Politics, Government & Public Policy: September 2003 Archives

Via Drudge and Bill Hobbs, I discover that Wesley Clark has a substantial vision for the future: faster-than-light travel.

"I still believe in e=mc², but I can't believe that in all of human history, we'll never ever be able to go beyond the speed of light to reach where we want to go," said Clark. "I happen to believe that mankind can do it."

"I've argued with physicists about it, I've argued with best friends about it. I just have to believe it. It's my only faith-based initiative." Clark's comment prompted laughter and applause from the gathering.

Gary Melnick, a senior astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said Clark's faith in the possibility of faster-than-light (FTL) travel was "probably based more on his imagination than on physics."

While Clark's belief may stem from his knowledge of sophisticated military projects, there's no evidence to suggest that humans can exceed the speed of light, said Melnick. In fact, considerable evidence posits that FTL travel is impossible, he said.

"Even if Clark becomes president, I doubt it would be within his powers to repeal the powers of physics," said Melnick, whose research has focused on interstellar clouds and the formation of stars and planets.

Well, it's just about as plausible as universal health care and the UN. I recommend we divert all our resources from those doomed endeavors to researching space travel.

And now for a post-debate update of my earlier post on gambling for governors. Since last Wednesday's candidate debate, Arnold has surged ahead in the polls.

The poll said 63 percent of probable voters said they would cast ballots to recall Davis, while only 35 percent would vote against recall.

In regards to the second part of the ballot, the poll said Schwarzenegger had the support of 40 percent of those polled. Lt. Gov Cruz Bustamante was at 25 percent; Sen. Tom McClintock, R-Thousand Oaks, had 18 percent; Green Party candidate Peter Camejo 5 percent; and Arianna Huffington, 2 percent.

It looks like my earlier predictions were, in fact, too conservative. I predicted that the recall would succeed with more than 60% approval, but now I wouldn't be surprised if it goes above 70% once election day actually arrives. I expected Arnold to win with a small plurality, but with those kinds of numbers he might actually pull off a majority, whether McClintock pulls out or not. Why? Because many McClintock-ites will change their minds and vote for Arnold at the last minute, and many "non-likely-voters" -- who are discounted by pollsters -- will possibly turn out to vote for the action star.

So what do TradeSports bettors think on September 29th?

Compare that with the numbers from September 24th:

You can see that Arnold has gained more than 18 points, Bustamante has lost 18 points, and the "recall fails" contract has dropped by nearly half, to just 15%. The poll numbers certainly influence the prices placed on these contracts, but these valuations go to show that the Davis camp in wrong in thinking that:

"The Gallup poll is a joke," said Peter Ragone, spokesman for the Californians Against the Costly Recall. "There isn't a public poll, private poll, or poll amid friends and families in this state that is consistent with those numbers. It has no impact on us."

It's also interesting to read that a great many Californians are rushing to buy new cars before the vehicle license fees go up 300% on October 1st. That timing has got to be hurting Davis.

[And note: I'm not affiliated with TradeSports in any way, nor do I gamble.]

McGehee suggests in the comments section of my previous post that if juries [corrected] are good enough to try criminals, maybe they're good enough to approve or reject legislation as well.

So how would a system of "legislation by jury" work? I don't think it would be that hard. Transfer the power to write bills to the executive branch, and then set up a system for randomly selecting registered voters to either approve or deny every such proposal that comes down the pipe.

Objection: Some bills require technical knowledge to understand.
Response: Maybe bills that are that complex are bad, ipso facto. Bills should be no more than 1 page in length, and should only deal with a single issue.

Objection: Empaneling a nationally representative jury would be a nightmare.
Response: Maybe, if you expected the jury to actually discuss the bill, as a trial jury does. But with modern technology it would be trivial to set up a computerized system that would allow 1000 or 10,000 randomly selected citizens to vote via the internet.

Perhaps ranther than abolishing legislative representatives, it would be better to simply require a randomly selected jury to approve any laws that the legislature passes.

Our bicameral Congress was founded with these ideas in mind. The House of Representatives was supposed to serve the restraining, close-to-the-people function, but over time that principle has been eroded.

I first read that Republicans are trying to get Dennis Miller to run for office in California from Mr. CalBlog, and now I see another story linked from Drudge. Miller seems like a smart, articulate, thoughtful man, and I'm at least open to the idea of him running for office. I just watched "Bordello of Blood", and he's great against vampires -- always an advantage for a politician.

The article from Drudge lists a few liberal celebrities who are considering running for office as well, but the list seems pretty lackluster to me. Not in star-power, but in intelligence.

(Actor Kelsey Grammer and tennis star Martina Navratilova are among those who have talked about opening political careers in recent weeks.)

"You know all of the people on 'Friends' are going to be available. They are making $1 million an episode. Most everybody knows who they are," says Martin Kaplan, director of the University of Southern California's Norman Lear Center, which studies the intersection of politics and entertainment. "All this drives home the idea, I think a false one, that you don't need any particular skills or background to be a senator or a governor. All you need is ambition and fame."

I've heard all of these people speak extemporaneously, and they all sound like idiots. I'm sure there are some intelligent, liberal celebrities, but these folks aren't them. In fact, come to think of it, the most politically vocal liberal celebrities tend to be the most innane. Maybe that perception is just a byproduct of my disagreement with their views, however.

In general, who would I like to see running for office? I don't think military officers make great politicians. Nor doctors, even though they're well-educated. I think that a legal education is beneficial for a politician, but people who go into law just to make money probably don't make the best public servants. Academics shouldn't get into politics, because they're too far-removed from reality.

I think that non-academic historians (are there such people?) might make good politicians. Maybe intelligence officers. Entrepreneurs, engineers [Pure vanity! -- Ed.], economists.

All those jobs carry potentially disadvantagous baggage as well, but just as Bill Hobbs notes about journalists, I think it's important for politicians to have some education and job experience in fields other than politics itself. Take Grey Davis for example: he's been in California politics for 30 years. When a reporter asked Arnold if he thought he had enough political experience to be governor, Arnold replied: "If you want political experience, just stick with Grey Davis." Everyone got his point.

So who do you want to see running for office?

Dean points to a fun little quiz that will help you decide who to vote for in the California recall election. There are 12 questions, with blind policy snippets from each candidate (you don't know who said what). You select the policy statement that most matches your own, and at the end you find out who you should vote for.

Unsurprisingly, I got 9 points for McClintock, and 3 points for Arnold. This might be helpful to someone who knows nothing about the various candidates (i.e., a lot of Californians). As I mentioned previously, I have two liberal democrat friends who thought Bustamante was slimy, and ended up deciding to vote for McClintock (absentee).

I love Tradesports and the market it represents. Who is more likely to know the odds for any particular event than people who've got money riding on it? They've got a section for betting on politics, and I like tracking the action; when the volume is high enough, I think that these odds give a good representation of reality.

Let's take a look at a few interesting samples. Note that with perfect information, the "Bid" column would add up to 100%, since the contracts for each question are all mutually exclusive. They generally don't, and they usually add up to less than 100%; this reflects that the bettors are conservative with their uncertainty, and are bidding less than they think the contracts are actually worth. (The opposite holds for the "Ask" column.)

[I've never bet on Tradesports, and am not affiliated with them in any way.]

First up, the question on everyone's mind: what's going to happen with the California recall?

For some reason, Bustamante's odds have gone up significantly today -- in anticipation of the debate tonight? Arnold has improved slightly, and the big loser has been the "Recall Fails" contract. High trade volume -- it's not looking good for Davis. Expect some action here after the debate.

Next question: who will be the Democrat nominee for president?

Too bad I didn't get a screenshot of this question last week, because the "Field" contract skyrocketed when Wesley Clark declared his candidacy (and Hillary jumped a bit, too). Both "Field" and Hillary are falling as Clark's shine wears off, but Dean doesn't recover any of the ground he lost when Clark declared. Very high trading volume on all the contracts except McCain.

And finally, will George W. Bush win the 2004 presidential election?

High volume, and no change. In fact, this contract hasn't changed much in value since I've been watching -- it's been around 66% for months. I wonder if this constancy speaks more loudly than his fading poll numbers?

Polls and bets reflect different things, though, and it's important to keep that in mind. A poll shows what percentage of people (for example) want President Bush to win, whereas these contracts show what percentage of people think Bush will win.

Arnold outlines the economic policies he would implement as governor in a Opinion Journal op-ed. It all looks great to me. I like Tom McClintock more on other issues, but I could certainly live with Arnold's economics.

[I have two liberal Democrat friends who recognize that Cruz Bustamante is slimy and crooked; they told me they could never vote for him. But they didn't like Arnold either, and I learned today that they both ended up voting (absentee) for McClintock. Isn't that odd? Go figure.]

And now back to the show: Here are Arnold's four main economic points.

- First, on taxes, I believe that not only should we not raise tax rates on anyone in California, but we have to reduce taxes that make our state uncompetitive. I married a Kennedy and I have always believed that President John F. Kennedy was absolutely right when he said in 1962 that "when taxes are too high, there will never be enough jobs or enough revenues to balance the budget." ...

- Second, the California state budget should not grow faster than the California family budget. We need to put teeth into a spending limit law through a constitutional amendment that caps state budget growth. ... California does not have a taxing problem, it has a spending problem. I will also create savings from outmoded and inefficient government agencies. ...

- Next, the worker's compensation system needs an overhaul. When I have asked business people around the state what is restraining their ability to expand here, they cite high taxes and unbearable workers' compensation costs. Businesses in California pay workers' compensation costs that are more than double other states.

- Fourth, I am a fanatic about school reform. To attract world-class, 21st-century businesses, we need a world-class education system. ... If schools are systematically underperforming, we will expand choice options for parents with charter schools and enforce public school choice provisions in the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

It's a good start.

Dean Esmay links to an article by Jerome Zeifman and agrees with his conclusion:

With Democratic propaganda spreading widely, at least one prominent conservative, Paul Weyrich, chairman of the Free Congress Foundation, now is advising the White House to be prepared for the introduction of impeachment resolutions. Based on my own experience with impeachment politics, I agree with his advice.

In my case, I believe that political parties that thrive on demagoguery destroy themselves. These days I fear that the Democratic Party that I have known for 60 years now may be close to extinction.

There's a world of difference between introducing impeachment proceedings and actually executing an impeachment, much less getting a conviction. I don't think that Mr. Esmay or Mr. Zeifman believe that President Bush could actually be ousted from office, but it does look like they believe that a Republican-dominated House might actually impeach him -- which I think is absolutely impossible. What's more, there's no reason to believe that the Democrats could regain a majority in the House in the forseeable future.

Maybe they are only referring to the "introduction of impeachment resolutions", and not their actual passage. I agree that such a move would be convincing evidence that the Democrat party is determined to self-destruct.

Oh fine, so the title doesn't make sense. It made me laugh.

Bustamante has been ordered to return $4 million given to him by Indian tribes.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A judge on Monday blocked Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante (search) from using millions of dollars raised by an old campaign committee for his recall election bid, even if the money is spent on ads ostensibly opposing an initiative on the same ballot.

Sacramento County Judge Loren McMaster ordered the more than $4 million raised by Bustamante's campaign committee before voter-approved campaign spending limits were in place to be returned to that old account. From there, the money could be returned to donors.

That's interesting, because it seems to tie into my much earlier question of "Where Does Gray Davis Get His Money?".

It doesn't look like you can roll money from one campaign into another. This is important, because if you could spend left-over money that was originally donated to campaign A on later campaign B, it would be impossible to enforce donor limits. Someone could give money to campaigns A and B, and then campaign A could fold and transfer all its money to campaign B; the donor could end up giving twice as much as allowed.

I'm not generally in favor of campaign finance restrictions, even though repealing the laws in place would help Democrats more than Republicans.

As I start to write this, I'm not planning on making fat jokes, so if one creeps in, forgive me. I used to be overweight as a kid and a teenager, but I took control of my lifestyle when I was 18 and lost around 70 pounds over the course of a few years. I did it the old-fashioned way: by changing my diet, and by exercising. I don't have a lot of sympathy for fat people who act like they can't help being fat.

So then, "Overweight workers say they're often overlooked".

''This is one of the only groups where an employer could say, 'We don't want fat people,' and get away with it,'' said Massachusetts Representative Byron Rushing. ''Fat people are still targets. Professional comedians can still make fun of them, and fat jokes are still being passed around.'' ...

Protests by groups like the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance as well as a flurry of recent lawsuits have led to greater awareness of the problems the overweight face in the workplace. Some of the lawsuits seek to create new legal ground by arguing that obesity ought to be seen as an impairment under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

For the vast majority of fat people, their "disability" is not primarily physical: it's mental. The fat that hinders their activity is merely a symptom of their lack of self-discipline.

Yes, some people are biologically more inclined toward being fat than others -- so what? Some people are more likely to get addicted to alcohol than others, but when someone does become an alcoholic we still know it's their fault. Same with being fat. If your arm gets blown off by a terrorist, you're disabled. If you simply can't muster up the willpower to resist stuffing your face with creamy lard, you're just addicted to food. Also, comedians will make fun of you, because they're insensitive.

Unlike racial discrimination -- and even religious discrimination -- discrimination based on being fat is entirely within your control. It would be absurd to tell a black guy to lighten his skin (and it wouldn't gain him acceptance even if he did, *cough*Michael Jackson*cough*). But if people make fun of you for being fat, or for not knowing how to read, or for terrible body odor, or for having no sense of style... there's something you can do! Lose weight, get hooked on phonics, use deodorant, watch "Queer Eye".

Sixty-one percent of Americans are overweight, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Of those, the CDC says 35 percent are moderately overweight and 26 percent are obese. The findings, from a National Health and Nutrition Examination survey, sounded an alarm when they were released in 2000, but the hubbub did little to change poor perceptions of overweight people or spur the creation of new laws.

Maybe the problem here is that so many Americans are fat. Don't you all realize that the Europeans are making fun of you? There are only two options: bomb Europe, or lose some weight. I'm impartial.

Look, America, I understand that food is yummy. Sometimes I want to eat a whole truckload of cheesecake, and it's really hard to resist. But guess what? I don't eat it. Sometimes I feel like sitting around on the couch all day, eating Fritos and watching the Simpsons. But guess what? I marshal my mental faculties, throw off the lethargy that so easily besets me, and I go out for a walk, or a run, or I lift some big metal plates up over my head. It's takes about 30 minutes. Then I go back and lie on the couch, watch Simpsons, and eat fruit or something.

While there is little data available detailing the extent of size bias, Deidra Everett, secretary of the New England Chapter of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, believes there have been a few changes in society's view of the overweight. ''Society has changed its image a little when it comes to smaller large people [huh? maybe "small or large"],'' Everett said. ''It is more accepted now that a woman can be a size 12 through 18 and still be fit. Also, in the media, the whole extreme leanness [trend] is not as popular as it was six or seven years ago. So, the media is trying to show that curves can be OK.''

No one has a problem with luscious curves, the problem is when your whole body is just one single curve. This is commonly called a "sphere", and it doesn't count as an affirmative answer for when people ask you whether or not you're "in shape".

At most workplaces, she said, little has changed. Everett, who, at 36, weighs 460 pounds and is 5 feet 10 inches, knows firsthand. She said prospective employers have pursued her aggressively over the phone, and then suddenly changed their minds after meeting her. Stunned by her appearance, the recruiter will scan her body, pausing at the fattest part, and then look away.

''Eventually, they'll get back to your face and give you this nervous smile that says, 'Oh, dear!' They don't know where to look. They become flustered and there is not a lot of eye contact,'' she said. ''I can't understand how people can be so judgmental without knowing who I am. It makes you feel terrible.''

Yes, people are mean. Heck, I've been mean in this very essay. I'm an anti-fattite, I guess. Until the Museum of Tolerance adds that new fat wing they've been planning, I recommend that if you find yourself in situations where people can't even look at you without becoming flustered and uncomfortable, you're probably too fat.

You should consider that maybe the problem isn't the genetic predisposition of humans to use peer pressure to discourage harmful behavior -- maybe the problem is you. Give in to the peer pressure. The negative, "terrible", feelings you're experiencing may be for your own good.

I was never as fat as Deidra Everett, but I suffered social consequences when I was overweight. Which do you think helped more?

1. "Hey baby, yeah I'm fat, but you'd go out with me if you weren't so judgemental without knowing who I am. It makes me feel terrible. Help me advance fat acceptance."

2. Lose weight.

If you guessed #2, you're right. You can't control what other people think, but you can control how fat you are. Instead of wasting time making pro-fat organizations, go to the gym. Stop eating twinkies. As our corporate masters say, "Just Do It".

Donald Sensing points to a piece by Ralph Peters in which Peters discusses the candidacy of Wesley Clark (not too favorably). Something else Peters notes is that Senator Joe Lieberman is the only solid Democrat on the ticket, a position I agree with.

I earlier wrote that I didn't think a Jew could win the Democratic Primary (and I still don't), but with Dean's ascension it's clear that Lieberman is too conservative to be nominated. That's unfortunate, because Lieberman would probably make a good president; he's the only one of the Democrats that I would trust with our national security.

You don't believe that Democrats are elitist? Get a load of this.

"When my daughter was born, I got an 18-year term," Clinton joked. "It's a darn good thing we didn't have a recall provision. Our decisions didn't always suit her, but she turned out well."

The citizens of the United States of America are not children, and politicians are not our parents -- they're our servants.

So General Wesley Clark is running for president. I listened to Clark talk to Alan Colmes on the radio while I was in Missourri, and he sounded spectacularly ill-informed; I don't think he will be a credible candidate, and I doubt he will be able to derail Howard Dean's momentum or dislodge Dean's hold on the Angry Left.

Nevertheless, what's particularly interesting to me are the reports that the Clintons are involved in supporting Clark's candidacy. Bill Clinton spoke very highly of General Clark at a recent New York fundraiser.

Guests who attended U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton's strategy session / fund raiser Sunday night at her Chappaqua, N.Y., mansion say that both she and her husband repeatedly hinted that she was ready to run for president in 2004.

Mr. Clinton kicked off a wave speculation by identifying the "two stars" of the Democratic Party as his wife and Gen. Wesley Clark - a major snub to the nine announced Democratic candidates currently seeking the White House.

That's quite curious, isn't it? It's well-known that Hillary wants to be president; most pundits seem to believe she'll wait to run in 2008 so she doesn't have to face a popular incumbent, but if Bush's position looks weak then she may be tempted to jump into the pathetic Democrat field in 2004. The only reason I can imagine Clinton grouping Hillary with Clark is if they are planning on running together, with Clark as the vice-presidential candidate. Back to FoxNews:

While sources told Fox News earlier that New York Sen. Hillary Clinton would serve as Clark's campaign co-chairman and numerous other Arkansas-based supporters of her husband, former President Bill Clinton, were also lending a hand in the campaign, the senator's office told Fox News late Tuesday that she had not agreed to serve on the campaign.

Clark aides later said they had miscommunicated with Clinton's office and no determination had been made about her participation. Bill Clinton had urged Clark to enter the race, but neither he nor Gore is expected to take sides in the primary fight.

It sounds to me like the Clintons are throwing Clark into the ring as a placeholder for Hillary, in case she later decides that she has a chance to beat Bush. If she jumps in later, Clark will defer to her and accept the vice-presidential berth on the Hillary 2004 ticket, and Hillary will be in place to reap the benefits of the organizational infrastructure that Clark and his people are building now. (Not that the Clintons don't have an organization; they do, and many of their people are mobilizing in Clark's campaign.) It takes time to build up such an organization, and with Clark's in place Hillary can put of making a decision for a while longer.

A 3-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has ordered that California's special recall election be halted.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A federal appeals court postponed California's Oct. 7 gubernatorial recall election, ruling Monday that the historic vote cannot proceed because some votes would be cast using outmoded punch-card ballot machines.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals withheld ordering the immediate implementation of its decision, allowing a week for appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Ted Costa, head of the Sacramento-based Peoples' Advocate, one of the groups that put the recall on the ballot, said an appeal is certain.

"Give us 24 hours. We'll get something off to the Supreme Court," he said.

It seems inevitable that the Supreme Court will accept the case, but I have no idea how it will rule. I don't expect the Court to be overly sympathetic with the old-voting-machine argument, considering that a majority of the justices stopped the endless recounting in Florida in 2000. Nevertheless, the drama continues.

I've been asking Eugene Volokh to write about property rights and intellectual property for months, and he's finally done it! He argues that intellectual property rights are just as valid a concept as tangible property rights. That's not to say that the existence of intellectual property is good policy, but he thinks the idea is reasonable.

On the other hand, I think that in the digital age intellectual property can be reduced down to the allowing of ownership of pure numbers. For that reason, I think that intellectual property is ultimately doomed.

For my musings on the subject:
1. Ownership -- how can anyone "own" digitally-encoded information? Anything encoded digitally is just a binary number, and how can anyone own a number?
2. Ownership 2 -- more on the same topic.
3. Common Law and Copyright -- can "everyone is doing it" justify violating copyright laws?

Apparently, some journalists for ABC News managed to smuggle depleted uranium into the Port of Los Angeles today in a shipping container from Jakarta, Indonesia.

The ABCNEWS project involved a shipment to Los Angeles of just under 15 pounds of depleted uranium, a harmless substance that is legal to import into the United States. The uranium, in a steel pipe with a lead lining, was placed in a suitcase for the shipment.

"If they can't detect that, then they can't detect the real thing," explained Tom Cochran, a nuclear physicist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, which lent the material to ABCNEWS for the project.

Cochran said the highly enriched uranium used for nuclear weapons, would, with slightly thicker shielding, give off a signature similar to depleted uranium in the screening devices currently being used by homeland security officials at American ports.

Is Tom Cochran's assertion correct? The best comparison I can find online between enriched uranium and depleted uranium is on the Canadian National Defence website.

In nature, uranium exists as a mixture of three isotopes --- U-238, U-235, and U-234. These isotopes of uranium have different weights, but each has 92 protons in its nucleus. Uranium isotopes differ in weight because they have different numbers of neutrons in their nuclei. The isotopes U-238, U-235, and U-234 are present naturally in the proportions of 99.28 percent, 0.72 percent, and 0.0055 percent respectively. ...

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) defines depleted uranium as uranium in which the percentage of the U-235 isotope by weight is less than 0.711 percent. The military specifications designate that the DU used by the American Department of Defense contain less than 0.3 percent U-235. In actuality, DoD uses only DU that contains approximately 0.2 percent U-235. ...

The enriched uranium used in nuclear reactors contains about a 3 percent concentration of this isotope. Enriched uranium is also used in nuclear weapons. ...

Because of the high percentage of U-238 and its slow decay rate, naturally occurring uranium is, in fact, one of the least radioactive substances among unstable isotopes on the planet. DU can be up to 50 percent less radioactive than naturally occurring uranium depending on the degree of depletion. The material generally used by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) is 40 percent less radioactive than natural uranium.

Based on this information, I calculate that 3% enriched uranium is approximately 275% more radioactive than 0.7% natural uranium, and 687% more radioactive than 0.2% depleted uranium. Using arbitrary units:

99.28x +0.72y == 100 (natural uranium)
99.8x + 0.2y == 60 (depleted uranium)

Solve for x and y, the radioactivity of U238 and U235 respectively, and you get:

x == 0.446
y == 77.446

The radioactivity of enriched uranium is:

97*0.446 + 3*77.446 == 275.6

So, enriched uranium is about 7 times more radioactive than depleted uranium. But, uranium isotopes primarily emit alpha particles, and alpha particles can be shielded with a sheet of paper.

All uranium isotopes are primarily alpha particle emitters. These alpha particles travel only about 30 micrometers in soft tissue and, therefore, are unable to penetrate paper, glass, or even the dead superficial layer of skin. The gamma emissions of uranium are rather low.

This fact makes all forms of uranium rather difficult to detect from a distance, considering that background radiation is always present. Uranium doesn't emit a great deal of gamma radiation above what is present in the background, either.

In the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists the authors tried to estimate the possible external gamma-radiation levels on the battlefield by assuming that 100 tons of depleted uranium had been distributed uniformly over a one-kilometer-wide strip along 100 kilometers of the "Highway of Death" between Kuwait City and Basra, a city in southern Iraq. The average dose for someone who lived in the area for a year would be about one mrem - or about 10 percent of the dose from uranium and its decay products already naturally occurring in the soil. The dose rate immediately around a destroyed vehicle could be about 30 times higher. But even that figure would only add about 10 percent to the natural background radiation.

So, is Tom Cochran correct? It looks like it. Although enriched uranium is up to 7 times as radioactive as depleted uranium, it only takes a tiny bit of lead to drastically attenuate radiation exposure. A mere 0.5mm of lead can reduce radiation exposure by a factor of 1000, depending on the energy level of the particles in question. Considering all the work that goes into finding uranium deposits, I don't have trouble believing that we couldn't detect this shipment of depleted uranium -- and that we'd be hard-pressed to detect enriched uranium under similar circumstances.

Update:
Clayton Cramer disagrees, based on U235's greater emission of gamma radiation. That's fine, as far as it goes, but as Tom Cochran claims that shielded U235 would "look" very similar to depleted uranium to the various radiation detection devices. I am not a physicist, but my dad is and he confirms that lead-shielded enriched uranium would look pretty much the same as lead-shielded depleted uranium -- that is, it would look like lead.

Update 2:
I oringally wrote "U238" in the first update in places where I meant U235, as Clayton Cramer points out in his update (and in the comments here). That mistake/typo/whatever did severely confuse my point, and make me look stupid. Sigh.

I'm aware that U235 emits gamma radiation, and the point of this post was to say that, from what I've read and from what my dad has told me, it would not take a significant amount of lead shielding to attenuate said radiation.

I linked to a site in the post that talks about attenuating gamma radiation, and indicates that less than a millimeter would be needed to reduce exposure by a factor of 50 to 1000. I don't know whether that level of attenuation would be sufficient to disguise the presence of U235, and Mr. Cramer indicates that it would not.

As the British realized in 1776, nothing grabs Americans' attention quite like taxes do. I think we're in the midst of another tax rebellion, and the recent rejection of huge tax hikes by the citizens of Alabama was the most recent battle. In 2002, a ballot initiative in Massachusetts that would have eliminated all state income tax was narrowly defeated, but will be re-proposed in 2004. In July, 2003, the Nevada Supreme Court intervened to raise state taxes when the legislature refused to do so. A similar scam was tried in California, but was rejected; despite California's huge deficit, our legislature refused to raise taxes (at least the Republicans did).

There are many more such stories; many states are considering initiatives such as the one that failed in Massachusetts in 2002, and eventually one such attempt will pass. Once a single state income tax is eliminated via ballot initiative, I expect that many others will follow. The Fair Tax Act of 200X won't be far behind.

Senator John Cornyn makes some excellent points about the need for a clear procedure for the re-establishment of Congress, should an attack or natural disaster wipe out a majority of our federal legislature. However, he is incorrect in saying that there is no such structure (perhaps unsatisfactory) currently in place.

This commitment to federalism and national representation has a cost, however: Under the majority quorum requirement, terrorists could shut Congress down by killing or incapacitating a sufficient number of representatives or senators.

Our ability to ensure Congress would be able to continue to function under the current constitutional restrictions is woefully limited. States have power to allow their governors to appoint senators in cases of vacancies, and 48 states have elected to do so. But the Constitution provides no immediate mechanism for filling vacancies in the House, nor for redressing the problem of large numbers of members in either chamber being incapacitated.

Vacancies in the House can be filled only by special election. That takes months to conduct, for reasons of mechanical feasibility, democratic integrity, and the rights of military and other absentee voters.

What's more, it is impossible to address the problem of incapacitated members. If 50 senators were in the hospital and unable either to perform their duties or resign, they could not be replaced. The Senate could be unable to operate for up to four years.

This is a serious concern of course, and I think it is worthwhile considering amending the Constitution to further address this possibility. However, Article V of the Constitution does provide a clear, legal, and democratic method for re-constituting Congress, should such a need arise.

Article V

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; ...

The states maintain the power to call a Constitutional convention, without the need for Congressional approval or involvement. Such a convention could revise the Constitution as necessary, even to the extent of appointing new Senators, Representatives, and Executives. In theory, the power of such a convention would be unlimited, since it could rewrite the Constitution itself.

A Constitutional convention could be messy and problematic, and it may in fact be desirable for us to amend the Constitution to provide a simpler, more limited solution. However, Senator Cornyn is mistaken in thinking that the Senate, or any branch of our government, could be constitutionally crippled for years at a time.

From the Sacramento Bee, the quote speaks for itself.

EAST LOS ANGELES -- Gov. Gray Davis on Sunday said he was "just joking around with someone in the crowd" when he remarked a day earlier that "you shouldn't be governor unless you can pronounce the name of the state."

Yeah, a Republican would get away with that, for sure.

Via Al Rantel and Rough & Tumble.

John Fund over at Opinion Journal has a good article up about "Indian Givers", and the effect of Indian tribes on California politics.

Pain is exactly what Mr. Burton and the California Legislature may inflict on California's economy this week as they scramble to push through radical legislation that's designed to maintain their shaky hold on power. If ever California voters need to pay attention to what lawmakers are doing in their name, it's this coming week.

Former generals don't tend to make good presidents. (For the life of me I can't find a list of which American presidents were generals first... stupid internet. Anyone know? There are at least 10.) While I was driving through Missouri late at night last weekend I heard Gen. Wesley Clark talking with Alan Colmes on the radio, and I was amazed by his lack of coherence and overall absurdity.

Some people are speculating that Clark will jump into the 2004 race -- and there's even a movement to "draft" him. I listened to him and Colmes talk and take calls from listeners for an hour or so, and Clark's grasp of issues struck me as spectacularly poor. He didn't understand our income tax system, he didn't understand the War on Terror, he didn't understand the operational facts of the battle in Iraq, he didn't understand much of foreign policy, he didn't understand environmental issues and our dependence on oil, &c. I'm not saying this because I disagreed with the positions he voiced (although I did), I'm saying it because he sounded like he was spouting Democratic talking points that he didn't really have any knowledge of.

Clark contradicted himself several times, sputtered, floundered, and forced Colmes to rescue him from more knowledgable callers. It was truly painful to listen to. Anyone who thinks that Clark can mount a credible campaign is delusional. Clark may have excellent military command ability (although I doubt it, based on his direction of the war in Serbia), but he has little compehension of political issues, and it shows.

Update:
Daniel Drezner has some links and discussion about Wesley Clark over at the Conspiracy.

Everyone loves polls! But unfortunately, not everyone understands polls, how they work, and what kinds of standard parameters can routinely be used to bias their results. For example, consider this recent poll by Rasmussen Reports that attempts to gauge voter preference for various politicians in the upcoming 2004 presidential election.

September 2, 2003--As a Presidential candidate, Senator Hillary Clinton attracts more Democratic votes than other contenders but still trails President Bush 48% to 41%.
If the Democrats nominate Senator John Kerry, the President leads 45% to 36%. Against Vermont Governor Howard Dean, Bush leads 45% to 34%. Senator Kerry formally announced his candidacy earlier today.

The national telephone survey of 1,499 Likely voters was conducted by Rasmussen Reports August 29-September 1, 2003. Margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Rasmussen Reports measures the economic confidence of consumers and investors on a daily basis. As part of this process, we measure, employment, job satisfaction, interest rates, and more.

Anyone familiar with political polling will recognize one huge problem right off the bat: political telephone polls should never ever be taken on weekends. Why not?

So I called one of my old polling friends, Republican Ed Goeas, who worked with me years ago in Christine Todd Whitman's tax-cutting 1993 gubernatorial victory in New Jersey. Along with Democrat Celinda Lake, Goeas publishes the highly-regarded Battleground Survey. He told me to be careful about reading the polls. For one thing, it really matters if polls are conducted during the week or over the weekend. He told me that "political pollsters don't poll on the weekends. They prefer Sunday night through Thursday night. Weekend results are just not reflective of where a given race really is."

Goeas explained that more Democrats are found at home on the weekends, especially blue-collar Democrats. He added that "anyone who spends 20 to 30 minutes during the weekend talking to some pollster is not normal."

So the results of the poll I linked to above are basically worthless. Not only was the poll taken on a weekend, but it was taken on Labor Day Weekend -- certainly any standard weekend effects will be amplified during one of the biggest vacation periods of the year. Such a significant choice of dates can't have been a mistake, and I doubt I'll trust anything put out by Rasmussen Reports in the future.

(Link to poll via Drudge.)

Never one to pass up the opportunity to do some actual reporting, I'll give you the obligatory-blogger-impression of airport security from my recent trip to Missouri. The security was mostly brisk and professional, and there were officers everywhere... ah heck, let's just cut to the chase.

Want to know what I found in the stall of the men's restroom at LAX?

Airport food-service ID badges. What's really odd though is that even if it makes sense for Jose to take off the badge on the lanyard while he's using the bathroom, why did he remove the tiny rectangular name-tag from (presumably) his shirt?

Update & Correction:
Some commenters have written that "MICROS" is the name of a food-service computer system that helps waiters keep their orders straight, and that this badge isn't likely to give access to anything other than the computer system at some nearby airport eatery.

Oh well! On one hand, my find is less impressive... but on the other hand there wasn't a terrorist plot taking place in the mens room. Too bad my first Instalanche was built on a non-story.