Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

UK Drinking Problems

Some chunk of my time gets devoted to researching and writing about traffic safety. One major element in increasing safety is utilizing roundabouts instead of sign or light controlled intersections. When this is done fatalities drop by about 90% and crashes overall by about 40%. Alcohol is another critical element. Alcohol and driving do not mix very well.


Well, alcohol and traffic engineering may not mix very well either. Getting drunk is a popular pastime among many throughout the UK and one which many are beginning to realize has become very problematic. Magic Roundabouts are one apparent result of this abundant drunkenness. If one roundabout is good then a few pints apparently makes 5 seem better and maybe just one more pint makes putting those 5 in the middle of a giant traffic circle the epitome of traffic engineering. Click here for a Google satellite image.

Chrysler not good enough for it's owner.

Sen. Tom Coburn pointed out a very important issue this morning. Cerberus Capital Mgmt owns a bit over 80% of Chrysler. If there is any way to save that company, they will figure out a way to do it. They have billions on the line if Chrysler goes down. They'll sell other of their assets in stronger companies in order to get the money to protect their investment in Chrysler. They can do that. That is their option. It's a simple business decision.

If Cerberus chooses not to save it's own car company, why should we. If they do not believe it is salvageable and are willing to loose their billions of investment, what makes us think the government can do better? On this one issue alone Chrysler should be completely out of consideration.

Iowa: Gay OK, just don't let in any Polygamists

In hearings before the Iowa Supreme Court on Tuesday (in Varnum v Brien), Justices spent some time fixated on fears that allowing gay marriage in the state would open the door to something far worse - polygamy. I assume the Justices aren't Christians since if they were following the Bible they'd allow polygamy long before gay marriage.

Bill O'Reilly's Prostitutes

“Amsterdam is a disaster.” Bill O’Reilly said on his show last night, “And they’ve finally realized it.” O’ Reilly pontificated about Amsterdam finally realizing what a failure their city policies are and are finally doing something about it.

O’Reilly promoted an impression that crime and social problems are soaring in Amsterdam, that the city now realizes it, and is closing all of it’s prostitution and coffeeshops. He also made mention of the apparent failure of their safe sex programs for teens.

Well, that’s not exactly accurate. Not even remotely close. Bill must be learning journalism and honesty from his friend Geraldo.

Let’s make sure we all understand exactly what Amsterdam is doing. They plan to close approximately 30% of the prostitute windows in the city center area and 22% of the over 200 coffeeshops. The bulk of these are in the relatively unknown areas of The Singel and Pijp. While they are closing some windows along the perimeters of the more famous Walletjes RLD the city said that they plan to leave at least 200 windows and very specifically said that they do not want to close any more as they believe that a legal industry is better for everyone than an illegal underground industry under prohibition. In total the plan represents about a 4% overall reduction of prostitution locales in the Amsterdam area (windows make up less than 15% of legal prostitution in Amsterdam) though likely no reduction in activity as many of the displaced prostitutes are expected to move elsewhere and continue working. This move by the city is aimed more at simply reducing visibility.

Now, back to Amsterdam realizing how screwed up they are.

As we’ve already discussed, Amsterdam appears, from every report published, to have significantly less human trafficking and underage prostitution than the US. The Netherlands has 1/5 the teen pregnancy rate of the US (34/100k in NL vs. 176/100k in the US) and also has about 1/3 the per capita abortion rate. The US has about 2 to 3 times the incidences of AID’s as The Netherlands and over twice the incidences of other STD’s. (I believe in abstinence until marriage, but the results of safe sex programs in The Netherlands and elsewhere cannot be ignored.)

We also know that about 50% more kids smoke pot in the US than in The Netherlands. Adult use of pot in the US is higher by an even greater margin.

As O’Reilly pointed out the government says that one reason for taking these measures is to cut down on crime. Let’s get some perspective on this. ALL of the following is based on per capita rates per 100k population as per the World Bank and US Justice Dept. The Netherlands has less than half the theft rate of the US and 15% less fraud. The US has 12 times (yes, twelve) the arrest rate for drug offenses as The Netherlands. The US has 3 times as many murders and 4 times as many assaults, most of these related to our war on drugs that doesn’t exist in The Netherlands. (And these don't include numerous deaths and assaults such as Tarika Wilson.) The Netherlands has 20% fewer robberies. The US prison population is 9 times that of The Netherlands. And The Netherlands has 32% fewer law enforcement personnel than the US. If the FBI, border patrol, state SBI’s are included they have 69% less and if military personnel used for drug interdiction are included they have 82% fewer.

Organized crime is very difficult to measure but according to what I’ve been able to quickly pull together it appears that the US has about 2 - 3 times as much organized crime as The Netherlands. More research is needed on this one though.

What O’Reilly also didn’t mention is that this past summer when Conservatives in the national government were looking at a law to close all prostitution and coffeeshops throughout the country that over 85% of the mayors, including Amsterdam, Maastricht, and all other major cities, very strongly protested this effort saying that this would increase crime and other problems. And many of these mayors are Conservatives. Nor did he mention that they also hope to close over 50% of the mini-marts and souvenir shops.

The ignorance of O’Reilly and his guests on this issue is a new level for him.

An accurate statement is that Amsterdam is very slightly tweaking their already successful prostitution and drug policy in hopes that they can further reduce crime (that overall is already about 1/6 that of the US crime rate) without increasing social problems (that are overall about 1/3 that of the US).

Amsterdam: Messing up a good thing?

Recent news of Amsterdam’s plans to close a number of brothels and coffeeshops (that sell pot) in the central district raise some interesting questions. Their purpose according to the plan is to clean up the unappealing aspects of their city center to make it more appealing to tourists and clamp down on organized crime.

The Netherlands, and Amsterdam in particular, have for decades been known for their very open tolerance towards personal vices that many other countries have, over the past 90 to 100 years, tried various prohibitions against. Many people, particularly religious groups, have been very vocal in criticizing these policies and have for years put pressure on The Netherlands to repeal these policies and institute prohibitions.

The standard critiques have been that The Netherlands policies promote human trafficking and drug use among teens and others.

As far as drug use The Netherlands is actually below average. According to a UNICEF study of OECD countries conducted in 2007 about 21% of 11 – 15 year olds in the Netherlands had smoked pot in the past year while 31% of these kids in the US have. 35% of this age group in the UK have and 40% in Canada. The Netherlands scores equally well or better in other studies. It would appear that the coffeeshops may actually have a bit of a deterrent effect. This sometimes attributed to Dutch teens seeing people stoned in coffeeshops and finding it unappealing or the knowledge that they can always try it later if they want so there’s no need to rush to do it ‘while I have the opportunity’.

On the prostitution front the city’s plans to close down some brothels is even more interesting. Every study I have read on the harmful impacts of prostitution in The Netherlands indicates that The Netherlands has far fewer problems than other countries. Numerous studies by DSP- Groep, WODC, Regioplan Beleidsonderzoek, and Intraval have found extremely low incidences of human trafficking and underage prostitution. Across a broad spectrum of other issues these reports say that continuing the current policy of legal and open prostitution is far superior to the problems caused by prohibition.

Some, including Saint Augustin and Saint Thomas Aquinas, believe that legal prostitution is necessary to reduce problems of rape. Per capita The Netherlands has about 9 rapes per 100,000 people while the US has 33 per 100,000 (all OECD countries with legal prostitution average 11.3). Since Sweden criminalized prostitution in 1999 their incidences of rape have increased twofold. Will this clamping down also ratchet up rapes in The Netherlands?

The authorities in The Netherlands want to trade in a real society that has very few social problems for a veneer that they think will be more appealing to tourists. They want their city center to look better and cleaner and they’re willing to risk their very successful and strong social fabric to do it.

One of the more perplexing aspects of this plan is that Amsterdam is already one of the top tourists spots in the world, particularly relative to its size. People come not just because of the coffeeshops and prostitution, which is for better or worse a popular draw, and not just because of other equally or more popular attractions such as Amsterdam’s architecture and museums or the Anne Frank House. People come to see a society that has so very successfully integrated all of these things. As one travel agent pointed out to me this morning, take away the intriguing Red Light Districts and Coffeeshops and Amsterdam will become second fiddle to a number of other popular tourist cities.

Will a 22% reduction in coffeeshops, which is the plan, reduce or eliminate the apparently positive impact on illicit drug use among Dutch teens? Will clamping down on legal prostitution drive more of the industry underground and increase human trafficking and underage prostitution?

I'm in no way a supporter of prostitution or illicit drug use, but I do believe in a certain level of pragmatism, especially when the harms of policies such as social prohibitions are so detrimental to societies.

Stay Tuned…

Are Texans Simply Unconscionable?

While one hand was busy taking nearly 500 children from their parents at the YFZ ranch, disabled citizens in it's care were dying by the other hand, according to the US Justice Department's division on human rights. This is the 3rd similar report by the US Justice Department in the past 3 years looking in to severe problems in Texas' state run schools for the disabled. The report, issued this past week, noted over 500 allegations of abuse, neglect, and other mistreatment of residents over a single 3-month period in July through September of this year. The report said that there were 50 deaths that are normally considered routinely preventable.

"We have concluded that numerous conditions and practices at the facilities violate the constitutional and federal statutory rights of their residents." wrote Grace Chung Becker, an assistant attorney general in the civil rights division of the US Justice Department.

Violating people's human rights is becoming routine for Texas authorities.

Could the $14 million wasted on the YFZ raid have helped prevent these needless deaths and incidences of abuse? Could some of the resources used on the YFZ raid possibly have been focused instead on real problems in Texas? The folks in Texas really need to get their priorities straight. Focusing on their own petty bigotry while their citizens are in harms way is unconscionable.

The New THE BIG 3

THE BIG 3 US auto manufacturers are asking for $34 billion from taxpayers. That’s about $92 for every man, woman, and child in the US. Instead, how about each of us swing by our local GM or Chrysler dealer and give them $92 cash. A family of 4? Give them $368 cash. This so that the unionized UAW workers won’t have to reduce their take home wages from their current $81,000 per year.

First let’s realize that the auto companies are in the positions they are in not because of the slumping economy but because of their own mismanagement. US Manufacturers have been steadily loosing market share to non-US manufacturers for 3 decades and had ceased being profitable long before the economic downturn. The slumping economy only accelerated what was already taking place.

The 3 US manufactures erred in a number of critical ways.

1) They didn’t manage they union labor force effectively. Whether this should be blamed on the unions or the corporate management is difficult to determine. In any case, a union company forced to pay it’s workers $73.26/hr in wages and benefits and forced even to pay them for years on end in job banks for not working cannot compete with a non-union company paying $53.20/hr, still a very good wage, and then only for workers who actually work.

2) They either mistakenly allowed the quality of their vehicles to decline or did so intentionally as a method of using planned obsolescence to generate higher future sales. All of these future sales though went to Toyota, Honda, Volkswagen, and others.

3) They did not produce the vehicles that consumers wanted either in terms of design or quality.

The situation the auto manufacturers find themselves in is of their own making. Note though that Ford has done the best job of the 3 in turning themselves around and will likely make it through without any government assistance.

The 3 US auto manufacturers came begging to the government because banks and other investors won’t lend to them and wouldn’t even before the current economic downturn. Investors don’t consider the 3 as good or viable investments. They do not believe that the 3 auto companies, or at least GM and Chrysler, will be successful even with funding. Why then should we? The auto companies have vigorously fought declaring bankruptcy saying that consumers won’t buy a car from a company in bankruptcy because of fears that the company will not be around for the life of the car. I’m not sure a government bailout will change that very much, especially if the government says that this $25 billion (or $34 billion) will be the last. Perhaps we need a new bankruptcy chapter – government bailout.

If we were going to lend any money, and I don’t’ think that we should, Congress should at a very minimum require that they first; 1) Obtain cash from divesting as many extraneous assets as possible including subsidiary brands such as GM’s Opel, Hummer, Vauxhall, Saab, Saturn, Holden, and Daewoo, and 2) Obtain union contracts that immediately put their labor costs (wages, benefits, work rules, and job banks) on par with or below competitors.

GM’s proposal to Congress indicates it plans to be on labor cost par with Toyota by 2012. Can it really afford it’s current high wages for another 4 years? They’re already deep in the hole and cannot afford to continue going deeper for another 4 years. GM and Chrysler (and Ford) need their labor costs well below Toyota’s for a number of years just to dig out.

Looking at the other side of their businesses, my brother-in-law recently made an interesting observation. In our metro area we have 7 Toyota dealers (including Lexus) and 28 GM dealers. Based on this an average Toyota dealer sells and services about 5 times as many vehicles as the average GM dealer. Which dealer network will be the healthiest and which will be able to provide the best service? Ford touts a cut of 16% in their dealer network and GM a planned reduction of 35%. Perhaps it should be more like 50-75%.

Finally, and more importantly, we need to look at the BIGGER picture. If any of THE BIG 3 US manufacturers fails it will not be the death of the US auto industry. Even if all 3 of them were to fail it wouldn’t be. We can’t forget about the new THE BIG 3 – Tesla, Fisker, and Miles.

The new THE BIG 3 are, by all appearances, well ahead of the old THE BIG 3 when it comes to newer and alternative energy vehicles. The new THE BIG 3 also appear to be far more efficiently run and better managed than the old THE BIG 3. If GM or Chrysler fails the new THE BIG 3 will take up some of the slack on the employment side. Much as the old THE BIG 3 took up slack from the original THE BIG 3 – horseshoe, saddle, and buggy makers. And many of the workers displaced from GM or Chrysler will start other new companies.

Let’s not forget that while the old THE BIG 3 can’t sell their vehicles, both Tesla and Toyota can’t keep up with demand for their electric and hybrid products.

The same investors who rightly fear putting any money in to the old THE BIG 3 are investing in the new THE BIG 3 as well as a number of growing competitors such as Phoenix, Commuter Cars, e-ride, Wrightspeed, Venturi, Lightning, ZAP, Think, AC Propulsion, and others. Half of these companies are on par with the old THE BIG 3 with development of electric and electric/hybrid, and the other half are way ahead!

While very few of us will be going out and buying an all electric vehicle from one of these companies next year, we very well may within the next 3 to 5 years. We’ll still buy a Toyota or Ford as our primary family car but our second may very well be an all electric or electric/hybrid from one of these up and coming companies.

Is it really rational to think that dinosaurs like GM or Chrysler will be able to compete with these companies that are not only already well ahead but also smaller, more nimble, and more efficient? If GM and Chrysler are allowed a natural death we may well find that instead of 3 declining US auto manufacturers who only get further and further behind the rest of the world, we end up with half a dozen who are leading the world. We could very well find ourselves once again at the forefront.

What will congress do? I think they all know that funding the old declining US auto industry is a no-win proposition and, except for those in Michigan and Ohio, will find it politically unpalatable. If any of the 3 fail their opponents will paint them as having wasted billions of taxpayer dollars on a failing industry. Even if all 3 survive, which is extremely unlikely, they will get painted as having bailed out a bunch of union workers who make nearly twice the US average and who, instead of reducing their own wages to save their own jobs and companies, demanded that taxpayers, most of whom make less than they do, bail them out.

Not a pretty picture. The average union worker will loudly tout how they supported the government bailout of the auto unions but will vote in private against those in Congress who took money from them to pay people making much more.

Edit: The auto companies and their supporters throw out a lot of numbers about how many people will loose jobs if any of them go under. We must keep in mind that a chunk of these people will loose their jobs anyway. Even if all 3 companies survive.

Edit 2: Neil Cavuto on Foxnews made an interesting point today that when AMC was in trouble and openly being shopped around before going under that people kept buying cars and Jeeps from them. EG, going through chapter 11 shouldn't stop consumers from buying cars.

We need unions. And $25 billion to pay them.

NY Senator Chuck Schumer, in response to questions about his support for union card check legislation, said 3 weeks ago that union membership in the US is down and that card check is needed to increase union membership. Firstly, union membership itself isn’t a goal. Why should it be? Employees ARE NOT voting unions in because the employees don’t believe the unions will benefit them. Card Check, BTW, replaces secret ballot elections by employees for unionization with a union only needing a majority of employees signing cards – and the cards are not secret. “Hey Brutus, Jeff over here would like you to encourage him to sign his card.”

There are 2 factors that have harmed US auto manufacturers and neither one is the economy. One is that they have not produced the cars that consumers want, either in design or quality. The biggest factor though is union wages, rules, and pensions. A union company forced to pay it’s workers $73.26/hr in wages and benefits cannot compete with a non-union company paying $53.20/hr. But that’s not all. A union company forced to pay workers even when they are not working cannot compete with non-union companies who pay employees for actual work performed.

This past Saturday United Auto Workers president Ron Gettelfinger said that workers will not make any more concessions and that getting the automakers back on their feet means figuring out a way to turn around the slumping economy. In other words, we want to continue to make 50% more than other auto workers and we want taxpayers to give us money to do that.

Talk about spreading the wealth. It will be the taxes of an autoworker at the BMW plant in Spartanburg, SC making $59,000 per year that will pay for the Chrysler autoworker to make $81,000 per year.

And get this. That BMW X5 or X6 that the Spartanburg autoworker makes? About every other one is shipped to Europe. If you purchase a X5 or X6 in Germany, it’s made in Spartanburg. Today Germany has an unemployment rate of about 10%, almost twice that of ours in the US. You’d think with that many available workers it’d be better to make them in their home country of Germany. But you’d be wrong. Hiring a worker in Germany is like hiring a union worker in the US. So, it’s a few thousand folks in Spartanburg, SC who get the non-union BMW jobs which come with an average $59,000 in wages plus health, pension, and other benefits. The effectively unionized German workers get... Nothing.

Vienna Coffee Cafés

This past week I got to spend several days in Vienna and Budapest with my son. Great conversation, great coffee, great food, great photographic subjects. Ah, I’m ready to go back.

In very brief research before going (we only decided a few days beforehand) one thing became apparent – Vienna is Coffee Café heaven. Everything written about visiting Vienna included a comment on making sure to visit one of their café’s. Given that I spend several hours almost every day with my laptop in some café somewhere in the world, this sounded like my kind of place.

What makes the Viennese café’s so special?

At the very top of the list is the overall atmosphere. Unlike the average coffee café in the US, the ones in Europe and in particular those in Vienna are quiet. Even with 30 people and a dozen conversations it’s quiet. I was heartened when in one café a group of 3 people began talking somewhat loudly and several people began giving them ‘the look’. They quieted down. When they’d become louder again about 30 minutes later and weren’t seeming to notice the looks of others, a waiter told them to either quiet down or leave. Yes, my kind of place. Surprisingly the offending group wasn’t a bunch of Americans, who are the usual loud and obnoxious offenders of decorum, but a group of Italians.

Interestingly, as I’m writing this, it’s the employees in this US coffee café who are the most offensively loud, not the patrons.

Next on the list is quality. At least at the café’s we were able to visit, the quality of their coffee drinks and rather fattening pastries* was extremely high. The Viennese know how to do it right. While the average high school kid can become a barista in Starbucks in a few hours, in Vienna it takes months and sometimes years.

Aside from Starbucks and CoffeeHeaven, Viennese café’s all have table side service - and very excellent service at that**.

Many of the café’s, particularly the newer ones, take in to account laptop users and provide numerous places for users that allow for privacy, don’t have window glare in front or behind, and often convenient power.

Finally, they take it seriously. From drinks to décor to cleanliness to atmosphere the owners and employees make their patrons and a quality experience in every way their top priority.

Next spring in Vienna sounds good to me!

* Austria is one European country where food portions are huge.

** A very interesting difference in the US and Europe is the general quality of wait staff in all kinds of eateries. In Europe they take good service seriously and for many men it is a career. In the US we treat it as nothing but a stepping stone to something else with many wait staff actually quit incompetent.

Physics: The Trajectory of Water

Gravity and trajectory are interesting things. Normally water drops straight down towards the earth. That's what we expect it to do. When we turn on a faucet we expect the water to come out of the faucet into the sink below. If however, the sprayer is in it's holder and locked on, water may actually defy gravity. You turn the water on to fill your teapot and instead of the water obeying gravity it comes out of the sprayer with great force. Much of it doesn't fully obey gravity until it hits some other object such as a range, cabinet, oven, microwave or similar unobstructable element of our world. And that water moving with such great force across space can find even the smallest of gaps - namely what was previously thought to be a tiny gap between pantry doors hiding all forms of canned goods.

Our brains are interesting things too. Realization, resolution, and action don't happen all that fast. Yes brain, there is water moving at great force across space. Pause Yes, turning the water off will be a good idea. Pause. OK, as the Nike commercial says, let's just do it.

The island remained dry however, my body saved it from the fate of other cabinets.

San Fran’s Prop K: A Very Bad Short-Sighted Idea ?

Most people who know me will be very surprised that I don’t support SF’s Prop K. This is the bill that many claim will decriminalize prostitution in San Francisco and anyone who knows me knows that I’m a fairly strong proponent of that. So why do I believe Prop K is short-sighted?

Prop K doesn’t actually decriminalize prostitution. It will be a city law and laws against prostitution are state laws. What Prop K does is say that the City cannot spend any money enforcing the state prostitution laws. It prevents city police from arresting anyone for prostitution. It does not, in any way, limit the city from investigating, arresting, and prosecuting people for crimes such as human trafficking or underage prostitution. So far, so good.

With Prop K someone can establish a brothel anywhere in the city they want. They can put up any signage they want. Streetwalkers will be able to ply their wares on any corner or in front of any store.

I’m all for ending our wars on prostitution. SF spent between $2.8 and $11 million last year enforcing prostitution laws and yet they have just as much prostitution as any other city. Civil prohibitions against personal vice are simply not realistically enforceable, no matter how much money we spend. As Steven Levitt noted in his 2007 draft paper on prostitution – “A prostitute is more likely to have sex with a police officer than to get officially arrested by one.” Our laws don’t reduce activity, they only drive it underground which makes life that much easier for human traffickers to enslave women of all ages and makes things that much more dangerous for the prostitutes and their clients. And the list goes on and on.

Our war on prostitution causes far more problems than the original problem it was intended to solve.

However, I’m also a proponent of limited (VERY LIMITED) regulation. I have no problem with sex workers who provide outcall services going anywhere in the city to meet a client. A brothel next to a school or streetwalkers on any corner is another matter. Not just for me, but for most people in San Francisco. With legal prostitution cities need to be able to, within reason, regulate where businesses are located. They need to be able to establish zones where indoor brothels or red light windows can be located and what kind of advertising they may post on the outside of their buildings. They need to be able to limit where streetwalkers may ply their trade.

Prop K may not allow this. Depending on one’s reading of the laws it may be impossible to establish any zoning under Prop K.

Here’s what I fear will happen. The average San Francisco sexworker is not a wallflower. Just watch many of the annual parades with Scarlet Harlot and her entourage if you don’t believe me. With no boundaries they will go wherever they want and do whatever they want to get attention and make money. If I were them I’d do the same. That’s the point. Find as many potential customers as possible so you have the greatest choice of who you service and can make the most money with the fewest hassles.

Many people who support decriminalization will find a brothel across from their favorite kids store or streetwalkers in front of their favorite café. “This isn’t what I signed up for.” They’ll say. The political types in city hall will start getting engulfed in complaints.

Now, the average politicians way of dealing with things is brash and trash. Nuance is not their strong suit. While a good option at this point would be very moderate regulation, they’ll instead pontificate on the need to reverse Prop K. Instead of finding a way to establish some reasonable zones for brothels, windows, and streetworkers, they’ll go full throttle back to the current failed attempts at civil enforcement of prostitution laws. Instead of a proposition on the 2011 ballot to allow the moderate regulation that Prop K doesn’t allow, expect a proposition to abolish Prop K. And it will likely pass with a large margin.

And you know what, prostitution won’t go down any, but complaints will. The bulk of prostitution will go back underground and streetworkers will re-congregate to ‘safer’ areas. People will be less likely to complain about it, even when they see it near their favorite café, if they just think the cops are doing something about it, than if not.

After this it could be 50 years before anyone can even think of decriminalizing prostitution again in San Francisco. And worse, anytime decrim is brought up anywhere else, all the opponents will need to do is point to the failed decriminalization in San Francisco of 2008 and the battle will be done.

Is Raising Taxes on the Rich really Bad?

There is a lot of focus on raising taxes on the rich, corporations, and small-businesses and giving tax cuts to the middle-class. Do these really matter?

Think about this:

If I raise taxes on a big corporation like Target what will they do? First, they’ll increase the cost of the goods they sell by a little more than that amount. You and I will pay more for everything we purchase and probably buy a bit less. Since they’ll sell less they’ll also lay off a few people, not very many, but a few. The layoffs and price increases will hardly be noticeable.

If I raise taxes on those who make over $150k or $200k, or $250k what happens? Realistically the companies they work for will, over time, increase their salary by enough to make up the difference. In order to attract someone to do a more difficult job the relative increase in their take-home must make it worthwhile for them. This increase will also find it’s way in to the cost of the products they sell and yep, you guessed it, you and I will pay more, buy less, company will lay off a few people, etc.

If I then give the middle class a tax cut what happens? Will the companies they work for give them lower wage increases over the next few years? Relative to those who’ve had their tax burden increase, you betcha. Even without the lesser wage increases will that tax cut be enough to make up for the increased cost of goods because of the higher prices from the tax increases above?

Guess what, this is kind of a zero sum game. How you spread the tax burden has little real impact on individual’s daily lives. A free economy will eventually work it out so everyone maintains about the same relative spending power.

The key is that phrase Tax Burden. The more money that is taken out of the economy by government for government programs, the worse off everyone is. It’s not really born more by the rich or by big bad corporations or by the middle-class. It’s born by everyone. Every single dollar of additional government spending negatively impacts each and every single person who earns their own way in this world.

Any focus on how the burden is spread is nothing but a smoke screen. It only hides increases in government spending. “Hey middle-class, we’re going to take $200 less from you and instead take $400 more from those terrible corporations and wealthy folk and then use that extra $200 for government programs.” Sounds good doesn’t it? What nobody mentions is that the cost of goods will go up by $400 so the middle class is actually less well off by $200.

In the end, any increase in government spending impacts everyone. The person who makes $45k per year may take home $1k more but will also find that stuff they want to buy has increased by $3k so they actually have $2k less to spend. There goes that flat-screen TV or Disneyworld vacation. But hey, we got tax break and a government program in the trade!

California Teachers Assoc gives $1m to fight marriage amendment.

Sort of old news by today, but thought I’d bring it up anyway. The California Teachers Association has give over $1 million this year to fight California’s Prop 8. In other words, they’ve spent over a million bucks of already underpaid teachers money to prevent the state of California from defining marriage as only between a man and a woman. And this has what to do with the average teacher or with educating our children?

Obama endorses Bill Ayers book on CPS

Oops, according to this on Foxnews there is yet one more previously unknown element to Obama's relationship to William Ayers. This book BTW, endorses some of the same government agencies and tactics as were involved in the raid on the YFZ ranch. If I remember correctly, Rozita Swinton, who made the false claims against the FLDS (and who has still not been charged for filing a false report) was an Obama delegate from Colorado Springs. I'm not in to conspiracy theories, but this is interesting.

Update: Not a bad deal for Ayers. In the past 6 hours this book has jumped from #51,021 on Amazon to #6,710.

Vote - Or Else!

The Tennessee Tribune is publishing lists of people who don't vote. Is this a good idea? Will forcing people to vote, people who likely have little interest in an election and thus know little or nothing about the candidates, improve our country? Will the knowledge that they WILL be voting, voluntarily of course, encourage them to take an interest and learn more about the candidates or will they just vote according to who their neighbors or the Tennessee Tribune supports?

Media: This ACORN Too Hot to Handle

Everyone in the Media has some political bias. Even if not a favorite candidate, at least strong preferences on some issues. It’s part of being human. Even the most unbiased reporter will be biased to some extent on some issues. It’s going to happen. The question is how much and to what extent it will be admitted.

During this election we’ve seen what is perhaps an unprecedented level bias and of kid gloves treatment of a candidate - Barack Obama. From an overtly racist, hate-filled, and conspiracy theory worshiping pastor to a close friend who to this day has no qualms about bombing innocent judges homes or even the Pentagon. From questions about his citizenship to an unusually very high number of illegal and questionable campaign contributions, many in the liberal side of the media have soldiered on. They’ve ignored or soft-pedaled issues and helped cover flip-flops on everything from accepting public financing to meeting with terrorists with no pre-conditions.

ACORN is apparently proving too much. Whether too much in itself or just the straw that broke the camels back, some in the normally liberal leaning media are backing off on their preferential treatment of Obama. The cost has risen too high. Individually each of the other issues could be explained away. Obama didn’t know Bill Ayers had been a terrorist and still harbored terrorist views. Obama only heard good sermons from Rev. Wright, never any of the hate filled racist diatribes he was so well-known for. Obama had no idea the church’s mission statement was racist. Questions about Obama’s having been born in Kenya and receiving Kenyan citizenship or having later become an Indonesian citizen are just the rantings of a crazed lunatic (and they may well be), nothing for serious media folks to be concerned with or investigate.

ACORN can’t be explained away so easily. Questions of voter fraud have trailed them for several years and across several states. They’ve had a reputation. Obama was an attorney for them. His campaign gave their associated organization nearly a million dollars this spring for get out the vote efforts. There is no way Obama couldn’t have known their history. No plausible deniability here. At a minimum they were a known very questionable organization for a presidential candidate to be involved with and give so much money to. The very best that can come out of this one is some extremely poor decisions on Obama’s part. Decisions that question both his decision-making and integrity. But this time, the best case is unlikely.

Expect a lot less soft-pedaling on this one after today.

Mark of the Beast: DOW down 666

I don't dare comment further...

Little Illegal House on the Prairie ?

On the other side of the river from The Naomi Center and about 10 miles from the Republican National Convention sits the Guthrie Theatre, one of the more highly regarded performing arts companies in the US. We were there to see Little House on the Prairie with Melissa Gilbert staring as ‘Ma’ Ingalls.

This production was really outstanding, entertaining, and funny. I cannot recommend it highly enough. Well, except for one disturbing issue - the family values it espouses.

Little House on the Prairie has poor family values? This stage performance must be a gross distortion of the books and TV series right?

It unfortunately does have poor family values. And so to the books and TV series. Worse, it celebrates these poor family values. In the play, as in real life, when Laura Ingalls is 15 she begins a courtship with Almanzo Wilder who in the book is 24. Statutory rape? Well, we don’t really know what happened during the courtship, but they did marry when Laura was 16 and Almanzo 26, an act that would constitute rape in a number of US states today. (in real life Laura was 17 and Almanzo 28, not sure why the apparent change in ages and 8 year shift in time for the books).

The bigger problem though is what happens to Laura’s friends. In the play one girl gets married when she’s “just barely 14.” I haven’t read any of the books, but have talked to a few people who have read them and did a bit of research. There are a number of instances of what today is prosecuted as statutory rape. Girls under 16 getting married and presumably having sex with men several years older. Worse, the girls parents approve of the rape, thus becoming accomplices in the rape of their own daughters.

Should today’s parents allow their children to read books or watch movies that celebrate what we now know is rape? Books that condone and celebrate parents encouraging the rape of their daughters?

I am strongly against general censorship by government, but I do believe that as parents we should be cautious of what our children read and watch on TV. Books that celebrate rape are just not appropriate for children. Along with banning the Little House series from our schools and homes we should look at a number of other books and video’s with similar rapes such as Anne of Green Gables, Little Women, and the Love Comes Softly series.

And it’s not just the rapes in these books, but other values such as Anne Shirley’s teen fling with the pervert Morgan who is more than old enough to be her father.

A final thought. As we were leaving the Guthrie and walking by the stage door I noticed a key performer leaving and walking down the street hand in hand with his boyfriend. I wonder if he realized the irony of playing a character who was considered normal and acceptable in Little House on the Prairie but today would be considered a pervert and prosecuted as a rapist, while in his real life he is today considered normal and acceptable, but would have been labeled a pervert and prosecuted for sodomy if he’d lived in Little House on the Prairie.

Muslims, Gays, and Subprime Opportunities

The subprime mortgage foreclosure crisis has presented a very unique opportunity that two groups across the nation are taking major advantage of.

The ‘crisis’ came about primarily because Fannie and Freddie relaxed their qualifications for obtaining a mortgage. People who 10 years ago would not have qualified (because they had no down payment and didn’t have sufficient income and job history), have been able to qualify under the new relaxed rules. Lower end neighborhoods across the country were flooded with these ‘subprime’ borrowers over the past few years. All of these people suddenly able to get loans (that we now know many could not afford) and becoming home buyers drove prices up in marginal neighborhoods and people who previously had no interest in selling suddenly were being offered enough money that selling became appealing.

Neighborhoods that were once relatively stable became filled with subprime borrowers who couldn’t make their payments and were foreclosed on. This resulting in entire neighborhoods with sometimes 50% or more of the homes on the market all at once and many for very low prices.

Muslims wasted little time with this opportunity. In some cases local mosques informally coordinate the selection of target neighborhoods for families to begin buying in to. In other cases a more formal representation group has worked with local housing authorities to assist with Muslims buying numbers of houses within a defined area.

GLBT folks were a bit slow but are quickly catching up. In some cities they’re hosting day long open house events in neighborhoods with realtors and housing authorities. All of the available properties are open for inspection and in many cases local GLBT groups or others provide wine and cheese to make it a truly enjoyable event.

Our Unrealistic Idealistic Vision

Democrats belief and confidence in what government can accomplish truly amazes me. They have an unbelievably unrealistic idealistic view of government ability. It can rescue people from the depths of poverty, rehabilitate juvenile delinquents, provide complete health care to every living person, and make life all happy and rosy.

Republicans, rightly so, criticize them up one side and down the other for these foolish beliefs. Decade after decade, generation after generation, POTUS after POTUS, we see pretty much the same results from government social programs - nothing. And when we do see results it turns out it’s not the government after all, but individuals stepping up to the plate and doing it on their own. Of course in his speech this morning Barack Obama said we don’t need anymore of this “on your own” stuff.

There is certainly a need for some government social programs. A safety net to help people out for a brief period when they’re out of work is, in my opinion, a worthwhile benefit. But year after year and generation after generation of welfare isn’t good for anyone.

Young children need and deserve an extra helping hand if their parents aren’t in a position to fully care for them. Besides basic things like food and shelter, they need someone to walk along beside them, teach them basic life skills that their parents may not, help them with their homework, and maybe even just be someone to talk to occasionally. In most cases our governments have shown themselves completely inept in doing any of these things successfully. And I don’t really blame government because it’s simply not possible for any kind of government to succeed in the world of social programs.

This is an arena far better addressed by private charities that receive no government subsidies. Organizations that have people working for them who have a real passion for what they’re doing. Organizations that can fit their services to the local community and that allow people to choose who they want to help them. Some might choose a Christian organization, some Catholic, some Muslim, some Secular, some Hindu.

And you know what, some kids will fall through the cracks. And there will be calls for government programs to take up the slack. And we’ll be right back where we are today - with a greater number of kids in need than ever. Do we want hundreds of kids falling through the cracks of non-government programs or tens of thousands falling through the cracks of government programs?

When it comes to helping women learn to take care of their kids, learn job skills, and basically get up on their feet, there are numerous options. The best I’ve seen, the one who has one of the highest success rates in the country and is praised by people from sea to sea, is just about 5 blocks from where the Republican National Convention was held in St Paul last week. The Naomi Center is a privately funded organization that has had huge success working with women one on one to learn everything from the most basic cooking, cleaning, and homemaking skills to fairly advanced computer skills that will help them get a job.

One key to their success is the dependence they place on the women themselves. The women have to want to live there (with their children), they have to want to work hard, and they have to actually work hard. Otherwise they’re not admitted to the program. And if they don’t hold up their end of the bargain during the program? Their slot is given to someone who does want to be there enough to work at it.

The Republicans 5 blocks away don’t get a pass though. They have an even more unrealistic idealistic view of what government can accomplish. They generally do have a slightly more realistic view of government’s inability with regard to social welfare programs. It’s other social programs where they’re misled.

While Democrats just want to spend our money with wasteful government programs, the Republicans want to spend our money and throw us in jail with wasteful government programs. The Democrats programs are at least geared, on the surface anyway, towards helping people. I believe they do far more harm to the people they purport to help than actually help them, but that’s another issue. Government is simply not good at being social.

The Republicans (and some Democrats) believe that not just monetary programs, but also throwing people in prison, is the answer to many of our social problems. They think that throwing people in jail will solve our Alcohol Abuse, Drug Abuse, Prostitution, and Gambling problems. All problems that are just as bad today as they’ve ever been. Despite billions spent on them annually and thousands upon thousands arrested.

So while out of one side of their mouths Republicans scream at Democrats that government cannot solve social problems, out of the other side of their mouths they’re screaming that government can solve social problems. Which is it?

Guess what? Government equally screws up with all of them. These are all personal issues that need personal solutions. Someone has to decide that they want to free themselves from drugs or that they want to work their way out of poverty or that they want to stop drinking or that they want to get an education or that they want to stop working as a prostitute (note 1) or that they want to stop gambling.

Until someone decides this for themselves there’s little or nothing that any program can do for them, least of all an impersonal government program. And for those who do want help a private drug addiction or other program is likely a far better option than any government program run by bureaucrats.

It’s easy to foist our problems off on government. To think that government can solve these problems. It can’t. It has never solved any social problem nor even lessened any of them. The sooner we realize this and the sooner we put our resources towards private programs that actually work, the sooner we’ll begin to see some improvement.


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Note 1: While Melissa Farley and others like to scream that all women in prostitution are doing so against their will, reality doesn’t agree. By most estimates about 96% of US prostitutes are working in the industry of their own choice. One area where this is indicated is in prostitution legalization organizations, such as SWOPUSA.org, that are ALL run by prostitutes. You just don’t see people who are enslaved running slavery legalization organizations or victims of rape fighting for the legalization of rape. Now, this still leaves 4% of US prostitutes as victims, forced against their will. It IS governments place to criminalize, arrest, prosecute, and punish the scumbags who enslave others. The problem is that by focusing on the entire industry, over 90% of our resources are targeting consensual adult prostitution while likely less than 1% or 2% actually goes towards helping those who are victims of slavery. This is not a recipe for success. Government and Law Enforcement need to focus on those who need (and want) help getting free from criminal slavery.

Teen Marriage: Who's Right - God? Or Us?

The following is a very unfinished thought and even more an unfinished manuscript. It’s a work in progress on both levels. Read at your own risk.

There’s an interesting disconnect playing out across our land about age, sex, and marriage.

Through the first few hundred years of our country, up until sometime in the past century, we didn’t have major national issues of unwed mothers or STD’s. There were, to be sure, some of each, but not so many that there were huge concerns. These were footnotes, not major issues.

How quickly things change. Today, Disney can’t seem to find a wholesome teen girl anywhere. If it’s not Vanessa or Miley posing for nude pictures and sending them to friends (and thus the entire internet), it’s their 16-year-old star Jamie Lynn Spears getting pregnant out of wedlock. Then we find out that John McCain’s pick for VP has a 17-year-old daughter who’s 5 months pregnant.

Just over 60% of our high school seniors are sexually active and according to the CDC about 25% of our high school girls have an STD. 76% of sexually active US teens have had at least 2 sexual partners. And this in a supposed highly moral monogamous society.

In middle schools across the country girls are finding that taking nude or panty pics of themselves and emailing them to boyfriends and others is not just fun but an excellent way of getting the attention that so many of them seem to crave. Sometimes far more attention, from tens of thousands of men on the internet, than they’d intended.

Do Christians fair any better than non-Christians? Only marginally. Sarah Palin’s family are members of an Assembly of God church and I think that just about any high school student who’s involved in a church youth group can tell you that her 17-year-old daughter is not an anomaly, at least with regard to being sexually active. Don’t think you’re any better if you’re Baptist, Methodist, Willow Creek, Saddleback, or Lakewood. See the chart above.

Why can’t all our teens just keep their pants on?

Then down in Texas we have that group of strange dressing folks with the funny hairstyles out on the ranch. They likely have about the same number of sexually active teen girls as our Christian youth groups (or lower for 13, 14, and 15 year olds) The difference? While the average teen girl in the US is having sex with multiple guys and isn’t married to any of them (and most of these guys probably aren’t anywhere close to ready for marriage anyway), a sexually active teen girl in the FLDS is likely married to the father - who will stay with her and support her and her baby for life. And these are the ones we’re throwing in jail.

It’s God’s Fault

After all, he made us this way didn’t he?

Generally girls enter puberty in their early teens and guys anywhere from early to mid teens. By design our bodies, physically and mentally, are screaming “time for sex”. Did God screw up? Should he have designed us to not reach puberty and get all of these sexual desires until we’re 23 instead of 13?

For centuries, all of history in fact, these were pretty much non-issues. At least among the common folk. Girls got married at about 14 to a guy old enough to support and care for her and their children. Our actions were generally in line with how we were designed. Sure, there were problems, but apparently nothing even remotely like what we’re seeing today.

Over the past 100 years we’ve seen dramatic changes in our society. One that has had an especially dramatic impact on marriage is the time required to get an education before beginning any kind of career. For an ever growing number of us this is not just until we complete high school at 18, but includes university at 22, grad school at 25 or medical school at 30. This, combined with other issues, has driven up the average age of marriage a bit.

We’ve followed up on these changes by instituting a number of new laws and social norms over the past 50 years regarding age, marriage, and sex for everyone. All with good intentions. We began by saying that nobody under 12 or 13 could legally get married. No problem there. Over the past few years though we’ve slowly increased this minimum legal age to 17 in most states. At the same time we’ve developed this societal expectation that getting married under about 20 is ‘just not right’.

Then we decided that a guy being too much older than the girl was ‘just not right’. This led to a major shift in societal norms regarding the age difference of partners. Norms that had existed for thousands of years. We began to view an age difference of more than 3 or 4 years as abnormal. Then we instituted this in various laws criminalizing a relationship with more than 2 or 3 years age difference. In other words, if you’re going to make a baby just don’t do it with anyone old enough to be in a position to actually take some responsibility for her (note 1).

Have we in effect criminalized what God designed?

It’s like God is saying “I designed you this way and that worked well for a few thousand years, but now you want to do things differently and, well, it’s not working so well is it?”

A solvable problem?

If the question is, can we stop teen aged folks from having sex? I don’t think so.

If God designed us this way, there’s likely little we can do about it. This is wholly different than acting on a sinful desire to gossip, steal a car, gorge ourselves on cream cheese wontons, get drunk, or kill our neighbor. A 15-year-old girl having sex with her 22-year-old boyfriend is acting on a desire given them by God.

For the Bible believers out there, the Bible does not set unrealistic expectations for us and is actually quite practical. It says that if you can’t control your sexual desires, then marry the girl and quench your thirst.

Of course, we make that illegal and then wonder why we have so many problems with teen sex, STD’s, and pregnancy.

Not a popular opinion perhaps, but it is what it is. Nobody ever said God set out to be popular.

Every person is different. Some have lesser sex drives than others and some have more self-control than others. Some have a huge desire to get married or have sex, others focus is so much on other things like education or careers that sex and marriage are hardly a blip in their heads. And there are a boatload scattered throughout the middle. There are people with no sex drive and high self-control, others with high sex drive and no self-control, and others with massive sex drives and massive self-discipline - just not quite enough self-discipline in some cases.

Many have enough self discipline that they can hold off for a year or two. But the prospect of waiting 10 years?

What would happen if, instead of trying to fit everyone in to the same mold, we allowed for the differences in people and perhaps even encouraged some level of responsibility with regard to sex? If we reverted back to traditional laws of a minimum marriage age of 12 or 13 with those younger than 17 needing a parents approval. Maybe even require that one partner be over 17. You know, place responsibility back on the parents for raising children instead of on the state. Let parents who actually know those involved decide if someone is too old or too young or if the guy is a schmuck or if a 25-year-old guy getting a good start on his career will be a good husband to their 15-year-old daughter.

And then at a societal level changed our mindset from everyone waiting to get married until their twenties (and having indiscriminant sex with a variety of people until then) to allowing people to marry when they desired, even if that was 15. And then did away with our newfound fear of a 6 or 8 or whatever age difference. But at the same time strongly encouraged good choice in mates and above all, supported the newly married couple. Helped them complete their education and get settled in their careers.

Before we began instituting all of these laws and societal norms about minimum marriage ages and requiring partners to be close in age we had a bunch of problems. But did those problems even compare to the problems we have today?

Might going back to traditional laws and norms discourage the high numbers of multiple sexual partners we’re seeing in the US today? This would certainly help the STD situation. And while a husband having had multiple previous partners seems to hold only marginal negativity, at best, for his wife, the same is not true the other way. Might a higher number of girls limiting their sexual partners to just their husbands or future husbands have an impact on reducing our extremely high divorce rates?

Instead of encouraging no responsibility like we do today, might this encourage more responsible behavior?

By saying all of this I don’t think that we should stop encouraging people to wait until their twenties. If they can. That’s still probably best for most. At the same time, if they’re going to have sex and make babies anyway, let’s encourage as healthy an environment as we can.

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Note 1: Europe, with less than half the divorce rate of the US, one-fourth the unwed teen pregnancies, and one-third the abortion rate, is just the opposite. Instead of requiring partners to be close in age, society tends to favor the guy being somewhat older. Even in their laws, instead of requiring a close age as we do, they require that one partner be over 18, regardless of the age of the other partner.

Note: The chart above is comprised of averaging data from the CDC, Kaiser Family Foundation, and Guttmacher Institute. Some additional notes:

- 18% of US teens have had at least 4 sexual partners. 5 times that of Europe.

- 8% of a teen females had consensual sex with partners at least 6 years older. One third that of Europe and Asia.

- Teen sexual activity is highest among blacks, second highest among Hispanics, and lowest among whites.

- College bound students of any ethnicity are much less likely to be sexually active than non college bound students, in particular among college bound females.

- 8% of US teens between 15 and 19 become pregnant each year (13% of Blacks/Hispanics, 5% of Whites) with 30% ending in abortion.

- The US teen abortion rate is 3 times that of Europe.

- Teens girls in Europe are 5 times more likely to have a single sex partner and 4 times more likely to marry that partner than US teens. Europe has less than one half the divorce rate as the US.

Earmarks

John McCain stands as a vocal critic of wasteful government spending. In particular he’s decried the earmark system.

Sarah Palin, on the other hand, perhaps not so much. As Mayor of Wasilla she didn’t fight against earmarks, but fought for them, about $27 million of them. Yet, she says that she’s against earmarks.

Typical political double-speak? More of the same politics we’ve come to love and adore? Say one thing, do another?

As Mayor of Wasilla should Palin have stood on ideological belief and turned down federal money that could help her community? The very community that she’d been elected to help?

Well, there’s even more. The money wasn’t just freely offered. Palin actively sought it. She hired a lobbying firm in Washington DC to lobby congress for the money. Does that sound like someone who’s against earmarks?

She certainly could have done nothing. Apparently no Wasilla mayor before her had ever lobbied congress for money. There was no requirement for her to do so. And, why didn’t Wasilla pay for these projects themselves?

Could the problem be that the federal government had already taken the money of the good people of Wasilla and Palin simply wanted it back?

Every year the federal government takes a bunch of money from us, through the income tax system and through corporate taxes.

If I make bicycles I have to pay a percentage of my corporate income to the federal government. So, when I sell you a bike I have to add a hundred dollars or so to the price to cover these taxes. If you pay $300 for a video game, NOT including any taxes added on, consider that about $50 of that goes to the federal government. The manufacturer, distributor, and retailer all have to pay corporate taxes to the federal government. As do all of their suppliers such as the trucking company that brought it to the store and the janitorial company that cleans the store every night.

Now, some of this money goes to legitimate federal government activities such as national defense. Some of it though, an estimated 40%, is given back to us (the states, counties, and cities) through redistribution. Redistribution though is expensive. It takes a lot of people to manage a system like this. Efficient it’s not. So rather than a dollar being taken from us and then given back to us, a dollar is taken from us, 40 cents is lopped off the top to cover the costs of taking it, giving it back, and monitoring our use of it, and so at best maybe 60 cents actually gets used for any real benefit.

Benefit? Yeah, me too. Rather than us deciding locally what we want to do with our money and how it will serve us best, a bunch of folks a few thousand miles away and who have probably never set foot in our community are deciding for us. Worse, they may not give any of it back to us, instead giving a double or triple portion to someone else.

So, the sad fact is, the federal government has already taken our money and one of the best ways to get it back is through the earmark system. It is the system that is in place. It’s ugly. It’s inefficient. It’s wasteful. It doesn’t serve us. But – It is.

Is a mayor of Wasilla, Alaska really in a position to do anything to change the system? Should she have stood by and let others get their money back and not fought to get the money back that the people of Wasilla had had taken from them? Just let that money go to someone else for a midnight basketball program?

Did the citizens of Wasilla elect her to fight the myriad of problems of our federal government or was she elected to, within the system currently in place, help make Wasilla the place that the residents wanted it to be? Is it double-speak to use the accepted system currently in place when you're under it, but to turn around and scrap it when you're in a position to do so?

In addition to the earmarks themselves, one question that may need to be addressed is if there was anything inappropriate in Palin's hiring of the lobby firm, namely, were there any kickbacks to members of congress or others in return for getting Wasilla all of those nice funds.

Palin Daughter Pregnancy - Some Perspective...

People across the net are all atwitter over the revelation that Sarah Palin's 17-year-old daughter is pregnant, plans to marry the father, and raise the child.

Not that long ago this would have been not much more than a footnote in the campaign rather than major news story. In the past few decades we've elevated our societal piousness to unprecedented levels. We've taken what was normal for centuries and millenniums and made it abnormal. I encourage anyone reading this to check your own family genealogy before deciding to be too critical of Palin. You are very likely to find that many of your very own ancestors first children were born less than 9 months from when they were married and that many were 17 or younger.

When I was growing up we referred to these as shotgun weddings. The reality was that shotguns were rarely involved, though the look in dad's eyes towards his new son-in-law could likely do more damage than buckshot. The deathly looks over, both families generally came together and pitched in to help the new couple prepare for and then raise their new child. And these scenes have never been limited to the mountain folks in Appalachia, but cut across every societal, racial, and geographic boundary. YOU and I, my dear reader, are very likely the products of many such events.

And oh my if this had happened in Texas...

Palin vs Obama

There is much that is very interesting about McCain's selection of Sarah Palin. She hunts moose, runs marathons. and takes on corrupt politicians in her own party. If she were a man she'd be a man's man. When it comes to macho she outmans both Obama and Biden.

What I'm finding perhaps the most interesting though is that she is most often being compared, not to her VP rival Joe Biden, but to the leader of the Democratic ticket - Barack Obama. Everyone is talking about who between Obama and Palin has the most pertinent experience. Which one of these two is most prepared to be Commander-In-Chief? Does Obama or Palin have the best understanding of our economy? Does Palin or Obama have the better grasp of our energy situation? If we face another terror incident do we want Obama or Palin calling the shots?

Sarah Palin isn't being compared to Joe Biden and Obama supporters don't want to compare Obama to John McCain. Everyone wants to compare Obama to Palin. What does this say about the two tickets?

FLDS: Non Traditional Marriage Ages?

There is a lot of angst among many people about the ‘untraditional marriages’ of the FLDS and in particular the age of some brides. As I’ve mentioned earlier, for those who study history the FLDS marriages not only don’t seem unusual, but are actually quite normal. Historically anyway. Following are some things to help put this in to better perspective and as a follow-up to this post that discussed this issue.

For those who are interested in additional information on this I’d strongly recommend reading ‘Marriage, A History’ by Stephanie Coontz.

Quick Disclaimer: I do not believe that in today’s culture it is advisable for anyone to marry younger than 18. On the other hand, I do not believe that government interference, particularly in the case of a sub-culture such as the FLDS, is beneficial.

(Click on the image for more detail)

This chart is based on general historical research up through 1350ce and based on genealogical data from 1350 to 2000. Each data point represents 25 years or one quarter century. This chart assumes a human existence of 8,000 years. The least amount of time humans are believed to have existed is 6,000 years. Many scientists believe 10,000 to 18,000 is more likely. Jared Diamond posits a 100,000 year existence. Imagine the date to your left as long as you desire…

Throughout the bulk of history and throughout the world it is widely believed that women married relatively soon after their first menstrual period or menarche and what information we have indicates that most married between about 13 and 17 with the majority marrying at about age 14. Beginning in about 300ce the upper age seems to have begun increasing and around 800ce leveled off at about 19.

In general it is believed that the wealthier brides married later and those in cities married later than those in rural communities.

Genealogical data on marriage dates and age of the bride and groom begins to become useable from about 1350 onward. A research project tabulating this genealogical data is currently underway with preliminary data included in the chart. This genealogical data is based on genealogies of ancestors of people residing in the US and was procured from Ancestry.com and the LDS Family History Center. Two independent sets of GEDCOM data were collected and analyzed. Each set included at least 100 useable marriages in each quarter century except for the period 1375 to 1450 which averaged 89 marriages per quarter century. A useable marriage was one where the birth date of both participants as well as the marriage date were present in the data. Both sets produced similar numbers.

The data at this point is believed relatively accurate though it is unverified. Most of this data is entered by amateur genealogists. While accuracy is somewhat of a concern, that both data sets utilizing different family names produced nearly identical results provides some level of comfort. I am not a statistician so I am relying on others for statistical expertise.

The average bridal age is the average of all marriages. The upper and lower ages were calculated based on the outer bounds to include at least the most concise 80^th percentile to 1/10 year increments. Stats folks reading this will probably understand what I just wrote far better than I. In most years the upper and lower bounds included over 90% of all marriages. Outliers generally tended to be 40% below range and 60% above. While most second marriages were believed eliminated, some could not be accurately determined.

The data indicated relative stability in ages from about 1350 to the early 1800’s. Around 1820 the upper age began to increase.

During the mid 18^th century there appeared to be a very noted temporary increase in bridal ages of those people in southern Europe. Not sure what the cause of this was. This drove up the upper end of the range but had only minimal impact on the overall average.

The two most significant jumps occurred in the quarter century ending in 1825 when the average age rose from 15.6 to 17 and in the quarter century ending in 2000 when the average age rose from 20 to 24.5.

The average age of all marriages from the genealogical data is 16.38. The lower age range dipped below 13 in the quarter centuries ending in 1425, 1500, 1550, 1675, and 1700.

FLDS: Raising The Responsibility Bar

There are clearly incidences where children need to be removed from their homes. Some parents are intentionally abusive and some are either mentally incapable of caring for their children or are just plain stupid. Removal though needs to be extremely rare, only when absolutely necessary, and only when removal will clearly produce a better outcome for the child than the status quo.

Current laws around removal of children run something like: “CPS must prove by sufficient evidence to satisfy a person of ordinary prudence and caution that: (1) reasonable efforts have been made to prevent or eliminate the need to remove the child from the child’s home; and (2) allowing the child to remain in the home would be contrary to the child’s welfare.”

Or, to sustain a child's removal from the parents, TDFPS must prove at an adversary hearing that "(1) there was a danger to the physical health or safety of the child which was caused by an act or failure to act of the person entitled to possession and for the child to remain in the home is contrary to the welfare of the child; (2) the urgent need for protection required the immediate removal of the child and reasonable efforts, consistent with the circumstances and providing for the safety of the child, were made to eliminate or prevent the child's removal; and (3) reasonable efforts have been made to enable the child to return home, but there is a substantial risk of a continuing danger if the child is returned home." Tex. Fam. Code sec. 262.201(b).

Or, “a child should be removed if he or she would be in danger with the parent or guardian or if “continuation of the child in the home would be contrary to the child’s welfare.””

These are all good as far as they go but fall short in one extremely critical element - will the removal be better for the child.

All of these existing laws make an assumption on some level that if a child is in any danger in their current home that state care will at least be safer. This is a very wrong assumption.

- The removal act itself will very likely cause mental and emotional harm to the child.

- The removal will, rightly or wrongly, likely cause harm to the child’s relationship to their parents.

- Living in any form of institutional care for any length of time is likely to cause mental and emotional harm to the child.

- An estimated 25% of children in foster care are abused.

All of these harms are also very likely to be life-long. Each mistake in removal will, at the hands of government, cause permanent harm to a child who otherwise would not be harmed.

All state laws then should include an element similar to. “That with the knowledge that the child will endure permanent mental and emotional harm by the removal and institutionalization itself and with the knowledge that the child may likely be physically and emotionally abused in institutional and foster care, that remaining in the home is clearly and convincingly a greater danger to the child than than all of those dangers presented by removal.”

This raises the bar to a more appropriate level and makes it more clear to all concerned the gravity of the decision being made.

Edit: Just after posting this I was told of this excellent post and comments on IPercieve

FLDS: Those Atrocious Underage Marriages...

In this post I mentioned the 51 marriage licenses the state of Texas issued to brides under the age of 14 in 1970 and speculated that based on our current thinking these must all be awful marriages with such terribly young brides and such. So bad in fact that today we’d make their marriages illegal, jail the parents, and take away their children.

Well, we now know how 7 of these brides lives turned out. 4 are still married, 1 died, 1 was widowed after 27 years of marriage, and 1 divorced after 11 years of marriage. The 4 who are still married all said that they are still HAPPILY married. They’ve had some rough times and one of the couples separated for a year, but all are still married, all have kids, and all said they have no regrets about their marriage.

The bride who died was married for 31 years, died when she was 43 in a car crash, had 7 children and 4 grandchildren. According to her 29 year old son his parents were the happiest people he’d ever known. They loved each other and loved their family. They were, and are, Baptist and were married in a Baptist church. Shame on the Baptists and state of Texas for allowing such an atrocious marriage.

Are Street Addresses Antiquated?

Well, back from vacation again...

My cell phone has TomTom GPS on it (running in Windows Mobile). This is the same software and maps as the regular TomTom except this one is built in to my cell so it’s always with me. I’ve been using this for some time and it has been a great tool. I travel a fair amount and having a GPS with me all the time is beneficial not only when driving, but also when walking. Before I leave on a trip I can enter destinations in my contacts if they’re not already in there and just select one to have TomTom guide me there.

Occasionally when I put in an address it will be off by a bit, though rarely more than 20 or 30 feet and usually by 1 address number so it just puts me next door. 9 times out of 10 it’s spot on. The biggest problem is with new roads that aren’t yet in the system. This past week though I’ve experienced 2 incidents where it put us over 2 miles from our destination. Both on the island of Kawai in Hawaii, both put us on the correct road, just a long way from where on the road the places were. The first was Gaylord’s restaurant and the second was the Grand Hyatt in Poipu.

So, with these 2 experiences along with other more minor incidents I’m wondering if it’s not time to update our concept of what an address is. Many travelers already us GPS navigation and thousands more begin to every day. Most new phones include GPS receivers as do many new cars.

Businesses and individuals fairly quickly got used to the idea of including email and web addresses on business cards, literature, and websites. Maybe now is the time for everyone to get used to also including GPS coordinates – Latitude and Longitude. Street addresses have worked well for a long time, but new GPS technology allows for a better system.

For instance, the Grand Hyatt in Kauai might be listed as

21.8762 / -159.4397

Or

Lat: 21.8762
Lon: -159.4397

Seems bulky and just a lot of numbers, but if you’ve used a GPS and spent time entering country, city, street, and address # you’ll quickly see the benefit of just entering these numbers. It’s not only easier to enter, but far more accurate. Using GPS coordinates eliminates problems of street numbers or roads being off or of new roads or addresses not yet being entered into the system. Worst case you can see where you are currently, where you want to be, and pick your way through streets to your destination.

The best news is that this is not something that requires any major new technology or requires a standards body to establish a worldwide standard. The standard already exists. Anyone can determine the GPS coordinates for their location in about 30 seconds with any GPS device and then add them to their website.

The millions of us who use GPS will appreciate the effort!