Brain dead

Sounds like the Montana Republican Party is seriously brain dead. Since when is a political convention a private party?

On bias

Montana Headlines has a thoughtful post (meaning, I agree with it) on media bias. He cites a Jay Cost piece that makes a point I have been pounding on for years: Sure, media bias exists, but the left-right bias that gets all of the attention is only a tiny, and not terribly relevant, part of the picture.

Progressively tense

I'm not a Fox News basher, but one thing Fox does on radio irritates the heck out of me. It broadcasts most of its news in the progressive tense. So we get, "The president meeting with Tony Blair" rather than "The president met with Tony Blair" or "The president is meeting with Tony Blair" or "The president will meet with Tony Blair," any of which would be more precise than the vague progressive. But then, the motto is "fair and balanced," not "accurate and precise."

I advise my English students to avoid the progressive tense because it is unclear and wordy. I sometimes point out to them, and I always point out to my German students, that German has no progressive tense at all -- and nobody ever misses it.

Now Fox is pounding the progressive tense into their impressionable heads, for no other reason, I suppose, than that the past tense sounds so, well, past. Fox, I can forgive you for Bill O'Reilly, but not for this.

Finished

Finally finished reading Anthony Shadid's "Night Draws Near: Iraq's People in the Shadow of America's War." It's a valuable book in several respects, perhaps most as a counterpoint to Thomas Ricks' "Fiasco." "Fiasco" is essentially a military history of the war; Shadid focuses exclusively on the sentiments of the Iraqi people themselves.

In one memorable scene, Ricks is walking at the front of a military patrol shortly after the fall of Saddam, interviewing soldiers who tell him that 85 percent of the Iraqi people fully support the U.S. invasion. At the back of the patrol, Shadid, who speaks Arabic, is interviewing Iraqis who present a far more skeptical picture -- even at that early date, Shadid says, no more than half of those he interviewed expressed support for the invasion.

Shadid also thoroughly outlines the history of Iraqi misery and repression, especially over the last 35 years. The Iran-Iraq War, a vague footnote in most Americans' memories, looms huge in the reactions and fears of Iraqis. The utter chaos of the post-war occupation, Iraqi skepticism over U.S. intentions, and the competing factions within Iraq all get thorough coverage.

The most useful thing the book does is this: It reminds us that the war isn't just about the troops. It's about a lot of suffering people, doing their best to scrape together some kind of order out of years of chaos. Sadly, it is this aspect of the war that often seems to be totally forgotten in this country, both by the anti-war left and the pro-war neocons. Shadid reminds us that when we say it's better to fight terrorists over there than here, that has real, and deadly, consequences for a lot of people who deserve better.

On duty

Pulled jury duty again today. This is the sixth time I have been called since I was selected for the pool in Judge Susan Watters' court. I was excused once because I had to give a German final that day, so I am 0-for-5 -- five times in the pool, never picked for the jury. Several other potential jurors present today had been called as often, and a couple already had served on juries. One had served on two.

The first case involved a couple seeking damages from the state for an adopted child with preexisting problems. Another was a slip-and-fall case at The Rex. One was a tampering case involving a guy who scared me a little. One was this notorious DUI case. Sitting through voir dire gave me no particular insight into the merits of any of these cases, other than a better than average basis on which to judge the jurisprudential merit of the defendant's alleged offer in the latter case (none of your business, but thanks for asking).

Today's case had to do with assessing damages from a car accident involving a Gazette sales rep. The trial was expected to run four days, apparently with much of the time taken up by testimony and depositions from medical experts. That would have been about three days more than I suspect I would care to hear. I wasted much of the last hour of questioning wondering who would fill my 14-hour delivery day on Thursday.

I've never served on a jury and wouldn't mind doing it. But the jury selection process is an odd combination of appreciation and intimidation. Lawyers and the judge always talk about how grateful they are for our service, but they can send out the cops if we don't show up. They say how important jurors are for the process, then they keep us cooling our heels with no explanation for a half-hour or longer.

And the whole process is a little bit fun, a little bit boring and a little bit nerve wracking. I'm happy to serve, but I will be happier when I am done.

Quickbooks update

I expressed my frustration below with Quickbooks and Intuit. Just so you know, I have been using the new version for a couple of weeks now, and it is inferior in every detectable respect to the version it replaced. I have to suspect that Quickbooks is deliberately making its products worse. Some other complainers say that is so it can sell more updates to fix the problems it creates. I don't doubt it.

So my system has slowed to a crawl, the program takes up far more space on my computer, and I am having to relearn much of what I already knew so I can adjust to all of the pointless changes. It even looks uglier.

My payroll subscription expires in a couple of weeks, and I have been trying to get the company to tell me what assurances I have that it won't arbitrarily wipe the tax tables out of my system again whenever it chooses. Of course, Intuit refuses to answer that question.

So today I learn that the letter-writing function of the program no longer works. For that, I have to upgrade my version of Microsoft Word. More hassle, more annoyance, more expense -- all so I can continue to enjoy continued degradation of service.

Never, ever, ever buy from Intuit.

Wal-Mart revisited

An anonymous commenter on the immigration post below writes, "If you wish to make a moral argument against Wal-Mart, go for it."

I've never had much interest in making a moral case against Wal-Mart. My distaste for the world's largest retailer stems largely from other grounds:

1. Aesthetic. We create the world we live in by where we choose to shop. 24th and King is not my idea of a livable neighborhood.

2. Historical. I cut my journalistic teeth in East Texas when Wal-Mart was spreading rapidly to every city and burg, gobbling up mom and pops by the score. The experience left a bad taste in my mouth that has never quite gone away.

3. Practical. As a small business owner, I try to do business with people who do business with me. Wal-Mart never will.

4. Geopolitical. I just don't feel like propping up the Chinese government with my retail dollars.

5. Personal. I try to support businesses that offer jobs I might want to have someday. I don't want to work for Wal-Mart.

To the extent that I make a moral case against Wal-Mart, it has mostly to do with all of the lawsuits against it for unpaid overtime. Wal-Mart denies it has a policy of forcing people to work for free, but I worked for a company that operated in just the same manner, and it isn't right.

Two statistics in the new Harper's Index bolster my arguments. One is from a Civic Economics study that found that 68 cents of every dollar spent in a locally owned Chicago store is retained or recirculated in the community. Only 43 cents of every dollar spent in a chain store in Chicago stays there.

In practical terms, to cite another Civic Economics study, this one of San Francisco, if local merchants in San Francisco were able to increase their market share by 10 percent, 1,295 jobs would be created.

The other Harper's statistic came from Wal-Mart Watch, which says that Wal-Mart avoided more than $400 million in state taxes last year by renting stories from shell companies it created. That's not immoral, maybe, but close enough.

Stop the killing

Dave Budge quotes, with at least halfhearted approval, this post from Powerline. But the quote strikes me as entirely wrong, for a couple of reasons.

1. It's never too late in the day to decide that killing is a bad idea. It may be too late for one's own redemption (a strict reading of the New Testament suggests it's never too late even for that), but it's certainly never too late for the sake of the world and of those who remain unkilled.

2. The kids shown in the picture presumably did none of the killing. If we are going to stop the killing, then starting with the good intentions of innocent children seems as promising a place as any to begin.

Comments

Comments are up and apparently running at the new Outpost website. Enjoy.

Crazification

Wildly hilarious, and eerily true.

Bumper sticker

Thursday Delivery Day Bumper Sticker of the Week: "'The universe is wider than our view of it.' -- Henry David Thoreau"

News needed

If anybody has anymore information about this story or this one, I would like to hear it.

I should mention that James Klessens did return my call after the paper was put to bed. Like Mr. Adams, he didn't wish to comment about the case because of pending or prospective legal action.

Super heroes

This letter to the editor by the mayor was right on target and closely paralleled my thoughts when I read the letter criticizing him for failing to attend Memorial Day events.

If you read The Outpost's Memorial Day calendar, you noticed that we had no events honoring veterans listed. That's not because we hate veterans but because no one bothered to tell us that any events were going on, even though this is probably the only newspaper in town actually run by a veteran and even though I could make a good case that the people most likely to attend such events are also the people most likely to read The Outpost. Maybe the events were reported on TV; I rarely get home in time to watch the news. Maybe they were in The Gazette; although I am a faithful Gazette reader, I don't read every story every day, and I may have missed this one. So I didn't know.

In all my newspaper years, it has never much bothered me when people complain about failure to cover an event. Since you can't be everywhere, such disappointments are inevitable. At least the readers' willingness to complain shows they still care.

But I haven't much use for people who can't be bothered to tell you about an event in advance but still have the energy to complain afterward that you weren't there. It's too much to ask that we be both omniscient and omnipresent. Even in the comic books, most of the heroes have only one super power.

A salesman has his day

This You Tube clip shivered the peach pit that is left of my soul.

The cost of immigration

I'm sure this piece will get picked apart, but the fundamental point strikes me as pretty unassailable.

It refreshed my memory about a point I have raised here before: If buying cheap consumer goods made by foreign workers is good for the American economy, why isn't it good to import foreign workers and have them make the goods here?

When I raised that question at the Aging Writers Kaffee Klatsch a couple of weeks ago, someone who shall remain nameless (because it was Jim Larson) said that the reason is that when aliens are here, we have to provide them with certain benefits, such as access to schools and emergency medical care. When they stay in their own countries, that's not our problem.

Is the calculation really that cold? Is the real reason we are worried about illegal immigrants that we can't exploit them sufficiently? Come on, Wal-Mart shoppers, straighten me out.

Radio in decline

As I was driving to the bank a few minutes ago, I heard a news report on health damage to veterans who served in the Gulf War. At first, I wasn't sure what station it was, but after a minute or so, it became unmistakable. The scientist being interviewed was given uninterrupted time to speak. The reporter asked serious questions and waited through in-depth, serious answers before speaking again. Obviously, it had to be NPR. Within 60 seconds, the whole approach to the report had exhibited a sense of depth, of restraint and thoroughness that simply would be unimaginable in modern commercial radio.

Which left me just one question: Why?

The first step

The truth is out: Ed Kemmick is an addict.

Constitutional question

The Wyoming law that determines how Sen. Craig Thomas' successor will be selected may be unconstitutional.

How to fold a diaper

Some regular e-mailers include quotes with their submissions. I just got one of the best yet:

Spread the diaper in the position of the diamond with you at bat. Then fold second base down to home and set the baby on the pitcher's mound. Put first base and third together, bring up home plate and pin the three together. Of course, in case of rain, you gotta call the game and start all over again.
~Jimmy Piersal, 1968

What's right is right

What's Right in Montana is back in business.

Push polling

Montana Democrats have just issued a warning that Republicans are using push polling to attack Max Baucus and Brian Schweitzer. They are asking anyone who gets a call to write down exactly what was said and contact the state party at media@montanademocrats.org or at (406) 442-9520.

Anybody had a call?

Kid torture

A thought too hideous to contemplate: Is the U.S. government torturing children?

Bumper sticker of the week

Last week's Delivery Day Bumper Sticker of the Week: "When will the rhetorical questions ever end?"

Actually, now that I think of it, I'm not certain that quote is 100 percent accurate, and I'm not even sure I saw it on a bumper sticker. But I saw it, or something similar, somewhere.

The disappearing cinema

The Missoula Independent explains why all of the movie screens seem to be showing the same movies. For your reading pleasure, I compiled the numbers for Billings here.

Don't ask

City Lights links to an op-ed piece about the military's don't ask, don't tell policy, which has cost us 58 Arabic linguists and essentially left the American military speechless in Iraq.

Like the op-ed writer, I attended the Defense Language Institute but in an era when the draft was on, and the policy was don't tell and don't let anybody find out. So I had two thoughts about this piece:

1. What in the heck was going on in those Arabic language barracks?

2. In those days, public calumny of gays was so strong that lots of gays allowed themselves to be conscripted rather than admit their sexual orientation. So it was sort of just taken for granted that the homosexual composition of the military was roughly equal to the homosexual composition of America as a whole. No soldier I knew ever admitted to being gay, and maybe nobody was, but there were always stories. In fact, one guy about whom the most stories probably swirled turned out to cash in on most G.I.s' California dreaming: He fell in love with a Monterey girl.

In short, anxiety about gays in the Army was roughly equivalent to anxiety about gays in real life, and no big deal anyway you looked at it. So how did it become a principle worth compromising our military capability over?

Blog power

Last week I whined about how tough it to deliver newspapers all day long and urged everybody to pick up a copy just so I would feel better. This week, although I haven't run the numbers, my seat-of-the-pants estimate is that as many as 500 more papers were picked up than last week. I feel great! Thanks.

P.S. Some of the improved pickup may have had to do with this story, which drew more response than anything I have written in a good long while. One fellow even stopped by to drop off a note saying how much he liked the story -- and left a $10 check inside, made out to me, not the company.

The funny thing about the response is that I never felt real good about how the piece turned out when I wrote it for Montana Quarterly. I thought seriously about not reprinting it in the Outpost.

So you never know. But I suspect here that the response had much more to do with the remarkable subject than with any skill on the part of the writer.

New page

You can see the rudiments of the new Outpost web page here. I spent a good chunk of yesterday trying to get the blog up and running over there and made some progress but haven't figured out how to make the comments function work.

Obviously, this is a work in progress, and we welcome advice and assistance. Within a few days, I hope, we will be updating the news daily over there and blogging as well.

Business bashing redux

Back on May 20, I quoted Webb Brown of the Montana Chamber of Commerce, who quoted Jon Bennion of the Chamber as saying the "vicious" attitude of the Legislature toward business during this session was a shock. I said I couldn't recall hearing much business bashing.

Today, Mr. Bennion replies, in part:

I'd just point you to the blog that I do (www.montananmainstreetblog.typepad.com) and have you go through the last five months of posts. That should answer your question regarding my comments. I was at the capitol everyday and attended hundreds of hearings and floor debates. I tried to post as often as time would allow.

Also, the Chamber plans to release its 2007 Voting Review of the legislature and the governor this week. That should also provide you with more info.

I don't have time today to go through five months of posts, but I would have to say that at a quick glance I didn't see a lot of verbal bashing on his site, although he does discuss many bills that the Chamber didn't like.

More rigorous researchers can check for themselves, and in any case the blog itself is of considerable interest as one insider's view of what went on.

Petition time

If you are interested in helping the Green Party get back on the ballot in Montana, go here. Or you can contact Chris Frazier at greenfuture2000@yahoo.com

Hero worship

Words I never expected to write: Pat Buchanan is my hero (thanks to Jackie Corr).

Interviewing 'improved'

I used to regularly read Jeff Jarvis' BuzzMachine, but he wore me out. His boundless enthusiasm about the new media world exhausted me, and his occasional thimbles of insight are often buried under gallons of blather. I cut back to once a week, just to keep up, and finally quit reading him altogether.

But I was drawn back by a link at PressThink to this post, in which Mr. Jarvis waxes enthusiastic about improving interviews by conducting them via e-mail. My direct response is in his comments, I post here simply to add one example that helps make my case for the superiority of live interviews.

Back in Texas, I once profiled a longtime city council member who had been defeated for re-election. The upset had shocked and hurt him, and it was quite a while before he would even consent to an interview. But he was a colorful character (at one city council meeting, he had suggested an ordinance barring people from being poor) and he eventually came around.

Sitting at his kitchen table, we were wading through his biography, including time he had spent in the military as a demolitions expert. As he told me about that, he raised one hand, which was missing several fingers.

"Not much of an expert," he said.

Such moments, I suspect, will never be duplicated in the world of e-mail interviews.

Death penalty reconsidered

From the Spokane office of the Better Business Bureau comes word of a scam targeting military spouses. The caller claims to be from the Red Cross with news that the spouse's soldier in Iraq had been wounded and transported to Germany for medical care. The scammer then asks for Social Security information to get the treatment started.

That's why I oppose the death penalty. For some crimes, it simply isn't cruel enough.

Steamed

No sooner had I finished whining yesterday about how much I had to do than I sat down to work on payroll. I use Quickbooks Pro, and I pay Intuit $200 a year to keep withholding tax tables up to date.

Of course, there was a problem. I have the 2004 version of Quickbooks, and I had been notified that it would no longer have access to payroll updates after May 31. It's Quickbooks' way of guaranteeing that it can sell enough new software to recoup the cost of creating useless updates every year.

I wasn't happy about that because I had absolutely no desire to change my version of Quickbooks. I didn't care if they dropped tech support for old versions because I never use tech support. I didn't care about having the latest version because the version I had worked just fine. And I didn't care much about losing access to payroll updates, even though I would still be paying for the updates for a couple of more months. It would be a problem eventually, I supposed, but not between May 31, the last day I had access, and June 1, the day I did payroll.

What I didn't realize was that not only would I lose access to new updates, but I also lost access to all of the updates I have been paying $16.58 a month for all these years. That information, which my money apparently only rented but did not purchase, simply disappeared. My withholding levels went to zero for every employee. My Quickbooks program, which I had carefully maintained, learned and updated for three years, had suddenly become worthless.

So I spent a half-hour wrangling with two different service reps, an hour and a half downloading a new Quickbooks version and at least an hour updating file formats to be compatible with the new version -- the old files weren't compatible with the new version, which makes the guarantee for the new version worthless. So like it or not, I'm out $170 to own an expensive new piece of software that I neither needed nor wanted and that, so far as I can tell, runs slower and is less convenient than the version it replaced. And I got payroll done three hours late, in part because I couldn't see the computer screen because of all the steam pouring out of my ears.

Somebody please explain to me why I am wrong to be unhappy about this. To me it is no different than if automobile manufacturers, in order to pay for ongoing R&D, simply placed a small incendiary device inside every vehicle so that it would blow into pieces every three years. In fact, that's sort of what the big American manufacturers used to do until the Japanese proved that there is money to be made in building cars that last.

The Quickbooks people apparently haven't learned that lesson. I used to praise Quickbooks as the only piece of software I owned that was both understandable and useful. I will never praise it again. Quickbooks turned a loyal customer into an enemy. Nice going, guys.

SIDEBAR: One alternative is to simply get the tax table information and enter it into an Excel spreadsheet, then compute each employee's payroll taxes manually each pay period. Then my money goes to Bill Gates instead of the geeks at Intuit, which doesn't make me a heck of a lot happier. Early one Wednesday a few weeks ago, I was struggling desperately on deadline to get the paper out -- I had been working about 16 hours and had eight pages to go with about five hours to get them done. Suddenly my computer flashed me a message: Windows had downloaded an important new update and needed to restart the computer. Would I like to restart now or wait until later? Naturally, I clicked later. About five minutes later, I got the message again. Then again. And again. For a couple of hours, the message popped up every few minutes with no way to make it go away.

Finally, I had to go to the other computer to print out some pages. While I was gone, of course, the message popped up again. When I didn't answer, it restarted my computer and closed all my programs, wasting whatever hadn't been saved.

What the heck? Bill Gates, you may own the world, but you don't own my computer. Keep your grimy hands off.

A day in the life

Warning: This post contains whining.

We were shorthanded yesterday, so I delivered papers for 15 hours, plus an hour or so this morning to finish up. This afternoon I'm scrambling to make payroll. Then I have to do the monthly billing in time for Monday's mail and get next week's paper going. This week I used up the last of my stockpiled stories, so I start with no stories and no art. To top it off, I have jury duty on Monday morning. So much for my summer ambition to take a day off every week. Anybody want to buy a small business?

Actually, the point, if any -- and I realize I'm probably preaching mostly to the choir here, if even the choir shows up -- is that if you think this venture deserves any support at all, then make a point of picking up a paper every week and urging others to do so. You don't even have to read it -- I will never know one way or the other -- but nothing eases those long delivery days like finding an empty rack at every stop. It costs you nothing and makes what's left of my life worth living. And the trees will be grateful to know that they have not died in vain.

Outpost delivery Thursday

Bumper sticker of the day: "When evolution is outlawed, only outlaws will evolve."

Crazy voices

One of the joys of being a newspaper editor is that all sorts of crackpot opinions show up at the door. For example, every week I get a copy of Regent University grad Nathan Tabor's column. It's often thoughtless and occasionally ridiculous, filled with unexamined assumptions and vague imitations of arguments. But this week's entry sets a new standard.

Start with the second sentence, which insists that liberals "want to turn criticism of same sex marriage into a crime." Now, really, what could possibly be further from the truth? No liberal this side of Stalin would seriously argue that people who criticize same-sex marriage should be imprisoned. Tabor expresses the opposite of an idea, a negative force that subtracts knowledge from the universe.

In paragraph four, he quotes with approval a Georgia House member who says, "If we could liken the Internet to a mall, a place where you can go in and purchase goods and services, and also liken it to a library, a place where you can go and pull a book, pull a resource, and obtain some information, why would we tax a person upon entering a mall or why would we tax a person upon entering the library?"

We don't tax a person upon entering a mall because malls are privately owned entities that wish to attract people into their stores. We then tax the land the mall sits on, tax the profits and, in many states, tax each sale. We don't tax a person upon entering the library because we already have taxed the person to pay for the library. The public owns the library, and the public decides the price of entry. Neither case is comparable to internet access.

In paragraph six, Tabor dredges up the "limousine liberal" cliche. Are there no "limousine conservatives"? No, because conservatives, no matter what their mode of transportation, are ordinary folk. Only liberals get the "limousine" label because applying the term in any other way would require considering whether the cliche actually means anything. That way lies madness.

In the last paragraph, Tabor makes a daring claim: He alleges that he is thinking. However, he provides no evidence. Instead, he writes that "some public officials on the local, state, and federal level are determined to tax anything that sits, moves, or beats the liberal news networks to the punch on breaking news stories. Mainstream journalists have said for a long time that bloggers represent a threat to traditional journalism—and so it only stands to reason that reporters and their buddies on Capitol Hill want to make life difficult for Joe Average Internet User."

So internet taxation is a conspiracy between liberal elected officials and mainstream journalists aimed at shutting up "Joe Average." Tabor is wrong. We're happy to hear from Joe Average. It's Nathan Tabor who needs to shut up.

Sweet dreams

I dreamed last night that it was fall already and the first day of my journalism class at Rocky Mountain College. It was a typical dream fiasco: I had no class roster, no syllabus, no notes and didn't even know what room we were meeting in. And the room was oddly divided by a bank of shelves so that I could see only half the class at a time.

But the dream wasn't one of panic or frustration. Instead, I felt excited and ready to go and looking forward to winging my way without notes or plan. And here it is, still May. Maybe my subconscious is in better shape than I thought.

Culture wars

The culture wars are over, and the hippies won (hat tip to Paul Stephens).

The Iconoclast

Ed Kemmick, that putrid purveyor of pussyfooted prognostication, waxes nostalgic for the days when newspaper vituperation was in style. Such nostalgia (which I share, as the borrowed motto at the top of this page indicates) always draws me to "Brann and the Iconoclast," an account of the life of William Cowper Brann, whose Iconoclast was published in Waco, Texas, but gained international circulation. Brann's gift for invective was often turned against religion, a sensitive target in a town that was the home of Baylor University.

Of one popular preacher of the day (whose syndicated column appeared in 3,500 newspapers), Brann wrote:

The Tyler Telegram humbly apologizes for having called that wide-lipped blatherskite, T. DeWitt Talmadge, "a religious faker." Next thing we know our Tyler contemporary will apologize for having inadvertently hazarded the statement that water is wet. When a daily newspaper tells the truth, even by accident, it should stick to it instead of crawling on its belly in the dust to humbly ask pardon of the Devil. The Iconoclast will pay any man $10 who will demonstrate that T. DeWitt Talmadge ever originated an idea, good, bad or indifferent. He is simply a monstrous bag of fetid wind. The man who can find intellectual food in Talmadge's sermons could acquire a case of delerium tremens by drinking the froth out of a pop bottle.

When Baptists in Nacogdoches, Texas, wrote Brann to tell him they had pressured the local news agent to quit selling the Iconoclast, Brann wrote back, "... contumacious recalcitrants are invariably boycotted in business by the hydrocephalous sect which boasts that it was the first to establish liberty of conscience and freedom of speech in this country, yet which has been striving desperately for a hundred years to banish the last vestige of individuality and transform this nation into a pharisaical theocracy with some prurient hypocrite as its hierarch ..."

Unlike the nameless cowards whose anonymous comments so often pollute blog posts, Brann faced the consequences of his poison pen. After recovering from a kidnapping, beating and near lynching by a band of Baylor students, he wrote, "I have just been enjoying the first holiday I have had in fifteen years. Owing to circumstances entirely beyond my control, I devoted the major part of the past month to digesting a couple of installments of Saving Grace presented by my Baptist brethren, and carefully rubbed in with revolvers and ropes, loaded canes and miscellaneous cudgels -- with almost any old thing calculated to make a sinner reflect upon the status of his soul ..."

Then he issued this challenge in response to those who claimed he had slandered Southern women: "I walk the streets of Waco day by day, and I walk them alone. Let these cur-ristians shoot me in the back if they dare, then plead that damning lie as excuse for their craven cowardice. If the decent of this community fail to chase them to their holes and feed their viscera to the dogs, then I'd rather be dead and in hades forever than alive in Waco a single day."

He didn't have to wait long. On April 1, 1898, he was shot three times in a gun battle on a Waco street, the fatal wound entering his back right where the suspenders crossed. His attacker, shot four times, died soon after.

Memorial Day

I took my Memorial Day on Sunday, watching the Indianapolis 500 and curled up with "Night Draws Near," an extraordinary account of the lives of Iraqis before, during and after the U.S. invasion. It's one of those books that, without really telling you much you didn't already know, somehow puts everything into its proper place and perspective. Most enlightening so far, perhaps, is the way it helps me understand how Iraqis could both hate Saddam and hate us for attacking their country to remove him. I'm only up to the beginning of the occupation, but it's already clear that this mess won't be fixed for a long, long time.

More conservatism

David Rye and I continue our discussion of liberalism and conservatism in comments below. But I want to add a critique of one more paragraph from the Townhall column I first criticized in "Dumb Stuff":

Unlike liberals, conservatives tend to be primarily concerned with pragmatism, not niceties. This is one of the biggest reasons that conservatives have such a healthy respect for the traditions and institutions that have been proven to work over time and such contempt for those that don't, like the United Nations and the federal government.

Skip over the puerility of the first sentence, then consider the two institutions that conservatives, we are told, hold in contempt. First, while everyone, including me, ridicules the federal government, take the long view: If we agree that some sort of federal government is necessary, then we could be a whole lot worse off that we are. Federal power in the U.S. historically has expanded in times of crisis: After the failure of the Articles of Confederation, which resulted in a Constitution that is still the model for the world; after the Civil War, which upheld the supremacy of the federal government, banned slavery and extended constitutional rights to the states; during the Depression and World War II, which made America the world's supreme power and a beacon of freedom and prosperity to the whole world. We may, in fact, be the best governed country in history. That's a record that deserves contempt?

The United Nations is inept and ineffective, but what did you expect? The odds that it could ever have been a roaring success were never good. The whole idea flies in the face of hundreds of years of international conflict. Countries that are strong aren't restrained by the UN; countries that are weak attempt to manipulate it to find the strength they can't find elsewhere. Of course it doesn't work well. It's a bold, wacky experiment that could hardly have been expected to change the course of human history in just a few decades. But to my mind, at least, it's an experiment worth investing in because it doesn't cost much and its potential benefits, somewhere down the road, are great.

Let's see: the world's most successful democratic government and history's bravest attempt to resolve international conflict. If these are the sort of institutions conservatives hold in contempt, then what could possibly earn their respect?

Nailing it

Jon Stewart had the best analysis yet of the Justice Department's inability to explain how it decided to fire all of those U.S. attorneys. It was, he said, the "immaculate termination."

Irrational conservatism

I was hoping someone might challenge my "Dumb Stuff" post below, and Dave Rye, a thoughtful conservative, was kind enough to do so. Since this is my slow day at the office (I rolled the last page off at 8 this morning) let's think a bit about this.

John Hawkins writes that "liberalism is nothing more than childlike emotionalism applied to adult issues." He adds:

Going to war is mean, so we shouldn't do it. That person is poor and it would be nice to give him money, so the government should do it. Somebody wants to have an abortion, have a gay marriage, or wants to come into the U.S. illegally and it would be mean to say, "no," so we should let them. I am nice because I care about global warming! Those people want to kill us? But, don't they know we're nice? If they did, they would like us! Bill has more toys, money than Harry, so take half of Bill's money and give it to Harry.

Hawkins gives the game away in his first paragraph when he says that liberalism is "nothing more" than emotionalism. He reiterates that point in the sentence following the quote above. So if we can find even one aspect of liberalism that is something more than emotionalism, he loses. But that's too easy. For purposes of argument, let's assume that he actually thinks liberalism is some sort of political philosophy, or at least an ideology. Let's assume that some general understanding of liberalism vs. conservatism applies: that conservatives generally favor less government than liberals, that conservatives generally are more resistant to social change, that conservatives are more likely than liberals to base their political views on an underlying belief that moral and religious absolutes should govern human behavior.

How does the paragraph quoted above fit within this framework? It's pathetic. If Hawkins is to be taken seriously, we must believe that liberals are less likely to wage war than conservatives. Over the course of world history, this may be true. Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun and Spartan warriors were probably more conservative in important ways than their contemporaries and adversaries. But the analogy breaks down in American history. American conservatives were loyal to the Crown during the Revolutionary War. Liberal abolitionists and federalists beat the drums for the Civil War. A classic liberal was commander-in-chief during World War II, and liberal presidents started and then expanded American involvement in Vietnam. Even the Iraq War makes sense only as a liberal war -- principled conservatives such as the Cato Institute, Pat Buchanan, William F. Buckley and George Will were either skeptical about or outright opponents of the war from the beginning. The only really coherent case for war in Iraq that I have heard came, predictably, from a liberal, Christopher Hitchens.

Hawkins next presents the idea of giving government money to the poor as a product of liberal emotionalism. But nearly all sides now agree that at least some level of government assistance should be available to those most in need. If somebody falls unconscious in the street, cops gather and an ambulance is called. Even those least able to care for themselves through illness or accident generally can find a place to eat and sleep, and I don't hear conservatives complaining about that. We're really just arguing about how much government support is justified, and that is a question that doesn't rely heavily on emotion. There is no bright line dividing conservatives from liberals on exactly what level of assistance should be provided. That's what politics is for.

Are the liberal positions on abortion, gay marriage and immigration based solely on emotion? This gets confusing because my own positions on these topics seem solidly conservative to me, yet they get me pushed into the liberal camp. I am pro-choice on abortion because Americans have been unable to reach moral consensus on what the correct position should be, and I don't think the government should step in on moral questions that the people themselves can't resolve. I think gays should be allowed to marry because I don't think telling people whom they can marry is any of the government's damn business. I accept the need for constraints on immigration, but I also know that this country was built, and is still being built, by immigrants, and immigration policy must take that into account. It amazes me that any conservatives disagree.

Finally, is concern about global warming emotional? This is the perfect question for such a debate because the existence of human-caused global warming (as opposed to what the correct policy response should be) is purely a factual question. The planet doesn't care what conservatives or liberals think. But if either side is relying on emotion in this debate, it seems to be conservatives. My conservative values tell me that global warming might be for real, and if it is, the consequences could be devastating, so I should support reasonable steps to deal with it. Actual conservatives seem to argue that every scrap of evidence in favor of global warming should be discounted or ignored, and every scrap of evidence against it should be trumpeted.

Why? Pure emotionalism, so far as I can tell. Conservatives don't like the way a world with global warming would look, so they set about to deny it for as long as possible. Indeed, an emotional attachment to tradition and to belief in higher powers seems to be the cornerstone of what Hawkins believes conservatives are. Liberal democracy, which is at the heart of Western greatness, embraces knowledge and accepts changing conditions. By Hawkins' own standards, the real enemies of logic and fact in political discourse are conservatives, not liberals.

Babcock vs. PSC

As I write this, I am on the phone with Public Service Commissioner Brad Molnar, who says the PSC just voted 5-0 to reject the sale of NorthWestern Energy to Babcock Brown. The next step, presumably, will be a request for the PSC to reconsider its decision. More later.

UPDATE: The AP's take is here.

UPDATE 2: We are working on a dead-tree version of this (tonight is deadline), but I was struck by one thing Molnar said: While Babcock Brown made a good case that it was a capable company, it never really made a case that this sale would be good for Montana ratepayers. "They never made that quantum leap," he said. I had my professional writing class at Rocky this spring examine some of the documents in the case -- op-eds, full-page ads, letters to the editor -- as examples of business communication, and they came to almost exactly the same question: Babcock made a good for itself but not for Montanans. Now Babcock has paid the price.

Dumb stuff

A comment over at City Lights led me to this column, which I think may be the dumbest thing ever written in English.

No Dough No Mough

Just got word that the Carlin has canceled its series of live No Dough concerts. Apparently this had something to do with it (be sure to read Sean Lynch's comment).

Down, down

Tough April for Gannett and Lee Enterprises.

Full disclosure: Billings Outpost revenues were up 9.6 percent in April 2007 compared to April a year ago.

Free tickets

Here at the Outpost, we have quite a few free tickets to give away for the Lipizzaner Stallions this weekend. If you are interested, or if you know someone who might be, send e-mail to editor@billingsnews.com

Homer Murdoch

The prospect of Rupert Murdoch acquiring the Wall Street Journal sends shivers through the spines of journalistic purists. The Journal may be the world's finest newspaper -- wonderfully written and reported, with editorial independence so fierce that its news and opinion sections seem to be not only on different pages but on different planets. Murdoch is ... well, something different.

Murdoch says he won't tamper with the Journal's independence, and there is every reason to believe he is sincere about that. He is, if anything, a good businessman, and the Journal is a good business. But there also is every reason to believe that his sincerity doesn't mean much.

For a description of how Murdoch's ownership of the Wall Street Journal would play out, turn to Harold Evans' "Good Times, Bad Times". Murdoch pressured Evans (better known in this country as Tina Brown's husband) out of the editor's job at the London Times not long after acquiring the paper. Murdoch couldn't fire Evans outright; he had to go through a board of directors. Contemplating his future, Evans wrote:

Nothing in my experience remotely compared to the atmosphere of intrigue, fear and spite at Murdoch's Times. ... If I fought and beat Murdoch this time, despite the odds, I would have to endure an endless assault. ... I would be subjected to a thousand humiliations, challenged on every paperclip. My energies would be absorbed not in journalism but internal politics, seeking alliances, suspecting every man's hand. I would have to keep in constant touch with the national directors and their successors, ready to justify and vindicate every editorial decision Murdoch chose to challenge or misrepresent. It would be Russian roulette. I would become frightened to pull the trigger on an empty chamber. I feared for my own character and self-respect. I had seen what had happened to others, the courtiers apprehensive on his arrival, hoping for the boyish grin, fearing the scowl, demeaning and coarsening themselves. Perhaps I would make one accommodation with Murdoch to win favour and then another, or subconsciously begin to guess what he wanted and give it to him. It was a challenge to myself I thought I could endure; but there was the contrary danger implicit in that flash of vanity. There was the certainty, it seemed, that I would become obsessed with either Murdoch or my own introspection. Neither was an attractive prospect.

Great papers aren't often killed by great calamities. They are slowly bled to death.

Bad for bidness?

From Webb Brown, president of the Montana Chamber of Commerce, comes this post-legislative session observation: "Jon Bennion, Government Relations Director of the Montana Chamber said the vicious attitude toward business expressed throughout the Sessions was a shock. How can we possibly consider ourselves truly open for business with the constant haranguing of business that we heard?"

I didn't cover the session at all and didn't follow it closely through the news. But I can't recall hearing much business bashing. Does he have a point?

Compassionate conservatism

From the invaluable Jackie Corr comes this link to a story about Lee Enterprises' personnel practices. Jackie comments: "It seems like Kathy was a beneficiary of compassionate conservatism. At least they didn't kick her down the stairs."

Big brother

I avoid Albertsons for all the right reasons, but I had to go there today to fill some prescriptions for my wife and her former gall bladder. While the prescriptions were being filled, I picked up a few odds and ends.

Of course, prices were punitive for shoppers like me who refuse to become "preferred" customers. With every purchase, steam pumped out of my ears in greater volumes. Albertsons pretends that its "preferred" program is voluntary, and it mostly is for me. But for people who live in the neighborhood and lack transportation, the grocery store really leaves no choice: surrender full information and knowledge of your most intimate shopping habits with Albertsons or pay far higher prices.

It just about makes me choke.

UPDATE: In comments, a couple of people suggest it's morally acceptable to simply lie in such cases. I'm not sure I'm up to debating the moral argument -- my first and second thoughts both say lying is not justified -- but whether it is or not, lying is not something I can bring myself to do. If I were a better liar, I might not care about the whole situation so much.

Simple surgery

I was off work most of yesterday hanging around St. Vincent Healthcare while my wife had her gall bladder removed. It certainly has become an efficient procedure. She was in at 6 a.m., home by 4 p.m. She might have been home by noon if her blood pressure hadn't lagged.

Within a few years, I suspect, hospitals will just rent you the use of the operating room and hand you a page of instructions, then you can take internal organs out yourself. Caution: Wash hands before attempting surgery.

Big media

The Outpost editor lifts his head above the muck long enough to make another frail attempt to set the world aright. The world shrugs and spins on.

But if you haven't seen "Fiction," you are missing out.

UPDATE: Jim Haigh, a lobbyist for the Mid-Atlantic Community Papers Association, saw the column at Stop Big Media and passed along a link to his FCC testimony on newspaper cross-ownership. It's worth a read.

GOP beating

I'd be interested in hearing contrary viewpoints, but it seems to me that Republicans took a terrific beating in the legislative session. By scrapping the usual budget process, they put pressure on themselves to deliver on their own plan, then they couldn't deliver. Lange's outburst made them look bad, then they looked even worse for the way they dumped him.

Most fundamentally, Republicans seemed to hitch their fortunes to two nonstarters: opposing enforcement of tax laws and permanent tax relief. Whether the Department of Revenue really needs more employees is a technical question I am not competent to answer, but I know how it looked. It looked like the GOP was endorsing fat-cat tax avoidance. Whether it's fair or not, that's a label nobody needs.

On permanent tax relief, I basically agree with Republicans that permanent tax cuts are better policy than one-time rebates. But it's not a deal breaker. We will all get decent tax relief this year; what we get in two years will depend on who is in office, how the economy is cooking, and what the state's needs are. That would be true no matter what this Legislature did.

Finally, Schweitzer is cleaning up on press indicating that after all the shouting he pretty much got what he wanted out of the session. He never seemed to doubt that he would. That hurts Republicans where it really hurts -- right in their vanity.

Contractual obligations

The Outpost's bank since its inception had been First Citizens until it was absorbed by Western Security Bank. I have no complaints about the new bank, especially since it has been buying some ads from us, but the worst part of the deal has been that we had to change our credit card processor.

The deadline for the change to Nxgen Payment Services was Monday, so naturally I put it off until then. Then I read through the application, which was wickedly obscure and had all of the important provisions printed in type that no doubt was Nxgen's entry in the World's Smallest Typeface contest.

But I waded through it and was about ready to sign off until I reached the cancellation provision. If we change processors in the next year, we have to pay Nxgen $295. If we change in the next three years, we have to pay $195.

Online opinions differ about whether processing companies are justified in asking for cancellation payments, but I wasn't eager to make a three-year commitment to a company that I have yet to transact a single item of business with. I liked this provision even less: "Merchant agrees that the early termination fee is not a penalty, but rather is reasonable in light of the financial harm caused by Merchant's early termination."

Say what? How can I legally bind myself to something that I have absolutely no way to know is true? What's "reasonable"? We don't use processing equipment, so Nxgen has no expense there. So far as I know, the only start-up expense it bears is the cost of telling us what phone number we have to dial to enter credit card transactions. From then on, it makes a profit on every transaction. Beyond that, Nxgen's only risk is that I will cheat my customers and they won't honor their credit card transactions. But we have a 10-year spotless history of meeting those obligations, and I am as likely to win the lottery as to start cheating customers now.

The only real financial harm Nxgen faces is that if I don't sign the contract, it won't get a chance to gig me for 200 or 300 bucks if I don't like its service. I agree that this is financial harm that Nxgen will certainly incur.

Good Brewer

I'm a longtime critic of the Billings Chamber of Commerce, but I agreed with most of this. I used to think that a safe way to figure out a position on any given issue was to just find out where the Chamber stood, then take the opposite stance. Brewer has made it much more complicated.

GOP on GOP

As usual, Brad Molnar's take on the Mike Lange blowup is a bit different than anything else you are likely to read. Funnier, too. I especially liked the Bill Strizich anecdote.

If you look closely, you also can see on this page a cartoon by Paul Driscoll, who is back to drawing Montana-based political cartoons after a few years off. It's too small to read online, so you will just have to pick up a copy of this week's Outpost (it's small there, too, but legible).

UPDATE: In the comments, it's Kemmick vs. Molnar. Won't somebody please stop this fight?

Term limits

During the waning days of the spring semester, I was mentally plotting a post blaming term limits for the Montana Legislature's miserable failure to pass a budget this session. Then I read Kirk Dooley's well considered post at City Lights arguing that the U.S. Congress, without term limits, has much the same problems that the Montana Legislature has with term limits.

How to respond? My first thought was that term limits hurt Montana while the lack of term limits hurts Congress. But I was not willing to walk on so high a wire.

Maybe this is closer: Term limits are simply irrelevant to the problems Congress has. Montana gets the worst of both worlds: The divisiveness and partisanship of Congress, plus the lack of institutional wisdom and seasoning caused by term limits. Add term limits to Congress, and it would be even worse than it is.

Take, for example, the congressional debate over funding the Iraq War. Sean Hannity blasts Democrats every day for "politicizing" the war, but politics is, of course, the way questions like this one are resolved in democracies. And the democratic (Democratic?) process, messy as it is, appears to slowly be working in this case. Nobody wants to leave soldiers in the field without bullets or rations, but Congress has gradually been getting across an inescapable point: The president can't simply have a blank check anymore to do whatever he wants in Iraq for as long as he wants. If Congress gives him that blank check, then voters will fire a lot of members of Congress in the next election -- and they will be replaced by representatives even more hostile to the president's aims. This may not be a message that will penetrate the president's skull, but Republicans in Congress are certainly hearing it.

In other words, in Washington the system is working, in its usual awkward and ugly fashion. In Montana, the whole thing broke down -- and I still blame term limits.

SIDEBAR: One of the most annoying aspects of the debate in Helena over budget surpluses is advanced by groups like this one: The surplus should be returned to the people because the money came from the people. Of course the money came from the people. Every cent the state spends comes from the people. There is no other source. The money came from the people, and it is up to the people to decide how best to dispose of it. That's why we elect legislators.

He's back

The jackpot paid this morning. Final grades were due by noon in all three college classes I was teaching. I had to make a speech at 10 a.m. It was deadline day at The Outpost, and I was up all night getting the paper out.

Got 'er done. Even got a couple of hours of sleep this afternoon. So now school's out, and I'm back contemplating what to do with this sadly underused blog. Having the summer free seems like a vast expanse of unoccupied time, but it isn't that easy. Running this business is easily a couple of full-time jobs, and it has suffered for my absence. Getting the blog going is only one of many possible priorities, and I haven't yet sorted out how I will approach them all. It's not clear to me that blogging is all that good a use of my time. On the whole, I would rather study German grammar.

But this afternoon I got a message from my hometown in Texas: "Your fans down here around Victoria hope you'll update your blog pretty soon." That made my day. And it was enough to get at least this much going on the blog.

War plans

The editor of The Outpost takes a futile stab at ending the war in Iraq. For some reason, the column appears twice on the web, prompting some commenters to observe that the editor's plan is no more cohesive than the president's. But that doesn't mean it is worse.

Fading Green

In this week's Montana Green Bulletin, Paul Stephens asks, "Is there a future for the Green Party?" His answer:

Apparently not in Montana. If young people aren't organizing and joining, we are as doomed as the Communist Party and the Industrial Workers of the World. There are, of course, a few hundred dedicated, middle-aged (or older) adults in the United States who still believe in the Green Party, its values, and its future prospects. California, Wisconsin, Maine, New York, Missouri, and a few other states still have active parties fielding candidates, but it's probably safe to say that there's no hope for the Green Party in Montana.

To me it seems that there is real sentiment for a third party in this country, but none of the available flavors -- Green, Libertarian, Constitution -- seem to satisfy. What would it take?

Nur Englisch

Both Idaho houses have passed and sent to the governor a classically stupid piece of legislation: declaring English the state's official language.

Of all the dumb things government sticks its nose into, surely the dumbest by far is trying to dictate the languages people speak. Language has a power of its own, subservient to no government. If English can't hold its own without official government sanction, then no legislation can save it. And if English can hold its own, then no legislation is needed.

If the Legislature would include useful provisions -- say, for example, criminal prosecution of people who use pronouns that don't match antecedents -- then I could get behind this bill. But the bill does not abridge American freedom to butcher our native tongue. It abridges only the freedom to speak another.

Here's hoping

Every presidential election I stake my bet on some darkhorse candidate, hoping that he (sorry, no women have made the cut yet) will emerge as the nation's great hope. Usually the candidate turns out to be a disappointment, or his campaign goes nowhere, but I keep trying because the major party choices always seem so uniformly dismal.

It's pretty much the same strategy I use on our almost annual visits to the horse races at MetraPark. I like to pick a horse somewhere in the 8-to-1 to 12-to-1 odds range, and I always bet $2 to win, never to place or show. It has worked pretty well at the races -- the last two times we have gone, I won enough on my first bet to cover the cost of the day -- but it has never worked out for president. Horse races are more honest, and horses are generally of higher character.

But I keep betting. This year my money is on Bill Richardson, the Democratic governor from New Mexico. I don't know enough about him yet to say that I would even vote for him, but I like what I've seen and heard: He has cut taxes, he sounds reasonable (and willing to fight) on immigration, he presumably understands Western concerns, and he mostly makes sense on the war.

Two things this week increased my hope that he will turn out to be a good bet. One was his support for medical marijuana legislation. Putting human suffering and freedom above the White House's holy war: what a concept. The other was a speech I saw on C-SPAN that Richardson gave to some college students. It wasn't what he said that impressed me -- it was fairly standard political boilerplate -- nor the way he presented himeself -- slightly rumpled, a bit less articulate than I have seen him in TV interviews, and given to a lot of arm waving.

What I liked was what he did when a student asked him a question he couldn't answer. With C-SPAN's mikes, I couldn't make out exactly what the question was, but it had something to do with some action by Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Richardson said he hadn't heard anything about it. He asked an aide if he knew anything about it. He said something like, "You'd think we'd know since that's our neighboring state." He then turned back to the student and asked, "What do you think about it?"

On rare occasions, I've heard candidates admit to not knowing something. On even rarer ones, I've seen candidates promise to have somebody on the staff look into a question. But I have never seen a candidate turn back to the questioner and ask for advice. Richardson didn't treat the questioner like a student to be patronized, a voter to be wooed or, worse yet, a meaningless obstacle blocking the view of the national C-SPAN audience. He treated the student like a citizen who might be able to advise the governor on something he should know.

That's a quality I wouldn't mind seeing in the White House.

Throwing strikes

Jim Phelps stopped by The Outpost on Friday to pick up a couple of back issues on a topic of public interest. If you don't Phelps, you should. He is 91 now and still active in pursuing civic and environmental goals.

He's one of those old-school guys, shaped by the Depression and World War II, who seem to have everything right: tough, brimming with integrity, selfless, full of life. I'm not sure they make people like that anymore, and it will be a sad day when the last of them are gone.

Phelps, looking frail, had no complaints about his age or health. "I feel like a pitcher throwing a no-hitter," he said. "I don't know how long I can keep it up, but I'm just enjoying every pitch."

Hell of a guy.

What's righter

At long last, What's Right in Montana is taking steps to clear up the disaster that its comments section has become. Judging from the comments on this post, it has a ways to go.

O'Reilly saves Montana

Bill O'Reilly just blasted The Billings Gazette for this "ups and downs" item (third one down). O'Reilly called the item "blatantly dishonest" and said he was perfectly aware that the Montana Legislature meets only every two years but that it can meet in special session at any time.

"Until we got on their case, the state of Montana was dragging its feet," O'Reilly said.

Personally, I wish we had dragged a little harder.

Defending Gore

In comments below, "Frank Dugas" concludes that because I defended Al Gore against a specific second-rate piece of journalism, I am obliged to defend him under all circumstances. Why Dugas thinks that I don't know. But I hate to make a guest to the site look silly, so I will play along.

Gore has taken a beating over the last week over reports that his house uses way more electricity than the average house. The charge is not that Gore wastes energy, but that he is a hypocrite for urging others to save.

I'm not too interested in the question of how big a polluter Gore might be. Supposedly, he buys green energy and carbon offsets. Arguably, his use of electricity in the pursuit of persuading others to quit using so much is electricity well spent. But others can take up those arguments.

Let's focus instead on hypocrisy, a trait that appears to be part and parcel of modern life. Jesus told the rich man to go and sell all he had and give it to the poor. But few rich people who claim to believe in Jesus follow that advice. Warbloggers praise war to the heavens, so long as other lives are at risk. Dedicated greens drive cars to get to wilderness. Shop America first believers spend their dollars buying Chinese-made goods at Wal-Mart. I criticize the consolidated beef industry but munch on Big Macs. We all bear our little hypocrisies.

Where along that spectrum does Gore fit? Not much worse than average, I suspect. I wasn't the only viewer of "An Inconvenient Truth" struck by how modest the proposed solutions appeared to be compared to the enormity of the problem. Gore never asked much more of anybody than that they turn off lights when not in use, support green power and ride a bicycle when feasible. Indeed, Robert Samuelson has credibly argued that nothing we are likely to do about global warming is likely to help much.

Compare Gore's hypocrisy to that of global warming skeptics who seem to believe that they can burn as much energy as they want so long as they refuse to acknowledge that there's any problem. Like all of us, Gore has to answer for the difference between what he claims to believe and what he practices. But will those who foster willful ignorance get off any easier?

UPDATE: Wulfgar has much more here and here.

UPDATE 2: Asked about Ann Coulter's "faggot" bomb at CPAC, Sean Hannity responded:

You know, no other person is responsible for what a person says except that person. And so, if they have a problem with what Ann Coulter says, blame Ann Coulter. You can't blame somebody else for what she said. So I didn't see it.

Hannity, of course, loves to berate Democrats and liberals by demanding that they defend the remarks of other Democrats and liberals. It's one of his major rhetorical devices. That's hypocrisy in big boots.

On trial

I failed to mention that my other adventure on Monday was sitting on the jury panel for this trial. It was the third time I've been called for jury duty in the last four or five months, causing me to miss four German classes. No big deal and not much excitement, just a long slog through a series of fairly predictable questions.

Surprises? Maybe two. One was that even people who have sat on juries before have trouble distinguishing between civil and criminal cases. The other came after the prosecutor mentioned that the defendant was married to a member of the Nava family. When jurors were asked whether anything would keep them from judging the case fairly, the woman sitting next to me mentioned the notoriety of that name. The defendant, who was just a few feet away with his back to us, turned around and gave her a luck that struck me as one of pure menace. The prosecutor even complained to the judge about the defendant's "interaction" with the jurors.

I wasn't picked, and I still think I could have been an impartial juror, but I couldn't help but feel a bit safer for a moment knowing that this guy was in the custody of the state.

And while we are on the crime beat, I thought Greg Tuttle's series on the Beach case was splendid, but I was bugged by a quote from Assistant Attorney General Michael Wellenstein, who wrote that the parole board must "keep in mind that while it is indeed a travesty for an innocent man to spend his life in prison, it is a greater injustice for a guilty man to be set free when his victim and her family can never be set free from her brutal death."

Doesn't he have that exactly backward? And shouldn't he know better?

Woe is me

Last week, the Outpost printer messed up and left four pages out of the paper. The printer had to redo the whole run, and we didn't start putting them on racks until Thursday night.

This morning, my e-mail crashed and destroyed everything in the in-box. If you sent something to me recently, please resend. Otherwise, it's gone.

Then I had jury duty, 4 1/2 hours of waiting to not get picked. So tonight I'm trying to do the work I should have started last Friday when I was out delivering Thursday's papers. The merry-go-round keeps turning.

Sunni-Shiite

I just got eight out of eight right on this quiz. Does that mean I get to be president?

GOP dinner

I went to the Republican's Party's Lincoln Reagan Day Dinner last night, largely to see Stephen Moore, who writes for the Wall Street Journal and advocates for free enterprise. His message was predictable enough, and you can read Jim Gransbery's account here, or mine on Thursday or, since this is such a great country, you can read both. I asked Moore afterward about the Iraq War, which he hadn't mentioned among his reasons why Republicans lost out in the 2006 election. He acknowledged that the war probably had been the biggest issue in the election and mentioned, a bit surprisingly, that he had opposed the war. Or maybe not surprisingly, since he has been affiliated with the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank that opposed the war, just as it opposes most government enterprises.

There were no discouraging words about the war from Tamara Hall, who was the mistress of ceremonies for the event. She praised Bush and the war, and said she looked on the president as a "Christian brother who's carrying a load that no single person should have to carry." In what struck me as an odd bit of timing, she also screened a tribute to soldiers, complete with battlefield suffering, just as the Republicans were digging into their salads. It nearly put me off my feed. Maybe she was just being consistent with what appears to be the modern American ideal that war is just fine, so long as we don't have to pay for it.

She said a few other off-putting things. One was a story about a college professor who supposedly offered to prove to students that God doesn't exist by daring God to knock him off his lectern. God chose not to get involved, apparently, but a war veteran, so the story goes, obliged by tackling the professor, explaining himself by saying that God was awfully busy, what with the war and all, and had asked the veteran to act on His behalf.

She swore twice that the story was true, which I doubt. But even if it were, it would seem to say less about atheism among academics than about how quickly people can become violent when they fool themselves into thinking they are carrying out God's will.

But that was not the oddest story she told. That story was about some debate or another that she was in where a student asked what she would do to help students get through college. She said, approximately, that she replied, "It's not my job to get you through school." She said she told the student that it was up to him to get through college, taking on outside jobs and even dropping out for a time if necessary to save enough money to pay his own way.

The response had a self-reliant ring to it, and it drew a nice round of applause. But I couldn't help but think that talk like that also had something to do with Republican setbacks in 2006. After all, almost no students truly pay their own way through college. They go to state schools, they get scholarships and grants, they borrow money through government-backed loan programs, they (or their parents) benefit from favorable tax treatment. The government has its foot in the game every step of the way.

So unless one is seriously making the case (as Rick Jore might) that there should be no government support of any kind for higher education, then it misses the point to pretend that one is taking a principled stand against helping students get through school. All one is really doing is quibbling over the price.

It's easy to mistake a dollar sign for a principle. And if that is what Republicans are doing, then 2008 could be another long year.

Hannity vs. Gore

In a moment of temporary insanity, I watched a segment of "Sean Hannity's America" last weekend in which he attacked Al Gore and other "limousine liberals" for using private jets while bloviating about global warming.

Even by Hannity's standards, this was thin gruel. The only examples he had of Gore actually using a private plane dated from the 2000 election campaign, when Gore was the vice president of the United States. I wondered why I never noticed him back then on any commercial airliners, sharing a couple of rows of seats with the Secret Service.

And, of course, Hannity's concern wasn't that Gore might have been endangering the planet. It was that he might have been diluting the purity of American political discourse with the base alloy of hypocrisy.

President Bush is, of course, exempt from the charge. In 2000, he was in blithe denial about global warming, although by 2001, he was ready to admit that there might be something to it after all. That's OK. Bush didn't get global warming during the campaign, so he could fly however he wanted. Gore, who did get it, had to play by different rules.

Hannity doesn't object to all travel in private jets, just travel by people who suspect that private jets add to global climate degradation. Ignorance is bliss. And a much more convenient way to travel.

Bad blogger

As if I were not a lazy enough blogger, my comments section now has become overrun by spam. Every day, I delete a dozen or so pure spam comments, so now I am officially getting more comments from people who don't read the blog than from people who do.

I see papyrus in my future.

You say Iraq, I say Iran; let's call the whole thing off

The reprobate editor of The Outpost, having singularly failed to stop one Mideast war, waves his tiny sword in a futile gesture aimed at fending off another.

Molly Ivins, R.I.P.

Like many of us, I had a soft spot for Molly Ivins. She grew up in Crockett, Texas, a displaced liberal in the conservative piney woods where I cut my own journalistic teeth. I have met her and interviewed her a couple of times over the years. She even interviewed me once, when she was looking for tips on Texas women to write about.

Her first book was dedicated to another East Texan, who was a friend of mine. He occasionally sent her my columns, and in response to one of them she sent me what is still one of my prized possessions: a postcard of Ralph the Diving Pig with the note, “This is fan mail.”

None of that is to say that I knew her well, but I appreciated her courage and wit, and I will miss her. Now that she has died, maybe it’s time I went public with my favorite Molly Ivins story.

She started it in Texas, where she addressed a full house – perhaps 300 people -- in College Station (turn on George Bush Drive, past the Clayton Williams Alumni Center). She was talking about Kent Caperton, a popular Bryan senator who had announced that he would not run for re-election to the Texas Legislature. Caperton was a Democrat who managed to remain electable in his conservative district by his rational approach to difficult issues and his impressive negotiating skills. His most likely successor was a prominent Bryan official who was a rock-ribbed Republican.

After swearing the entire audience to secrecy, Molly Ivins told this story: She said that Carl Parker, another Texas Democratic senator who shared Caperton’s passion for politics but lacked his tact, was trying desperately to persuade Caperton to run again. Caperton was adamant; Parker began pleading. Finally, Parker said, “Look, if you’ll run again, I swear that I will go into every bar in north Bryan and tell everybody there that I, personally, have sucked [the prominent Bryan official’s] dick, and it’s small.”

Despite promises of secrecy, the story quickly made its way all over town and into nearby Bryan. Eventually, it reached the ex-wife of the city official’s brother, who was himself a prominent attorney in Brazos County. Her reaction: “Hmm. Must run in the family.”

When I saw Ivins a couple of months later in Austin, where we both had gone to shake hands with the queen of England, I told her that part of the story. Her response was a full-throated cackle – no other word could describe it – that I expect to carry with me to my own grave. May she rest in peace, if not perfect quiet.

Just asking

A news release from U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg says he is introducing federal legislation that "would put the House on record in support of maintaining 500 land-based intercontinental missiles."

His overriding goal, as the news release makes clear, is to protect jobs at Malmstrom Air Force Base: "'Malmstrom is a key player in terms of U.S. missile defense,' said Rehberg, a member of the House Appropriations Committee. 'Additionally, Great Falls and the surrounding community depend on the jobs and revenue Malmstrom provides.'"

He rests his case by mentioning "threats from countries like Iran and North Korea." I'm not sure what countries are "like Iran and North Korea." Between them, those countries may have -- what? -- one or two missiles, none of which may, in fact, work.

So even if those two countries ganged up against us, plus all the countries like them, plus all the rest of the countries in the world, is there still any conceivable reason why we would ever need 500 land-based intercontinental missiles? And is there any chance at all that those 500 missiles provide greater security than they do risk to us because of the chance that one might get fired or explode unintentionally? And how much risk are we willing to bear to preserve a few government jobs in Great Falls?

Just wondering.

UPDATE: When I wrote the above, I had not yet seen this news release from Sen. Jon Tester: “I was disappointed to learn that the Air Force is targeting the elimination of fifty Minuteman III missiles from Malmstrom Air Force Base. Malmstrom is critical to our national security and the economy of North Central Montana. I will continue to fight for Malmstrom and the Air Force in the United States Senate and I will work toward getting another mission at the base."

We need a thousand missiles! More jobs!

Montana headlines

I'm behind the curve as usual, I suppose, but an e-mail just brought my attention to Montana Headlines, a blog devoted to commenting on The Billings Gazette "and beyond." It's an interesting idea, although I can't say I'm terribly impressed by the early entries (except for the one that says my analysis of a recent Gazette editorial "can't really be improved on").

The most recent post says The Gazette used quotation marks to make Republicans look bad in a recent op-ed piece. It's true that quotation marks can be used to indicate skepticism or disbelief, but I sure didn't see that in the ones here. Well, it will be fun to watch.

Minimum wage

The Democrats are beating up on Denny Rehberg for failing to back a minimum wage increase to $7.25. For once, I'm leaning to Denny's side.

It's not that I'm against a minimum wage. I would even support a modest increase and would have supported Montana's increase in November if not for the indexing provisions. But for my tiny business, $7.25 is a chunk. We've been struggling to overcome the Autopost disaster and essentially have broken even over the last 16 months. When money's that tight, every dollar counts. This would be a big hit.

Can't we pass it along to customers? No, because the big boys don't have to. So where would it come from? Either somebody goes away, or it comes out of my pocket. And believe me, as the business owner and all around drudge, I make nowhere near minimum wage.

Some people would say that people who can't afford to pay anymore than we do probably shouldn't be in business. Maybe they're right. But there are plenty of people who would rather make less money working for somebody like us than flipping burgers for McDonald's. Soon, they may not have that choice.

UPDATE: In comments, Dave Rye approvingly quotes a George Will column from a couple of weeks ago. Kevin Drum spanked Will for that here.

Fishing with Max

From the Washington Post:

Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), the new chairman of the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee, is offering special interests a chance next month to go skiing and snowmobiling in Big Sky country. All it takes is a $2,000 donation per person or a $5,000 donation from a political action committee, according to a "Save the Date" solicitation his Glacier PAC sent out to lobbyists.

If lobbyists miss the first outing, they can still catch Baucus this summer for fly-fishing or horseback riding at "Camp Baucus," the invitation promises.

Wrong, wrong

The Gazette editorial board is wrong today about Dan McGee (scroll to the bottom). I'm sure McGee is sincere in his belief that the ethics initiative was unconstitutional, and he may even be right. His obligation to uphold the Constitution outweighs his obligation to uphold the majority opinion of Montana voters, so he is right to try to change a bill he thinks is unconstitutional, no matter where the bill originated. And he should try to change that bill in the least disruptive way -- that is, through the legislative process rather than through a lenghty lawsuit, which he probably in any case lacks standing to bring.

Congress and the Constitution

I'm really interested in the question of how much power Congress has to use its control of the purse strings to manage a war. Clearly, the Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war, although it never does that anymore. It seems clear to me also that Congress has the power to end war. But what about all of the points in between?

If Congress can, for example, restrict funds from being used to build up troop levels in Iraq, could it also pass a law requiring that, for instance, no money may be used to pay the salary of a general Congress considers incompetent?

Mind you, I'm not interested (yet) in whether it would be smart for Congress to try to micro-manage a war. I'm just interested in how much power it has to do so. I'm sure there is bound to be some good commentary out there on the topic, but I haven't found it, and I don't have much time to look. Any suggestions?

Fiasco finale

I stayed home from work for a couple of hours this morning to finish Thomas Ricks' "Fiasco." Time was running out: I started teaching a professional writing class at Rocky last week and MSU-Billings starts tomorrow (for me, anyway; students start on Wednesday).

It's quite a book. At times it's possible to imagine that it isn't about current events at all. Rather, it's a military history of some distant conflict that need no longer concern us. Ricks describes military operations in great detail and with great skill, and even he acknowledges in his notes at the end that he was amazed at how much information already is available: official unit reports, on-the-record interviews with soldiers and commanders, PowerPoint presentations, blogs, e-mails, transcripts.

The book essentially ends at the end of 2005, with only a brief afterword to bring matters up to the middle of 2006. That means we don't get Ricks' view of the latest "surge," but it's not hard to guess what his critique would be. His basic complaint is that both civilian and military leadership used the wrong kind of tactics to fight the wrong kind of war. Doing more of something that already isn't working is unlikely to lead to better results.

Still, there are notes of optimism near the end. One is improved training in counterinsurgency; another is at least slightly improved performance by Iraqi soldiers. Most important may have been improved tactics that led to successful operations in Fallujah and Tall Afar. At the same time, improved logistics have led to much better conditions for American soldiers. That cuts both ways: It boosts safety and morale but makes soldiers less likely to mingle with ordinary Iraqis, who will ultimately choose the victors.

But a grim tone hangs over the entire volume. The successful operations may not translate well to Baghdad, which is much larger and would require far more troops. And Ricks ends with four possible scenarios for the long term, each more frightening than the one before. The best would be a result similar to the Philippines, where Americans learned in a year or two to adapt to local conditions and effectively ended the war while leaving behind an occupying force for decades. The nightmare scenario is that a modern-day Saladin could arise who would combine popular support with huge oil revenues to pose a threat to the entire Western world. Gulp.

SIDEBAR: Edward Luttwak writes in the new Harper's that improved counterinsurgency tactics are irrelevant. The most effective way to deal with insurgents has been known since at least the Romans: brutal retaliation against any civilians who happen to be anywhere that attacks originate. It worked great for the Nazis. Of course, Luttwak says, those tactics are unacceptable in 21st century America, so we should not expect to be winning any wars against insurgents.

Dumber and dumber

Rarely has a letter to the editor disptuing global warming (or anything else) left itself so vulnerable to point-by-point demoliton:

1. The earth is always changing. For example, many areas of Montana were covered by water millions of years ago as evidenced by many rimrocks showing sediment layers deposited by water.

True but irrelevant. The fact that the planet changes naturally doesn't make it immutable to change by humans.

2. Twelve thousand years ago, a glacier stretched across northern Montana and into Minnesota. The glacier melted and changed the flow of the Missouri River from the Big Sag of Chouteau County to the Big Bend towards Big Sandy.

True, I guess, but utterly irrelevant. See Point 1.

3. Gore enormously simplifies the relationship of cause and effect.

For example?

4. Many, many weather scientists do not believe that human activity has anything to do with climate change. Blaming humans is a sensational news story; giving credit to Mother Nature isn't.

No. Not many.

5. Global weather is far more complex and mysterious than we have the ability to understand. A couple hundred years of observation by us humans isn't long enough to gain a meaningful understanding.

Since knowledge is incomplete, we must refuse to act. So if an armed intruder enters your house and you can't tell whether or not his gun is loaded, you should ignore him.

6. Forest and prairie fires, volcanoes and dust storms generate thousands of times more atmospheric pollution than human activity.

Irrelevant, especially if, as Gore predicts, the effects of human activity are increasing.


7. During the 1960s, weather "experts" were warning of global cooling.

Not true. Some popular articles in the '60s did make this claim, but scientists were always more cautious. The mostly widely cited scientific study that suggested this hypothesis, in fact, specifically excluded any possible effects of human activity.

I thought all of that was just about the dumbest thing I had read until I looked at the comments beneath it. Man, oh man.

Straight facts

Ed links to a post that dissects (and mocks) the "new jouralism." It's a piece well worth reading, but I was most struck by this reader comment: "I'm willing to forgive a lot of grammar and punctuation mistakes - as long as the facts are straight."

True enough, I suppose, but not often found in the real world. In my experience, the traits that make people good at grammar and punctuation also make them good at getting facts straight. I don't trust sloppy writers to have straight facts. I may have known an exception or two over the years, but damn few.

Fiasco II

I had to lay off "Fiasco" for a few days to catch up on getting out the paper and the end-of-the-year billing, but I invested a couple of more hours in it this morning.

The most remarkable thing about the book is the hard look it takes at the military's failures during the war. All but the most rabid war supporters have conceded that civilian mistakes made the war much harder than it had to be, but Ricks is the first I have read who holds the military's feet so close to the fire.

His basic critique: The military was so traumatized by Vietnam that instead of learning that war's lessons about how to fight counterinsurgency it simply ignored those lessons. Hard-won wisdom about waging war on insurgents gathered in Southeast Asia, as well as by the French in Algeria and the British in colonial wars, simply was unknown in much of the U.S. military, Ricks said.

The result was that tactical successes have not translated into strategic gains. The real battle is not between U.S. soldiers and insurgents; the real battle is for the support of the Iraqi people. U.S. ignorance about Iraqi language and customs, and its insistence on using overwhelming force to minimize casualties, have helped fuel civil war.

Ricks quotes one commander who in unapologetically defending his unit's ruthless tactics pointed out that he had lost no soldiers in combat. But Ricks argues that commanders must place their highest priority on winning the war, not just on avoiding casualties. If the only goal is to keep soldiers from getting hurt, then everybody could have just stayed home.

It's a bit bracing to read such a stern critique from someone who obviously knows his stuff. I've always been amazed at right wingers who readily assume that every single government employee, from the Cabinet down through Congress to the lowliest clerk in the Social Security office, is lazy and incompetent -- with one huge exception: the military. There every soldier is a hardworking hero and every officer is fearless and wise.

The reality, of course, is that the military is plagued by many of the same obstacles that make other aspects of government function so inefficiently. It's refreshing to hear from a journalist who has the guts to say so openly.

Balanced budget

U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg says he is sponsoring legislation to amend the U.S. Constitution to require the federal government to balance its budget.

"The spirit of the Balanced Budget Amendment is to stop using budget gimmicks to mislead the public about how taxpayer dollars are being spent," he said in a news release. "We balanced the budget in the Montana Legislature and there is no reason Congress shouldn't be able to do the same."

Actually, there are plenty of reasons, as Rehberg well knows. Just look at what the Bush administration did with the balanced budget it inherited. Regardless of what you thought of the tax cuts, do you suppose that a single American would have argued on Sept. 12, 2001, that we couldn't retaliate against Osama Bin Laden because there wasn't enough money in the budget?

Running the country just ain't the same as running Montana. Yes, Congress ought to do a far better job of balancing spending and revenues than it does. And it ought to cut out the budget gimmicks. No constitutional amendment is required for it do that -- just integrity and leadership.

Propaganda hacks

I have tried to be a good boy, but I felt particularly low and mean yesterday and visited Daily Pundit, Bill Quick's daily summary of all things incoherent.

His New Year's Eve text was the way MSM covered the 3,000th death of a U.S. soldier in Iraq. Quick surveyed the vast range of thousands of international newspaper and broadcast outlets and found nine that somewhere in their coverage used the phrase "grim milestone" to describe the death total. His conclusion: "Another Carnival of Originality brought to you by the propaganda hacks of the mainstream media."

Sure enough, if you enter "grim milestone" into Google, you get more than 600,000 hits. But if you enter "propaganda hacks," you get 1.3 million hits -- and two of the first three come from Daily Pundit. And those two don't include yesterday's entry.

Hacks of the world, unite. You have nothing to lose but your cliches.

Fiasco

My mother turned 94 on Thursday, and I am just back from visiting her and other family in South Texas for a few days. New fact I learned: My great-grandfather, who is buried in Nursery, Texas, fought for the 30th Kentucky Infantry during the Civil War. My brother Joe, who has done some research on all this, says that Crisps were fairly well represented on both sides of the war. So I come by my moderate extremism naturally.

I took the occasion of the trip to spend some birthday money on two books: "The Wal-Mart Effect" by Charles Fishman and "Fiasco" by Thomas Ricks. "Fiasco," an account of how things got so screwed up in Iraq, kept me occupied yesterday through 10 hours of airport layovers. Powerful stuff, about which more later.