Job Creation

Congress is currently considered another job stimulus that would be "deficit-neutral", meaning that it would take $200 billion in savings from TARP and spend it instead on "stimulus".

Even NPR finds this a bit hard to believe. In their report last night, they pointed out a couple of problems: first, that any savings found in any federal program tends to be spent three different ways. So we'll probably end up even worse off. Second, that the "stimulus" under consideration isn't very stimulating: extensions to unemployment benefits (which, er, don't help create jobs, although they may ease the pain for the unemployed), subsidized loans to small businesses (which might help if those businesses wanted loans; many don't since they aren't expanding anyway, with consumer spending off).

Here's my alternative, which I present as free advice to Congress and the Obama administration: stop. Stop meddling with health care. Stop talking about cap and trade. Stop encouraging the EPA to regulate CO2 emissions. All of these are job killers, but health care is the big one. How can any business - especially a small business - budget for employees when they may be on the hook for health-care-related penalties or insurance at any time? It's no surprise that no one is hiring; uncertainty looms everywhere.

Must we reproduce now the typical liberal error of spending a trillion dollars to "fix" something, then another trillion to fix the problems the original fix caused, and so on forevermore?

Hopenhagen Fever!

The prostitutes in Copenhagen
Are offering a free Gropenhagen
To climate scientists and politicians
Who want you to believe in Hopenhagen.

The timing could not be worse, though.
Hacked e-mails make them Mopenhagen
About the prospects for a new treaty
Like Kyoto, but with even greater Scopenhagen.

But they should not reach too quickly for that noose-shaped Ropenhagen.
When the data doesn't fit
They can clean it with a little Soapenhagen.
And maybe a blessing from the Popenhagen.

The Mann hockey-stick might be no more real than a Zoetropenhagen
But the politicians see lots of opportunities
To bring to their districts eco-Porkenhagen.
And the scientists want to keep the eco-funding spigots Openhagen.

Do they think we're smoking Dopenhagen?
It's time to say Nopenhagen.

Honduras Update

So the U.S. has decided to do the right thing and recognize the Honduran elections. Good. That actually is a step towards resolving this crisis.

"No Problem"

Does it bother you when you thank someone and the response is an airy "no problem"? This is increasingly common, especially among the younger crowd. As a not-terribly-old adult, I find myself succumbing to the same reflex all too often. But is there really anything wrong with "No problem"?

It's true that it somewhat undercuts the original thanks. Spelled out in full, "thank you" essentially means: "I appreciate you going to the trouble to help me." The response "no problem" expands to: "There's no need to thank me because it was no trouble." The implication is that you may continue to ask for help as long as it remains no trouble, but please piss off if you really do anticipate causing a problem. Compare to the traditional "you're welcome", which says that you are welcome to continue to ask for help when you need to.

Confusion between gratitude and praise may be part of the explanation as well. When praised, it's certainly not impolite to self-deprecatingly deflect the praise somewhat. It can be embarrassing to be praised. But being thanked is not the same thing, and deflection can create the impression that perhaps the gratitude was misplaced. If it really was no problem, why extend thanks at all? We do not thank someone for stopping at a red light.

How do other responses to "thank you" stack up? "My pleasure" is an ambiguous one. It could be taken to mean, "there's no need to thank me because not only was it not a problem, it was actually a pleasure." This goes even beyond "no problem" in its deflection of the gratitude proffered. Or it could mean, "it was my pleasure to serve you," a statement beyond "you're welcome." Then there is "not at all" and "sure thing" and the like, which are essentially along the deflectionary lines of "no problem."

These contemporary social formulae reflect our increasing preference for casualness. It's no longer cool to care greatly about much of anything. "You're welcome" indicates that you cared and appreciated the thanks. "No problem" indicates just the opposite: you're a laid-back fella, for which nothing much is a problem. It was no problem to pass the salt. Oh, you ran over my cat with your car? No problem.

That casualness is the real problem. To digress for a moment, I like the story of the premiere of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring by the Ballets Russes in Paris in 1913. The performance was so radical both musically and choreographically that a riot broke out, so severe that the dancers could not hear the orchestra playing, and police had to intervene to break up fistfights in the aisles. Can anyone imagine such a scene today? Not that I wish for more fighting during music performances, but it would be nice if people cared that much. There was a welcome outburst during the last intermission of a performance of Götterdämmerung I attended a few years ago: some intepid audience members yelled out please not to applaud at the end until the opera was entirely over (rather than applauding over the final few notes, as had happened in the first two acts).

I didn't yell out a "thank you" to them, but I'm pretty sure that if I had, I would not have heard back: "No problem!"

Safe Zone Violation

Jay Nordlinger likes to write about "safe zone violations," a term he coined to mean unwelcome intrusions of politics into otherwise apolitical settings. A music critic and golf aficionado (as well as political opinion journalist), Nordlinger has written most often about such violations during classical music performance and sports reporting.

I had my own such encounter a week ago, when my family took my three-year-old son to see a musical production of "The Three Little Pigs" at a local theater. The production was a bit of a mashup, and somehow Little Red Riding Hood was incorporated with the pigs. All was going along swimmingly until the following exchange between Red and her mother:

Red: I'm not afraid of anything!
Mother: You're not afraid of the dark?
Red: No, I'm not afraid of anything!
Mother: Big bad wolves?
Red: No, mother, nothing!
Mother: Sarah Palin?
Red: ...well...

(If I were a nut for symbolism, I might make something of the fact that a character named "Red" is afraid of Sarah Palin. But I'm not, and I won't!)

This is just gratuitously insulting. Even in suburban New Jersey, probably a third of the adult audience is at least neutral to Palin; why risk pissing them off? Is it worth the laugh from the other two thirds? Obviously, kids' shows feel the need to insert adult humor to keep the parents engaged. But does it have to be political?

Pelosicare: Commerce Clause Irony

From Nancy Pelosi's Web site:

The 10th amendment to the U.S. Constitution states that the powers not delegated to the federal government by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states… or to the people. But the Constitution gives Congress broad power to regulate activities that have an effect on interstate commerce. Congress has used this authority to regulate many aspects of American life, from labor relations to education to health care to agricultural production. Since virtually every aspect of the heath care system has an effect on interstate commerce, the power of Congress to regulate health care is essentially unlimited.

I'm sure health care affects interstate commerce in lots of ways, except, oh yeah, for the ability to buy health insurance across state lines.

Nominations for "Most Abused Constitutional Amendment" must start with the Tenth, no? Does any other even come close?

Climate Research Scandal

I haven't posted on the "Climategate" scandal, but it's terribly relevant, of course. Here's a better summary than I could put together, anyway.