll, as well, when I return. So keep the suggestions coming.

All of the regular WILLisms.com features will pick back up when I get back. Awesome.

Posted by Will Franklin · 29 September 2005 10:20 PM · Comments (9)

The Ole Blogroll.

In the interests of keeping the blogroll healthy, up-to-date, and meaningful, I think I am going to take off a couple or few blogs. Right now I am leaning toward taking off The Jawa Report. The somewhat new black background makes it difficult to read. And I am not a fan-- at all-- of "bedwetting conservatives" who would sell their own up the river because it might be temporarily expedient. I don't like that at all. And it's been happening far too much lately.

But I'd also like some suggestions for blogs I should add. I am thinking I want to add maybe 5 of them. Which must-read blogs don't I have on there? Feel free to nominate your own blog, even.

UPDATE:

I went ahead and de-blogrolled The Jawa Report. I am just fed up with people piling on the clearly in-the-right good guys who need our support. I am sick of "conservatives" opposing Social Security reform. I am sick of "conservatives" rushing to pile on good people on our side who happen to be under fire from Democrats and the establishment media.

I was never The Jawa Report blogroll anyway, so I am not sure why it was ever on mine.

And, for the record, there are other prominent conservative blogs out there that also want DeLay permanently gone, for equally weak and short-sighted reasons. But I am willing to give some of them a pass, because they actually offer compelling content on a regular basis, unlike the weak, lame, and increasingly difficult-to-read The Jawa Report.

Posted by Will Franklin · 29 September 2005 11:25 AM · Comments (24)

Social Security Reform Thursday: Week Thirty-Four -- People Living Longer Straining The System.

Thursdays are good days for reform, because they fall between Wednesdays and Fridays. And reform is a long-haul process, not a fleeting event.

That's why WILLisms.com offers a chart or graph, every Thursday, pertinent to Social Security reform.

This week's topic:

Growth In Life Expectancy Makes Social Security Untenable.

The Urban Institute notes that longer life expectancy, while certainly a good thing, means that people will receive Social Security benefits for much longer (.pdf):

Not only are more people beginning to collect Social Security benefits, they are projected to collect it for far longer than anyone in the early days of the program.

Unfortunately, resources are limited. We can't afford this profound growth in entitlement spending (and let's not forget that most spending growth in the Bush administration, 2001 to 2005, has come not from the dreaded pork barrel, but from large automatic increases in entitlement spending).

Meanwhile, the Baby Boom ended nearly half a century ago. Lower birthrates mean slower labor force growth today than when Social Security was set up in the 1930s. And labor force growth is projected to get even slower in the future (.pdf):

This is why reform is so imperative. More people, collecting more benefits, for longer, with less workers to pay for those benefits. It's not a recipe for a sustainable program.

Here's a terrible idea: let's put off passing GROW Accounts or any other reform of the program "because of Katrina." Because that makes so much sense. Not. A short-term negative economic jolt means we should let a rapidly approaching long-term economic drag fester and boil? Hmm.

The clock is ticking.

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Previous Reform Thursday graphics can be seen here:

-Week One (Costs Exceed Revenues).
-Week Two (Social Security Can't Pay Promised Benefits).
-Week Three (Americans Getting Older).
-Week Three, bonus (The Templeton Curve).
-Week Four (Fewer Workers, More Retirees).
-Week Five (History of Payroll Tax Base Increases).
-Week Six (Seniors Living Longer).
-Week Six, bonus (Less Workers, More Beneficiaries).
-Week Seven (History of Payroll Tax Increases).
-Week Seven, bonus (Personal Accounts Do Achieve Solvency).
-Week Eight (Forty Year Trend Of Increasing Mandatory Spending).
-Week Nine (Diminishing Benefits Sans Reform).
-Week Ten (Elderly Dependence On Social Security).
-Week Eleven (Entitlement Spending Eating The Budget).
-Week Twelve (Benefit Comparison, Bush's Plan versus No Plan).
-Week Thirteen (Younger Americans and Lifecycle Funds).
-Week Fourteen (The Thrift Savings Plan).
-Week Fifteen (Understanding Progressive Indexing).
-Week Sixteen (The Graying of America).
-Week Seventeen (Debunking Myths).
-Week Eighteen (Debunking Myths).
-Week Nineteen (Reform Needed Sooner Rather Than Later).
-Week Twenty (Global Success With Personal Accounts).
-Week Twenty-One (GROW Accounts: Stopping The Raid).
-Week Twenty-Two (Millions of Lockboxes).
-Week Twenty-Three (Support for Ryan-DeMint).
-Week Twenty-Four (KidSave Accounts).
-Week Twenty-Five (Latinos and Social Security).
-Week Twenty-Six (AmeriSave).
-Week Twenty-Seven (Cost Of Doing Nothing).
-Week Twenty-Eight (Chile).
-Week Twenty-Nine (Entitlement Spending Out Of Control).
-Week Thirty (Reform Better Deal Than Status Quo).
-Week Thirty-One (Social Security As A Labor Cost).
-Week Thirty-Two (Social Security And Dependence On Government).
-Week Thirty-Three (Social Security, Currently A Bad Deal For African-Americans).

Tune into WILLisms.com each Thursday for more important graphical data supporting Social Security reform.

Posted by Will Franklin · 29 September 2005 10:22 AM · Comments (2)

Trivia Tidbit Of The Day: Part 180 -- Best Places To Do Business.

The Best Business Climates-

The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and World Bank copublished Doing Business In 2006. You've maybe already seen the data in the report (.pdf), but it is certainly interesting.

And if you want a closer look, with sortable tables, try this.

Good for the good guys, but we can do better.

Interestingly, but not surprisingly, countries in which it is easier to do business, the unemployment rate is also lower (.pdf):

Also interesting but not surprising, smaller informal sectors (also known as "the black market") are found in countries in which it is easier to do business (.pdf):

Seems like a no brainer, right? Offer disincentives for starting a business, and people will either not start businesses or go underground entirely.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Religion.

Posted by Will Franklin · 29 September 2005 08:31 AM · Comments (2)

Trivia Tidbit Of The Day: Part 179 -- Religion.

Religion, It's A Good Thing-

Whether you are Catholic, Jewish, Protestant, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, atheist, agnostic, or anything else at all, everyone should respect your right to worship or not worship as you please. That's what America is all about.

Some Americans on all parts of the political spectrum (but mostly on the left) are increasingly hostile toward religion. They want it entirely removed from the public square. Religion is just inherently offensive to some Americans.

Many religion-skeptics in this country make blanket statements about religion being at the root of the world's problems. If only we could take away religion, organized or otherwise, people would all just get along. There would be no war, no strife, and so on.

Well, they may have a point about some world religions (you know which one I mean) being more inherently resistant to modernity than others. And some religions may have been abused by elites for nefarious and violent purposes throughout history.

But even if you are not at all religious, it is important to acknowledge the impact of religion on modern society. One can be ethical and moral without religion, and religious people can be unethical and immoral, but it is hard to deny that religion is responsible for a net positive in character development for young people. And religious individuals make a disproportionately positive and important contribution to the fabric of American society.

So let's look at the role of religion in America. How does "being religious" affect the behavior of Americans? What impact does it have on our society?

Heritage relays the results of a University of Chicago study on the matter:

Of those who report having compassionate feelings for the disadvantaged, religious respondents were 23 percentage points more likely to donate to charities at least once a year than were their secular counterparts (89 vs. 66 percent) and 32 points more likely to donate every month (50 vs. 18 percent).

Likewise, they were 34 percentage points more likely to volunteer at least once a year (63 vs. 29 percent) and 22 points more likely to volunteer each month (28 percent vs. 6 percent).

Civic involvement by individuals is the key to healthy and productive communities, and it is necessary for the functioning of any democracy.

And it cuts across party lines.

After controlling for demographic variables, religious people who expressed compassion were 12 percentage points more likely to donate to charity each year and 35 points more likely to volunteer than were their secular counterparts.

What's more:

In the year 2000, on average, religious people in this sample donated $2,210 and served as volunteers 12 times annually; making up 33 percent of the sample population, they accounted for 52 percent of the charitable donations and 45 percent of the times volunteered. On average, secular individuals in this sample gave annual charitable donations of $642 and volunteered 5.8 times annually; While making up 26 percent of the sample population, they contributed 13 percent of the money given to charity and accounted for 17 percent of the times volunteered.

Now, it does not make someone a better person for donating time and money to charity, nor is someone a bad person if they do not donate time and money to charity.

But if I were down on my luck, I would clearly prefer the help of a faith-based organization to that of a bureacratic government program. And let's not forget that religious folks are happier than secular people.

Religion, it would seem, is a force for good. The "Armies of Compassion" should be unleashed, not maligned or marginalized.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: U.S. Refineries.

Posted by Will Franklin · 28 September 2005 03:47 PM · Comments (8)

FLASHBACK: Ronnie Earle & Tom DeLay.

U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay has been indicted (.pdf) by Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle. Roy Blunt of Missouri will take over as Majority Leader as DeLay steps down, pursuant to the GOP caucus rules.

Note in this flashback post: Earle is a very liberal partisan hack.

A few things to keep in mind:

1. Texas has an odd system, where the Travis County (very liberal Austin) District Attorney has jurisdiction over the entire system of state politics.

2. Former Congressman and ethics violator Chris Bell (D), who plans to run for Governor, is salivating about this. He intends to run as the "anti-DeLay" next year. That's sour grapes. Same with Martin Frost. Same with all of the folks thrust out of power due to redistricting. They feel like they are entitled to power, even though the public has rejected their ideas. They are wrong.

3. Some folks, meanwhile, argue that Earle indicted more Democrats than Republicans in his career. Well, Texas used to be a one-party state. And it was a one-party Democrat-controlled state. So of course he indicted Democrats back in the day.

4. Earle also indicted Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison in a disgraceful bit of partisan hackery. Those charges were eventually thrown out, and Earle was disgraced and embarrassed.

5. Read the flashback post linked above, but don't forget about Ronnie Earle's "dollars for dismissals" business.

6. Let's not forget what this is really about. It's about sour grapes. It's about Tom DeLay's profound effectiveness at winning elections and winning legislative victories. It's about the shift of power in Texas from the Democrats to the Republicans. It's about the advancement of the conservative movement.

And let's remember that Democrats mangled the Congressional districts for many decades. Although Republicans won every single statewide race in Texas, by huge margins, year after year, Democrats still controlled the state delegation to Congress, 17-13. That was blatant gerrymandering. Tom DeLay helped un-gerrymander those districts so the delegation would reflect the will of Texas voters.

Does anyone remember when the Texas Democrats ran away to Oklahoma? That's what this is about. They ran away to prevent a quorum on entirely necessary redistricting. Democrats are desperate to regain the power they have lost in Texas over the past decade. Democrats just can't accept that Texans have rejected their ideas.

Think about it for a second.

Had Bush v. Gore gone to the House of Representatives (which votes by state delegation in such a situation) in 2000 due to continued gridlock, Texas would have voted for Gore. Texas would have gone for Al Gore! All because the Democrats drew the districts to eliminate Republican representation in Congress.

The actual charges focus on relatively silly fundraising violations, and the minutiae of them will quickly bore people, after an initial media-driven anti-DeLay, anti-GOP hullabaloo/hatchet job.

And it seems like DeLay is being punished, politically, for merely being indicted by a partisan prosector for something that may or may not be legitimate.

Thus, there was almost an incentive for Earle to hand down an indictment, any indictment, on this, the last day of this Grand Jury's term. Because even a poor indictment on a relatively routine campaign finance violation (or "conspiracy" to commit a campaign finance violation, not even the actual violation itself) would lead to DeLay having to step down as Majority Leader. That's just one part of why this seems so fishy.

The weirdest thing about all of this nonsense is that Republicans would have won those seats in the state legislature with or without those relatively meager amounts of (allegedly illegal) campaign money.

But let's keep this in perspective. The criminal justice system should not be a place to wage political battles. But this is certainly what we're seeing today.

Posted by Will Franklin · 28 September 2005 12:22 PM · Comments (9)

September Straw Poll.

I am always interested in how my readers feel about certain political issues and politicians. Go check out Patrick Ruffini's latest (and best, thus far) straw poll. If you click on that link and vote, it will take note of how the WILLisms.com crowd voted.

Posted by Will Franklin · 28 September 2005 08:53 AM · Comments (0)

Wednesday Caption Contest: Part 25.

This week's WILLisms.com Caption Contest photograph:

The actual caption:

US President George W. Bush shakes hands with members of a search and recue unit in Lake Charles, Louisiana. US President George W. Bush this month toured areas hit by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in a vain quest for a 'bullhorn moment' that would recall his leadership after the September 11 strikes(AFP/File/Jim Watson)

There must be a better caption out there for this photograph, particularly considering how seethingly biased it is. Geez.

Entries will remain open until 11:59 PM, Central Standard Time, Tuesday, October 11 (a two week time frame this go around). Submit your captions in the comments section, or email at WILLisms@gmail.com.

Last week's photo:

Winners from last week:

1.

John (appreciate the Seinfeld reference):

Defending Gen Honore's recent comments about the press being "Stuck on stupid," Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld wearily rubs his eyes as NBC's David Gregory shreiks, "Well, the jerk store called, and they're running out of YOU!"

2.

Hoodlumman:

After catching a glimpse of Helen Thomas in an appallingly short skirt, Donald Rumsfeld contemplates gouging his eyes out.

3.

Zsa Zsa:

I have seen London. I have seen France. I really didn't need to see Helen in her underpants!

DIShonorable mention.

Gus Garciaton:

Donald Rumsfeld explains to the visiting Kyrgyz press corps, "Me Rumsfeld. Me play joke. Me put pee pee in your coke."

Captioning is so awesome it hurts.

Enter today! Or tomorrow, whatever. You have two weeks this time around.

Posted by Will Franklin · 28 September 2005 08:45 AM · Comments (29)

Hate Mail Time.

It's Hate Mail Time!

I get the occasional hate mail and hate comment (like this one, a while back), and usually I just ignore them, but this one was just too absurd not to share.

It's pretty weird, it's got some rough language, and you may feel dumber for having read it, so read on at your own peril...

Read More »

Posted by Will Franklin · 27 September 2005 09:34 PM · Comments (14)

Some Call It A Bonfire (Or Carnival) Of Classiness...

We call it "Classiness, All Around Us."

Click to explore more WILLisms.com.

In no particular order, WILLisms.com presents classiness from the blogosphere:

1.

Faith-Based Groups-

Ankle Biting Pundits notes that some on the left are angry about faith-based organizations receiving reimbursements from the government to help cover their costs in responding to Katrina:

It's people like Barry Lynn who are making it damn near impossible for the Democrat party to convince people they are on the side of religious people, and are not reactionary secularists who scream bloody murder at the mere mention of religion.

There's a good reason why the public does not trust liberals on these issues. Some Americans certainly fear or distrust the "religious right." But far more Americans are worried about radical secularists and their anti-religion agenda.

2.

Iraq-

Am I A Pundit Now? blog makes the case for permanent military bases in Iraq:

Far from being the neocon imperialist nightmare envisioned by the overly-imaginative Left, permanent bases in Iraq will be tangible evidence of our continued commitment to a free and prosperous Iraq, and don't let the symbolic value of that for Iraqis and all the peoples of the region be underestimated either.

And it's not about projecting American empire. It's about protecting liberty. When Iraq is a free, independent, and prosperous nation, it will be a formidable and strategically-located ally in the spread of liberty in the world.

3.

Fake Ashamed Republican-

Wizbang blog notes that an self-proclaimed Republican individual, protesting, and promoted by the media, is no Republican at all:

The San Francisco Chronicle has fallen for this guy's act on more than one occasion, which should hardly come as a surprise.

It is still hard to believe. But it does fit the "Republican voters are disgruntled" narrative the media are pushing today.

4.

Vicious Racists-

Michelle Malkin points out that the Bush=Hitler thing is sooo 2004. This year's analogy is Bull Connor:

Sadly, so-called civil rights leaders abandoned the high road for cheap demagoguery years ago.

The good news is that few people really buy into these sorts of ridiculous comparisons. In fact, the sum of these turns off most reasonable and genuinely on-the-fence types of voters, to the extent there are any left.

5.

Krugman, Disrobed-

Don Luskin annihilates the absurdity of left-wing columnist Paul Krugman:

With Paul Krugman's lies exposed by the Times' own "public editor," with TimesSelect hiding his columns behind a wall of fees, and with the Times Company faltering financially, one thing is for sure. The opinions of America's looniest liberal pundit are worth exactly what his online readers have been paying for them all these years -- nothing. Even Times loyalists, it seems, would rather have a few martinis, instead.

Krugman: increasingly marginal. But still influential among the media establishment.

6.

Hill-

Rightwing Nuthouse notes that Hillary Clinton is eschewing months of hard work cultivating a moderate image:

Indeed, Clinton has been caught in a trap that every Democrat since 1972 has found themselves. In order to get nominated for the office of President, a Democrat must be liberal enough to energize the base of the party so that primary voters will come out in the dead of winter in Iowa and New Hampshire to support their candidacy and lefty donors will open their pocketbooks to supply enough funds to buy the TV time necessary to have a viable candidacy. But once nominated, the putative candidate then must scramble toward the middle of the political spectrum in order to woo the independents necessary to win the Presidency.

Hillary has no chance in the general election in 2008. I hope, however, that she is the nominee.

7.

Louisiana's Clean Slate-

The Louisiana Libertarian has some thoughts on evacuating Louisiana, as well as the failure of local leadership:

...in order to get better leadership, we must change the political culture of this state. Since the election of Huey Long to Louisiana's governorship in the 1920s, Louisianians have been conditioned to rely on government for everything....

To do this, we must change the political climate of the state and move it to a more fiscally conservative/libertarian persuasion. Unfortunately, that will have to be in a forthcoming essay.

In every disaster, there is room for opportunity. The people of Louisiana have an opportunity to start over. Unfortunately, it's difficult to see the kinds of changes that need to happen, happening.

8.

Forbes 400-

Asymmetrical Information points out, despite some weird reporting in the establishment media, just how mobile wealth really is in America:

I had to look elsewhere to discover that there were 33 new members this year, for a turnover of 8.25% in one year, and that Google's founders were shaking up the list. Instead of providing stagnation statistics, however, Munk simply marks her ennui with the astounding observation that the richest people in the U.S. are, apparently, filthy rich. It's all so...dreary and repetitive!

Far more self-made fortunes today than before.
Far fewer inherited fortunes than before.
More immigrants than before.
More without a college degree.
Fewer with Harvard or Yale diplomas.

The American Dream is more accessible than ever.

9.

Global Warming-

TMH's Bacon Bits blog takes on bad science and bad journalism:

Bad journalism was on display in the reporting of Disaster Katrina, as it will continue to be with regard to Iraq, judicial appointments, and other touch-button issues in which liberals have an axe to grind. Does bad journalism — not only the Blair/Rather variety, but the subtle brand we see every day — ever really get corrected?

Journalism is decaying today. But out of that decay may arise something new.

10.

Weakest crowd ever-

Silent Running notes that recent Sheehan-driven anti-war protests fell ridiculously short:

So, 100,000? 300,000? 500,000? This motley assortment of clowns and buffoons didn’t come anywhere close to the size of any of those crowds.

These lame protests garner an inordinate amount of media coverage. But, honestly, that's not such a bad thing. The more America sees of these weirdoes, the less they like their ideas.

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Also, don't forget to check out all the old Trivia Tidbits Of the Day, the Reform Thursday series, the Quotational Therapy sessions, and the Wednesday Caption Contest (entries are due each Tuesday at 11:59 PM Central Standard Time).

Last Week's Classiness Certification from WILLisms.com:

*September 20, 2005.

WILLisms.com offers a weekly classiness roundup as a weekly feature, every Tuesday, with 10 blog posts deemed classy. The criteria for submissions: incisive original analysis, quirky topics nobody else is covering, fantastic graphics, or other posts that took a lot of work. We love to spread the word on upcoming blogs, being that WILLisms.com also fits that description. If you would like to nominate a post on your blog or another blog for inclusion, email us at WILLisms@gmail.com. Write "Classy Nomination" in the subject. You can also utilize this page to make your submissions. The deadline is each Monday at 11:59 PM Central Time.

Classy.

Posted by Will Franklin · 27 September 2005 02:55 PM · Comments (5)

The Kerry Campaign: Inside The Bubble.

John Kerry once wondered publicly how he could have been losing to "this guy" (President Bush). There were a lot of reasons Kerry lost, but the overriding reason was quite simply that George W. Bush won. John Kerry and his liberal allies outspent, outmanned, out-news-cycled, and otherwise outresourced the Bush campaign; Kerry received a remarkably high number of votes. But President Bush received more votes than any other candidate in American history. Win the most votes, and you win the election. It's not brain surgery.

There is a new documentary that goes inside the Kerry campaign. And there's no way I am not going to see this thing:

It features, among other not-ready-for-prime-time moments, Clinton scowling and rolling her eyes over an apparent Kerry gaffe during a presidential debate; Kerry pretending to interview himself and babbling in Italian while waiting for a real interview to begin; Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) cursing at reporters during a campaign stop, and Kerry message guru Robert Shrum confidently declaring a few days before the 2004 election: "Zogby [a prominent pollster] just announced who's gonna win. Us!"

And it's not a partisan hatchet job. Inside The Bubble is the creation of Steve Rosenbaum, a life-long Democrat and Kerry supporter in 2004. But it looks like it'll be a hilarious peek into the dysfunction of the Kerry campaign.

Some sample clips:

VIDEO: The New York Times cover (.mov file).

In this one, Jim Loftus, Kerry Communications guy, frantically declares that The New York Times is out to get the Kerry campaign.

A choice quote from the film:

"By any objective standard, what the f*** is that? This is the f***ing New York Times f***ing Magazine! Look at the f***ing picture! Look at the inside! They're not trying to f*** us?"

Ridiculous.

VIDEO: The Pony (.mov file).

In this one, Jim Loftus works on getting a pony in a hotel room for a birthday celebration.

A choice quote from the film:

When I was an advance guy if someone said, 'Get a pony on the 10th floor of this hotel in four hours -- I want a pony on the 1028 floor in four hours,' I would have said, 'What color eyes should it have?' All I got -- I gave these guys four days, 'Find me a pony, get it in the g***amn room...' -- 'Where am I gonna find a pony?' I said, 'Go to the f***ing phone book, you're an advance guy!'"

These are both so absurd, I don't know where to begin. You have to watch them to believe them.

Posted by Will Franklin · 27 September 2005 11:34 AM · Comments (7)

Trivia Tidbit Of The Day: Part 178 -- Refineries.

Refineries In America-

The Gulf Coast oil refineries were largely unscathed after Rita, thank goodness.

...there are 21 refineries, making up 27.5 percent of the domestic refining capacity, between Lake Charles, Louisiana and Corpus Christi, Texas.

U.S. Refineries are heavily concentrated along the Gulf Coast for a number of reasons, a primary one being that 29% of domestic oil production occurs in the region.

So where is the rest of the refining in America?

United States Refinery Capacity by State (barrels per day)
Alabama: 130,200 bpd
Alaska: 375,900 bpd
Arkansas: 76,800 bpd
California: 2,090,401 bpd
*Los Angeles: 1,433,300 bpd
*San Francisco: 541,801 bpd
*Bakersfield: 115,300 bpd
Colorado: 87,000 bpd
Delaware: 175,000 bpd
Georgia: 28,000 bpd
Hawaii: 147,500 bpd
Illinois: 896,000 bpd
Indiana: 433,000 bpd
Kansas: 296,200 bpd
Kentucky: 227,500 bpd
Louisiana: 2,945,800 bpd
*New Orleans: 1,305,000 bpd
*Baton Rouge: 882,500 bpd
*Lake Charles: 702,000 bpd
Michigan: 74,000 bpd
Minnesota: 335,000 bpd
Mississippi: 364,800 bpd
Montana: 181,200 bpd
Nevada: 1,700 bpd
New Jersey: 728,000 bpd
New Mexico: 117,800 bpd
North Dakota: 58,000 bpd
Ohio: 551,400 bpd
Oklahoma: 474,000 bpd
Pennsylvania: 770,000 bpd
Tennessee: 180,000 bpd
Texas: 4,609,500 bpd
*Houston: 2,291,900 bpd
*Port Arthur: 1,122,000 bpd
*Corpus Christi: 676,000 bpd
Utah: 163,600 bpd
Virginia: 58,600 bpd
Washington: 609,000 bpd
West Virginia: 19,400 bpd
Wisconsin: 33,000 bpd
Wyoming: 152,000 bpd

Source:
Joint Economic Committee, U.S. Senate (.pdf).

First, the bad news on refineries: it has been 29 years since the last refinery was built in the United States.

Now, the good news: the existing refineries have become more efficient. But there's still a need for more refining capacity in this country. It's a national security issue:

There were 325 oil refineries in the U.S. in 1981, only 149 today. Since 1976, domestic refining capacity dropped from 18.6 million barrels of oil a day to 16.8 million barrels of oil today.

Part of why there have been no new refineries are NIMBYism and environmentalism. People don't want refineries in their area. And environmental regulations have strangled the incentives for building these exceedingly expensive new plants.

A large oil refinery costs $4 billion to $6 billion to build. This is not something to be taken lightly, especially in such a cyclical boom-and-bust industry.

-------------------------------------

Previous Trivia Tidbit: The Remarkably Awesome Houston Evacuation.

Posted by Will Franklin · 27 September 2005 09:04 AM · Comments (3)

Texas A&M Aggie Joke Of The Day.

Aggie Is As Aggie Does-

Of those who read WILLisms.com with any sort of regularity, I know the Big XII is very well represented. There are Sooners and Longhorns and Aggies and just about everything else who chime in anytime I post anything about The University of Texas.

So, before I post this, know that this is all in good fun. And Aggies are good people.

Also know that the Aggie Joke Of The Day will not become any permanent sort of feature on WILLisms.com. This, however, is just too good to pass up.

The best Aggie jokes are often not really jokes at all. They just... are.

I present--- Loupot's Bookstore, in College Station, Texas (via the SciGuy):

-click for larger version-

Boarding up the windows, from the inside. Many, many, many miles inland. Hmm, yeah.

Aggie engineering at its finest.

I guess the boards stayed dry, at least. And all of those terrible looters would have been deterred from plundering all of the wonderful maroon-colored gloriousness within.

Something like that.

UPDATE:

More Hurricane Aggie joke fun.

Posted by Will Franklin · 26 September 2005 12:00 PM · Comments (9)

The Carnival of Revolutions.

This week's Carnival of Revolutions is up and running.

We also need some hosts for upcoming weeks. If you want to host the carnival, shoot me an email.

Check the HOME BASE for upcoming open weeks.

Posted by Will Franklin · 26 September 2005 10:43 AM · Comments (0)

Quotational Therapy: Part 47 -- Barry Goldwater, On Freedom.

Barry Goldwater, On Freedom-

Nobody should be surprised or perplexed when George W. Bush, conservative, talks about the spread of freedom in the world. This is nothing new in our nation's history, and certainly nothing new in the conservative movement.

Barry Goldwater, for example, believed accomodation of Soviet designs on the world was the wrong approach. Barry Goldwater, unlike so many Americans of his time who feared the inevitability of Communist domination of the world, believed in the amazing power of his own ideas:

"I ask your help, and the help of all Americans, so that an American president can tell Nikita Khrushchev: 'You are wrong! Our children will not live under communism--your children will live under freedom!"

-Barry Goldwater, 1964.

Listen to the speech here.

-----------------------------

Previous Quotational Therapy Session:

Vince Lombardi.

The right quote can be therapeutic, so tune in to WILLisms.com for quotational therapy every Monday and Friday.

Posted by Will Franklin · 26 September 2005 07:55 AM · Comments (0)

Trivia Tidbit Of The Day: Part 177 -- No Comparable Evacuation In History.

The Evacuation Of Houston, Texas-

Texas was ready.

So many Texans were even thinking it after Katrina:

"BRING IT ON. We can handle it. Just let us prove it."

Texas missed the big one, and there will certainly be lessons for next time, but the evacuation of Houston, Texas was nothing short of spectacular. And I am confident the relief and recovery efforts would have been the same.

Just to put the evacuation of Houston in perspective, think about this:

There exists no comparable evacuation effort in world history. Texas safely evacuated approximately 2.7 million people – equivalent of the population of Kansas – in harm’s way in 36 hours. By comparison:

* Berlin Air Lift – evacuated 177,000 people and moved 2.3 million tons of cargo over 11 months
* Three Mile Island - 200,000 evacuated
* Chernobyl - 135,000 evacuated

Using the world’s largest commercial airliner, the Boeing 747 which typically can carry 400 passengers, it would have taken 6,750 capacity flights to move 2.7 million people. There are roughly 1,000 Boeing 747s in existence, less than 15 percent of the needed capacity.

In other words, there was no simple answer, here.

Some folks complained that Texas' aversion to commuter rail, and our preference for mega-highways, proved to be some sort of Achilles heel. If only we had some rail, we could have moved all of those 2+ million people efficiently and without any of that telegenic gridlock.

Hmm. I don't think I need to do the math on that one, do I? The number of rail cars and tracks necessary for such an evacuation is staggering. And, meanwhile, what do you do about people wanting to take stockpiles of food and supplies, or their firearms, or their furniture and photo albums and other household items, or their pets, or their cars themselves, all out of harms way? Do they all get to ride the choo-choo, too?

Come on.

And the ticket situation gets complicated. And then there's the people going to stay with grandma-- who doesn't drive-- in Small Town, U.S.A. Does the train really go there, too?

Get real. High-speed rail might be a viable (and maybe even profitable) form of transportation between Texas cities one day, but as for today, get real people. Get real.

Some people complained about the "contra-flow" being too little, too late. Well, the contra-flow is a mammoth undertaking itself:

During the evacuation, TxDOT contra-flowed 400 miles of highway. Some 250 miles of interstate leaving Houston was contra-flowed by 1 p.m. on Thursday - a full 36 hours before the hurricane landed. This entailed placing more than 100 highway barriers and sending 1,299 troopers to the southeast part of Texas, or 35 percent of all 3,700 commissioned DPS officers statewide.

Contra-flow was not some fun little game. It was a massive undertaking. In a little pow-wow outside my house on Thursday afternoon, one of my neighbors complained about the contra-flow not happening on Highway 59 running SW out of Houston.

Seriously? At that point, Rita still could have wobbled her way SW of Houston.

Contra-flow is a serious undertaking, not something you can snap on and off. It was ordered plenty early. And let's all remember that the roads were entirely clear, clearer than usual, with many, many hours to spare.

I mean, seriously, people, get a grip.

Like a run on a bank, you can't really stop groupthink. There aren't a lot of great public policy strategies, or private sector responses, for lemmings behaving out of the ordinary in a time of potential crisis, especially one that is following a recent and real crisis.

Similarly, people running out of gasoline was unfortunate. It is possible that we'll see some sort of last-resort system in place for future evacuations of major cities to get stranded vehicles gasoline. Maybe we'll see fuel tankers staged along evacuation routes in advance.

But let's remember that Houston was also burgeoning from Katrina evacuees. Hundreds of thousands of them. Maybe 1/3 of the cars we spotted heading East on I-10 toward Beaumont on Thursday had Louisiana plates.

Let's also remember those images of Katrina. Even without New Orleans-style flooding, many Houstonians did not want to be left behind in any sort of Mad Max landscape, with no utilities, no food, no nothing. So people who shouldn't have left, left.

All of those extra people on the road, and a very small proportion ran out of gas. And nobody remained stranded with their vehicles for too long, and certainly not as the storm approached.

And you can't blame people for topping their vehicles off with gas, even when they didn't need it, but that was a major part of the problem.

The typical daily consumption of gasoline for the entire Houston area is roughly 531,000 gallons. Exxon Mobil alone delivered that much gas to just 14 locations on Saturday alone. Clearly people were filling up, topping off, and otherwise doing things they wouldn't normally do. Just like a run on a bank.

Strange, unpredictable group psychology led to the gas shortages, more than an any actual lack of preparedness:

Gasoline retail purchases since the storm are up by 40 percent, said Shell Oil Co. President John Hofmeister, but the average size of the transaction was down by 50 percent. That means people are topping off their tanks, the last thing they should do in a situation like this.

So you had this perfect storm leading to gas shortages. But think about this very underreported fact:

...more than 25,000 gallons [of gas were] dispensed directly to over 5,000 stranded motorists.

A brilliant response. And I can attest that we did not see any stranded vehicles on the road Saturday morning heading back to our house. They had all been removed from the side of the road. Rescued, presumably. And that doesn't even include all the civilian "sheepdogs" we saw bringing gas cans to stranded motorists on Friday.

And where was all the price gouging? I didn't see any. In fact, to the extent gas was available, it was cheaper than usual.

Meanwhile, for having so many people moving all at once like that, I expected dozens of separate deaths from wrecks and heat stroke, etc.

The only fatalities had very little to do with the actual evacuation and more to do with flukish, tragic accidents. A woman slipping and hitting her head after spending the night in a car wash. A bus full of elderly folks in Dallas fanning those explosive flames with their oxygen tanks. Both sad events. But it is astounding how safe and sound this evacuation really was.

Was it frustrating? Yeah. But that had more to do with the hurricane itself and the disruption to the normal routine of life than anything else.

Let's hope we don't have to do it ever again, but at least now we know we can do it.

-------------------------------------

Previous Trivia Tidbit: Gas taxes.

Posted by Will Franklin · 26 September 2005 07:53 AM · Comments (2)

RITA: Houston Returning To Normal.

Houston is very much still in flux. We're not going to be back to normal for a few more days, but we're rapidly getting there. We were almost out of gasoline, so it was a relief to get gas near downtown a couple of hours ago. It was a Chevron near the intersection of Louisiana and Hadley in midtown Houston. They only had premium, but that was fine.

We noticed restaurants opening up all over the place. And grocery stores are also opening. We ate brunch buffet at Pappadeaux seafood restaurant on Richmond. They never lost power, so we had a nice brunch there, although it was somewhat abbreviated due to lack of shipments coming in this past few days. Still, it was nice to have hot muffins, fresh salad, fruit salad, rice, crawfish etouffee, cold peel-and-eat shrimp, seafood gumbo, grilled snapper, veggies, and all sorts of other good Cajun-style stuff. And there was a shorter wait than there usually would be.

Getting back to normal, but it may be a few more days before we'll be able to pull up to any gas station, guaranteed, and get plenty of gas. It may be a few more days before every grocery store will have every normal item, every time.

At least the local channels have ended their 24/7 coverage. They needed to have done so Saturday at about 11 in the morning. Yesterday's college football experience was certainly lacking.

Packing, unpacking, battening down our hatches (including moving all of our furniture and other items away from windows), evacuating, then not evacuating, then packing up again, and unpacking, then packing, then unpacking, then un-battening down our hatches... well, it's been laborious. We're tired. We're glad we dodged the bullet. But it may be a day or two more before I am back in regular blogging mode.

Katrina raised awareness and made people freak out and evacuate; Rita will neutralize that the next time around. It is hard to imagine so many people evacuating next time around.

As far as public policy responses/changes, I have nothing but good things to say about everyone who helped facilitate the evacuation. One long-term project in the works is the Trans-Texas Corridor. It'll have rail. It'll have ridiculous numbers of lanes, with separate lanes for cars and large trucks. All this on top of the current infrastructure.

Otherwise, there's not much else that you can do to prevent a hurricane. Or even mitigate the damage from one. You can build flood walls and levees. You can build buildings stronger. And you can help evacuate everyone you can. You can predict that hurricane cone with marginally greater certainty. But you can't stop the forces of nature. And people need to remember that, re: the ongoing Katrina recriminations.

Posted by Will Franklin · 25 September 2005 02:31 PM · Comments (3)

RITA: Twigs On The Ground In Houston.

Well, let's call it a fire drill. And we passed.

Can we do better?

Yeah. Always.

But this was an amazing success story, evacuating so many millions of people on finite road space.

Houston prepared for a prize fight, only to win by forfeit. It's a relief to win. It's always good to win. But some people will definitely feel like they've been robbed of the chance to prove that we can handle it, that we're ready and equipped to handle a major hurricane.

We're now back home at our house in between Montrose, River Oaks, and The Heights, near downtown Houston. The roads are fine. Our power never went out. No clocks are flashing. Our fridge is still cold. Our air conditioner is turned on again. We've gone from 84 to 77.4 degrees in here in the past hour or so.

Nice.

We've also unpacked yet again and moved almost all of our furniture back into place (we had moved it away from windows). We've put our wedding crystal back into place, made the beds again, and otherwise tried to go back to normal as soon as possible.

Mrs. WILLisms.com finally can let her guard down a bit. She spent 15-16 hours traveling from one of the poorest countries in the world back to Houston (after a 3-week assignment), only to spend the next three days packing, unpacking, evacuating, not evacuating, and otherwise stressed out.

The roads have some twigs and leaves in them, and a few of those micro-thin shingles here or there. But these are nothing to write home about. The roads are clear. There is no flooding. No power lines are down. People are out walking their dogs and driving around looking at the damage.

I've been through maybe 50 or 100 much stronger storms, with more rain, more wind, and so on. I've driven and been driven through much, much worse.

The irritating part is that everything is still closed up, boarded up, and so on. It may be a day or two before gas stations have gas again and restaurants and grocery stores and pharmacies are all open once again.

The only actual damage to our place was to a wooden cross-hatch lattice deak with a rose bush growing through it. Minor damage. We'll drive a nail into it and fix it. And on our back patio, our bougainvillea is also growing through our neighbor's lattice/fence. And that lattice was precarious to begin with. It fell apart enirely, but it is still tangled up in the dangling two-story bougainvillea plant.

I'd say that the roads heading back into Houston are going to get very congested in a hurry, especially with the sporadic rain. Our drive back to our house (we came back the same way we went out) was far less enjoyable and empty than yesterday. All of those abandoned vehicles we saw yesterday were gone today. I guess they were towed or retrieved somehow.

Pretty wild Rita ended up hitting Louisiana harder than Houston, given that so many tens or hundreds of thousands of people evacuated from Houston to Louisiana. I think most folks in Louisiana got out after the 'cane tracked Eastward. So let's hope the loss of life is marginal and property damage is minimal.

Thanks for all of your prayers and thoughts and concerns.

Posted by Will Franklin · 24 September 2005 12:59 PM · Comments (7)

RITA: Calm.

So I am at the house of my parents-in-law, in far NW Houston. On dial-up internet.

Last night was sort of anti-climactic. Low winds. Hardly any rain. Power still on (although it turned off a couple of times for a few seconds, and could still do so again).

What Katrina was for raising awareness and freaking people out, Rita will be to un-raising awareness. All those millions of people who evacuated are going to return home and feel silly their homes were not even touched. Branches didn't even fall around here. Pine needles hardly fell off pine trees.

As Rita "hit," we were playing basketball outside. Years ago, in Midland, Texas (which is West Texas) or Ponca City, Oklahoma (North Oklahoma), when I played basketball outside constantly, there were days-- and many of them-- with far greater winds than even the gusts last night. I played soccer as a little kid in far worse conditions than this.

I hope everyone in the storm's path is okay, but I can pretty much guarantee there will never be an evacuation of Houston so early and so complete.

Kristel's mom: "We're extremely disappointed. Poor excuse of a hurricane." But she is glad it got us to come over. Honestly, for all the preparation everyone around here did, including boarding up windows and stockpiling food and water, and otherwise running around paying way too much for things they don't need, there will be a lot of disappointed folks. I know it sounds weird, but if you've been bracing for a punch to the gut for a few days and it doesn't come, you'll just feel gypped.

Signing off for now, but I will try to report a little more on this before it's all said and done.

Posted by Will Franklin · 24 September 2005 09:09 AM · Comments (2)

HURRICANE RITA: Latest Track -- Looking Like Port Arthur.

The latest track is up.

Right now, the strike probabilities are thus:

Port Arthur, Texas: 53%
Galveston, Texas: 48%
Freeport, Texas: 33%
New Iberia, Louisiana: 30%
Port O Connor, Texas: 13%
New Orleans, Louisiana: 11%
Buras, Louisiana: 6%
Gulfport, Mississippi: 6%
Mobile, Alabama: 5%
Corpus Christi, Texas: 4%
Pensacola, Florida: 3%

The wind is picking up. And it's HOT outside. Just waiting it out West of Houston, pretty far inland.

Posted by Will Franklin · 23 September 2005 04:31 PM · Comments (3)

RITA: Abandoned Cars, Abandoned Roads, In Houston.

We are at my parents' house in West Houston. More like Katy (West on I-10). The roads getting far out of town are empty. If anyone still wants to evacuate, they could. They shouldn't. But they could if they wanted to.

The blame game squads have already been trying to blame Governor Rick Perry or Mayor Bill White or the Texas Department of Transportation (TXDOT) or anyone else for the gridlock seen on television. But patience paid off for those who really needed to get out. The roads are now clear. The evacuation was an unparalleled success story. MILLIONS left the area on limited roadspace. And millions got out just fine.

Bravo to all the people who got the contra-flow going. Bravo to those responsible for this evacuation.

Think about this for a minute.

I'd estimate that 1/4 or 1/3 of the license plates heading EAST on I-10 yesterday from Houston to Beaumont were Louisiana plates. Maybe more. Then you have hundreds of thousands of far-inland Houstonians who had no business evacuating, evacuating. Then you add all the hundreds of thousands who did need to evacutate, evacuating. These are MANY THOUSANDS more people than the infrastructure was ready to handle. But it was handled. Just fine.

Sure, some ran out of gas. It was hot. People were stranded, temporarily. But people got out. And the people left behind are hunkering down. Shame on the media for continuing to show OLD images of gridlock, giving the impression that this gridlock is ongoing. It's not ongoing.

While driving NW (toward Austin) on Highway 290, we made record time. I-10 inside Houston was pretty much abandoned. Almost no vehicles on the road. There were maybe 40-60 abandoned vehicles on the side of the road, with green stickers on the windows. But no people were stranded with the cars. Last night, we saw City of Houston buses loading up with water, and they were going to head out on the shoulders of the roads with police escorts to pass out water on evacuation routes and pick up people who are out of gas.

And clearly, SOMEONE picked up all of the stranded folks, if not those city buses. We also saw evidence of Good Samaritanism. Today we passed a gas station with no gas, and 6 or 7 cars were parked there, stranded. And we saw a few other folks bringing red gas jugs to them so they could get back home or to shelter.

But the good news is that most people are out of harm's way. And those who aren't yet still have plenty of time to get to shelter.

The evacuation was a stunning success. Now let's hope the response to the damage is similarly successful.

UPDATE:

The latest Rita track:

Posted by Will Franklin · 23 September 2005 02:48 PM · Comments (2)

RITA: Houston Hurricane Ghost Town.

Houston is quiet and empty. We just went on our standard 7-8 mile bike ride around Buffalo Bayou, near (just West of) downtown Houston. You may see Buffalo Bayou on the news in the coming days. It'll likely flood.

It had to be one of the more enjoyable riding experiences I've had in Houston. No cars on the roads. The weather was cool. There was a breeze. The clear clue sky with white wisps above us indicated something was coming. Go away, it said. We're warning you.

But it beckoned, as well.

Yet, it was the sort of weather that could make someone head for the beach. Or just sit outside and enjoy the weather. It was the nicest morning Houston has had in months. Months.

We saw bunnies hopping around everywhere, around the bayou. And dogs and puppies with their owners without leashes. Why worry about a leash? It's one of those days.

Even the bayou didn't have that smell... that... bayou smell. It was fresh and clean and beautiful.

For a hurricane bearing down on the Houston area, there were plenty of joggers and bike riders and dog walkers out and about. Almost as many as usual.

We passed several news trucks with satellite hook-ups and fairly large crews and large caches of equipment... generators, vehicles, everything. They are prepared. We didn't notice or recognize any local or national news logos. But they seemed like pros.

Mayor Bill White is on live television right now telling people not to evacuate if they have not yet done so. Mayor White was a major figure in the Texas Democratic Party apparatus, but, unlike Mayor Nagin, I am fully confident in his leadership right now. I am also confident in Houston Judge Robert Eckles, Harris County Commissioner, who is actually more responsible (by law and custom) than Mayor White for the evacuation/rescue plans.

While there have been problems with gridlock and people running out of gas (and the sad story of elderly folks in that burning bus near Dallas), I think most everyone in the actual evacuation zone who wanted to get out was able to get out. And I think Houston will be ready to weather-- and respond to-- this storm.

In a few minutes, we're headed for Kristel's parents' house in NW Houston. They're far from any flood zone. My parents also live in West Houston, so we may see about getting to them. They are all prepared. So we're going to hunker down. We're battening down the hatches. Hopefully we'll have some internet access and power to report on what's happening.

Posted by Will Franklin · 23 September 2005 09:22 AM · Comments (10)

RITA Traffic Jam: It's Amazing How Little We Drove Today.

We drove and drove and drove and drove. And went nowhere.

Kristel (my wife): "It's amazing how little we drove today."

We spent roughly 6 hours heading EAST on Interstate 10. And under an hour back home. We passed refineries and chemical plants, pristine and beautiful marshlands, beaches, beer factories, and hundreds of gas stations with no gas.

15 miles WEST of Beaumont, we made an important decision. We determined, via cell phone calls to people in the know, and listening to Fox News and The Weather Channel on Sirius radio, that Rita may head much further EAST than anticipated. Maybe.

Meanwhile, looking at all those empty lanes heading back into Houston was tempting. And since our house, at the regular speed limit, was only an hour away, we turned back. And now we're in our home. Our neighbors did the same thing.

We wouldn't have, in our wildest imaginations, wanted to go to Louisiana in this situation. But we had a wedding to attend, of a good buddy from high school. And I am very sad I won't make it for that. Not just to see him, but all my high school buddies.

A few observations:

1. There were TONS of cars with Louisiana license plates heading into Louisiana. I am pretty sure if Katrina had not sent all of those folks our way to begin with, the roads would have been far less congested.

2. Some Houston roads are as empty as I have ever seen them. Others are jam-packed.

3. This may very well turn a lot of people off from evacuating in the future. Katrina scared people into evacuating, but this kind of road gridlock (and running out of gas, stalling out, and so on) is just not worth it for most people. Meanwhile, if Rita does veer EAST to Beaumont or Lake Charles, all those millions of Houstonians will feel great that they've dodged the bullet, BUT they may think "why go through all of this?" next time around.

4. I now know what it feels like to evacuate for a hurricane. For 6 hours today, I was an evacuee. AND what it is like to go against the flow of a major evacuation.

5. Many people were trying to save gas by turning their air conditioners off. It's 100 degrees and about 100% humidity. Yeah. We had our air conditioner blasting.

6. In the future, we'll hopefully have better information. Information is priceless out there in the middle of nowhere, with bugs the size of sparrows buzzing around. It would have been great to have internet-enabled gadgets in the car. GPS. Information about where gas is available. Information about how traffic is, here and there, and everywhere. Information about everything. I missed my Wi-Fi connectivity. Information is power, baby. I was lucky to have Sirius radio and two working cell phones. But it would have been better to be able to look up the hurricane tracks ourselves. It would have been nice to have more information about the ridiculous traffic, and what the local news stations in Louisiana and East Texas were telling people. That way, we could have made our decision to return sooner. I have a feeling thousands of folks may be

We're glad about our decision. It was a stressful day. A stressful night. We packed up so much of our stuff. We prepared our home for the hit. And we sat in bumper-to-bumper traffic for far too long. It was just unreasonable.

Our new plan, depending on the storm track, will be to head to Kristel's parents' house in NW Houston. I think we'll be fine. Thanks for all your prayers and support and well-wishes.

Posted by Will Franklin · 22 September 2005 02:10 PM · Comments (13)

RITA: Well, Dang.

4:38 in the morning on Thursday, and, well, dang.

The hurricane now seems to be peeling directly toward Galveston. Just a continued shift to the East. So our so-stupid-it-is-ingenious contra-flow-to-Louisiana plan is looking a little less ingenious.

At least our escape route on I-10 looks clear (green is good):

So we're going to leave our 77006 zip code in the 5 AM zone... before the 6 AM we had planned before. This is a monster. To the people trying to ride this thing out, please be prepared. And take every precaution.

Posted by Will Franklin · 22 September 2005 04:38 AM · Comments (7)

The Tragedy Of Germany.

I love Germany.

I mean, what's not to like? Any culture that could invent and proliferate something so timeless as the dirndl is right by me:

My childhood down-the-street proximity to a humongous, annual Oktoberfest in Ponca City, Oklahoma (a small town where such an event was a HUGE deal) doesn't hurt, either. Nor does Mrs. WILLisms.com's fairly recent German heritage.

I even rooted for the German invaders at a showing during college of the 1939 Russian masterpiece, Alexander Nevsky.

The German nation, however, has often been on the wrong side of history, politically. We really don't need to go into the litany of German mistakes through history. They are well-known. Common knowledge, even.

But let's think about the Cold War for a moment. Following World War II, after the Russians trampled into Berlin and found a very dead Adolf Hitler, Germany was suddenly thrust onto the front lines of the greatest and most enduring geopolitical struggle of the 20th century.

The Cold War divided a nation without much of a history of togetherness. The concept of Germany, as we know it today, was not a particularly entrenched notion at the end of World War II.

But it was certainly a triumph when that wall, the Berlin Wall, came down in 1989. It was more than symbolic. It contributed to the unraveling of the Soviet Union's Iron Curtain lockdown on Eastern Europe. And as the wall fell, so did Russian Communism.

Unification. Re-unification, even!

And the entire free world celebrated. Germany was finally on the right side of history. And at the center of attention.

Back together again, after generations of Soviet-induced separation, the German people could finally recreate the German economic miracle that had taken place in West Germany during the post-War for the GDR (East Germany). That economic miracle, incidentally, propelled Germany to the top of Europe.

But, unfortunately, when Germany rekindled its relationship in the 1990s, it was hot and heavy-- and hurried. And there was a legitimate concern about inequality between East and West. Massive economic support (tax ----> welfare state) from the West went to the East to balance the playing field. The capitalists in the West gladly did their part for their brethren. But the playing field, more than a decade later, remains unbalanced.

The confiscation and redistribution of wealth from West to East demonstrated a failure of Germany to learn the lessons of the Cold War. West Germany prospered because it was relatively free, economically, mostly unemcumbered by a lavish welfare state (although it was trending slightly toward socialism-lite by the 1980s). East Germany languished because it was unfree, economically.

Let's go back for a moment to what can happen to two similar economies, separated into 1% and 3% growth rates over the period of 40 years. Clearly, comparable economies can diverge-- drastically-- due to relatively small GDP growth rate differences.

And that is precisely what happened to East and West Germany during the Cold War.

Tragic.

And reunification pursued a similarly tragic path. The Cold War's shining victory unfortunately spawned an even colder, and quieter socialist insurgency. Almost completely under-the-radar over the past 15 years or so, Germany's economy went from "miracle" to "quagmire."

And now, because of its sluggish economy, Germany can't even really afford its Easterly wealth transfer the way it could fifteen years ago. Since 1990, there has been a constant discussion-- and delay-- of so-called "painful reforms."

Meanwhile, in countries like Estonia, they endured the painful post-Soviet reforms and today flourish. No flood of welfare state aid from the West. Just free market reforms. And a brief bit of pain. Then... prolonged and overwhelming success.

Germany, sadly enough, might be approaching the point of no return. That's why this week's election was so important. That's why an Angela Merkel mandate was so necessary.

But no. While our good buddy (not) Herr Schroeder lost the election, so did Merkel.

Just one example of the trouble:

...in a country of 82 million people, only 26 million are working now.

This is just remarkably low.

Meanwhile, there are no signs of it turning around:

Germany, for about the last twenty-five years, has had one of the world’s lowest birth rates. So, with people retiring as early as the age of fifty, you’re now reaching a state where nearly one out of two people is retired, on a fairly generous pension. Coupled with women and children, and others who may not be in the workforce, you have a lower rate of people working now than ever before in German society.

Concurrently, meanwhile, you have another ongoing transformative process in Germany:

There are about 7 million foreigners inside Germany, of which about 3 million are Turks.

Immigration can fortify and enrich a country, if immigrants follow the wisdom of T.R.:

In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man’s becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American…There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile…We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language…and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.

This is not happening in Europe. And not in segmented Germany, where Islamic extremism flourishes under-the-radar (Hamburg ring a bell?). And even if the foreigners in Germany were assimilating, the adoption of sclerotic European socialist values might not be such a great thing after all. The tragedy of German immigration is that as the German population plummets, the Islamic population will become proportionally far greater. FAR greater.

Islam itself wouldn't be such a problem, but the segmentation of Islam from the rest of society breeds resentment going in both directions. Germans are famous for their resentment toward foreigners. Not a good situation, there.

Mark Steyn frames the sad situation rather well:

Germany is dying, demographically and economically. Pick any of the usual indicators of a healthy advanced industrial democracy: Unemployment? The highest for 70 years. House prices? Down. New car registration? Nearly 15 per cent lower than in 1999. General nuttiness? A third of Germans under 30 think the United States government was responsible for the terrorist attacks of September 11....

by 2050, there will be more and wealthier Americans, and fewer and poorer Europeans. In the 14th century, it took the Black Death to wipe out a third of Europe's population. In the course of the 21st century, Germany's population will fall by over 50 per cent to some 38 million or lower - killed not by disease or war but by the Eutopia to which Mr Schröder and his electorate are wedded.

On Sunday, Germany's voters decided that, like that Frenchman, they can live with the stench of death as long as the government benefits keep coming.

A tragedy. A self-induced tragedy, at this point. Before, we could pin the blame on Germany's elites. But now, the cause of death is a slow, steady, self-inflicted poisoning.

Interestingly, the election was a referendum on the status quo. And people did reject the status quo. But German voters didn't quite seem to know how to channel that wonderful angst (angst MUST be a German word, right?).

Angst. Pent up angst.

Angst directed not at Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democratic Party (SPD), where it should have been, but at both major parties, including the opposition Christian Democratic Union (CDU) of Angela Merkel.

Schroeder's party dropped off by 4.2% and 29 parliamentary seats.
Merkel's party, however, dropped off by 3.3% and 23 seats.

Where did those votes and seats go?

First, the good news.

The Free Democrats, the Cato Institute types, gained 2.2% and 14 seats.

The German Green Party, meanwhile, lost 0.5% and 4 seats.

Now, the bad news.

The Left Party, tragically, gained 4.7% and 52 seats (although there was some coalitional maneuvering at play there).

The Left Party makes Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Howard Dean look like Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, and Winston Churchill. Schroeder's party is already to the left of American Democrats. So just imagine how far out there these folks are.

Lunatics.

The Left Party is the brainchild of a former left-wing Social Democrat who bolted the party and set up this new party together with the former Communist holdouts of Eastern Germany.

And they are largely responsible for the gridlock Germany faces today. The Left Party (underlining mine):

...won over a quarter of the vote in eastern Germany. But neither major party is willing to go into coalition with them. So the nationwide showing of 8.5% by the Left Party has created the gridlock that leaves neither party able to form a coherent parliamentary majority to pursue its program. Without the votes cast in eastern Germany, the conservative coalition of the CDU and the pro-market Free Democrats would have won a clear majority.

A closer look at the