Mark Byron

Annus Horribilis

Here's a worthwhile quote for the evening via John Daly

"This has been the worst year," he said in the New Year's Eve interview. "One day left."

Well, we're down to about 100 minutes in the Central Time Zone where I'm stationed tonight. A lot of people would agree with Daly's statement, and they weren't looking at six months of EuroTour exile.

I'm still not sure that 2008 was the worst year in recent memory. 1980 sucked worse than 2008 did, with stagflation, the Iranian embassy crisis, a boycotted Moscow Summer Olympics due to Afghanistan. The three redeeming things that came out of 1980 were the Winter games, where Eric Heiden swept the speed skating golds and a team of US amateurs beat the Soviets in hockey, the emergence of Nightline and the election of Ronald Reagan (even though yours truly voted for Carter as a wet-behind-the-years 19-year-old; when I want to rip Eileen for voting for Clinton in her first vote in 1992, I remember that one).

What good came from 2008? Not much in the stock market, to be sure. Conservatives in the Peanut Gallery will morn the election of Barack Obama and a thumping in the Senate and we're looking at another call-and-response across the Israeli-Gazan border as we close the year.

However, there were quite a few good sports memories, from the Tampa Bay Rays World Series run to Michael Phelps' octet of gold necklaces to a Red Wings title post-Yzerman.

As a whole, the Todd Bently revival/fiasco was a net plus, as it reminded a lot of people of a need for sound doctrine along with any move of the Spirit. Even if an Obama administration may raise the hackles of conservative churchmen, the church seems a bit stronger as we end the year.

Two good voices on the Christian right-of-center, Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin, came onto the scene, and the emergence of Rick Warren as Billy Graham's de-facto replacement as chaplain-in-chief gives evangelicals a largely apolitical (Prop 8 notwithstanding) and upbeat face to offset some sourpusses like Pat Robertson and James Dobson.

So, we're closing in on the end of 2008. One more year of the 'oughts to go; that is starting to become the consensus to what to call this decade that has a year and a hour to go.

Parliamentary Maneuvers Too Funky for George Clinton

Here's a thought about l'affair Blago. How long would he last if he were a Canadian provincial premier?

Not to say that he would, but let's say that the RCMP caught Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty on tape with his hand in the cookie jar. How many days would it take the Ontario Liberals to remove him as party leader and pick another member of the provincial parliament to be the new premier? The federal Liberals changed gears in a matter of weeks when a bungled coalition attempt left party leader Stephane Dion politically high and dry, and Dion didn't even do anything illegal, immoral or fattening.

My guess is that McGuinty would be a private citizen, or at worst an independent back-bencher kicked out of both the premiership and the Liberal caucus if he were caught doing what Blago is on tape doing (or a Canadian equivalent thereof, since the Senate in Canada is weak and appointments are done by the PM). He's be gone in a week, a fortnight at worst.

There is no rule that requires that states mirror the federal political model of a president, vice president and bicameral legislature with a Senate with longer terms than the House. State constitutions require it, but they can be changed. For instance, Nebraska has a unicameral legislature, the only state to do so.

What if Nebraska changed their constitution to make the Governor an appointed position to be held by a member of the state legislature? The person who'd be Speaker of the House in most states would instead be governor. Then, if the governor turns out to be a bad apple or merely an unwise choice, they can change the governor by a simple vote rather than a drawn-out impeachment process.

"Doesn't that reduce checks and balances?" I hear from the right wing of the Peanut Gallery. To a certain extent. You have divided legislatures in many states; in Kentucky, a Republican state senate keeps a Democratic governor and state house honest, while in New York, a new Democratic state senate majority might be derailed by pro-life Democrats switching sides.

However, a unified state government, where the majority party gets to rule, has less room for lobbyists to maneuver, as you have fewer committees to slip earmarks in and a more transparent decision-making process.

Why not a state parilament? We'd be able to have Blago be history already if Illinois had that in place.

Burris Fueler's Day Off

Mr. Roland Burris probably doesn't deserve the long knives he's been getting. Were it not for the circus surrounding Gov. Blagojevich (time to add that to the dictionary) and his botched attempted to sell the seat, few eyebrows would be raised at his US Senate appointment. He's a former state comptroller and AG who both audited and ran banks before getting into politics, he's the kind of distinguished gentleman who could ably serve as Senator for a few months before a replacement was elected. At 71, he's unlikely to become a Senate power unless he wants to be the African-American Strom Thurmond.

I haven't seen any political dirt on him yet; the fire is aimed at Blago, not Burris per se. Being a Chicago pol who's won statewide office and lost at runs for governor and mayor, he might have some skeletons, but none that I've seen yet.

Other than the fact that stalling his appointment for a few weeks means Democrats need to round up one more RINO to break a filibuster, I don't see a good reason to keep him on the outside; common courtesy would point towards seating him. The Democrats don't have to give him committee seats if they want, but unless there's proof of misdeeds on Burris' behalf, he's just been named Senator by the sitting governor of the state of Illinois.

However, it might be up to the US Supreme Court to see if they can tell the Senate to seat Burris. It seems that a majority of the Supremes would say "get real."

Broncoitis and Bronchitis

No, I haven't fallen off the planet. I've just been on vacation and just got back from a newfound joy-finding a doctor in a strange town. Not that strange; it's northern metro Houston where my in-laws live. Still, I had to hunt to find a good urgent care place to take care of a budding case of bronchitis that I brought back from Rockford.

When did we stop going to our regular doctor for garden-variety illnesses? That used to be the case, but most GPs are booked solid and some sort of doc-in-a-box urgent care clinic is now the norm for treating things like sinus infections.

The PA who treated me was very good, hooking up a nebulizer inhaler to get some immediate relief to the lungs and getting some steroids and antibiotics to clear up my sinuses and lungs. I guess I need to hold off on my Olympic career for a bit ;-).

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I haven't been watching much football during bowl season; I've been on the road a lot and my in-laws don't have cable, so no ESPN.

The bowls have been cheapened quite a bit, which is good for mid-majors, who now get bids they would often get snubbed for in the past. Now, a pulse and a 7-5 record clinches a bowl bid, and a 6-6 has been known to get in. Down in Houston, the locals saw Rice beat Western Michigan in the Texas Bowl for Rice's first bowl win in 54 years.

Rice is one of the few school that's been downwardly mobile, going from being one of the doormats of the old Southwest Conference to being competitive in Conference USA. Had they been in the Big 12, they would have had a much harder time getting to a bowl and probably been slated to face a better team if they did manage to limp in with a 6-6 record.

Rockfordphiles

We're up in frigid Rockford, IL, having made it through some snowy and slick roads in eastern Kansas and western Missouri, introducing my in-laws' Houston-reared dog to her first sub-zero weather (it's 5 at present and slated to go down to -3 tonight). Poor little McKenzie is probably thinking "Who expanded the walk-in freezer?"

We'll be having Christmas with Eileen's clan tomorrow and going to a cousin's wedding on Saturday. I think this is the first time I've ever spent Christmas Eve in a hotel and the first time Eileen and her folks have been in Rockford for Christmas since her grandma passed on in 2005, so pray for the emotions to be manageable for her clan.

It looks like there is some excellent hoops action tomorrow if you get tired of family or don't have any. If you're in the former block, I'll lift up a prayer for you to get along with your clan. If you're in the latter block, I'll pray that you not get lonely on a family day.

Either way, Christmas winds up being a depressing time for a lot of folks, as dysfunctional families get out the long knives when they get together and lonely folks feel kicked in the gut if they have no one to share a family holiday with. May they all reflect on a God who loved (and loves) them so much that He sent Himself in human form to die for them.

The Trouble With Kansas...

... is that it's rather icy. I fell on my kiester getting out of the car here in Emporia as we make our way north to Rockford for Eileen's cousin's wedding.

I don't think I've been in Kansas before; we ran into the edge of a cold front as we stopped for the night. One of the oddities I ran into was cattle pens on I-35. As it turns out, it's a spot for ranchers to bring in their cattle, since that passage of I-35 goes about 35 miles between exits; it's noted for being a good spot to watch for pronghorn antelope.

Add Braum's to your list of interesting places to eat; it's a regional dairy and fast-food chain we ran into to for dinner in Oklahoma. It is a bit like Culver's in Big 10 territory, except that they have a dairy/convenience store along with a restaurant/ice cream shop. It was way too cold to be thinking about ice cream, but the chicken fingers and hamburgers went over well. They seem to be Oklahoma City based, getting tentacles into neighboring states.

Braum's is an interesting story of vertical integration, where they own their own farms and dairies.

We'll see what interesting new things I see as we make our way through the rest of Kansas, Missouri and Iowa on our way to Rockford.

Edifier du Jour-Job 40:6-14(NIV)

⁶ Then the LORD spoke to Job out of the storm:

⁷ "Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.

⁸ "Would you discredit my justice?
Would you condemn me to justify yourself?

⁹ Do you have an arm like God's,
and can your voice thunder like his?

¹⁰ Then adorn yourself with glory and splendor,
and clothe yourself in honor and majesty.

¹¹ Unleash the fury of your wrath,
look at every proud man and bring him low,

¹² look at every proud man and humble him,
crush the wicked where they stand.

¹³ Bury them all in the dust together;
shroud their faces in the grave.

¹⁴ Then I myself will admit to you
that your own right hand can save you.

That's a harsh indictment, but it's true. It rings especially true as we approach Christmas and remember why Jesus needed to come in human form, to provide that salvation that we lack in our own strength.

I'm reminded of the denouement of Ghostbusters, where the guys are asked "Are you a god?" At least the guy had the common sense to say "No." Powerpacks were enough to do in a demonic Stay-Puft marshmallow man in that story, but you need a Savior to protect your spirit in real life.

Not only are we not gods (except metaphorically in at least one passage), we definitely aren't God. Saving ourselves is below our pay grade.

Edifier du Jour: John 11:38-43(NIV)

³⁸Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. ³⁹"Take away the stone," he said. "But, Lord," said Martha, the sister of the dead man, "by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days."

⁴⁰Then Jesus said, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?"

⁴¹So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, "Father, I thank you that you have heard me. ⁴²I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me."

⁴³When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" ⁴⁴The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, "Take off the grave clothes and let him go."

The sermon we got this morning at NE Houston Baptist was a bit odd, for the story of Lazarus was the focal point on this Sunday before Christmas. However, it isn't that odd when you reflect on why Jesus came to Earth in human form; to be the sacrifice to end them all and to beat Death at his own game.

Not everyone's going to get a Lazarus experience and be raised from the dead, although you do get reports of such miracles from time to time, some of them legit. It will not be something that mere mortals can do on their own. We can have better and better ways to treat the damaged and dying, like this new method of saving lungs for transplant longer, allowing more of them to be used.

However, if someone is dead, especially for any significant length of time, they're gone barring a miracle. That's why the four days was important; after three days, any hope of the death merely being a coma or bad faint was gone and the soul was deemed to have left the building.

It's ironic that we had this sermon today; last night, as I was wondering through a gas station in East Texas waiting for Eileen to make her bladder gladder, I spotted this "Screaming Meanie" alarm, "loud enough to wake the dead" as the blurb on the box says.

Nice try. I don't think Jesus needed 110dB to get Lazarus going, just the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus needed that power to raise the physically dead, and applies that power to all who believe to break through our sinful nature and draw us to Him.

That's what He came for, to give the spiritually dead new life in Him, and occasionally bring the physically dead back to show His power over the Universe.

"Mt. Enterprise... and put it in a museum"

We're in Texas, possibly for the last time in a long while. Eileen has a long Christmas hiatus from her current position and I can prep for next semester from my laptop anywhere, so we're visiting my in-laws in metro Houston. They're looking to sell their house and retire to Tennessee, so it may be a while before we come this way without her parents as a draw.

We took a slightly different route south than with previous trips to Texas, swinging by metro Longview to visit a high school buddy of Eileen's on our way down yesterday. A couple of the locales on the way down got a chuckle.

One county en route was Upshur county. It's good that they don't have county wide school districts like they do in Kentucky, where many of the high schools are X County High. "Upshur, up your [insert anatomical part]." Kilgore was en route as well; sports chants there would have spooked the Secret Service in the 90s.

The one that got the most fun was a small berg of Mount Enterprise. I recall saying "Don't give the Obama team any ideas, for they'll want to mount enterprise and display it in a museum."

I like the trip in from Beaumont on US-90 better, where the mileage roadsigns have Liberty winning out over China, then see Liberty losing out to Houston.

We're #1 in #2

I had a stoner wander into my apartment earlier in the year at 6AM on a Sunday via an unlocked front door. This story is almost as weird; a 4-year-old gets up in the middle of the night, breaks containment at home, walks across the street to a Family Dollar, finds an unlocked door and starts playing with toys inside.

The perp was released to relatives. My mind is running the faux Law and Order episode on this one, maybe as a SNL skit with the cast coming along to do the case in person.

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I wasn't able to Google it, but I recall a George Carlin skit about a drug buy gone sour, where the seller has "the s**t" and the slang-challenged would-be buyer is puzzled and intrigued at the package of high-quality manure: "That must be some really good s**t."

Fast forward to the news page, where a shipment of Peruvian guano to Spain is busted; it included three tons of cocaine. A crack Peruvian investigative unit did it job well.

Cocaine is arguably Columbia's #1 export, but it's clearly Peru's #2 export.

Santa Humor

A few groaners I conjured up at an office Christmas party this afternoon.

What's Santa's native language? North Polish

What's Santa's favorite basketball team? The Nicks

What's Santa's favorite Kentucky town? Nicholasville.

What's Santa's favorite part of the Constitution? The Elastic Clause, especially after all those cookies.... and cheese.

A Really Big Shoe

Well, at least a size 10.

Here's one argument for keeping dodgeball in elementary school PE; it helps you prepare to duck hard-thrown objects heading your way. Shoe-throwing is a high insult in Arab quarters, not too far away from the dusting off your feet the disciples were instructed by Jesus to do to unwelcoming towns.

Serious question for future reference-what else could that guy have thrown and what happens if he connects?

Flight to Safety...With a Layover at Stupidity

This story had my Finance students scratching their heads earlier this week-

Investors fearful of deflation and riskier assets scrambled to hand over cash to the US Treasury in return for no interest at an auction Tuesday, while some T-bill rates fell below zero in the market.

Pressures on fund managers to stock up on the safest possible assets in advance of year-end book-balancing added to the bid for government securities, traders said. The U.S. Treasury Department said it sold four-week bills at a high rate of 0.000 percent, a level never before seen, in a $30 billion auction.

So much for the definitional statement that zero-coupon investments always sell at a discount. Yet another one of my notes that I'll have to rewrite.

Why would someone pay to have the government borrow their money?

Here are a few possibilities

(1) A money-market fund wants to have some of each T-bill offering, even if it doesn't earn any money.
(2) Someone had shorted a T-bill and really needed to buy it back.
(3) Fear of a bank collapse. Large investors are on their own if a bank goes under beyond the basic FDIC insurance (traditionally $100K but raised to $250K recently) and they might want it in Uncle Sam's hands for safe-keeping; they can then cash the payback check at any bank that's still standing.

"May you live in interesting times" was an ancient curse. Indeed.

Thursday Musings

It's too easy a shot to get in a global warming dig when you have records for cold getting set, but I know at least one transplanted Midwesterner (my mother-in-law) who will be happy with this news item-Houston got snow last night; it's the earliest snow on record there. I can happily live without any snow (New Years Eve in shorts is my idea of nice weather from my Florida days), but others miss having at least a bit of winter.

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Interesting doings in Springfield; the state AG is poised to press unfit-to-serve charges before the state Supreme Court, which would force him aside and let the LG run the state and possibly pick a short-term replacement for Obama.

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There are a number of things that can make you feel old. One happened yesterday when I got the new textbook for my FIN 542 class; the 9th edition of Brealy and Myers' Principles of Corporate Finance. I did my Intermediate Finance as an undergrad out of the 2nd edition and did my MBA Corporate Finance class out of the 3rd; the 2nd edition is still in my office bookshelf.

Another feelin'-old moment is seeing CC Sabathia get his bongo-buck contract from the Yankees. I can remember reading Terry Pluto a decade or so ago, back when he was with the Akron Beacon Journal, bragging on this big stud of a lefty coming through the Indians farm system, and now he's the richest pitcher on the planet.

Honest Graft

Here's a SNL skit for this week with Tina Fay coming back to do Sarah Palin. Get one of the guys to get a bad wig to play Rod Blagojevich as the two meet at a governor's conference.

"Gov. Palin, I was so moved when you auctioned your plane on eBay. I had a Senate seat I didn't quite know what to do with, so I auctioned it off on eBay."

"You can't auction off a Senate seat. You can hand it down to your daughter like we do in Alaska, but you can't sell it."

"I found that out the hard way. You can't try stuff on on-line; if fits some people but it doesn't Fitzgerald."

Yep, the namesake of one of those famous Irish longtime companions, Patrick Fitzgerald, is back in the news, making up for his takedown of Scooter Libby by taking down a Democratic governor.

It will be interesting to see how close the malfeasance comes to Obama himself. We shall see.

[Update 12-15: Here's the eBay listing]

Life in a Northern Company Town

Some tough news for my hometown of Midland; Dow Chemical is having to do some serious trimming-

The Dow Chemical Co. today said it plans to eliminate 5,000 jobs, close 20 facilities in high-cost locations, divest itself of several businesses, temporarily idle 180 plants and cut the global contracted work force by 6,000.

The job reductions within Dow are roughly 11 percent of the company’s work force. The measures will save $700 million in yearly operating costs by 2010.

It's a real small world; the co-author of that Midland Daily News piece, Cheryl Wade, is one of our circle of friends from Midland. I can recall seeing she and her guide dog (she's blind) at Midland Free Methodist when we went their in 2006-7 before moving to Lexington.

Dow has been trimming staff for years, but an 11% cut means 11% of Midland's primary employer. That would mean something on the order of 500 jobs in a town of 40,000 if Midland gets its share of the cuts. That's around 3% of the working population, even before you start looking at multiplier effects; the 3% getting laid off or early-retired will have less to spend at local establishments, possibly forcing marginal stores to close and lay off more people.

How much of a company town is it? The new minor-league baseball stadium is the Dow Diamond, the city library is the Grace A. Dow Library, the old high school in town is the Midland High Chemics and the newer school (circa 1970) is Dow High. The two largest employees are Dow Chemical and Dow Corning (a Dow-Corning Glass 50-50 corporate "partnership"); confuse the two at your own peril if you go to Midland.

I can remember past Dow staff trimming. One of my dad's good friends Don Cormier got early retired from Dow in the early 90s and spend what should have been a productive 50s selling appliances at Sears at our then-new mall; however, he had more free time to help out in prison ministry and helping out with the Open Door homeless shelter. He passed on last year.

Not everyone's going to be as productively semi-retired as Don was; my father-in-law got early-retired out of a comptroller's job and works as a gas station/convenience store manager to supplement his pension pay.

Pray for the people in Midland and elsewhere who are getting laid off (and their families, church-mates and loved ones). Also pray for the ones who aren't getting laid off, for they will have both survivor's regret and a heavier workload if Dow is trying to do more with less; Eileen got let go from a long-term temp position at Dow a few years back when they decided to staff her department with one less person.

Iggy Stardust

Things are moving fast up north. PM Harper's move to prorogue Parliament may have both saved him his job and sped up the departure of Liberal party leader Stephane Dion. Dion was already a lame duck as party leader, but the move to form an active coaltion with the NDP and BQ seemed to have backfired in the polls.

Dion moved up his resignation today to be "effective as soon as my successor is duly chosen."

How that person will be "duly chosen" is the trick. Michael Ignatieff is the front-runner, and the clear choice of the Liberal caucus in the House of Commons. Bob Rae is a close second among the party rank-and-file and wants the vote to be done of Liberal party members nationwide rather than by MPs. The result may dictate whether the Liberal-NDP coalition goes forward.

Rae is a former NDP premier of Ontario who shepherded the province through some tough times in the early 1990s, cutting spending and POing a lot of the union faithful that make up the NDP rank and file; after leaving office, he worked in appointed capacities for a number of Liberal governments and switched parties a few years ago. He's from the progressive side of the Liberals and would be a good person to mediate Liberal-NDP fights, having been a former Dipper himself; he's been very pro-coalition.

I don't have a good US analogy for Bob Rae. An Anglo Bill Richardson might work with a touch of Ed Koch.

"Iggy", on the other hand, is more from the moderatee Bay Street side of the party, pro American and relatively hawkish on foreign policy; a cross between Bill Bradley circa 1990 and Joe Lieberman circa 2004 might work. He's been rather lukewarm about the proposed coalition and would be more likely to talk the Tories into budget concessions rather than to try and start a grand coalition of the left.

We were looking at a new coalition government sometime this winter last week. Now, we're possibly looking at a March election if such concessions aren't achieved, or a continuation of the Conservative plurality government a lot longer than anyone thought a few days ago.

Pulling Out a New Chair

Bobby Knight got started at West Point; I always thought that Kevin McHale should have gone to Annapolis and have some great McHale Navy teams. As is, he's kicking himself downstairs to coach the T-Wolves; you traded Garnett, you coach 'em.

You know you're getting old when the stars of your youth are coaching and GMing. I can still remember the classic Piston-Celtic duels of the 80s, where McHale would be playing bumper tag with Rick Mahorn.

Mahorn's favorite trick was to "pull out the chair." McHale would back in trying to establish post position, bump, bump, bump. Just before the lastbump, Mahorn would step aside or back away just as the entry pass was coming. McHale would stumble due to lack of resistance, fall on his keister, the pass would fly out of bounds and Mahorn would let loose with one of his patented Chessy-cat grins; "Who, me? Didn't touch him." And he'd be exactly right, he didn't touch him.

Coa-abunga

Louisiana is an ethnic wonder, but it's normally known for the mingling of black, Cajun and conventional American culture. However, they now have the first Indian-American governor in Bobby Jindal and the first Vietnamese-American congressman in Joe Cao. Cao came here as an eight-year-old after the Vietnam war.

Cao beat the ethically-challenged black Democrat William Jefferson today, who gave "cold, hard cash" new meaning when he stashed some alleged bribe money in his freezer.

Here's an interesting passage from the AP piece-

The first Vietnamese-American elected to Congress doesn't have a long list of policy beliefs. Aside from one major issue, Republican moderate Joe Cao says he's open on everything else.

"The only thing I am certain of is that I am anti-abortion," Cao said Sunday morning after defeating Democratic U.S. Rep. William Jefferson in a race that marked a major shift in New Orleans politics by ending a 30-year stand for Jefferson, dogged by corruption allegations.

Very interesting. He's a "Republican moderate" yet he's anti-abortion. Isn't that supposed to make him an arch conservative in modern media-speak?

Sports Musings

My John Rocker analogy fit nicely; Rocker got two weeks, and Avery gets six games, which is about two weeks worth of the season.  That's about right.

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We're looking at one of the more interesting championship weeks in recent memory, with the SEC Florida-Alabama game essentially being one title game semifinal and the Missouri-Oklahoma Big 12 game being another for Oklahoma.

If Florida and Missouri win those games, is the final a Florida-Alabama rematch or Florida-Texas? Depends on how close the SEC title game is; if it's close, we could see a #2 Alabama and a rematch, but voters will look to bring Texas into the mix.

Speaking of Texas, I don't see the problem with giving Oklahoma the Big 12 South nod as the best ranked team in a three-way tie. Texas fans want the ratings to weed out things to the top two, then let the winner of that game go; I don't see that as a better method.

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Ball State and Boise State are in the top 12, but will be on the outside looking in on New Years, since Utah has the mid-major BCS slot nailed down. That puts two top teams into minor bowl games. Boise might stay home for the Humanitarian Bowl and Ball State gets one of three under-whelming MAC bowl slots.

What might be interesting is to match a mid-major conference with one of the big boys, so that a good mid-major could get promoted to a better bowl when they're punching above their weight. For instance, if we had a MAC-Big Ten alliance, we could see Ball State get a Capital One Bowl slot in lieu of Michigan State, and the rest of the Big 10 teams slide down a slot. You could have the SEC share with the Sun Belt, the Pac-Ten share with the Mountain West, the Big 12 share with the WAC, the ACC share with Conference USA and the Big East share with not just Notre Dame but all the other indies.

Ball State-Georgia would be more interesting fare than MSU-Georgia, even as a MSU alum.

Anti-Rogue and Prorogue

First, let me start with some of the ugly news off of the sports pages. The first that's been on my mind is Plaxico Burress' marksmanship, where he managed to shoot himself in the foot (figuratively) and the leg (literally) at the same time. I recall John Calipari's line from this spring that nothing good happens at a nightclub at 1AM.

I support the right to arm bears, but not jackasses. As a MSU alumni, I'm not thrilled to have one of my fellow Spartans making a fool of himself.

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There is a certain crude phrase that I will abbreviate SS here. It's a phrase that has no good place in my speaking or writing vocabulary; but I recall hearing it on an R-rated comedy tape in my younger, less-edifying days. The only time I recall hearing the phrase on a broadcast was during an XLF game when a tight end wound up catching a deflected pass for a touchdown (one tip driller that normally lands into the arms of a safety for an interception) and the color man used it to describe the fluke reception.

NHL bad boy Sean Avery used SS to describe his exes now on the arms of players from other teams and got suspended for it. I don't follow the NHL that closely, especially when I'm outside of hockey territory and don't get to watch any games, but Mr. Avery has a reputation of being a bit of a lout and a trashy trash talker. Yes, that goes on during games, but don't have me (or kids that you have to explain the orgy-centric term to) listen to such crud on an interview.

How much of an suspension is required? Good question... it's so out of good taste that you're not quite sure where to start. John Rocker's ethnocentric diatribe about New Yorkers comes to mind and he got two weeks from MLB.

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I'm against these rogues, but I'm not sure I'm pro prorogue. That's our vocabulary word of the day-" to terminate a session of (as a British parliament) by royal prerogative." The Canadian parliament got sent home for Christmas by the Governor General in order to give the Conservative government time to recraft a budget and to give a month for the opposition who wanted to kick the plurality Conservative government out and replace it with a Liberal-NDP coalition to think it over and start fighting amongst themselves.

I'd normally be backing the Tories on this one, but I'm surprised that GG Jean backed up PM Harper on this one; it seems like too much of a political maneuver to stop a parliamentary majority from doing something rash. She's a person of the left and has a husband with PQ sympathies, so I'm surprised that she opted for a prorogue rather than letting the Odd Trio take power. The best I can see happening is that the opposition thinks twice and gets a Christmas break to rethink things; the Conservatives have 143 seats and 155 is a majority, so they only need to give 12 opposition members to get cold feet between now and January 26th.

The Odd Trio

Interesting goings on in Canada, where the three opposition parties are working on joining forces. A notch-too-aggressive budget tabled by the Conservatives have led the two main parties of the Anglophone left, the Liberals and the New Democrats, to propose a coalition government, with the NDP getting a quarter of the cabinet seats. The Bloc Quebecois will support the coalition but not be a formal part of it; all three are needed to patch together a majority.

If it goes down, it will be the first formal coalition government since World War I; there have been minority governments in the past, but they consisted of the plurality party getting support from other parties. For instance, the Conservative government of the late 70s needed NDP and Social Credit (a small sorta-conservative party now out of the picture; the Reform wing of the Conservatives has some SoCred roots) support to patch together a majority, the BQ propped up a Liberal plurality earlier in the decade, and the BQ and Liberals alternatively propped up the last Conservative plurality government that is now on life support.

The proposed government will have 18 Liberal cabinet seats and 6 Dipper seats; we may well see Foreign Minister Jack Layton, as the tradition in European coalitions is that the head of the junior party gets the foreign portfolio.

You can cue The Odd Couple theme: "Can a center-left environmentalist, a socialist poli-sci prof, and a Quebec separatist share power without driving each other crazy?"

Add the mess of a lame duck status for prospective PM Stephane Dion; the Liberals are in the middle of a leadership campaign and the outgoing party leader who lead his party to its worst shellacking in modern times gets to be Prime Minister.

Is it anti-democratic? Nope. If the Canadians wanted a Conservative majority, it would have done so. There isn't anything that guarantees that the plurality party will get its way if everyone else pulls together.

Is it odd? You bet. That's what makes Canadian politics interesting.

Monday Musings

Interesting news day with a lot of bloggable topics. I'm keeping an eye on a capital budgeting computer lab tonight, so time for some old-fashioned bloggin'.

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The cabinet post nominations became official. Hillary at State, Gates staying on at DoD, and interestingly, Janet Napolitano as the Homeland Security chief. The Arizona governor was a point person on immigration issues, as AZ is ground zero for border control issues.

Other picks, like Marine general James Jones, were rumored well in advance; most of the comments have him down as being a good, smart soldier and a good pick. The conservative pundits like to note that the undersecretaries may be where Obama will stash the lefties, but we're largely getting a center-left cabinet so far.

The one possible worry might be UN ambassador Susan Rice; she's not Condi's kid sister even though she's a sistah. She was in charge of the Africa desk at the State department in the Clinton years, which can be a double-edged sword. She might lean towards a more southern-centric help-the-poor foreign policy, but that might also bring a few African votes into the US camp if the US needs to twist arms in the UN and elsewhere.

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We're still looking for the two negative GDP quarters definition of recession, but the NBER has pegged the end of the last growth period as December 2007; we've been going slowly downhill since then. That's about right. Hopefully, the low oil and gas prices will help turn things around.

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On that note, I saw a bumper sticker on an Obamaista car; it may not be verbatim, but the gist was-"When Bush took office, the price of oil was $1.46/gallon." I'm not quite sure of the exact figure on the sticker, but this site has the price in 1/01 down as $1.51/gallon, so we'll call it close enough for political rhetoric.

The gas station across the way as I spied that had prices at $1.69. 12% inflation in eight years isn't that bad, but whata ride. Bush policies had somewhat of a hand in that wild ride, but there was a lot of (as we'd say in econometrics) exogenous variables that helped that roller coaster along.