Policy and Politics
tfk | January 31, 2007With Kris Kobach's return to Kansas politics, the anonymous Kriswatchers have returned as well.
tfk | January 31, 2007The KC Buzz Blog has a subscription to Roll Call, thus leaned that this article about Republican comeback kids is down on Ryun. While "the National Republican Congressional Committee is prepared to back any former Member who gives the GOP its best chance of reclaiming seats the Democrats won last year," an unnamed strategist reveals that "Ryun falls into the question mark category."
The other candidate that seems to be making headlines is state Treasurer Lynn Jenkins. The Buzz Blog says she is "a campaign dynamo," but others have noted that "Lynn Jenkins hasn't ever defeated an incumbent in…
tfk | January 30, 2007I like to joke that in Kansas, biology is political science. Even when I'm doing job interviews outside of this grand state, people usually get the joke, or need only slight prompting to get it. I take this to be a sad commentary on the state of politics in Kansas.
There is no doubt that the discovery of Tikaalik plays into political battles over creationism in schools. I have even less doubt that the discoverers of that "fishapod" would still have been just as excited by that discovery without the political issues. It's a fascinating discovery, as are the results in thousands of articles…
tfk | January 30, 2007Via Uncertain Principles, we learn that dangerous terrorist Robert Weiler has pled guilty. So far as we know, the guilty plea is not the result of torture, illegal warrantless wiretapping, invasion of randomly chosen countries, denial of habeas corpus, or any other of the many sacrifices we've been asked to make on behalf of the War on Brown People Terror™.
United States Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein explains, "Mr. Weiler's misguided plan to murder doctors and bomb an abortion clinic could have resulted in deaths or serious injuries. Outstanding investigative work by ATF, the Maryland State…
tfk | January 29, 2007The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, after dealing with patients who get busted by portable nuclear detectors after getting medical procedures with radioactive materials, they've decided defending nuclear plants against aerial assault is impractical:
The new defense plan -- most of which is classified -- offers provisions related to "multiple, coordinated groups of attackers, suicide attacks and cyber threats," the agency said in a statement that provided few details.
But plant operators should not be expected to protect their reactors against a "deliberate hit by a large aircraft," the NRC…
tfk | January 29, 2007Energy policy is one of those nerdy things that no one pays attention to until it starts to go wrong. And that's where we stand today.
Electricity demand continues to rise, as documented by this report by the Energy Information Administration. And most of that electricity is generated by coal plants. This is bad, because burning coal causes climate change. Burning coal releases more pollutants than other fossil fuels, as well.
The advantage of coal is that the United States has a lot of it. We are, as people like to say, the Saudi Arabia of coal. Unfortunately, mining that coal is…
tfk | January 29, 2007Pat Roberts has been putting together another campaign for Senate. He's given up his seats on the Intelligence Committee and the Armed Services Committee in exchange for more pork-filled seats, apparently worried that a resurgent Kansas Democratic Party might remember to run someone against him this time around. With no major party opponent in 2002, he managed to get 83% of the vote, and a Democratic challenger could well give him a run for his money.
Pat Roberts has hurt himself by defending an unconstitutional wiretapping program, by bragging about his memory problems and by being Dick…
tfk | January 28, 2007Our dear friend Red State Rabble has managed to start a fight with the Cato Institute. Or at least with their Neal McCluskey (not, as I first thought, with Casey Luskin). Cato is defending their latest attempt to justify publicly funded vouchers for private schools, and RSR responds by rightly noting that such vouchers would cause creationist schools to "spring up like mushrooms after a summer shower."
McCluskey says that vouchers would promote school choice, and that if people were choosing creationist schools now, those schools would already exist.
What he seems not to realize is that…
tfk | January 27, 2007Kris Kobach, who lost to Dennis Moore two years ago after savaging his moderate opponent in the primary (an opponent later convicted of fraud for a forged check he used to get a mortgage), will now head the Kansas Republican Party.
Kobach lost in part because his work and his campaign were linked to extremist right-wing groups, including some associated with white supremacists and the militia movement. He has sued the state of Kansas and other states, claiming that laws giving in-state tuition to any student graduating from a state's high schools (after attending for at least two years) are…
tfk | January 27, 2007Rush Limbaugh wonders what it says "about a cultured civilized society that it will round up babes send them off to basic training and send them off to the foxholes."
Set aside that the fat junkie skipped out of the 'Nam because of an unfortunate cyst, and that we don't currently round up anyone, soldiers volunteer to serve (though they do have their terms extended far too long after that).
Lyndie England was not a "babe." General Karpinski was not a "babe." Our fighting men are not hunks, and our fighting women are not babes.
tfk | January 26, 2007Kansas Senate considers opposition to increasing troops in Iraq:
State Sen. Donald Betts, D-Wichita, filed a resolution that would put Kansas lawmakers on record of being opposed to Bush’s call for 21,500 more troops in Iraq.
At a minimum, the resolution states, Bush should seek approval from Congress before sending more troops, and that Congress should prohibit the president from spending taxpayer dollars on an escalation in Iraq without his first seeking congress
The measure would be entirely symbolic, but a powerful symbol. Senator Betts represents the Wichita area, and has also sponsored…
tfk | January 26, 2007In a meeting with the Topeka Capital-Journal editorial board, former congressman Ryun blamed their coverage for his failed campaign:
Ryun acknowledged that a Capital-Journal article in October about how well he knew Rep. Mark Foley, accused of improper conduct with House pages, was OK. Ryun was quoted as saying he had only recently discovered that Foley lived across the street from him. But the article also reported that the previous May, Ryun took part in the second annual "D Street Block Party," in which Ryun, Foley and three other representatives on the block opened their homes to…
tfk | January 25, 2007No, not the hard stuff. Cassie Gentry uses the campus paper to get all worked up about abuse of Plan B. Plan B is basically a high dose of birth control pills. Taken shortly after intercourse, it prevents an egg from implanting in the uterine wall being released from the ovaries, preventing pregnancy. Gentry is worried about how easy it is to get it:
A few days ago I heard of a friend who knowingly had unprotected sex. Afterward, she panicked about becoming pregnant and rushed out to get Plan B, or the morning-after pill. Thanks to a Federal Drug Administration decision made on August 24…
tfk | January 24, 2007DarkSyde interviews the new chairman of the House Science Committee's subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation. Chris Mooney rejoices in Henry Waxman's scheduled hearing on abuse of federal climate scientists. Nancy Pelosi proposes a select committee on climate change and energy independence.
The first two are great. Expanded oversight into abuse of federal scientists and abuse of science by federal agencies will help undo a lot of the damage that's been done.
But Pelosi's move would go further, giving Congress a chance to really move forward.
Legislation in Congress always starts…
tfk | January 23, 2007The opposition response is often an exercise in triviality. For the last few years, powerless Democrats responding to Bush after he delivered his annual pablum dosage seemed meaningless.
Jim Webb set a different standard. Here's how he signed off:
Regarding the economic imbalance in our country, I am reminded of the situation President Theodore Roosevelt faced in the early days of the 20th century. America was then, as now, drifting apart along class lines. The so-called robber barons were unapologetically raking in a huge percentage of the national wealth. The dispossessed workers at…
tfk | January 23, 2007I reviewed the energy proposals from tonight's address, so I may as well offer quick takes on the rest of it.
He breaks it down into eight categories: energy, health care, education, immigration, HIV/AIDS, malaria, defense, and spending reforms.
The health insurance portion will be the most discussed, and is also the least interesting.
The plan for health care is to reduce taxes on people who already have health insurance. It also offers some unspecified benefits to support states that offer insurance to their citizens. The plan does not itself extend insurance to anyone who doesn't…
tfk | January 23, 2007The energy portion of the State of the Union is online. As promised, no cap-and-trade.
As expected, it emphasizes ethanol. Within ten years, the President proposes to replace 15% of gasoline with alternative or renewable fuels, equivalent to 35 billion gallons of ethanol per year.
For comparison, ethanol producers cranked out about four and a half billion gallons of ethanol in 2006. Doing so is estimated to have consumed 20% of the corn crop. If we converted all the corn grown in the US into ethanol using current technology, we wouldn't be able to meet the stated goal. And while…
tfk | January 23, 2007Nancy Boyda's bill stripping federal pensions from Congresscritters convicted of certain felonies passed the House unanimously, with four members not present.
In all his years in Congress, Jim Ryun's greatest legislative accomplishment was making foreign shoes somewhat cheaper.
tfk | January 23, 2007While I'm wonking out, Salon.com's How the World Works has a really excellent piece about the role of seed companies in the prospective ethanol boom.
If ethanol advocates have their way, half of the current corn crop could be put to use in ethanol, reducing foreign exports and raising food prices here and in famine-susceptible regions. The administration response to these concerns is that "more corn will emerge to ease the pain of higher grain prices, as seed companies improve yields."
As HtWW points out, USDA studies have shown that increasing consolidation in the seed industry has…
tfk | January 23, 2007There's a lot of excitement about ethanol lately, and the President will undoubtedly tell us more about ethanol tonight. But stopping the increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases will take more than just changing how we fuel our cars.
A paper published in 2004 by Pacala and Socolow lays out a range of options for carbon reduction. The options span several major categories: promoting energy efficiency and conservation, shifting from coal to natural gas for electricity production, technological capture and storage of carbon dioxide, expanding energy production from nuclear fission, switching…