A prescient John Fund, wrote this in June 2010 in the WSJ ("Racial Gerrymandering Backfires")
most of the 70 competitive House races polled by NPR (as well as most of the states with the closest Senate races) have below-average populations of black voters. Racial gerrymandering justified by dubious interpretations of the Voting Rights Act has concentrated blacks into mostly safe Democratic districts, meaning now that most competitive seats are more white than average. These districts are more likely to be hostile to President Obama's agenda, and thus more likely to be treacherous political terrain for Democrats. No wonder party strategists are so worried about this fall.
My suspicion is racial gerrymandering helps minorities in the short run, but hurts them in the long run.
The value of gerrymandering to create majority-minority districts is a matter of dispute both within and outside of minority communities. Some view majority-minority districts as a way to dilute the votingpower of minorities and analogous to racial segregation
More from AEI on unintended consequences of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, here.
When the public hearing started at New Town High School at 7 PM last night, only five or six citizens had signed up to speak their minds to the new Redistricting Commission. That compared to twenty or so speakers the previous night in Towson.
The five-member commission is collecting public input before fulfilling their task of proposing new council districts for Baltimore County. (For details on the process, rules, deadlines and district maps, go here.)
After a brief introduction by the commission's chair, Ed Crizer, six citizens spoke for two minutes each. Roughly twenty minutes after they had started, the Commission packed up to leave. Quite a few late-arriving citizens were surprised and disappointed to find that the whole hearing was over. A handful spoke with exiting Commission members at the main entrance to the school. At their request, the Commission graciously agreed to reconvene the session. Three more speakers signed up. When they were done, the commission members left quickly.
It still seemed like a brief, cursory meeting.
The evening left me wondering how serious this Commission is about gathering public input. If I had been in their shoes and only six people had signed up, I would have considered doing something ad hoc to get something useful from the speakers and audience members who had turned out.
Maybe give each speaker an extra minute or two, have a more informal Q&A with the audience, or just stand around having conversations with citizens. The commission didn't think to do anything like this. I didn't see such much impulse to think outside the box or go the extra mile.
After they had left, eight or ten us remained for a half-hour or so, sharing our thoughts about redistricting and what we thought of the hearing.
A couple of people told me they wished that a commission member had given an introductory talk explaining the redistricting process and how events will unfold over the next year or so. No one on the Commission did this. In his brief intro remarks Mr. Crizer spoke mostly about how the night's hearing would run.
Another person suggested that turnout might have been better if the session had been held at the local community center.
A third, who had been at the first hearing two nights ago in Towson, wondered why district maps had been posted the first night, but not on the second. She saw several other discrepancies, and felt that the Commission should be consistent in how they handle each session. She also had heard that the commission would be having another hearing around July to discuss their preliminary report with the public. If this meeting is on the schedule, it has not been widely publicized yet.
The third and last of the initial public hearings will take place on Thursday, April 28th at Patapsco High School in Dundalk.
Someone else pointed out that the Commission first met only a few weeks ago and hasn't really gotten rolling yet. Commissioners also got credit for volunteering their time (if they are paid, I'm not aware of it.)
Having the commission is a good thing. Ten years ago during the last redistricting, we didn't have a commission.
But there's room for improvement in this public hearing process.
Something that most Northerners don't think about or value in Southern culture:
I mention this because of Antoine Clark’s remark that “I continue to despair at the difficulty that anglosphere writers have in comprehending the humiliation of occupation. Admittedly this is for the best of reasons: Washington DC was last under foreign armed occupation in 1812, London in 1066.” (Arguably, of course, London remains under foreign armed occupation, but we’ll let that pass by.)
In fact, of course, the American South knows what it’s like to lose a war, and to be occupied, which may possibly explain why the American South is also far more military-minded than other parts of the United States — or, for that matter, than London. And the American South certainly didn’t like being occupied. Reconstruction was very unpopular, and my grandmother can still tell stories that she heard from her grandmother about Union soldiers passing through and stripping the place bare of everything except what they were able to hide, and of the years (decades, really) of privation that followed the war.
But American southerners know something that apparently a lot of other people seem to have trouble with: how to lose a war and not hold a grudge. (Much of one, anyway).
Some highlights from Glenn's piece in the Washington Examiner:
In recent months, I've written in these pages about a "higher education bubble" [but] we're also starting to see the deflation of what might be called a "lower education bubble" - that is, the constant flow of more and more money into K-12 education without any significant degree of buyer resistance, in spite of the often low quality of the education it purchases.
. . . at the K-12 level, we've got an educational system that in many fundamental ways hasn't changed in 100 years - except, of course, by becoming much less rigorous - but that nonetheless has become vastly more expensive without producing significantly better results.
In the past, when problems with education were raised, the solution was always to spend more money. But as economist Herbert Stein once noted, something that can't go on forever, won't. Steady increases in per-pupil spending without any commensurate increase in learning can't go on forever. So they won't. And as state after state faces near-bankruptcy (or, in some cases, actual bankruptcy), we've pretty much hit that point now.
. . .
Getting rid of . . . overgenerous, underfunded public pensions is something states will have to do to remain solvent. But that's just the short term. Over the longer term - which means, really, the next three to five years at most - straitened circumstances and the need for better education will require more significant change.
. . .
Like striking steelworkers in the 1970s, today's teachers' immediate unhappiness may come from reductions in benefits. But their bigger problem is an industry that hasn't kept up with the times, and isn't producing the value it once did. Until that changes, we're likely to see deflation of the lower education bubble as well as the higher.
I agree completely with Brett Lewis about the O's hats.
Here are Brett's top four hat rankings:
1. NY Yankees [Much as I dislike the Yanks, I have to agree that they have a nice logo.] 2. Philadelphia Phillies [Lewis overrates these. They're OK.] 3. Minnesota Twins [Top ten, yes, but at #3 they are overrated.] 4. Baltimore Orioles [Top four, absolutely. Great hats! ]
Others I like:
St. Louis Cardinals (not the first hat above, the last two. I guess I'm a sucker for realistically drawn birds -- no cartoons please -- and interlocking letters). Plus the LA Dodgers (more interlocking letters and Dodger blue is a pleasing shade), the Pittsburgh Pirates (nice font, excellent colors - that particular yellow goes great with black) and the Washington Nationals (I'm glad they retained the old "W" from the Senators).
Near the bottom of the list, in my opinion, are the Mets hats (Too seventies garish. I can't get past the HoJo-style color scheme. It's downright ugly. Don't like their droopy font either.)
Also near the bottom: Red Sox (I never liked the lumpy font they use for their "B".)
The long-evolved Green agenda is suddenly outdated -- too negative, too tradition-bound, too specialized, too politically one-sided for the scale of the climate problem.
He follows with a trenchant observation that had not occurred to me:
Far from taking a new dominant role, environmentalists risk being marginalized more than ever, with many of their deep goals and well-honed strategies irrelevant to the new tasks. Accustomed to saving natural systems from civilization, Greens now have the unfamiliar task of saving civilization from a natural system -- climate dynamics.
He also talks about
a plethora of environmental newsletters that purport to be scientific but actually [have] more in common with hardball politics
Yes. And more:
The real story of Prince William Sound is how resilient many natural systems are and how rapidly they bounce back when human pressure backs off even a little.
This part really resonated with me:
Scientists freely criticize each other ... but they are weirdly polite with environmentalists. It smells of condescension.
One last bit:
When environmentalists are wrong, it is frequently technology that they are wrong about, and they wind up supporting parochial Green goals at the cost of comprehensive ones.
Okay, this is really the last one:
The charismatic expert who exudes confidence and has a great story to tell is probably wrong about what is going to happen. The boring expert who afflicts you with a cloud of howevers is probably right.
These quotes all come from Chapter 7 titled "Romantics, Scientists, Engineers." Read the whole chapter. Better yet, the whole book.
Q1: What do the current county council districts look like? A: Here are detailed maps of the districts: District 1 Tom Quirk, District 2 Vicki Almond, District 3 Todd Huff, District 4 Kenneth Oliver, District 5 David Marks, District 6 Cathy Bevins , District 7 John Olszewski. [For a complete one-page listing of Baltimore County political maps, go here. The list points you to maps for state legislative districts and US congressional districts as well as council districts.]
Q2: What is the timetable for council redistricting? A:
In spring 2011, the Redistricting Commission will conduct public hearings. (If you want to testify, registration opens at 6 p.m. and ends several minutes before 7 p.m.)
Please note a new date for the 3rd hearing: Thu April 28, 7 p.m. in Dundalk at Patapsco High School
By July 1, 2011, the commission will deliver its report and redistricting plan to the County Council.
In July or August there will be a public hearing to discuss the preliminary report (date & location TBD)
By 12/19/11 the county council must introduce legislation. Note: The council may reject the commission's advice and submit an entirely different redistricting plan.
By 01/31/12 the county council must adopt the final redistricting plan by legislative act.
The new council districts will first be used in the 2014 elections.
Q3: Who is on the Redistricting Commission that will propose new districts to the county council? A: Ed Crizer (Chair), Jim Gillis, Robert Latshaw, Anne Neal and Ralph Wright. Bryan Sears has bios for all except Wright in the Arbutus Patch. And here's a more political assessment of the appointees: four Dem and one GOP.
Q4: Is the council required to follow the recommendations of the Redistricting Commission? A: No. The commission's proposals are non-binding. The council is free to ignore the commission and implement a redistricting plan of its own choosing.
Q5: Does County Executive Kevin Kamenetz have authority to veto the redistricting plan? A: No. (As far as I know, this article is still correct on the matter of vetoes.)
Q6: What are the rules for redistricting? A: Districts must be "compact, contiguous, and substantially equal in population" and give "due regard" to "current natural, geographic, and community boundaries." For more detail on the rules, see the Baltimore County Redistricting Manual on the redistricting page of the Baltimore County website.
Q7: How does the Redistricting Manual define "compactness"? A: " A district would not be sufficiently compact if it was so spread out that there was no sense of community, that is, if its members and its representative could not effectively and efficiently stay in touch with each other, or if it was so convoluted that there was no sense of community, that is, if its members and its representative could not easily tell who actually lived within the district."
*According to Councilman David Marks quoted in Inside Charm City. **According to the Baltimore Sun, the commission's proposals are "non-binding."
[UPDATES: Ralph Wright is the fifth member of the Commission now, replacing Dunbar Brooks.]
Green-energy plant sucks up subsidies, then goes bust
To turn wood chips into ethanol fuel, George W. Bush's Department of Energy in February 2007 announced a $76 million grant to Range Fuels for a cutting-edge refinery. A few months later, the refinery opened in the piney woods of Treutlen County, Ga., as the taxpayers of Georgia piled on another $6 million. In 2008, the ethanol plant was the first beneficiary of the Biorefinery Assistance Program, pocketing a loan for $80 million guaranteed by the U.S. taxpayers.
Last month, the refinery closed down, having failed to squeeze even a drop of ethanol out of its pine chips.
The Soperton, Ga., ethanol plant is another blemish on ethanol's already tarnished image, but more broadly, it is cautionary tale about the elusive nature of "green jobs" and the folly of the government's efforts at "investing" -- as President Obama puts it -- in new technologies
At a time when American higher education is facing a crisis of accessibility and affordability, we have adopted a de-facto standard of college quality that is uninterested in both of those factors.
More:
There are schools that provide a good legal education at a decent price, and, by choosing not to include tuition as a variable, U.S. News has effectively penalized those schools for trying to provide value for the tuition dollar.
The site, called OpenGovernment, went live in January 2011. The beta version has data for five state legislatures: California, Louisiana, Maryland, Texas, and Wisconsin.
"The public...demands certainties...But there are no certainties." "When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense . . . . So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or be lost." "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." "The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos." "One of [government's] primary functions is to regiment men by force, to make them as much alike as possible and as dependent upon one another as possible, to search out and combat originality among them. All it can see in an original idea is potential change, and hence an invasion of its prerogatives."
"Government is a broker in pillage, and every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods."
"When 'A' annoys or injures 'B' on the pretense of saving or improving X, 'A' is a scoundrel."
[Brochin] presented 2010 data from the State Highway Administration’s speed camera project “MarylandSafeZone,” that noted how, on the beltway in Baltimore County over the period from July to December, workers were deployed 131 times — but speed cameras were deployed 437 times when the workers were not present.
According to data, the number of citations issued when workers were present was 62,161, but 167,281 citations were issued when workers were not present. In the work zones, the highway speed limit is lowered from 55 to 50 mph.
Brochin said Monday that using the cameras even though workers are not on location diminishes the argument that the devices are being used to improve safety.
"It's about revenue generation," Brochin said of the off-hour use.
Often, companies that perform fracking operations don't publicly reveal what compounds they use to facilitate the gas extraction process. (Halliburton may prove an exception to the rule; it has agreed to give the government data about the fracking chemicals it uses by January 2011.) When Farnham & Associates, an environmental engineering firm, tested a well near a hydraulic fracturing zone in Pennsylvania, it found a range of contaminants in the water, including ethylene glycol and toluene, both of which can be toxic to humans. They appear on a Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection list of compounds known to be used in hydraulic fracturing, but Cabot Oil and Gas, the company that conducted the drilling, claimed it had not used the chemicals.
What impact does fracking have on drinking water?
Some people living near fracking sites have reported abnormalities in their tap water, including dark-colored grease, sediments and floating debris. The EPA has revealed plans to conduct a large-scale study to look into the problem further. "There are serious concerns about whether the process of hydraulic fracturing impacts drinking water. Further study is warranted," the agency announced in a statement released earlier this year. The investigation is slated to begin in January 2011.
The Bay Journal has been writing a lot about fracking in the past year, including:
Should we not protest T-shirt miles, too, and laptop miles? After all, fruit and vegetables account for more than 20 percent of all exports from poor countries, whereas most laptops come from rich countries, so singling out food imports for special discrimination means singling out poor countries for sanctions. Two economists recently concluded, after studying the issue, that the entire concept of food miles is a 'profoundly flawed sustainability indicator'. Getting food from the farmer to the shop causes just 4 percent of all its lifetime emissions. Ten times as much carbon is emitted in refrigerating British food as in air-freighting it from abroad, and fifty times as much is emitted by the customer travelling to the shops. A New Zealand lamb, shipped to England, requires one-quarter as much carbon to get on to a London plate as a Welsh lamb; a Dutch rose, grown in a heated greenhouse and sold in London, has six times the carbon footprint of a Kenyan rose grown under the sun using water recycled through a fish farm, using geothermal electricity and providing employment to Kenyan women.
Ridley's book is terrific. Please buy a copy and read it. Or listen to the audio book, which is available at the BCPL. If you read it, join Phil Bowermaster's Facebook group Let's Get 1000 People to Read the Rational Optimist.
In an effort to avoid cooperating with an ethics probe about AIM, former BCPS staffer Dr. Barbara Dezmon didn't play just any race card, she played the nuclear bomb of race cards, the "it's-like-a-lynching" race card. She made this allegation with no explanation.
A few days later, Superintendent Dr. Joe Hairston backed her up. He didn't use the nuclear/lynching option. But he played the race card too, and was just as vague about the details.
the female GOP caucus will grow by more than 40 percent in the House . . .
The 111th House included:
60 Democratic women. Ten lost on Tuesday (assuming that the margin holds in IL-8), one lost her primary, and one retired. Four new Democratic women were elected to the House on Tuesday, for a NET LOSS OF 8.
17 Republican women. Two of them retired, with one going on to run for (and win) Oklahoma's governorship. Nine new Republican women were elected, for a NET GAIN OF 7, (assuming the margin holds in in NY-25).
In the Senate, Democrats lost one woman (Blanche Lincoln) and Republicans gained one (Kelly Ayotte) -- again, assuming that Murkowski wins.
Long after they have disappeared from the political scene, I am going to remember local Democratic candidates Lori Albin, Oz Bengur and Steve Lafferty for this picture:
The picture comes from an attack mailer sent on their behalf* a week or so ago to female voters in District 42.
Here's the photo on the other side: The pictures say everything; the words that came with them are pretty much irrelevant.
If you're a man looking at these pictures, do you think Lori Albin, Oz Bengur or Steve Lafferty will look out for your interests?
A word to the wise for anyone running for public office: Your attack ads may be floating around the internet for a looooooooooong time.
*by authority of the "Maryland House Democratic Committee, Victor Sulin, Treasurer."
The postman delivered an attack mailer to me two days ago. It was from Oz Bengur, a Democrat in Baltimore County, District 42.
Bengur says that Republicans such as Bill Frank -- a man I know and trust -- are going to "ruin" Maryland’s top rated education system.
That got me so steamed, I had to write this.
I’m tired of Democrats – from state delegates to Martin O’Malley -- crowing about Maryland’s “top rated” education system.”
I’m a ten-year BCPS parent. When I look at our schools, I don’t see a top rated system. I see problems. And things are getting worse. And by the way, the schools my kids have gone to are supposedly among the best. Blue ribbons all over the place.
If you don’t believe me, talk to any BCPS parent whose child is a little bit different, whether a special needs child or a gifted one. Ask them about their experience dealing with the school bureaucracy. Ask if they got a good response to a complaint. Ask if they got any response.
And if you think this is limited to Baltimore County, ask the folks in PG County about Andre Hornsby.
Our superintendent in Baltimore County is a genius at self-promotion. He loves to talk about accolades. But here’s one “accolade” he doesn’t mention. Forbes magazine looked at 100 or so of the largest public school districts and ranked them on bang for the buck-- the value we get for school spending. Baltimore County was in the bottom 10 percent.
If you want details for other problems, look in the upper right hand corner of this blog and click on some of the education topics.
But most of all, click on AIM. A – I – M. The Articulated Instruction Module. To understand the huge problems in the Baltimore County Public Schools, all you have to do is look at last year’s AIM fiasco:
Lack of transparency
Insulation from criticism
Ignoring complaints
That’s the big thing about AIM. They ignored everyone. They ignored teachers. They ignored parents. [See below for actual video of them ignoring a parent. The superintendent does shift uneasily at the 2:00 minute mark. But that's about the only response you can expect to get, other than stony silence.] Just the other day in the Sun, they were ignoring Democratic legislators Steve Lafferty (D-42) and Jim Brochin (D-42). The superintendent is refusing to cooperate with an ethics probe relating to AIM.
During the AIM hearings last year, Brochin got so frustrated with Dr. Hairston and the two school board members, he compared them to Bill Clinton splitting hairs about the definition of "is." A few months later, Lafferty told me with disgust that Joe Hairston was a “master manipulator.”
But these Democrats haven't fixed the problem.
With few exceptions, Democrats have been in control at every level of government for 40 plus years in Maryland. Our schools are in decline and they’re bragging about our ratings?
Isn’t it about time we gave someone else a chance? Someone who will give us more than happy talk?
In his attack piece, the Democrat says about Republicans, “You just don’t get it.”
No, Oz Bengur. No, Martin O’Malley. You don’t get it.
Please don’t talk to me about Maryland's #1 schools. School administrators and the Democrats who put them there have heard me and others like me for years. They’ve heard us and they’ve ignored us.
But after November 2nd, they will ignore us no more.
We have an especially strong ticket of Republicans this year in Baltimore County, from the top of the ballot to the bottom. Please vote Bob Ehrlich for governor. I trust him on education. I don’t trust Martin O’Malley. Please vote Ken Holt for County Executive and Steve Bailey for State’s Attorney. Please vote Republican for state senator, state delegate and county council.
It’s time for government to start listening in Maryland. It’s time for some change.
Veteran BCPS-watcher and parent Laurie Taylor-Mitchell seems to think so:
Commentary: Isn’t there a better way to spend $17.4 million in Baltimore County Schools?
by Laurie Taylor-Mitchell
... BCPS has presented how they wish to spend the "Race to the Top" funds in the school system. ...
Within one category of $5 million dollars, the BCPS proposals include another major expenditure on virtual learning at Chesapeake High School. Didn't this school receive a multi-million dollar virtual learning center last year? ...
Why are thousands of other dollars being spent on developing a virtual high school and games? ...
Part of the $5 million would be spent to develop a data trackingsystem. Data tracking systems exist all over the country - why are they spending millions on this at the local level? Who is going to get this huge amount of money -- what BCPS department or office? ...
What stakeholders were included in the process by BCPS? On page 11, Exhibit N from the Board meeting states that the projects were devised with "input from the community." Who exactly within the "community" gave input? Were they parents, students, or teachers? What did they say?
Finally, given the wording for the two positions described on page 19 of Exhibit N, it appears that BCPS is proposing to spend $460,000 to pay a Director and Fiscal Assistant to manage spending these funds.
According to Ms. Bowie, not a single Board member asked a question about how these funds were to be spent at the meeting.
Parents of children in County public schools ... should consider calling BCPS and ask if any funds are slated for their school ... These proposals will be submitted to the State Department of Education on November 3. Please consider contacting Mr. Earnest E. Hines, President of the Baltimore County Board of Education, if you are concerned about the proposals for Race to the Top funds in Baltimore County, at 410-887-4126. The Project Manager for the Race to the Top funds is Dr. James Foran, Maryland State Department of Education, 200 West Baltimore Street, Baltimore, MD 21201, Phone: 410-767-0589.
Oz Bengur and the Maryland House Democratic Committee recently sent three attack mailers to female Democratic voters in District 42 targeting Del. Bill Frank. The mailers were misleading and unfair.
I view them as a sign of desperation on the part of Mr. Bengur.
Here is Bill's reply:
October 22, 2010
Dear Editor,
We’re certainly in the midst of the political “silly season.” How do we know? Just turn on the television and watch the distorted, overblown, negative political commercials that come at you one after another.
Or go to your mailbox and read the over-the-top, inflammatory mailers that are stuffed inside. Or answer the telephone and listen to a recorded phone message filled with half-truths and innuendo.
Elections are important, and critical differences exist among the various candidates. It’s fair game to talk about a candidate’s record, as long as it’s done in a factual, accurate manner. Recently, my opponents mailed information to voters that grossly distorted my vote in 2003 on a bill dealing with absolute divorce and child abuse, suggesting that I have a lenient position on the serious issue of child abuse. In fact, 29 delegates voted against final passage of the bill – Democrats and Republicans alike – because we believed the bill had deeply flawed and troublesome provisions. One of these provisions was the requirement that children as young as six years old would be forced to testify in criminal court against an allegedly abusive parent, obviously a path fraught with all kinds of red flags. That is why the American Academy of Pediatrics and several other advocates for children opposed this bill.
My record on protecting children is strong and clear. I helped lead the fight in 2010, for example, for the passage of Jessica’s Law, which significantly toughened penalties and mandated long prison sentences for violent sexual offenders.
When you see, hear or read political ads that don’t seem to ring true, be appropriately skeptical. Remember, we’re in the political “silly season.”
Four more years of O’Malley will allow advocates in the state the opportunity to pass environmental laws […] Electing Ehrlich will mean no opportunity for progress
He is flat out wrong here.
He’s wrong at the federal level and Bob Ehrlich proved him wrong at the state level with the Bay Restoration Act, which the Chesapeake Bay Foundation described as one of the best things to happen for the bay in decades.
Significant environmental legislation happens more often when control is split and the two parties must confer and compromise.
When Democrats control all the levers of power, landmark environmental legislation is less likely to pass. Sometimes it’s because Democrats take environmentalists for granted and sometimes it’s because they push legislation that oversteps and fails to pass.
This is the last post in a series of six.
Dave Greene has worked as energy/environmental policy analyst in DC, helped build a large waste treatment plan in Boston, sat on a Chesapeake Bay Tributary Strategies Team and served on the board of a local watershed group in Baltimore County. He also supports Bob Ehrlich for governor of Maryland.
[For the first entry in this series and pointers to the five follow-up posts, go here.]
I don’t think many will argue with me on this one.
But there is some subtlety here that most people don’t consider.
Tom Horton used to write a column in the Baltimore Sun called On the Bay. About five or six years ago he wrote a piece about the legislative scorecards put out by business groups and environmental groups.
He concluded that it is virtually impossible for a legislator to score highly on both types of scorecards.
As a voter and free-market environmentalist, I want my legislators to consider both business issues and environmental issues and find a reasonable balance. Any legislator who scores 90% to 100% on either type of scorecard is probably not getting that balance right.
And they probably won’t get my vote.
In Maryland, too many Democratic legislators seem to vote for any bill with an environment-friendly title without considering how much it will cost or how effective it will be.
From what I can see, legislators who consider both business and environmental concerns -- and find a sensible balance between the two -- are just as likely to be Republicans as Democrats.
[For the first entry in this series and pointers to the five follow-up posts, go here.]
Two examples of ill-considered tech mandates come from the Carter administration: the failed SynfuelsCorporation initiative (a big waste of money) and corn-basedethanol subsidies (harmful to the environment and a big waste of money).
The difference between the parties is this: when Republicans impose technology mandates –as George W. Bush unfortunately did when he increased Carter's ethanol subsidy – they are swimming upstream against their core principles. But when Democrats do it they’re going with the flow of their party, which is biased toward government intervention.
Dernoga cites several technology mandates enthusiastically supported by Martin O’Malley. Here’s one:
the Renewable Electricity Standard - [in] which [O'Malley] pledged that 20 percent of the state's energy would come from renewable energy sources by 2022.
“Renewable energy” sounds at first like a wonderful, win-win kind of thing. I would bet my 401(k) that voter focus groups love the term.
Nevertheless, many people are beginning to point out problems with renewable energy. Matt Ridley writes in his recent book, The Rational Optimist:
It is an undeniable if surprising fact, often overlooked, that fossil fuels have spared much of the landscape from industrialization. . . To get an idea of just how landscape-eating the renewable alternatives are, consider that to supply just the current 300 million inhabitants of the United states with their current power demand of roughly 10,000 watts each would require:
solar panels the size of Spain
or wind farms the size of Kazaakhstan . . .
To label the land-devouring monsters of renewable energy ‘green’, virtuous or clean strikes me as bizarre.
This is one of the biggest sins of green Democrats: using peer pressure and faith-based marketing techniques to hurry us into supporting poorly thought-out technology mandates.
Such mandates are strait-jackets. Theydon’t encourage innovation. They strap down the innovators.
[For the first entry in this series, and pointers to the five follow-up posts, go here.]
Matt Dernoga writes approvingly of a long list of concepts and programs touted by Martin O’Malley such as “clean energy jobs” and Smart Growth.
In my view, the concept of clean energy jobs (a.k.a. “green jobs”) is useful to Democratic speechwriters and hardly anyone else. PERC makes this case convincingly in its pamphlet The 7 myths about green jobs. If anyone can poke holes in their work, I’d love to hear about it.
As for Smart Growth, I’ve found that when you question these folks about their programs, they talk hazily about fighting “sprawl.” It soon becomes clear that they can’t define sprawl except to say that they know it when they see it. Nor are they clear about the practical details of their “smart” solutions.
[For the first entry in this series and pointers to the five follow-up posts, go here.]
Matt Dernoga exemplifies my charge of "shallow and misleading" when he writes:
Ehrlich … appointed inexperienced industry insiders […] An auto-industry lawyer was head of the state Department of the Environment!
First, Lynn Buhl (the “auto-industry lawyer”) was never confirmed as head of MDE. Second, Buhl spent years working for both the US EPA and Michigan’s version of MDE. But green Democrats like Dernoga didn’t seem to consider her job description or accomplishments at Chrysler. They just clobbered her because she worked there.
When progressives take career paths like Buhl’s, they are often lionized by fellow Democrats as noble “sector switchers.” But conservatives with long records of public service are commonly demonized by the left as evil corporate tools.
My experience contradicts this stereotype. I’ve worked in all three sectors, and know that you can find good, ethical people in all of them. But when I think about the most talented and ethical people I’ve worked with, the list is dominated by folks from the private sector.
Many of them have worked at places like Chrysler.
John McPhee illustrates this in his environmental classic Encounters with the Archdruid. In it, the most competent, likable and ethical person was not the environmentalist David Brower but the corporate mineral engineer Charles Park. As I remember the book, Park had logged more time in the wilderness and understood it better. He revered nature as much or more than Brower, and was meticulous about protecting it.
Brower, on the other hand, was abrasive and admittedly dishonest.
I think it’s about time green Democrats like Matt Dernoga stop auto-dumping on people just because they’ve worked in private industry.
A Democratic friend of mine has received two attack mailers in the past week from backers of Oz Bengur, LoriAlbin and incumbent Del.SteveLafferty. And one attack mailer from Oz himself.
To Oz and friends: These ads just make you look desperate. Voters who know your opponents well don't like seeing the sleazy results of your PhotoShop work.
UPDATE: For Bill Frank's response to the mailers, go here.
At the District 42 state senator debate tonight (JimBrochin vs. Kevin Carney) there was a question about the higher education bubble. Neither candidate was familiar with the term. Nor was the moderator, Towson University political science professor James C. Roberts.
For them, and anyone else who doesn't read Instapundit, Michael Barone summarizes the concept nicely:
Higher education bubble poised to burst
Imagine that you have a product whose price tag for decades rises faster than inflation. But people keep buying it because they're told that it will make them wealthier in the long run. Then suddenly they find it doesn't. Prices fall sharply, bankruptcies ensue, great institutions disappear.
Sound like the housing market? Yes, but it also sounds like what Glenn Reynolds, creator of instapundit.com, writing in The Examiner, has called "the higher education bubble."
Government-subsidized loans have injected money into higher education, as they did into housing, causing prices to balloon. But at some point people figure out they're not getting their money's worth, and the bubble bursts.
Dave Greene has worked as energy/environmental policy analyst in DC, helped build a large waste treatment plan in Boston, sat on a Chesapeake Bay Tributary Strategies Team and served on the board of a local watershed group in Baltimore County. He also supports Bob Ehrlich for governor of Maryland.
But the story of the night for me was John Fiastro. Someone told me recently that Steve Lafferty was feeling a little nervous about the race. After tonight I can see why.
This was the first time that I had heard John speak at length in public.
He had an easy presence on stage and I got the feeling that he could talk equally well with new immigrants (he majored in Spanish at Towson), business people, college professors and just plain regular folks.
Some of his opponents sounded like they were reading from PowerPoint slides. John had more of a storytelling style, mixing in humor and literate references to good effect. He was clear, with few wasted words.
Even though he was strong on the budget and Maryland's spending problem, it will be very hard for Democrats to paint John Fiastro as a heartless conservative.
In other words, Fiastro cleaned Lafferty's clock.
But don't take my word for it. Watch it yourself. The camera guy said the debate should be up on the Towerlight website soon.
UPDATE 1: OzBengur was the best of the Dems. But I had expected him to be more dynamic than he was. He said some good things about his private sector experience with Papa John's. [UPDATE 3: Now that I have seen two of Mr. Bengur's sleazy attack mailers I am downgrading him to worst of the Dems. His ads led me to consider which circle Bengur belongs in. I think it's the 8th.]
I had heard some good things about LoriAlbin from a friend, but she came across as the worst of the lot. Too much bland "I'll be fighting for you" stuff. She talked a lot about how she was going to work hard and read all the bills. Sounded like a bureaucrat.
UPDATE 2: Four video excerpts from the debate here.
Truth in advertising: I've been coordinating with the "CAFF" slate (Carney/Aumann/Frank/Fiastro) during this campaign because of my volunteer work for Bob Ehrlich.
This is a very important election coming up. I've been active in the campaign for governor of Maryland, supporting Bob Ehrlich.
But this election isn't just about the big statewide offices. All of us need to pay attention to races at all levels, up and down the ballot.
Below is a letter I wrote recently. This past Saturday I hand-delivered it 150 of my neighbors. If you live in District 42, please vote for Bill. If you don't live in our district, please consider writing a similar letter for your favorite local candidate.
Dear neighbor in central Baltimore County,
When you're hiring a person, one of the very best words you can hear from their references is "respected." When people use this word, it’s a strong indicator of character, savvy and effectiveness.
I’ve known Bill Frank for eight years, and can tell you that he is widely respected in our community. He’s also widely respected in Annapolis on both sides of the aisle.
When I first heard Bill at a candidate forum in 2002, he stood out in a large group as the most poised and articulate. Later that year we knocked on doors together for the Ehrlich campaign.
I’ve also logged many hours on the sidelines with Bill. Our boys play baseball and were LTRC teammates for several years.
Here are some things I like about Bill
He has a clear, consistent belief system.
He works hard.
Of all the legislative updates I get (from DC, Towson and Annapolis) his are the best.
He treats others with respect, allies and opponents alike.
He's responsive to constituents.
Please join me in voting for Bill on November 2nd.
p.s. I hope you’ll also support Bob Ehrlich for governor on November 2nd.
I have volunteered many hours of my time for Bob this year because Maryland needs change and he is the right governor to make it happen.
But he will need help. Fortunately, the GOP has an especially strong slate of folks running this year.
We need state legislators with private sector experience who understand how job creation actually works. People like John Fiastro (restaurant industry), Kevin Carney (home-building) and Sue Aumann (accounting).
I’ve also been very impressed with Steve Bailey (running for State’s Attorney in Baltimore County), and Ken Holt, (running for County Executive). The more I talk to these two and see them in action, the more I like them.
This paragraph -- if you replace "American" with "BCPS" -- captures the vibe I often get when I speak with school bureaucrats or attend a school board meeting:
there is a growing sense—I should say fear—that the weighty, mighty, imposing American government [BCPSbureaucracy] itself, whether it meant to or not, has for years been contributing to American [BCPS] behaviors that are neither culturally helpful nor, as we now all say, sustainable: a growing sense of entitlement, of dependency, of resentment and distrust, and an increasing suspicion that everyone else is gaming the system. "I got mine, you get yours."
That's what I see at BCPS: lots of people gaming the system. It's not healthy and it's not sustainable.
And these bits from Noonan's piece remind me of last year's big controversy/fiasco at BCPS: AIM*:
Washington is turning America into Paperwork Nation. ...
No matter what level of life in which you operate, you are likely overwhelmed by forms, by a blizzard of regulations, rules, new laws. This is not new, it's just always getting worse.
The more I learn about the inner workings of Greenwood, the less I like it.
Two of the nastier [words] in the current lexicon are diversity and sustainability. I have argued for and against both of them depending on which definitions are used. They can both be used to mean just about everything.
Wood's whole piece is well done, but two parts stood out for me. First, his superb condensation of the argument against the "diversity movement":
Diversity authorizes double standards in admissions and hiring, breeds a campus culture of hypocrisy, mismatches students to educational opportunities, fosters ethnic resentments, elevates group identity over individual achievement, and trivializes the curriculum.
Next, Wood sums up his take on the "sustainability movement" in eight words:
sustainability is the triumph of hypothesis over evidence
Say what you will about his arguments, but the dude can write.
FWIW, one of the better discussions on sustainability that I've seen asks an excellent question: Can we afford sustainability?
The discussion starts with two useful definitions of sustainability. First Robert Mendelsohn's:
Economists have a very clear idea of what they mean by sustainability, but it's not always consistent with what you might see in the natural sciences. For an issue like pollution, a sustainable pollution control is one where the marginal cost of abatement is set equal to the marginal damage of pollution. It would be nice to get rid of all pollution, but it turns out it's very expensive to eliminate it entirely. So this idea of balancing the abatement costs against the damages is a critical way that economists would look at sustainability in trying to minimize the total cost to society.
The definition of sustainable development has provided a big step forward. There are multiple definitions, but the version I like best is one that says economic growth, environmental protection, and social justice are all important — and sustainable development is about doing all three.
I like Curtis's three elements, but wish he had used a politically neutral term in place of "social justice."
Richard Kauffman had many good insights from a businessman's perspective including the problem of regulatory uncertainty.
Finally, there's this delicious bit, where Mendelsohn seems to leave Curtis speechless:
Mendelsohn: You can't just wait for everything to be perfectly clear. But some decisions have a lot more uncertainty around them than others. And I think climate change, with all the long-range implications to it, is probably one of the most uncertain things that I've seen. In the short run, it's pretty clear, but the long-run consequences of making different choices today isn't very clear at all.
Curtis: But the consequences seem to range between some negative impact to lots of negative impact.
Mendelsohn: No, I'd say they range from being beneficial to being very, very harmful. And that's a pretty big range.
[Emphasis added.]
I don't think I've ever heard a respected academic use the words "beneficial" and "climate change" in the same sentence. I don't think Curtis had either, as he had nothing to say in response.
I suspect that Mendelsohn is correct about the level of uncertainty and the huge range of possible outcomes. We just don't really know.
If he were honest about it, O'Malley's answer would be "no one."
Almost everyone who hears these words thinks O'Malley is talking about their family. In my view, the phrase is meaningless. Every time I hear it, I think the speaker is trying to pull something over on me.
They're covering local politics, high school sports and so on, giving some much-needed competition to the Towson Times. I've heard good things about them, but have a concern already about the slant of their political coverage.
On the other hand, it seems like ninety percent of the political column-inches so far by Nick DiMarco, Matt Cruz and Doug Donovan are about Democrats.
C'mon guys.
L/T is one of the most Republican areas in Maryland. If you're going to write a puff piece about Democratic campaigns, try to give at least a semblance of balance and publish some pictures of Republicans too.
UPDATE: I missed Nayana Davis's article about Todd Huff's victory over Bryan McIntire. Plenty of column inches there, but the tenor of the article is clearly, if mildly, anti-Republican:
The story devotes several early paragraphs to miscommunication between the candidates regarding McIntire's concession.
In addition, the story quotes a Republican candidate swearing. Democrats use expletives too. But somehow I don't expect to see their swears surrounded by quote marks in a Patch story anytime soon.
In comparison, the list of majorenvironmental legislation passed during Democratic administrations is short and unimpressive.
The lesson for environmentalists:
if you want to pass major environmental legislation, your odds are poor under Democrats and much much better under Republicans
*Don't get me wrong. I acknowledge that Democrats played key roles -- many many key roles -- in conceiving these laws and shepherding them through Congress.
