Facts Matter

link -- the WSJ has apparently stopped requiring logins for all its content, btw.
Governor Palin kept decrying 'Greed and Corruption on Wall Street'. I agree that corruption's a bad thing, but could she possibly have meant that they're only bad together? Can you imagine Wall Street without greed? It's not like trading bonds is a particularly satisfying job. You don't do it to create things that matter, change the world for the better or leave a legacy. It's all about the money. Maybe she's pro-avarice, but anti-greed; that's a little hard to parse, but I do have a Bachelor of Arts degree from an accredited institution.

Senator Biden's assertion that 'facts matter' responded to Governor Palin's complaint that Democrats felt how we ended up in Iraq was relevant, and he said something similar when she said, to paraphrase, "I can't speak to the causes of Climate Change, but we have to reduce emissions to address it."

I do love how Biden slammed John McCain for refusing to speak to the President of Spain.

Governor Palin held it together pretty well, and the debate was more watchable than I'd thought. I sort of felt her answers degraded as time went on. My biggest laugh was when she accused the abusive mortgage lenders of Putin-like head-rearing. But, this is it for Governor Huckabee, who is not going to fulfill my secret fantasy of swooping in to save the GOP ticket after Palin had been found wanting.

And I expect we'll see her again in 8 years. It's good that she supports fair marriage.

The Pavement is Rated "Not Acceptable" on One of Every Seven Miles of the Nation's Roads

link

About 25% of bridges in the U.S. are either "functionally obsolete" or "structurally deficient," like the Mississippi River bridge that collapsed in Minneapolis last August, killing 13 people.

Moreover, the pavement is rated "not acceptable" on one of every seven miles of the nation's roads, according to the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission, whose job is to assess infrastructure problems and recommend fixes.

Overall, the commission estimated, $225 billion a year is needed to meet the country's transportation infrastructure needs. Current spending is about 40% of that level.

"We were losing ground to these incredible increases in construction costs, but then to see the erosion in driving -- it's a double whammy," said John Horsley, executive director of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.

This is in part self-correcting. One of the reasons people are driving less is that they're abandoning their exurban palaces to foreclosure and moving places less insane -- this may give states the opportunity to simply close some highways. But, the one in seven unacceptable pavement? It got that way while states were doing fine. In any case, maybe it's time to realize part of Governor Mike Huckabee's dream, and replace the per gallon tax with a per dollar tax.

U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue [said] "People need to understand that this infrastructure thing is not optional."

Actually, so much of what we thought of as non-optional turned out to be. Like, say, responding to Congressional Subpoenas.

With driving down, the number of people riding Amtrak has risen 11% this year, and mass-transit systems in many areas, including Seattle and South Florida, are experiencing ridership increases of 30% or more, according to the American Public Transit Association.
...
Nancy Underwood, an administrator in Alexandria, Va., got rid of her gas-thirsty Ford Explorer in favor of a Honda Accord, which still cost her $69 to fill up Sunday morning. She and her husband have nearly stopped their frequent trips to Richmond, and gasoline prices have even influenced her job situation.

"I took a job three blocks from my home" to save on gas and parking, even though "I could make more money" working in town, she said.

And these are all wonderful things. President Bush may be more than just the biodiesel president. He may be the guy to reform transportation in America, which even Dean Kamen failed at. There's a lot of human pain in this transformation, but there was always going to be.

Update: This isn't germane, but it's also from the Journal. It's a breathtakingly alternate view of this presidency.

Why is it then that left-wingers feel free to make their films direct and realistic, whereas Hollywood conservatives have to put on a mask in order to speak what they know to be the truth? Why is it, indeed, that the conservative values that power our defense -- values like morality, faith, self-sacrifice and the nobility of fighting for the right -- only appear in fantasy or comic-inspired films like "300," "Lord of the Rings," "Narnia," "Spiderman 3" and now "The Dark Knight"

Or maybe it's because only fantacists can stomach what this administration has turned the organs of our government into? I'm not saying, I'm just saying.

I really wish John McCain would slow-roll the screwing up

link
So, cigarettes are suddenly bad for Iranians, suggesting they may be bad for Americans, at least those of Iranian descent. This will hamper GOP plans to have Medicare pay for them. The nation is not in a mental recession, and McCain can no longer have surrogates speak for him. Our plan to stay in Iraq forever is at loggerheads with our 'peace dividend,' and awkwardly opposed to the expressed wishes of the Iraqis.

John McCain seems to be collapsing as a candidate. He's just flaming out. Obama's leading by three points in national polls, winning in both... Carolinata? Carolinae? Carolinas, and catching up in Texas. It's looking bad for the straight talk express.

Which is fine. Whatever MoveOn.org will tell you, Greens do not want Republicans in the Oval Office. If Cynthia McKinney doesn't take it -- and I'll point out she's not even included in Pollster.com's 4-way polls, which have Senator Obama over Senator McCain by 5 per cent -- Barack Obama would be my second choice.

But, I worry. I worry that McCain might find some pretext to drop out before the convention, and the fact that he was constitutionally ineligible to run for office in the first place might not be in anyone's back pocket. So, if Huckabee retakes the stage, well, I'll look amazingly prescient, but we may have another Republican in office. His campaign has only been suspended, remember. If the candidate slot opens up, he and Romney will be slugging it out within minutes.

Update: Our judicial system is a joke. This is from the story linked above in re McCain's failure to be born a citizen.

In the motion to dismiss the New Hampshire suit, Mr. McCain’s lawyers said an individual citizen like the plaintiff, a Nashua man named Fred Hollander, lacks proof of direct injury and cannot sue.

Daniel P. Tokaji, an election law expert at Ohio State University, agreed. “It is awfully unlikely that a federal court would say that an individual voter has standing,” he said. “It is questionable whether anyone would have standing to raise that claim. You’d have to think a federal court would look for every possible way to avoid deciding the issue.”

Right? If only voters are harmed, and individual voters do not have standing, who exactly is going to bring suit?

Edwards in Question, Huckabee still a lock

So, with John Edwards having temporarily suspended his presidential campaign, it's becoming hard to see how he'll end up as the candidate. His nomination was always predicated on one of Senators Clinton and Obama dropping out of the race and endorsing him to spite the other -- as they're tied, and Edwards has enough delegates to make up the difference, this is still possible. But, the scenario gets a little more strained every day.

However, this?

Despite McCain's role as the all-but-official Republican nominee, Mike Huckabee was the big winner this weekend with victories in two of Saturday's three contests. Huckabee won Kansas and Louisiana, and barely lost Washington state. Huckabee's campaign is challenging the Washington results, noting that officials declared McCain the winner when there was less than a 2 percent difference between the two candidates and only 87 percent of precincts had been counted. Although no one thinks Huckabee stands a chance to catch up to McCain in delegates, Huckabee's weekend victories highlight the problems McCain continues to face with the GOP's conservative base.

It's nonsense. We can talk about Washington State for a second -- you've heard repeatedly that McCain was 1.8 % ahead with 13 % of caucus voters left to count. But, maybe you haven't heard that this was the first time McCain had been ahead. They'd been counting and counting, and Huckabee had been winning. When McCain pulled ahead, they stopped counting. This is like our deciding to play several rounds of Rummy or Scrabble, and deciding to quit when I'm ahead. This is actually how I prefer to play multiround games, many of which lay unfinished. And it's how the Washington GOP does elections.

You can follow the numbers at RealClearPolitics, or, as I recommend, you can take my word for it. Senator McCain is 467 delegates from securing the nomination, and Governor Huckabee is 490 points behind him. Governor Romney, who has dropped out, and Representative Paul, who has other priorities, have 285 and 14 delegates respectively. So, McCain would have to win 167 delegates in states and get both non-Huckabee delegate holders to endorse him, and even with Romney's "givin' it to McCain" speech, it's not clear he can do any of those three things.

McCain's won some contests because Romney looked (a) more viable than Huckabee and (b) an obvious liar. So, the GOP base either stayed home or held their noses and voted. But, now that Romney's out and the MSM is calling McCain the 'presumptive nominee,' they know they've got to get out there and stop him.

If Governor Huckabee is reading this? I just want to ask that you forgive all the people who rallied behind Romney and then McCain when you were running. We don't need more vindictiveness in the White House. Forgive them! They know not what they do!

Word

Tom Tomorrow asks us to show a little pity for the pundits. So, you and I can look at the candidates and the country, and can say 'McKinney/Edwards/Huckabee, with Edwards to win.' However! The poor pundits have to have something to say every day. You recall the 2004 Democratic Presidential Nominations. We knew it would be Edwards or Kerry, but there was this long and expensive bout of nonsense, which we're seeing again.

Of course, like Football or Spears/Hilton/Lohan, this is just gunk designed to keep us from talking about the issues that affect us. And campaign horserace folderol is particularly pernicious, as it distracts the people who are most inclined to talk about substantive issues.

But, it's our system. And the Jonathan Alters and so forth are just doing their jobs. So, really, this is a plea for tolerance. I'm not suggesting you pay attention to them. But try not to hate them for their anti-American support of the corporate plutocracy.

Wow. I guess that's Huckabee-Edwards-McKinney

David Cobb is not a declared candidate for the Green Party nomination. I'm going to have to modify my earlier prediction. I think Cynthia McKinney will be hard to beat. She's a former federal legislator after all. I don't imagine she'll get along very well with the party leadership -- her police-office-pushing incident was just the most famous example of her petulance, and consensus-driven decision making is not for the impatient.

Oh, believe me.

Cynthia McKinney's other big problem is that she's a disaffected Democrat, and Greens don't really want to be seen as disaffected Democrats. Democrats, I think, tend to feel that if they were a little less progressive, a little less inclined to slit their own children's throats and pour the blood into the gaping corporate maw, then the Green Party would just disappear. But, the Green Party is fundamentally about a transformation in governance, not FDR-style modifications to mollify the people. And nominating McKinney would blur that distinction somewhat. But, it would be really good for money and visibility.

Mike Huckabee and the Assault on Reason

The National Review's Rich Lowry has a strange attack on Huckabee.

Huckabee has declared that he doesn't believe in evolution. Even if there are many people in America who agree with him, his position would play into the image of Republicans as the anti-science party. This would tend to push away independents and upper-income Republicans. In short, Huckabee would take a strength of the GOP and, through overplaying it, make it a weakness.

But, wait. Republicans are the anti-science party. Evolution's conflict with the Bible is the lever used to dispute rationality -- you can't cut taxes, raise spending, and call yourself fiscally responsible if you believe in Math. You just shout loudly and point at the Laffer curve. And they've been successful to the point where a talk show host can contend that the Earth's flatness is an open question.

You don't have a large outcry from the GOP when Gail Norton ordered an impact evaluation on reindeer of drilling in the Alaskan Native Wildlife Reserve changed, because they're the anti-Science party. They're pro-technology. They're strong advocates of diverting public money to high tech industries. But, they don't like Science interfering with public policy.

I don't want to be defending Governor Huckabee, but I do believe he'll be the nominee. And, I can only interpret Rich Lowry's column as an attempt to strike a blow for Mayor Giuliani, as he's the only GOP candidate willing to express a public belief in Evolution (I could be wrong on this, but I did look around some.) Sorry, besides Ron Paul, but he does seems to be visiting from another party, which one might call the Libertarians. I think Republicans are sensing that Mr. Giuliani's squalid corruption might hurt them in the general, even if he manages to stay out of prison until November.

The antagonism toward Science hurts public education, and research itself, but drives why Climate Change seems to be a partisan issue. Well, that and Democrats are overrepresented on the coasts.

The media has this weird thing against Governor Huckabee

Concerning the GOP YouTube debate:
The Economist: Mike Huckabee [is] now, against all expectations, in first place in a recent poll from Iowa....

Well, not against mine.

The New York Times:

The most fierce exchanges came from the candidates with the most at stake five weeks before the voting begins; the frequent pot shots from Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson in particular underscored the extraordinary volatile state of the race in which any candidate seemingly has a chance to win [, even] Mike Huckabee....

I was set off the other day by reading somewhere, "The candidate most affected by Mr. Huckabee's rise in the New Hampshire polls was Mitt Romney," in the paradigm that Giuliani would win the subsequent Mega Tuesday contest unless Romney showed real early strength. I beg to differ. The candidate most affected was Mike Huckabee.

I'm not a fan! I think any candidate should advocate evolution. But, he does seem like he'd be the least abject disaster of the GOP field as President.

Hillary's Enemies working at the Economist

Now, we've spoken of Senator Clinton's enemies before. And I want to be clear I don't count myself as one -- I don't agree with her on many issues, and I don't think she'll be the nominee or elected president, but I do think it's possible I'll date her daughter, and I don't want any unpleasantness.

While your typical Economist reader is used to its "The Republicans are destroying America/It's vitally important the Americans elect Republicans" dichotomy, this excerpt from an article about presumptive nominee Mike Huckabee was pretty egregious.

In a poll by YouGov/Polimetrix for The Economist (full results here), Republicans rated him the most honest candidate and Americans rated him the most moral of either party (see chart: Hillary Clinton was rated the least honest, and, after Mr Giuliani, the least moral).

So, go ahead. See chart.

This could just as well have read "Mr Giuliani was rated the least moral, and, after Hillary Clinton, the least honest." Which might have been a little more relevant as it's Rudy Giuliani running against Governor Huckabee.

I'm calling it: Cobb-Edwards-Huckabee

So, we can now say we know with some confidence who the Major Party candidates will be. The Green Party will go with David Cobb -- he got the nomination last time, and the Greens like consistency. David Cobb is a strong organizer, and he's shown the ability to mobilize many people to the Green Party. As he says, we don't expect to win the presidential election until at least 2020, so we're not looking for the best president so much as the best presidential candidate, even more so than the corporatist parties. The campaign is really all we expect him to lead.

Peter Camejo burned too many bridges with his Nader 2004 bid, and I don't think Nader actually wants the responsibility of being the candidate. Maybe he'll run with the Reform Party again. Ralph Nader could take the nomination if he asked for it, but he didn't ask for it last time, and I don't expect he'll do it this time.

I do expect Matt Gonzales to run for the nomination, but I don't expect him to get it. He's nationally recognized, certainly, but I don't think the national party is ready to follow him -- he's still got a youthful stink of self-aggrandizement.

We could dream of a Jello Biafra/Henry Rollins ticket, but I think that would be mostly about the music -- if a celebrity gets the nomination, it'll be Nader, not the punk musicians. The activists who make the party go haven't historically taken them seriously.

Then, yeah, Edwards and Huckabee.

Crap

update: I think sausage is getting treated unfairly here. The fancy yuppie sausage I buy doesn't have any preservatives -- which, given my lifestyle, presents its own dangers -- and shouldn't be any more dangerous than the parts of the red animals you can eat without grinding. But, this is certainly bad news for the pepperoni.

Alcohol consumption is linked to an increased risk of cancer of the mouth, throat, larynx, esophagus, breast, colon and liver.

That's a lot of organs. It's a good thing alcohol's heart-healthy. But, there's no rule for how much drinking increases your cancer risk by how much -- I guess it's new data. But, alcohol and red meat are bad? I don't mean to make fun. Quantification's the main thing.

With this following on the heels of the pronouncement that a chicken diet had less climate impact than a vegetarian diet -- and (the hand-waving addendum) that local foods beat vegan -- I'm considering striking the goat, pig, sheep and cow from the diet, and shopping more aggressively for local foods.

But, this is largely a political question. Ask a presidential candidate what people should do with this information in hand, and what the federal government's role should be.

Ceci Snyder, a registered dietitian with the National Pork Board, which represents pork producers, says, "The U.S. Dietary Guidelines include meat and processed meat, and those guidelines are based on a review of the scientific evidence."

It's part of the president's job to break that sort of corrupt deadlock, and as candidates they should be taking a lot of stands that require moral courage. I'd like to hear what they have to say.

Especially (the formerly obese) Huckabee.

Advantage: Huckabee

Maybe I should put money on Mike Huckabee's getting the GOP Nomination. Dan Bartlett, "who ... has been described as the President's alter ego*," savaged the field of Republican Presidential hopefuls, and only leaves Giuliani and Huckabee standing. And whenever you look too closely at Giuliani, you see all these problems.

* -- You know, I'm the President's alter ego. Hey! I've been described as the President's alter ego!

What's wrong with Huckabee?

I get my impressions of Dominant Liberal Democratic Thinking from Joshua Micah Marshall's Talking Points Memo and Salon.com. And, they both are kind of running with the theme that as Giuliani is some sort of corrupt goofball that's trying to turn the fact that he went on TV when the president was AWOL after 9/11 into a credible candidacy, Romney has no apparent principled stands -- the actual realization of the slimefest against John Kerry -- and McCain has damaged his own credibility in his attempts to support the Iraq occupation and other Bush initiatives too badly to stand into a "Republicans have nowhere to turn" analysis of the 2008 presidential race. Of course, they explicitly and preferentially turned to nowhere over other alternatives in the 2000 electoral cycle, but we'll let that lie.

But, Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee took second in the Ames Straw Poll. You might point out that lunatic fringe candidates Brownback and Tancredo took third and fourth, and the CW-tagged-unelectable Ron Paul took fifth, but the whole field sort of looks lunatic fringe in aggregate.

I don't know a lot about Governor Huckabee. The only thing I've heard about him recently was that he offered to work with Michael Moore to fight obesity after being kind of a dick to him after Sicko. But, he never seems like a loon or an outsider when I do hear about him.

So, liberal establishment fantasies aside, the GOP may well have a credible presidential candidate to bring to the table next year.