Duck Season

Schroeder's Germany: lover of peace or a rogue weapons proliferating nation?

You decide.

Guess which former governor made his state number one in the country in tax shelters for corporate America? Not George Bush!

Howard Dean is fond of criticizing politicians who provide tax breaks to "large corporate interests," and one of his favorite campaign lines is a blast at the Bush administration for doling out tax cuts to top executives of Enron Corp.

But during Dean's 11 years as Vermont governor, he enacted tax breaks that attracted to the state a "Who's Who" of corporate America -- including Enron -- to set up insurance businesses. Indeed, Dean said in 2001 that he wanted Vermont to "overtake Bermuda" as the "world's largest" haven for a segment of the insurance industry known as "captives," which refers to firms that help insure their parent companies.

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But while the nearly 500 captive insurance companies have been a windfall for Vermont -- providing 2 percent of the state's general funds from tax on the $7 billion worth of premiums that go through Vermont annually -- the industry also is highly controversial. Some analysts believe that while Vermont profits, other states lose corporate tax revenues because of the way a company's taxable income may be reduced if it uses captives.

"Dean apparently has no problems with tax havens as long as they are in the state of Vermont," said University of Connecticut Law School professor Richard Pomp, author of the textbook "State and Local Taxation." "He can't have it both ways, because Vermont is acting like a little Bermuda."

In fact, Dean has often complained about Bermuda's tax haven status, saying that the United States needs a president "who doesn't think that big corporations who get tax cuts ought to be able to move their headquarters to Bermuda."

Dean spokesman Jay Carson said there is no contradiction between Dean's complaints about President Bush's corporate tax breaks and the former governor's own efforts to help the captive insurance industry. "This is a legitimate industry, perfectly legal. It helped the economy here, and Governor Dean is going to make no apologies for that," Carson said.

As governor, Dean saw his competitor for this business as Bermuda, which hosts nearly three times as many captives as Vermont. "We consider our competition to be Bermuda or the Cayman Islands," Dean said in a 2001 article published by the A.M. Best Co. "We feel pretty good about what we are doing, but it is competitive. Our goal is to overtake Bermuda as the world's largest captive domicile." Carson, the Dean spokesman, said yesterday the governor was referring at the time to his desire to "bring jobs and revenue back to the United States."

Uh-huh. All of the other Democratic presidential candidates should jump on this. This goes especially well with John Kerry's new "Dean says one thing but does another" line of attack, though at this point it probably too late for Kerry to benefit.

1) In the event of the deployment of massive renewable energy sources the countries of OPEC want subsidies.

2) That Palestinian state:

In a West Bank university election for the student leadership that focused on which party had killed the most Israelis, the violent Hamas swept to victory Wednesday, defeating Yasser Arafat's Fatah.

The campaign for the student government council at Bir Zeit University near Ramallah featured exploding models of Israeli buses and claims of prowess based on Israeli casualties.

****

At a debate, the Hamas candidate asked the Fatah candidate: "Hamas activists in this university killed 135 Zionists. How many did Fatah activists from Bir Zeit kill?"

The Fatah candidate refused to answer, suggesting his rival "look at the paper, go to the archives and see for yourself. Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades have not stopped fighting the occupation."

"Activists" ?!!?!?!? How utterly disgusting.

David Adesnik on the French proposal to ban the hijab:

There is something touchingly innocent about the French aspiration to promote tolerance by imposing conformity. Perhaps Tocqueville should have cast a glance homewards as he warned his American hosts about the dangers associated with the tyranny of the majority.

While the average American man-in-the-street could have told M. Chirac that religious repression only promotes resentful backlash, there is a more subtle point that American might not appreciate because they take religious toleration for granted.

****

Perhaps it should not come as a surprise that France has a resentful, violent and poorly integrated Muslim immigrant community whereas Muslim immigrants in the United States seem to be thriving no less than Jews, Hindus, or Chinese -- and giving back to their host country.

Gregg Easterbrook continues the crusade against the enviros on George Bush's environmental record:

The latest example of the media standing on its head regarding George W. Bush's environmental policies is the treatment accorded the White House announcement, last week, that Bush would impose a substantial reduction in emissions from Midwestern power plants. Did you even know this happened? Of course not, because news organizations either buried the story or twisted it to make it sound negative.

****

Bush's Clear Skies bill would scrap the litigation-based system and substitute the "cap and trade" approach that has been spectacularly successful at reducing acid rain. Caps under the Bush bill are mandatory, and the bill regulates power-plant mercury emissions for the first time, imposing a mandatory two-thirds reduction; by using a cap-and-trade approach, Bush's approach would achieve Clean Air Act goals at lower cost and without lawsuit uncertainty.

File under: What Liberal Bias?

UPDATE: Josh Chafetz continues the internet discourse on Bush's environmental record by debunking the myth that the present administration sank the Kyoto treaty.

*Ahem*: Paris Hilton Paris Hilton Nomar Garciaparra Paris Hilton "sex bracelets" phots pics blizzard Paris Hilton A-Rod F-Rod trade rumors X-men Saturday Night Live Britney surgery Cameron Justin Trista Georgy topless NFL jerseys fantasy football comics weather Miami Boston Red Sox Paris Hilton.

It's worth a shot.

1) Dime bag: James Taranto has a piece on the history of the dime over at OpinionJournal, but the Boston Herald provides the easiest reason to be against the Reagan dime:

Nancy Reagan said, ``I do not support this proposal and I am certain Ronnie would not. When our country chooses to honor a great president such as Franklin Roosevelt by placing his likeness on our currency, it would be wrong to remove him and replace him with another.''

Why are conservatives so willing to go against the wishes of a man they so revere?

2) Why we love Pedro Martinez:

Martinez also saw some humor in the idea that the Sox placing Ramirez on irrevocable waivers last month would somehow hurt Ramirez' feelings. He said he had not yet spoken with Ramirez.

"He actually asked for me the other day and they gave him my phone number and he hasn't called,'' said Martinez. "But Manny is cuckoo. He is cuckoo. He is in la-la land.''

Read the full transcript of that interview here.

3) A real tragedy: Quincy Massachusetts leads the state in hunger problems.

In my mirth over my last day of classes this semester I fled campus yesterday without picking up my copy of The Mass Media. Luckily I'm also subscribed to the e-mail edition.

1) Carl Brooks has an interesting article on grade inflation at Ivy League schools, with a perspective delivered right from the tiger's mouth of Princeton alumnus and current UMass Boston professor Dr. Ruth A. Miller. A clue about how bad the grade situation is in these schools:

According to the Daily Princetonian, however, the report "warns that both grade inflation and grade compression-narrowing of the range of grades given-are ongoing trends that are not being reversed despite recent administration efforts to combat them," and quotes the opening page of the report. "Who could ever have imagined that we would reach a point where a student with a straight B average would rank 923 out of a graduating class of 1079-or where a student with a C average would rank 1078?" it asks.

To what does Dr. Ruth A. Miller attribute this trend? "Grade inflation is a huge problem at Princeton, due to the socio-economic status of its students."

That's right. Being rich (or the promise of becoming rich) makes you a cheater! Well, not exactly. In fact, I think Dr. Ruth A. Miller is exactly right about the source of grade inflation. This is a generalization, but it's been my experience that Ivy Leaguers suffer from Type A personalities of the worst kind, and the sky-high cost of tuition only fuels their inability to accept less than 100% success in the classroom. For most of these people an Ivy League education is the culmination of the first 18 years of their life, years spent preparing for acceptance into these institutions by building a diverse background of interests through spending hours in band practice, sports practice, volunteering, studying, mastering a foreign language, working a part time job, earning leadership positions in school clubs and student government, etc. etc.

Don't get me wrong, these are all wonderful things for young people to do, and despite the fact I never applied to Harvard I was involved in several clubs, bands and sports teams through my teen years, but I was involved because I wanted to be involved for my own pleasure.

These schools have built an admission process that essentially requires parents to program every aspect of their child's life from age 8 through 18, and this all consuming necessity to succeed just boils through at the undergraduate level.

Interesting quote I'm not quite sure I understand the implications of: "She says at UMB, where students come from far more humble means, 'I don't feel that pressure. In fact, I feel almost the opposite pressure.'"

2) UMass Boston launches the first Green Chemsitry program in the nation.

3) UMass students received notice last week that their tuition was being rasied by $750.00 for the Spring Semester. This tuition increase was passed despite the fact the tuition for 2003-2004 was raised by $1,000.00 annually this summer. The Mass Media rightly comes out against this latest fee increase, which were delievered with less than 6 weeks until the spring tuition bill was due. The timing of this tuition hike clearly will not provide many UMass' lower income students sufficient week to scrimp and save that extra $750.00. That's a lot of money to squeeze out of a budget in just a month and a half.

Money quote: "The Boston Globe also wrote that at its peak, back in 1988, state spending on education was 6.5% of the budget. It is now down to 3.5%, taking a cut of 27% over the last three years alone. This means we the students will make up the difference while accepting a reduction in education services."

The Mass Media also shares my red line theory of higher education in Massachusetts.

4) UMass Senator William Roach, pro special interests shaking down UMass students for money, anti gay marriage.

Maybe I ought to write another letter to the editor.

Isn't Hillary really the candidate who ought to be worried about Nader?

In the post Florida 2000 world Al Gore's loss is (rightly or wrongly) attributed to the following three factors:

1) The Supreme Court
2) Ralph Nader

and, a distant third

3) Al Gore's lousy campaign

If Nader runs and splits the left or somehow successfully lessens Howard Dean's base then Deaniks undoubtedly will cite Nader as the reason for their loss. "It wasn't our candidate that lost" they'll say, "it was Nader twisting the issues and siphoning off x% of the vote in key states."

The 2000 loss provided the left with a lot of silly vigor which has had amazing staying power (as Viking Pundit uncannily demonstrates), and barring the complete and utter embarrassment of Dean on the electoral alter in 2004, the Democratic party will remain "fractured" and the non-Clinton segment will survive to build for another run in 2008.

After an exhaustive search I finally found a woman on that website who is not only a babe, but also hides an electoral heart of read beneath that pink exterior. We ask that you not discharge firearms in the direction of this bunny even though she fully supports your constitutional right to do so.

Give it up for conservative babe and playmate of the year candidate Ms. Audra Lynn.

What if Al Gore's endorsement of Howard Dean is what's going to convince Ralph Nader to run again?

Ben Domenech points out that Elizabeth Hasselbeck (nee Filarski), the former Survivor contestant and current wife of Washington Redskins quarterback Tim Hasselbeck, is pro-life. This apparently came to his attention because she's also this week's "GOP Babe-of-the-Week" from the New Jersey GOP website. Past winners include Sarah Michelle Gellar and Jessica Simpson, though their pages don't exactly explain why they're conservative. But I don't think many patrons of the site will mind whether any of the women featured are conservative enough.

I had the exact same reaction as Josh Chafetz to this 'Corner' post by who-dat Jim Robbins.

In his post Robbins attributes nefarious motives to Hillary's response from Meet the Press to the 'will you accept the dem. nomination in 2004' question: "I am not accepting the nomination" said Hillary.

ZOUNDS EVIL IS ON THE LOOSE! Did you see that?! She answered in the present tense. Of course she is not accepting the nomination right this second... she's in an NBC studio with Tim Russert, who has no authority to offer the nomination. Hillary never said that she will not accept the nomination. She never spoke in the future tense! She left the door open to redefine what "is" means!

PUH-leaze.

Dow hits 10,000.

A new study from McMaster University finds that the presence of pretty women prevents men from making rational economic decisions.

This undoubtedly explains why Hot or Not is so addictive, and why sometimes it's fun to sit online and flip through the pictures until the most ungodly hours of the morning. That's not pathetic, it's science!

Uh.. yeah.

You can find Instapundit's coverage of the anti-terror demonstrations in Iraq here and here.

UPDATE: Check out this K.Lo post to understand the range of issues that Iraqi's demonstrated against.

According to William Saffire, it's Hillary. Saffire wants to know why Hillary was so... reasonable... on the Sunday talk-shows last week:

One reason is that Hillary stands aloof, hard to get, while all the others are slavering for support. Another could be that most Democrats don't yet realize she's a hard-liner at heart. A third is that her personal appeal to liberals (and apoplectic opposition from conservatives) overwhelms all Democrats' policy differences. A fourth -- and don't noise this around -- could be that she speaks for the silent majority of centrist Democrats who yearn for the Old Third Way without Mr. Clinton.

I think it's self evident that Hillary believes Howard Dean is going to be colossal failure, and she's doing her best to be a moderate. Let's remember that everything Hillary says and does should be understood by their value to a 2008 Presidential bid. Four years is a long time in the new history of Iraq, and we have reason to believe that in four years time Iraq may well be a reasonably stable fledgling democracy. Hillary is doing well for 2008 by tempering her words for that reality.

And, if things go poorly in Iraq, she can lead the anti-Bush fight.

Armed Liberal urges readers to write a letter to the New York Times to protest the fact that they failed to cover the story of anti-terrorism protests in Iraq yesterday. So that's what I did. Here's the letter I wrote to Dan Okrent, the new Times "public editor":

Greetings,

There was a major demonstration in Baghdad yesterday by Iraqis against terrorism, but the Times failed to cover it, except in the ninth paragraph of another news report. I'm sure, Mr. Okrent, that you've gotten many complaints about this, and you'll get many complaints in the future about liberal bias by the Times's news coverage. This, it seems to me, is Exhibit A in Times bias. To most conservatives and moderates like me, if there were a demonstration in Baghdad against American policy, the Times would put it on the front page the next day with a headline like "Thousands Protest American Occupation in Iraq".

As I mentioned above, the Times did mention the demonstration briefly in another article. That news report, by Edward Wong, was on the deaths of two American soldiers and the robbery of $800,000 from an Iraqi government bank. While the death of any American soldier is newsworthy, I would argue that the demonstration yesterday was more important and newsworthy because it signaled in a small way that many Iraqis are supportive of what the United States is doing. That narrative, on a broader note, has been almost completely missing from the Times's coverage of Iraq.

I hope this issue will be the first you address in your column two weeks from now, because it is probably the biggest issue on which the Times is losing credibility.


Thanks for reading,
Hei Lun Chan
http://duckseason.blogspot.com

UPDATE: Okrent's assistant, Arthur Bovino, sent a reply:

Hei Lun Chan,

Thank you for your inquiry.

The Times did print a picture on page A18 of the rally against terrorism in Iraq.
The caption reads: “Taking a stand against guerrillas, Iraqis stood on columns in Baghdad yesterday during a rally that attracted thousands. The attacks have killed and wounded Iraqi civilians as well as Americans and their allies.”

Mr. Okrent has asked me to tell you that Roger Cohen the editor of the foreign desk is away this week and he intends to meet with him next week when he will bring up reader concerns about the Iraq coverage.

Cheers,
Arthur Bovino
Office of the Public Editor
The New York Times

EU bureaucrats are very unhappy that they will not be receiving reconstruction projects funded by the American people:

"The U.S. decision is gratuitous and extremely unhelpful," EU External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten said in a statement. "We should be seeking to bring people together, not divide them."

The European Commission, which conducts the bloc's common trade policy, has said it will investigate whether the U.S. bar on projects worth $18.6 billion violates World Trade Organization rules.

"At the very moment when there is a general recognition that the whole international community should work together for the reconstruction of Iraq and for a stable and prosperous democratic society there, returning to old arguments and divisions doesn't seem particularly constructive," Patten said.

F**k them. What nerve! To suggest that receiving reconstruction dollars represents an actual substantive aid by these countries in Iraq is ridiculous.

There are plenty of firms through out the world, including firms from England, Australia, Spain and Italy capable of rebuilding Iraq. If we're "punishing" the Chocalate Makers by preventing them from receiving reconstruction contracts, doesn't that also mean we're "rewarding" our allies by granting them the same? Doesn't it make far better sense to reward those allies who sent soldiers into battle with our own, rather than shrinking the pot by cutting the Johnny-haven't-put-a-damn-soldier-in-anywhere's in?

If the Chocolate Makers were to provide troops and monetary support for the military operation, even at this late day, I could imagine considerable pressure from the State Department to secure contracts for Old Europe.

But they're not going to do that, are they?

DaimlerChrysler doesn't want to "compromise the girls":

The creator of the Lingerie Bowl assures sponsor Dodge that the pay-per-view program will be more than a paltry panty party.

The idea of a bra-and-panty fest "concerned Dodge executives, as it should, because that's not what they were sold," said Mitch Mortaza, creator and executive producer of Lingerie Bowl 2004, which will take place during the Super Bowl on Feb. 1.

****

"We don't want to compromise the girls in any way, but we don't want to lose the appeal of this thing," Mortaza said. "It's going to be a refreshing, sexy alternative for those who are bored with Super Bowl halftime."

In his column on the 60 Minutes segment on the Abercrombie and Fitch catalog, Jonah Goldberg asks why liberals get outraged at certain kinds of discrimination against Asians but not others:

As for real irony, my favorite part of the program was the outrage of one Mr. Anthony Ocampo — a student at Stanford University — who wasn't hired by A&F because the store in question already had "too many Filipinos."

"I was speechless," Mr. Ocampo explained. "I was, you know, I didn't really know what to say, I'd never had any — I'd never seen racism that explicit prior to that."

Now, I really don't blame Mr. Ocampo for being peeved. But one wonders whether he considers all of the faculty and administrators at Stanford who desperately want that same policy reinstalled at their school to be racists too? After all, not being able to fold sweaters at slightly better than minimum wage because you're ethnically Asian may be bad, but being denied admittance to Stanford because you're ethnically Asian strikes me as worse. Alas, this seemed not to occur to anyone at 60 Minutes.

In both cases, Asians are getting the shaft because there's already too many of them. So what's the difference? Well, in the case of college admissions, Asians would be taking the places of blacks and Hispanics. In the case of A&F hiring, Asians would be taking the place of whites. According to the Liberal Hierarchy of the Aggrieved, blacks and Hispanics take priority over Asians, so it's perfectly okay to discriminate against Asians if it means making the quota for blacks and Hispanics on college admissions. But Asians take priority over whites, so liberals get outraged when they are turned away so that whites can take their place at A&F.

Foreign Policy magazine on globalization, fair trade and the WTO.

Get Fuzzy has had a great week two week run on vacation in Canada, check out Thursday and this Tuesday.

1) Our Moral War: Saddam may have killed 61,000 people... from Baghdad alone. (But it's a big city! liberal Ed.)

2) The French ponder outlawing the hijab in favor of secularism.

3) Abercrombie & Fitch is a dying brand, again, says Slate.

I'll quote somebody else saying it before Nick get the chance to. From Stephen Bainbridge:

I wish I could console my many friends at USC
On their fine football team's exclusion from the BCS championship game. But I can't stop laughing long enough!

Seeing Viking Pundit link to Jimmy Carter as a miserable failure reminds me to comment on the Googlebombing wars: aren't we all being a bit immature? I mean, don't we bloggers have nothing else better to do than to come up with pretenses for ...

...oh, nevermind.

And speaking of miserable failures, VP predicts John Kerry to finish third in New Hampshire. Considering how Kerry's campaign been going, doesn't that make him a Kerry optimist?

While indicting Chris Matthews as their 'Bigot of the Year', Ramallah Online gives Dubya some props: "While Mathews has been spewing his hateful venom, George Bush, to his credit, has acted as the president of all the people. "

I bet you won't see that quoted in tomorrow's CAIR press release.

UPDATE: Talk about stifling dissent! From the same article: "I don't believe that a bigot like Mathews can be a patriotic American."

Shop until Capitalism drops with the CPUSA!

In an attempt to avoid school work I've been clearing from my inbox all sorts of links and notes that I meant to blog about. Since most of these are horribly out of date, i'll just settle for this fascinating Maxim article on absinth, which I originally read while waiting for my $10 haircut at my barber's. Key quote on the chemical effects of the green drink:

So why all the hype about absinthe to begin with? Simply put, it’s not your average 140-proof drink. Absinthe is derived from the wormwood plant, which contains a psychoactive oil called thujone that produces what’s known as the “absinthe effect.” Often described as a kind of lofty clarity that accompanies the standard drunken reverie, over the ages the effect has inspired authors, poets, and artists, including, of course, van Gogh. The French were so fond of absinthe they affectionately called it la fée verte, or the green fairy, and millions were swiggin’ it at the turn of the last century, right about the time Germany was building a military juggernaut. Many believed habitual consumption led to a subtype of alcoholism known as absinthism, or absinthe-induced madness (apparently, 140-proof alcohol alone wasn’t good enough at causing people to go ballistic).

The drink’s dangerous rep grew to hysterical proportions in 1905, when French-Swiss Jean Lanfray murdered his pregnant wife and two children after a daylong binge. Soon absinthe was illegal in every European country, with the exception of England, Spain, and France, and the United States banned it in 1912. A few years later, Germany invaded an absinthe-soaked France, and in a futile attempt to galvanize the nation’s fighting spirit, French authorities also made absinthe illegal.

The fairy returns
Despite the fact that the FDA still classifies wormwood as a poisonous food additive, some historians believe absinthism was caused not by thujone but by nasty chemicals used in improperly produced absinthe. Others reject the concept of absinthism altogether, arguing that the French inability to hold their liqueur ruined a good thing for everybody. (Yep, just one more thing we can blame on the French.) Part of the reason European distillers were able to relegalize absinthe is that they’ve safeguarded production, limiting thujone content to 10 parts per million (mg/kg), which is “probably both safe and appropriate” says Wilfred N. Arnold, Ph.D., a biochemist at the University of Kansas who has studied absinthe extensively. While that ain’t enough thujone to make you slice off your ear, it’s more than enough to give you a taste of the absinthe effect. The key is moderation: Mix absinthe with plenty of water and sugar, and be aware that after about three shots the alcohol begins to override the thujone. While frolicking with the fairy, it’s too easy to pour another glass only to find yourself free-falling out of the green mists and into a puddle of your own electric green vomit.

The article also contains links to several websites where you can purchase bottles, along with a note assuring readers that the feds are too busy hunting down Saddam and Osama to worry about what you have shipped to your home from the UK.

Contrary to the claims made above, at least one website assures potential customers that their liqueur "has the same effects as in the 19th Century, since the same main herbs are used, in the same amounts, as well as the same manufacturing processes." It also notes that "thujone is a toxic chemical present in wormwood and has a similar molecular geometry with THC, the active chemical in cannabis." If you're too freaked out to buy a bottle of absinthe, they welcome you to try a bottle of Cannabis Vodka, which is alcohol produced with hemp seeds to replicate "that distinct taste of Cannabis."

Fun stuff.

File this under Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering: Attention liberal bloggers of the world, please try and use your powers for good (Warning - 18+ NWS), not stupidity.

Central Florida local news is reporting that the woman who was allegedly injured in a Shopping Day DVD stampede has a history of filing personal injury claims against Wal-Mart.

Keep on putting out more sites like this one: Babes against Bush.