Update no.473

Update from the Heartland

No.473

3.1.11 – 9.1.11

Blog version: http://heartlandupdate.blogspot.com/

To all,
The follow-up news items:
-- As their first piece of legislative business for the 112th Congress, House Republicans have decided to vote on the repeal of President Obama’s health-care law – Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) [PL 111-148] [432] – and apparently set 12.January as their day to pass the bill. The bill is highly unlikely to pass the Senate or the President, thus is predominately symbolic. This is how they choose to set the tone for the first session, presumably to fulfill a campaign promise against the landmark legislation as a so-called government take-over of the health industry. The tragedy in Tucson will most likely delay this initiative a bit.

This seems to be a week of opinions regarding the law. This opinion appeared in our local newspaper on New Years Day.
“God's laws”
by Ann Waggoner
Wichita Eagle
Published: 1.January.2011
http://www.kansas.com/2011/01/01/1654790/letters-to-the-editor-on-uninsured.html
“Even though our culture today wants to deny it, certain behaviors are wrong — not because you or I say they are, but because God tells us in His Word what is right to do and what is wrong.
“Our country was founded on Christian principles. Our Constitution, legal system and school lessons were based on Bible teachings. Gradually, society has rejected laws that interfere with the behaviors people want to engage in. Changes have been made for personal and selfish reasons, but also to claim to be tolerant and politically correct. Our society is paying dearly for this rejection of God's laws and will continue to do so until we return to His commands.”
. . . to which I wrote my Letter to the Editor:
I am not sure what behaviors Ms. Waggoner is upset about or instigated her to inform us of God’s laws. Unfortunately, as I read her words, the same nagging impression persists – her parochial Christian opinion is a few steps short of the Phelps clan’s virulent vitriol.
The revealed religions have many precepts in common; one of those teachings being their particular religion is the one and only true religion of God, and all others are non-believers -- infidels. Such parochialism leaves little room for tolerance of others who do not share “the belief.”
Ms. Waggoner is of course correct; our laws rest upon Christian principles; it is important to note that some of those principles are common to Judaism and Islam as well. They are also derived from Roman law, which was hardly Christian at the time of their formulation. Yet, the Framers of our Constitution carefully and deliberately avoided religious references – Christian or otherwise – as they negotiated the secular principles upon which this Grand Republic stands to this day.
The United States of America is a nation of no religion and all religions. We welcome all who believe and don’t believe, and who share our respect for Liberty and every citizens fundamental right to choose how they wish to live their lives. Religion, faith and beliefs are and should be private matters between the individual citizen and God.
We must maintain laws that regulate public conduct to avoid harm, injury or intrusion upon the freedom of choice of other citizens. We can disapprove of the private choices of others, but they are literally none of our business. Let us return to the freedoms envisioned by the Founders and Framers and back away from trying to dictate to others how they should live their lives.

Then, we have this opinion:
“Return America to constitutional principles”
by Cal Thomas
Wichita Eagle
Posted on Wed, Jan. 05, 2011
http://www.kansas.com/2011/01/05/1659469/cal-thomas-return-america-to-constitutional.html
. . . as originally published:
“Constitutionalists vs. ‘Interpretationists’”
by Cal Thomas
Tribune Media Services 

Posted 01/03/2011 at 4:23 pm EST
http://www.tmsfeatures.com/columns/political/conservative/cal-thomas/Cal-Thomas-Columnist.html?articleURL=http://rss.tmsfeatures.com/websvc-bin/rss_story_read.cgi?resid=201101031623TMS_____CTHOMAS__tq--b-a_20110104
Cal said, “The Constitution, according to liberal thinking, was written at a time when people — including some of its signers — owned slaves, and so we moderns must interpret and regularly update it like computer software. These ‘interpretationists’ are like people who appeal to biblical authority when it appears to support their earthly agenda (so numerous verses about helping the poor mandate government welfare) but ignore it when it offends secular pursuits (abortion, homosexuality, income redistribution, capital punishment).” The part that makes me angry . . . well beyond the sanctimonious and condescending tone . . . Cal apparently does not care about constructive debate since he knows his interpretation of the Constitution is correct and all others are wrong, as if he and his brethren do not interpret the Constitution; they only adhere to the words strictly, without interpretation. He portrays other interpretations as frivolous, duplicitous, and otherwise driven by base “secular pursuits.” Cal and others like to conveniently ignore the preamble and the 10th Amendment. Strict interpretation, whatever that means, does not allow some parts to be favored and other parts to be overlooked. The strict constructionists appear quite comfortable with the Commerce Clause as justification for the vast intrusion into the private domain by the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 [PL 91-513], and by the same logic, they rail against the Supreme Court’s protection of a citizen’s fundamental right to privacy in Roe v. Wade [410 U.S. 113 (1973)] [319]. This question is really quite simple – let us get government out of our homes and private lives and confine the Federal government to the authority defined by the Constitution. If we respect the freedom of choice of other citizens, we do not need many of the laws we suffer today.

“Huck Finn Gets Some Changes”
By Mike Krumboltz
Yahoo News
Published: Tue Jan 4, 3:34 pm ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_newsroom/20110104/en_yblog_newsroom/huck-finn-gets-some-changes
Mark Twain [AKA Samuel Langhorne Clemens] wrote a number of novels, essays, articles, letters and short stories in the late 19th Century; among those works were his classics: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer [1876] and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn [1884] – books most American citizens of my generation were required to read in school. We were informed this week that a friendlier, less offensive version of Mark Twain’s classic stories titled: Mark Twain's Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn: The NewSouth Edition, will be published in February by NewSouth Books [Montgomery, Alabama], which replaces the word “nigger” with the presumably less odious word “slave” and simply deleted the word “Injun” from Clemens’ original text. Over the years, there have been repeated attempts to brand the books as racist and promoting racial division or strife, and thus to ban the books from the tender, malleable minds of our school children, simple because Clemens chose representative prose to represent the time he portrayed in the story. The issue is his repeated use of the word “nigger.” I shall not offer some lame defense based on the vastly more prevalent use of the word by rappers and other shock performers, or even the common street use among citizens with dark skin pigmentation. The expansive public debate regarding equality, racial integration, tolerance, diversity and social acceptance must progress. I have always felt the word “nigger” was offensive no matter who used it or in what context, but I do not get to say that since my skin pigmentation is closer to pink than brown; yet, my reaction to the NewSouth Edition of Huck Finn is far stronger and outraged than the word itself ever produced. The title of the 2011 edition should more appropriately be the adulterated version of Mark Twain’s classic novels of youth and learning. We recently watched the History Channel program “The Ku Klux Klan – A Secret History”, which reminds us precisely why history must be preserved and illuminated; we must always remember those days 150 years ago and prevent the mindless oppression that existed back then.

We always have the constant challenge to the constitutional structure created by the Framers. The effort usually peaks when one faction or the other loses their control of the instruments of State; and so it goes.
“Can't we just have majority rule?”
by Matt Miller
Washington Post
Published: Thursday, January 6, 2011
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/05/AR2011010502230.html?wpisrc=nl_opinions
Miller claims the lack of majority rule in California has directly contributed to a variety of problems and “the state's associated descent into ungovernability.” I have and will continue to argue quite the opposite. The senatorial filibuster demands compromise and broad support. We have seen far too much evidence and demonstration of what happens when any political party gains unilateral control. I fundamentally disagree with Miller. This Grand Republic has never been based on simple majority rule for good reason; we have a system of governance designed to encourage negotiation, compromise, adjustment and public debate. I suggest we get to the business of moderation rather than whine about the filibuster. We do not need to be mucking about with the system that has worked for two centuries of democratic struggle.

The National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling is scheduled to release its final report on the Macondo Well disaster [436, 442, 456, 471] on Tuesday, 11.January.2011. President Obama created the Commission by Executive Order 13543 of 21.May.2010. For reasons unknown, they released Chapter 6 of the report, which is arguably the meat-n-potatoes segment of the comprehensive government assessment of the accident. The Commission heaps responsibility for the accident on nearly everyone; however, they concluded, “The most significant failure at Macondo—and the clear root cause of the blowout—was a failure of industry management.” BP was the captain of the team, thus the company carried the ultimate responsibility. Rather than regurgitate the Commission’s findings, which should be readily available next week to anyone so inclined, I shall offer a few relevant observations.
From the various authoritative sources publicly available, I am left with some lasting impressions. The oil drilling business and especially the unique specialty of deepwater drilling inherently has uncertainty and risk with human operators who must occasionally must make rapid successive decisions to maintain safety, much like aviation and other endeavors. Among pilots, one of the most dangerous pilots is the man who does not know his own limitations – the arrogance of ignorance I call it. Far too many individuals in decision and control positions did not respect the risks involved. I have seen the phenomenon far too many times. There are many contributors – one of which is inadequate situation awareness, i.e., the operator does not recognize an impending crisis. Such appears to be the case on Deepwater Horizon. The government report characterized the rig control room, “These individuals sit for 12 hours at a time in front of these displays. In light of the potential consequences, it is no longer acceptable to rely on a system that requires the right person to be looking at the right data at the right time, and then to understand its significance in spite of simultaneous activities and other monitoring responsibilities.” The Commission went on to conclude, “In the future, the instrumentation and displays used for well monitoring must be improved. There is no apparent reason why more sophisticated, automated alarms and algorithms cannot be built into the display system to alert the driller and mudlogger when anomalies arise.” As gleaned from the public reports, I have read so far, the oil drilling business can benefit from the type of situation awareness information display technology that has become common in today’s aircraft. Most accidents are a string of events that could be avoided if any one or combination of events was avoided or mitigated. So it was on Deepwater Horizon at the Macondo Well on the evening of 20.April.2010. In closing, I have not yet seen sufficient information to justify a moratorium on offshore oil exploration [448], no more so than an aircraft accident warrants grounding all of commercial aviation.

On Saturday at 10:10 [T] MST, at a Tucson, Arizona shopping center, a gunman reportedly wielding a 9mm Glock semi-automatic pistol with an extended magazine clip, killed six and wounded 14, in an apparent assassination attempt on Representative Gabrielle Dee “Gabby” Giffords of Arizona, recently sworn in for her third term in the House. She was at a scheduled “Congress on Your Corner” constituent, political event. Giffords was reportedly shot in the head, at point-blank range. She was rushed to a local trauma center, where she is listed in critical condition. Among the dead were U.S. District Judge John McCarthy Roll of Arizona, and 9-year-old Christina Taylor Green, who had recently been elected to her school’s student council. The shooter was tackled by two bystanders and captured without injury. Law enforcement has Jared Lee Loughner, 22, in custody. Federal prosecutors charged Loughner with one count of attempted assassination of a member of Congress, two counts of killing an employee of the federal government, and two counts of attempting to kill a federal employee. Giffords is married to Astronaut Captain Mark Edward Kelly, USN [USMMA 1986], commander of STS-134 Endeavour, the final planned mission of the American space shuttle program. Kelly’s twin brother, Astronaut Captain Scott Joseph Kelly, USN, is the current commander of the International Space Station (ISS), Expedition 26.

News from the economic front:
-- The Labor Department reported nonfarm payrolls rose by 103,000 in December, with private-sector employers adding 113,000 jobs. The November number was revised up significantly to show an increase of 71,000 jobs from the previous estimate of 39,000. The unemployment rate fell to 9.4% last month -- the lowest level since May 2009 and the biggest drop in more than a decade.

Comments and contributions from Update no.472:
Comment to the Blog:
“While I do not reach the heights of drama of Colman McCarthy (anti-ROTC), I tend to agree with McCarthy's underlying point that fighting for peace is like screwing for chastity.
“The people promoting the "death panel" discussion have little to no interest in such issues as death with dignity. They simply seek to scare their target audience yet again. The legitimate discussion of end-of-life issues will await a saner political environment.
“I have not read the 617-page report on the US offering or not offering safe harbor to certain Nazis after World War II. I will never have the time or the persistence to complete such a project. I have read the Times story once and your discussion twice. As best I can understand your writing, you agree that some Nazis were given safe haven but object to the title of the story. Please give more background and less details. I do not understand what you wrote well enough to discuss it in any depth, and I cannot understand why you object to the story's title when you agree that it names what happened.
“Your bit on the economy implies that winning political candidates and their staffs are buying housing, thus supporting housing prices in DC. Does that also imply that losing incumbents and their staffs are not selling housing and leaving DC?
“Still more on the Macondo well disaster and other stories: you seem very inclined to assume that corporate entities have idealistic motivations and long-term outlooks. Their collective history does not support that.”
My reply to the Blog:
Re: McCarthy article. I believe any professional warrior will say their job is not about fighting; it is about training, being equipped, and being fully prepared to unleash the maximum violence necessary to accomplish the President’s defined objectives when called upon to do so. Every warrior hopes the diplomats solve the problem. I also think every professional warrior expects that by being the most prepared to wage war successfully, they will avoid having to pull the trigger to destroy or do harm to an enemy. Our military has always been a reflection of the society it serves. McCarthy’s elitist opinion does not serve academic integrity or purity, but rather separates the military ever so much farther from society, which I respectfully contend hurts the military, hurts academia, and ultimately the very Republic itself.
Re: Death Panels. Spot on! The whole Death Panel notion is precisely about irrational fear-mongering intended to stimulate the ideologically inclined or those who choose not to seek constructive solutions. I have heard very little constructive debate or even dialogue so far. The ideologues apparently want to quash debate before it can begin, as is so often the case with the moral projectionists; they know the correct answer – no need for debate or even discussion.
Re: DoJ Nazi report. To be frank, I struggled with my approach to the report. Of the nearly 1,000 cases investigated by OSI, the author chose 27 of those cases to represent a spectrum of their work. Each of the chosen cases presents unique elements. I would be happy to explain my opinion; however, if you will indulge me, I think the most productive approach would be for you to answer my question: What reaction did you have to the title? Since you read the Times article, I would also ask your opinion regarding the government’s handling of the “Aftermath” cases based on the article? From your response, I think I can explain further.
Re: economy. My facetious close was intended to acknowledge the politicians never lose, not even when defeated at the polls.
Re: Macondo well disaster. I have never seen corporations as having “idealistic motivations and long-term outlooks.” I am certainly not defending BP or the others. Conversely, I do not see corporations as the evil empire. Flawed individuals who make mistakes in judgment run corporations. Yes, some corporations are indeed driven by short-term profitability even to the detriment of the long-term . . . often in hopes that fate will help the next quarter and the next after that. I imagine BP had no expectation of spending US$40B more on that well than they already have. BP did not seek disaster. Their management decisions may well have directly contributed to the disaster, and if so, they will pay a very steep price for those decisions. What will be, will be. My only point is, let us not jump to conclusions, either for or against, until we have all the facts.
. . . a follow-up comment:
“What reaction did you have to the title?
“My response to the headline ("Nazis Were Given 'Safe Haven" in U.S., Report Says") was, "Yeah." Stories of high-value Nazi scientists coming to the U.S. after World War II are pretty much old news. I had not been aware of intelligence operatives being included, but it's not a surprise.
“Since you read the Times article, I would also ask your opinion regarding the government’s handling of the “Aftermath” cases based on the article? From your response, I think I can explain further.
“The O.S.I. team Department of Justice came to this very late in the process, with their work beginning in 1979. The article notes that at times the Justice Department participated in covering up the facts, and in the case cited (Soobzokov) Jewish radicals to kill the subject. No indication of an investigation is given. The article mentions in passing Obama's difficulties in delivering on his campaign promise of transparency in government, then discusses a much-redacted copy produced under a Freedom of Information Act request versus the complete copy the Times obtained. Much of the redaction was pointless, as the deleted information refers to public records. All in all, this article confirms my impression that intelligence agencies are accountable to nobody and have only their own narrow minds to guide any ethical decisions. The Justice Department has internal conflicts and their mission of justice tends to be guided by political and other considerations. Also, the fact that supporters of John Demjanjuk could get their hands on the O.S.I.'s trash for two years without getting caught indicates a lack of ordinary-in-this-context caution that makes me wonder whether this is still a whitewash. People that careless are subject to manipulation.”
. . . and my follow-up reply:
I think most folks reacted to the title as you did . . . yea verily . . . of course the United States harbored Nazis.
The title of the Times article attracted my attention, more from curiosity in the history that might be available rather than the sensationalism associated with the evil government exposed. As I read the article, the anti-government tone struck me as out of synch with the history I understood. I felt compelled to read the government’s argument. I attempted to convey the enormous scope of the OSI investigations and cases. I was surprised to see the plethora of OSI cases involving individuals from the Baltic States, and I asked why? I noted the bona fide Nazis that the government acknowledged helping for national security purposes – the Cold War and Soviet hegemony. The report tried to construct the complicated geo-political environment of World War II and the post-war era. They did represent the resistance of the CIA, but did not delve into the reasons or authority behind the resistance.
To be frank, I was struck by the political bias of the Times representation of the government OSI actions in virtually the same manner as I was by Sarah Palin’s Death Panel fear mongering. The article did not represent the context, only the sensational elements. At least the government report tried to portray the context.
The government acknowledges its mistakes as well as the internal conflict between the Department of Justice and the Central Intelligence Agency. The government’s effort was more a historic study rather than a white paper seeking improvement. We cannot ignore the potential of conspiratorial cover-up. The reality is, as with most situations like this one, we can interpret information as we wish – there are never sufficient facts.
Your last point is spot on. The less informed citizens are, the more susceptible they are to manipulation by one side or the other, or both for that matter.

My very best wishes to all. Take care of yourselves and each other.
Cheers,
Cap :-)