Some time shortly after we're on the air tomorrow, the Minnesota Senate should be about done with dinner. The DFL senators have decided that it would like to create the highest personal income tax bracket in the nation.

The proposal to raise just shy of $1 billion in taxes over the next two years would be achieved by adding a fourth tier to Minnesota's current three-tier system. The new rate would be 9.7 percent. At least half of the proceeds would be used to offset higher education spending.

Senate Taxes Committee Chairman Tom Bakk said his Democratic colleagues rallied around the plan during a closed-door caucus Friday morning. They chose the approach over another one that would have raised income taxes across the board.

So the people who want to take your money because they won decided that the 'your' was just the families with a quarter-million of taxable income. So that won't bother you, right? Well, when the family incorporates to duck that extra 2% tax, or moves their income out of state, what will happen to the people they hire and the goods they produce? And they are relying on a statistic that we described yesterday is a statistical artifact of how the tax incidence report is done.

The DFL House caucus at least taxed less than half the people hit with this Senate tax, and they taxed at 9%, not 9.75%. So when Tiny says "The reality is, people want some investment," she means they want someone else to invest in things for them. In fact, I've always wanted someone else to invest in my beer.

And after they pass the bill Saturday that everyone admits Governor Pawlenty will veto, the esteemed senators are taking all of next week off. (Do they get per diem during that period? I think not -- so think of the money they'll save!) All the work left to do, and they somehow can get a full week vacation. In 2005, they only took Thursday, Friday and Monday off for Easter week.

But the Mr. Creosote Senate will probably need a full week after digesting all these tax increases.

Labels: legislature, Minnesota

Finally had a chance to stop and read, and first thing I find is that the First Mate appears to be completing her transplant surgery in fine form. Prayers for healing over there. I saw her at the station a few weekends ago and barely recognized her at first; Ed won't know this, but she provided me some real understanding and help dealing with my friend's death to diabetes. Ed, you married well.

Prayers as well out to Liz, for discernment for God's plan for her and Josh. I am glad she had a chance to share this with Powerline's audience (thanks, guys, for giving her some time.) I'm working up an idea for those two when Josh returns. Hint: It involves baseball.

Prayers for Sgt. Neil Duncan for healing and to move people to help support his struggle for a healthy future.

And prayers for me to be more patient with some of the students needing things when I'm supposed to have the day off. (Though, a tip: Interrupting me between the bathroom and the coffee pot is never a good idea. Thankee.)

Labels: MOB, NARN

While there are many things the legislature can do -- because in Rep Debra Hilstrom's words, "no one is safe until the Legislature goes home" -- at least one person is making sure we can celebrate something unsafe.

State Rep. Patti Fritz, DFL-Faribault, has introduced a bill designating the Tilt-A-Whirl the official amusement ride in Minnesota.

Fritz said she's taking up the cause of 52 kindergarten students from her district who say it deserves special attention because it was invented in their town.

"I represent children too," Fritz said, adding, "Minnesotans like to have fun, and it's a fun thing to do."

Here's the bill.

Great. A State Amusement Ride that makes me barf. A perfect description of this Legislature.

Labels: legislature, Minnesota

Tonight we had the opportunity to hear Dennis Prager speak at the University of Minnesota in the Cities. What a fabulous mind he has. The large sold-out audience enthusiastically embraced him. We took to him like the arrival of a cousin from California whom we had known primarily through the receipt of periodic voice recordings. And suddenly there was a gathering at a family reunion. The warmth and affection permeated this large hall at the McNamara Alumni Center.

Tonight Dennis' topic focused on what students do not learn in college: wisdom, character, happiness and identity. Each of these topics will be addressed in subsequent posts.

What is at stake is the future of our nation which includes our children. No longer is there any correlation between what we pay for education today vs what our children learn. As a result our youth are short changed, our nation is short changed, our planet is short change. I hope you will stay with me on these posts which will continue through the weekend.

Someone pointed out to me at lunch that the Chronicle of Higher Ed had posted a series of blog posts started by Steven Levitt about tenure. In it Levitt says he'd take $15,000 in additional base salary to forgo his tenure. As I argued in another context, one can always buy out tenure but most schools choose not to: It's cheaper to let the deadwood go on being dead than buy them out. And you'd have to make it a blanket offer, and negotiate individually with each faculty member. (Look, if the university came up and gave me a private offer to buy out my tenure without buying out the others, I can pretty well guess what comes next.)

That's in fact what Greg Mankiw is saying as well. You can easily buy out the Steve Levitts of the world because they have an active market for their services. Deadwood faculty know their (lack of) market alternatives and therefore would never sell tenure cheaply. Some schools (for-profits would seem to fit) may instead use the high-pay/low-job-stability model; the question is how one deals with university governance if you had a transition period in which senior faculty with tenure are hiring other senior faculty that are not to have it. Mankiw:

Now, senior hiring is done by existing senior faculty. If those faculty could start firing one another, the political dynamics of hiring would become complicated and probably untenable. (Here is a related paper.) A university without tenure would likely have to move toward a more hierarchical system with a "boss" in charge of hiring and other major decisions. That is, one cannot abolish tenure and expect university governance to remain the same. Deans would likely have more power over hiring. In my experience, anything that gives deans more authority is a step in the wrong direction, for deans have less information about what is going on in the field or in the classroom than the faculty do.

I suspect Mankiw's department has a chair that is not very powerful; these positions could be much more powerful if decisions to hire each year were made for the entire staff rather than just the untenured junior staff. (Chairs here have no such authority, and I'm not sure I would like to have it even if it were on offer. For those of you who work in departments who have chair recommendations for merit pay raises you can only imagine how much more nasty things would get.)

But the point remains: Tenure continues to exist because there are large institutional hurdles to its removal -- I consider that argument Stiglerian in nature -- and that its existence increases the cost of its removal to the point where nobody wants to move first to get rid of it.

Thus when Hank Brown of Colorado argues that that state's university system is reforming tenure after a lengthy process, it is most likely only going to nibble around the edges. A little more lengthy process for post-tenure review, a little tighter procedure for investigating faculty misconduct. But in the end all it means is a faster track to getting a Ward Churchill deal of having your tenure bought out (in his case, at $96,000/year until they actually get around to a final settlement.)

Labels: higher education

In a commentary in the Bemidji Pioneer, Minnesota Taxpayers Association executive director Lynn Reed makes a very interesting point about the DFL's discussions of tax incidence and tax fairness.

One of the main reasons the tax incidence of lower-income Minnesotans is greater than others is our dependence on business taxes. The Department of Revenue’s study shows that taxes initially imposed on businesses are shifted forward to households, primarily through higher prices and lower wages, which fall more heavily on lower income households. Business taxes shifted to the $17,000 to $23,000 income households take 2.6 percent of their income, while those shifted to the $105,000 and up income households take only 1.2 percent.

In fact, if state and local business taxes were cut in half, the “unfairness” would disappear. The $17,000 to $23,000 income group would pay 9.2 percent of their income in taxes, while the over $105,000 income group would pay 10.2 percent.

I looked at the study, and sure enough there it is, in Tables 2-2 and 2-3 (pages 27 and 29.) I've highlighed the business tax rates in the table to the right (taken from the study: click to expand.) Now oddly enough, I have not heard that proposal from the DFL in its attempts to create more tax fairness (which, as Reed points out "tends to reside in the mind of the one claiming unfair treatment.") Instead they are choosing between two huge tax increases on personal income. Reed argues that if you cut the business tax and replaced it with a slight, across-the-board personal tax increase you would in return get more progressivity.

A slight across-the-board increase in the individual income tax could make up for the loss of business tax revenue, with no overall tax increases, and an even more progressive tax system. While individuals would pay a little more in income taxes, they would pay lower prices for goods and receive higher wages from their employers.

Policy makers and economists know that if you want to discourage behavior, just tax it. This is the rationale behind increasing taxes on cigarettes and liquor. In Minnesota, taxing businesses doesn’t just discourage new jobs in this state, it discourages a progressive tax system. That result doesn’t sound fair for anyone.

Now a fiscally conservative DFL House caucus might be the place to find such a proposal. But alas, none are to be found.

Labels: economics, legislature, Minnesota

The DFL majority in the Minnesota Legislature has been upset with House Republican Leader Marty Seifert, whose criticism of the DFL's tax plans have left at least one DFL leader sputtering. One Democrat announces "there's a lot of taxes in this bill" -- an announcement that Gary Gross notices in this morning's paper -- and the best the liberal news media can come up with is to tell Seifert to take a deep breath. A letter sent around to DFL activists by the party's leadership is trying to whip up LTE support:

Representative Seifert has taken the typical political grandstanding to be expected from a minority party to a new low. He hides behind feeble attempts at folksy "Seifert-isms" to get away with extremely disingenuous criticism. He is more interested in scoring political points, and in obstructing the legislative process, than in taking care of the people's business.

Taking care of the people's business in this case means taking away your money. (Bless you, Rep. Thao -- that's the gift that keeps on giving.) They will say it goes to education, of course, but that should come as no surprise when one looks at $1.5 million in campaign contributions.

Rep. Seifert called this a "badge of honor" and notes the new bonding bill -- normally a smallish thing in budget years -- has a quarter-billion in new projects and uses $120 million from the surplus in the current year that would normally go as a tax rebate. In a press release this morning, the Republicans have fired back that they will not support any tax increases:

"Fiscal responsibility is more than a campaign slogan. It is a principle by which we govern," said House Republican Leader Marty Seifert. "We have a $34 billion budget. There is room in this budget to fund education and healthcare, and there is room to provide tax relief. Minnesota taxpayers should not be asked to shoulder the burden of multi-billion dollar tax increases."

Citing Governor Pawlenty's clear direction that he will veto any tax increase, Senate and House Republicans said any bill that uses revenue from a proposed tax increase is a waste of time.

"We have spent weeks funding legislative priorities with money that doesn't exist. We stand firm with Governor Pawlenty that government growth should not exceed the growth of family income," Senjem said. "The Democrats need a back-up plan because Governor Pawlenty's vetoes will be upheld in both bodies of the Minnesota Legislature."

According to every source I've heard, this is true. Assuming no change in the two positions, the odds of a special session are rising by the moment, and I'll put the odds of a July shutdown at only 4-to-1 against at this point. (That is, if you would put up $5 against my $1, I'd take a bet that there will be a shutdown of the state government.)

You can bet this will be material for The Final Word this Saturday.

Labels: legislature, Minnesota

This is brilliant:

Two patients limp into two different medical clinics with the same complaint:

Both have trouble walking and appear to require a hip replacement.

The first patient is examined within the hour, is x-rayed the same day and has a time booked for surgery the following week.

The second sees his family doctor after waiting a week for an appointment, then waits eight weeks to see a specialist, then gets an x-ray, which isn't reviewed for another week, and finally has his surgery scheduled for six weeks from then.

Why the different treatment for the two patients?

The first is a golden retriever.

The second is a senior citizen.

Says the man whose daughter is getting braces for a second time today. Because we pay 50% our of pocket (5% discount if paid in advance -- and the total is more than two house payments for the Scholar fam) Littlest is getting in within three weeks of diagnosis, and the dentist is very good. And paid out of pre-tax dollars in an health savings account (though it will have zero dollars the rest of the year.)

As John notes, if Littlest were in Canada, she'd probably just have to deal with the underbite. Or wait six months for the system to let her go to a doctor and re-set her jaw. Yes, that's as painful as it sounds.

Labels: economics, health care

A letterwriter in the St. Cloud Times isn't thrilled with the compensation schemes of modern universities.

The big print shows the salary of the new president of St. Cloud State University. The next two articles talk about the St. Cloud State hockey coach and the new University of Minnesota basketball coach.

Earl Potter will make up to $253,000 to run an entire university and be responsible for all aspects of our young people's education.

I don't know how much Bob Motzko makes as the hockey coach, but I would bet he's at least in that same range. And Tubby Smith will make up to $1.8 million coaching basketball at the U of M.

What exactly is the purpose of a college or university? I didn't think it was to prepare athletes for professional sports careers or to build extravagant arenas and stadiums for them to play in. I thought it was to teach and to prepare students to step up to the challenges waiting for them in the real world.

Commenter "Corwin" on this blog last week also asked what are the prime functions of university presidents? Let's muse on that a moment.

Academic institutions distinguish between a chief academic officer (either a provost or a VP for Academic Affairs, most of the time) and a president. While presidents sometimes are involved in the academic affairs of a campus, it is most often a negative insofar as issues only come to the president when there is a conflict. Academic programs are usually a collectively delivered product -- I avoid the word team because departments usually aren't teams -- and a collegiate coach is more of a leader of students and athletes than a university president. This is even more true on a comprehensive state university campus than a small private liberal arts institution.

So what does the president do, then? In short, they are advocates for their institutions. Before SCSU was subsumed into the MnSCU system its president had a more direct impact on how much money the legislature provided. Now it is not much. So fundraising has to turn to alumni donations and grantwriting, something which SCSU hasn't done terribly well in the past. If you wanted to provide President Potter with incentives, the best probably would be for some kind of bounty on alumni contributions. That sort of thing is usually frowned upon when done openly, but can arise through appointment to boards of directors, for example.

I think the other thing presidents can do is to present a good face to the public, particularly when your institution depends on state support like ours. Past presidents of this institution have served on numerous non-profit boards (a function that should extend down the chain to the faculty, in my opinion) that builds applications of the university's knowledge to local issues and a base of support for university initiatives. Local residents living near campus of course face a negative externality from noisy students, but that can be offset by a good relationship between the university and the professional community, if you work at it.

If our new president can do those two things, that would be good. And the number of people who can do that is probably greater than the number who can bring the Gophers to basketball excellence. This is why college coaches make more than college presidents.

Labels: higher education

Baseball begins, and even on the Commissioner's blog I can learn that Curt Schilling has a blog. Dean Barnett has thrown out the first CHB. Now the question is, does he read SoSH?

(Not lived in New England for nearly thirty years, but I still love the Boston sports media fights, which even have a blog of their own too.)

Labels: baseball, commissioner, hugh hewitt

While the DFL contemplates how much to try to raise taxes, perhaps it should think about the state of the state economy. New state personal income figures came out, and the upper Midwest has problems due to farm income declining.

While total personal income grew 6.3 percent in the U.S. from 2005 to 2006, it increased by 5.3 percent in the region including South Dakota, North Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas and Missouri, according to preliminary estimates from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis in Washington.

The income figures include both pay and other factors such as dividends, interest, rent and transfers. Those other factors are on par with the national economy, so the real difference is what's happening in the labor market, said David Lenze, a bureau economist.

"The one thing that stands out is the farm sector, and that sector was subtracting from growth last year," he said. "It knocked off about a half percentage point from earnings growth in the Plains region."

The farm sector also subtracted from growth in 2005, but at a lower pace -- 0.39 percentage points, he added.

Sounds like a great time to pass a fertilizer tax, eh Mr. Junhke? Farm losses reduced personal income here by 0.64%. Big contributors to growth were health care and wholesale trade (yup, middlemen.)

But let's be clear -- the governor's office last year ran on a record that said the economy was booming. As noted last fall, these data are a patchwork of wages, dividends and interest, farm income, etc. There can be little mistaking that the general trend in the Plains states is down, and that the worst two states in the bunch are Minnesota and North Dakota. Minnesota actually fell in the rankings of state per capita income from tenth to twelfth. Might you want to ask how government can help this? By taking some of that income and "investing in the economy"? What were they doing with it before? Lighting cigars?

Labels: economics, Minnesota

The man is up on his skis and approaching the shark. I mean, what's next? Aerospace engineers who are also cheerleaders?

Oh.

(Though I have to say, having Littlest run screaming from the room when Milo and Nadia suck face was awesome. Thanks, 24 writers!)

Predictably, the local paper has weighed in on the budget battle in St. Paul. In editorials Sunday and yesterday the paper tried to split the baby with a call for higher taxes but not so much as the DFL would like.

Speaking in broad terms, we believe the state needs to adopt an overall budget solution this session that includes some form of tax increases. The state simply has too many needs, costs are rising too rapidly and too many services have been cut or delegated (forced onto cities and counties) in recent years to move forward based on a "no new taxes" philosophy.

Of course, businesses and the wealthy may not want to admit it, but the governor's own Revenue Department last week unveiled a biennial study that shows who should absorb most new taxes.

Wealthy Minnesotans are paying a slightly smaller share of their incomes in state and local taxes, and the tax burden is moving away from businesses and toward individuals.

I know many of the Times' writers, and while I haven't asked them I am pretty sure they are looking at the Tax Incidence Report that I discussed here last week. Assuming that's right, it's drawing the wrong inference from the tables provided.

First, as I noted then,

the top 1% of income earners (incomes over $354,758) in Minnesota pay 24.3% of the state income taxes in the state; the top 5% ($146,809), 43.1%; the top 10% ($105,451), 55.4%. Other taxes are not nearly so progressive, but state sales taxes are shifted onto consumers to a significant degree (a little more than half) and businesses pay about half of property taxes as well.

So how much more would you like them to pay? The problem with using the share amount of total taxes (which gives you the slight decline they report.) It is not based on a median figure but on an average figure which, because the people at the very top are making of the 1% are making huge amounts, overstates the denominator for the share for the median rich guy (I hope that makes sense.) This only happens on the two extremes, which is why I never trust those figures.

Second, and this is the part I think they miss, raising the tax rate on some base pre-shifting tells you nothing about how the tax burden will be distributed post-shifting. If raising the rate on corporate property to its current level lead to 40% of the tax being shifted forward to consumers, would you not expect that more would be shifted if you raise that rate higher? If the rich are able to avoid enough tax by changing where and when they collect reported income to cause the current slight regressivity, do we really believe the answer is to raise the rate on the same taxes? Why wouldn't they just shift away income more than before?

Remember that the reason the DFL and the Times editorial board wants this money is to pay for "needs" and "services" that "have been cut or delegated". It thinks by moving the tax burden from local to state it can collect more money -- the progressivity of the tax burden is just a way to sell the unpalatable to the middle class. Yet there is no study that tells you how much money will leak out of Minnesota when you raise rates higher as more accountants tell more of their clients to build a new home in South Dakota.

Difficult as it is, the AP digital news release through the Sydney Morning Herald confirms a major capture of key Al-Qaeda operatives in Iraq. Yes, Al-Qaeda has been and is in Iraq.

It is extremely unfortunate the western media has been so anti-coalition and US efforts in Iraq. Who knows, this war may have subsided a couple of years ago if the world had united against the real oppressor.

Other articles indicate Sunnis are tired of the bombings. If they can have enough time, they can make it. We need to remember, it took us 10 years to put a Constitution in place in Japan after WWII, almost as long in Germany. And, we still have troops in both countries. The fact that Europe has lost its belief in anything besides a 35 hour work week and has no defensive force of value is a topic for another day.

The Chronicle of Higher Ed runs this week a column by Greg Lukianoff of FIRE discussing the use of dispositions theory in the Columbia Teachers College. (Subscribers link; FIRE is providing a copy free for non-subscribers.) See my previous discussions here and here, for example. Columbia has responded to public demands by FIRE and the New York Civil Rights Coalition that it stop requiring students to demonstrate a "commitment to social justice" by saying it doesn't enforce the rule that is written in its web (or, more likely, that it lets students have freedom interpreting that to mean whatever they envision it to mean.) Lukianoff responds:

Vague, subjective, and politicized evaluation standards are dangerous. They invite administrators and faculty members to substitute their own opinions and political beliefs in place of evaluating students' skill as teachers. Many of us can think of teachers and professors whose politics we may not have agreed with but who were nonetheless exceptional educators. Having the "correct" political beliefs no more makes someone a good teacher than having "incorrect" beliefs necessarily makes someone a bad teacher.

Teachers College's standards are disturbingly vague and subjective. Its "Conceptual Framework" states that education is a "political act," that teachers — and hence teachers in training or students — are expected to be "participants in a larger struggle for social justice." At times, however, the standards are remarkably specific: "To change the system and make schools and societies more equitable, educators must recognize ways in which taken-for-granted notions regarding the legitimacy of the social order are flawed." The policy goes on to say that students are expected to recognize that "social inequalities are often produced and perpetuated through systematic discrimination and justified by societal ideology of merit, social mobility, and individual responsibility."

Those may be perfectly fine pedagogical theories appropriate for academic study, but when they are tied to mandatory evaluation criteria, they amount to a political litmus test. Does Teachers College really believe that a student who thinks "social responsibility" and "merit" are positive societal values would not make a good teacher?

It is hard to imagine how one creates an instrument by which one is evaluated.

(h/t: Loyal reader jw)

Labels: education, higher education

Being a member of a college faculty involves other responsibilities besides teaching. One of these is selecting a textbook for a given class. I have taught Management Information Systems (MIS) for most of the past nine years. During that time I have read more than 20 textbooks and served as a listed reviewer/editor on one of them.

My latest meeting centered around discussions for a new text for fall, 2007. Our MIS course is designed to teach the role of information technology (IT) in business. Since an organization can spend up to 50% of its resources on IT, it is very important that non-IT business majors understand this.

Naively, today's students think the entire world runs on personal computers (PCs). True, PCs run many small business and many large businesses have 1000's of PCs. However, PCs don't run the large businesses; large servers, also called mainframes run these institutions. If you have a major credit card, put gasoline in your car, stay at a brand hotel, pay taxes, get cash from an ATM, carry insurance, or perform disease research, you are using applications on mainframe or super computers.

Unfortunately, too many IT textbook authors and publishers devote less than a few paragraphs to anything larger than a personal computer. Instead, they focus on the cute, clever, and cool aspects of PCs while ignoring the massive engines, intricate applications and complexity that are the foundation of an enterprise's technical architecture. Why? Perhaps this omission is because the authors work in university departments using PCs and are unaware of the power behind their desk machines. (Tunnel vision?)

As a result, students are not taught what they need. Employers hire people without the necessary knowledge to do their job. Finally, students who would be interested in pursuing careers on the "big" ideas are denied the awareness this need even exists. Exciting careers are there for the taking yet students and too many universities are missing the mark. We all pay.

Labels: education, higher education

Tonight my husband and I went to a sports bar to watch NCAA women's basketball. At a major intersection, 35W exit ramp and Cty Rd 42, the traffic lights were out and no police officer had arrived to direct traffic.

Chaos? No. One direction at a time, American drivers simply took turns going through the intersection. No honking, no "jumping out of turn", no rude manners - just a logical, patient approach to a sticky situation.

We Americans do these things, we just do them. So many places on the planet can't or won't. The last time my husband visited cities across China, he saw no queueing up or taking turns in any major city.

We take this behavior for granted - perhaps we should remember to be grateful we behave this well.

The US Post Office has just issued a new stamp to effect a rate increase of two cents on first class postage effective April 12. The new stamps will sell for 41 cents, but rather than marking them with a 41 they are marked 'forever'. The stamp is indexed in value -- no matter what the price of postage is in the future, you may use that stamp for first class postage.

Now I doubt the USPS is doing this out of generosity. It costs money to print one- and two-cent stamps, and perhaps the cost of printing and delivering them is greater than the benefit of selling these. I'm pretty sure you can make a sticky stamp for less than a cent, but distribution might be expensive. (See my post on the penny for a comparable thought.)

But what does this do to the price of 39 cent stamps now in existence? If an indexed stamp and an unindexed stamp co-circulate, the unindexed stamp should sell at a discount since it doesn't carry that additional value. Alternatively, the indexed stamp should cost slightly more than 41 cents, as one acquires an insurance policy against postal price inflation. Gresham's Law should apply here -- the forever stamps will be relatively rare.

Hoarding of stamps, however, is an interest-free loan given by the public to the USPS. Seems like they always win, doesn't it?

Much greater discussion found at The Simple Dollar. Hat tip to my colleague Ming, who figures he sends only 100 pieces of mail with a stamp per year and so it's not worth it to him. We send probably four times that, so I'm thinking about it.

Labels: economics

A study by two faculty at Princeton, reported in the Chronicle of Higher Education today (subscriber's link) says legacy students -- the children of alumni who are admitted to their parent's school but lack the grades to have been admitted otherwise -- drop out more often and have lower GPAs than students who attend such schools under those conditions due to athletic scholarships or affirmative action considerations.

"We do not expect these findings to settle the debate on affirmative action," Mr. Massey and Ms. Mooney wrote. "We do hope, however, that they enable readers to place the issue of minority affirmative action in a broader context, viewing it as just one of several programs to target a subgroup of students affirmatively."

Well that is true, but the comparison is incomplete. Athletes have academic tutors hired by the athletic program to keep players eligible. There are numerous womens' centers, minority student centers, GLBT services, etc., to assist students admitted that way as well. But could you imagine someone setting up the "Children of Alumni Academic Learning Center"?? Of course not.

If you are going to draw that parallel, you must hold everything else constant. I do not see evidence that this has happened here.

Labels: economics

Incredible!

A Moroccan mother of two, who is a German citizen, filed for divorce because her Moroccan husband beat her and threatened to kill her. One would think the legal decision is a no-brainer. Right? Wrong! The female German judge denied the request for divorce because the woman is a Muslim and the Koran says it is OK for a man to beat his wife!

Where are the feminists? Siding with the multiculturalists? Who knows. This is an absurd ruling.

Neither the USA nor any of the European nations are really multicultural - we are multi-ethnic. There's a difference. And, any nation that decides to abandon its own set of laws for someone else's set of laws positions itself for a major meltdown. No society can continue to exist when a subset of its citizenry is exempt from obeying the nation's legal system.

Perhaps the female judge should try to apply her logic, that is German law, in any number of Muslim nations. Just how far would she get?

Minneapolis Star-Tribune editorial: Pawlenty took office in 2003 determined to starve the state beast.

Minnesota general fund spending increase, 2006-07 biennium: 11.9%. (5.6% in 2004-05 when the budget deficit was over $4 billion.)

Fastest growing expenditures:

• Medical Assistance Basic Care for Families and Children: 22.7% 2008-09 over 2006-07.
• Medical Assistance Basic Care for Elderly and Disabled: 27%
• MinnesotaCare: 49%
• Medical Assistance Long Term Care Waivers: 19.5%

That's some kind of starving there, boy. I hate to think what would happen to my waistline if I went on that diet.

Labels: Minneapolis, Minnesota, StarTribune

And he seems proud of it.

The proposed 10-cent-a-gallon gasoline-tax increase moving through the Minnesota Legislature could end up being higher than that, maybe more than twice as high.

Tucked away in a big transportation funding bill being fast-tracked to a Senate floor vote today are future increases in Minnesota's gas tax that could push it from 20 cents a gallon to more than 40 cents over 10 years, higher than any state's current bite at the pump.

"I'm not trying to fool anybody," said Sen. Steve Murphy, DFL-Red Wing, sponsor of the measure that would increase funding for roads and transit by $1.5 billion a year once it was fully implemented in the next decade. "There's a lot of taxes in this bill."

The dime-a-gallon bill has escalators tied both to inflation and to debt service for roads (which I would think is a shot at Governor Pawlenty's philosophy to use debt to pay for transportation.) At a press conference yesterday Republican House Leader Marty Seifert passed around a spreadsheet showing the effect of all these tax increases on families in the metro and outstate. Many of the taxes listed -- running more than $500 per family per year -- would be in the Murphy legislation. He's right; there IS a lot of taxes in this bill. And they'd only go up over time with the escalators.

UPDATE: Pscymeistr notes some bad economics in Sen. Murphy's assumption that Exxon would pay the excise tax. As I noted Wednesday, the assumption of the tax incidence study that the Department of Finance creates is that 54.6% of the gas tax is borne by consumers, and only 44% of it is borne by businesses (shared down the supply chain, so the part Exxon feels is a fraction of that 44%.) Thus the share borne by consumers of a 10 cent increase on gas is 5.46 cents, and gas stations receive 4.4 cents less. (The rest is paid by non-resident households and firms.)

Labels: legislature, Minnesota

William Easterly's piece on Africa's receipt of lousy economic advice for half a century (WSJ subscriber's link) leads Mark Thoma (who reprints most of the piece so you can read there) to muse:

A couple of comments, or questions rather about his examples in support of the free market approach to development. He says "In the ensuing 50 years, there have been plenty more examples of poor countries which grew rapidly without much aid -- China and India ... being the most famous recent examples." Are these examples of free markets at work once government stepped aside, or are they cases where the state has provided substantial direction as the big push to get the ball rolling? Should we wonder why he doesn't mention countries where the strict free-market approach has failed and paved the way for populist alternatives?

No doubt such countries exist -- Russia post-Yeltsin (Gaidar?) comes immediately to mind -- but could you point to one that adopted the populist alternative and grew?

A slide show of Easterly's view is here. I recall a slide show Easterly used to have showing what was written about Ghana (glowing) versus S. Korea (unlikely to ever grow) in the late 1950s. It's not a stretch to say we have been fantastically wrong about what makes economies grow in the past; what we do not know yet is what we mean when we say 'free market policies'. Which ones work? Which should come first? I don't have an answer, but I am at present working on a book to show that the measurements we currently use to get that answer are woefully inaccurate. You'll probably see more of that here in the next six months.

Labels: economics

Clark Patterson explains the conflict between access and accountability in college education:

On the one hand, academia is supposed to do everything in its power to increase access to higher education to a larger cross section of American society, particularly along race and class lines. This means enrolling more first generation college attendees, many of whom might not be ready for college. Yet Washington is willing to increase need-based financial aid in order to browbeat more students from “underrepresented groups” into matriculating.

On the other hand, colleges are under increasing pressure to improve their accountability in the form of quicker and higher graduation rates and greater student performance. A new batch of standardized testing has been proposed for graduating seniors. This Spellings Commission recommendation should be adopted as one objective means of partially determining what is gained from a four-year, $80,000 investment in a bachelor’s degree.

Unfortunately, one unintended consequence of the Spellings Commission’s adoption of both increased access and higher accountability will be grade inflation. If colleges and universities are told that they must increase access for students from historically-underrepresented groups — groups that don’t perform as well academically as whites and Asian-American students — yet the federal aid that colleges receive from Washington is directly tied to student academic success, will anyone be surprised if colleges respond to these conflicting goals by diluting their academic standards in order to graduate more students and maintain or increase their federal financial support?

No, we won't. In some places, it's already happened. So what's likely to happen? Don't be surprised by a push for national testing of college seniors, some day.

Labels: higher education

Apparently MnSCU doesn't believe in performance pay. The contract of our new president Earl Potter has been published by the St. Cloud Times. His base salary of $220,000 is the headline of the newspaper today. Of interest is clause 8(E):

E. Performance Incentive
The president shall receive an annual payment based on performance at the completion of each year of this Agreement, if the President meets or exceeds the performance expectations determined by the Chancellor. The Chancellor shall make a determination by August 31st of each year for the prior fiscal year. If the Chancellor does not make a determination prior to August 31st, the performance incentive shall be deemed to be awarded and the payment shall be made. A performance payment under this paragraph shall be made within two (2) months after the determination by the Chancellor, or by October 31st, whichever is earlier. The amount of the payment shall be two thousand dollars ($2,000).

Wow, a guy making 220k, plus housing, car and telephone, can get a bonus of 2k if he "meets or exceeds the performance expectations." That should really incentivize him to perform! And it requires a negative finding by the Chancellor to deny the money, rather than a positive finding to pay. Now THAT'S motivation.

At less money than outgoing president Roy Saigo and about a fourth of Gopher football coach Tim Brewster, one wonders if we were looking for a leader or a bargain. (Tubby Smith at $1.7 million/year is a different matter.)

Labels: SCSU

As many of you know, I attended the rally in Washington, DC last weekend to support our Vets. There have been a number of sites on the web with photos. I've selected about a dozen that I thought showed the flavor of the event. (Click on any photo to enlarge it.)

In contrast to my politics, I'm on the left in this photo. My friend, Chris, from Soldier's Angels, is in the midddle.



Sample Protestors. I didn't know we were at war with Iran.

Our guys!


Center: Kevin Michael, Gulf War Vet and a great speaker!

World War II Vet.


Michelle Malkin publicised this project.

The signs say it all!

Orange shirts say "Marshal", the Vet volunteers who helped the National Park Police.

Well, anything bad I said about Joel Maturi is going to look silly for a year now. They got Tubby. He was known in Kentucky as ten-loss-Tubby; that'd be a blessing here.

Heard also as I was driving home this story about how O.J. Mayo, a high school star from West Virginia and probably the top senior recruited this year, decided to go to USC without ever being recruited by USC. Head coach Tim Floyd got a visit from an intermediary:

“O. J. wanted me to come here today,” the man told Floyd. “He wanted me to figure out who you are.”

Floyd was desperate enough to play along. His starting point guard, Ryan Francis, had been murdered two months earlier. The backup, Gabe Pruitt, was in academic trouble. The third-stringer, a walk-on, was leaving college.

“Why aren’t you at Arizona or Connecticut?” Floyd recalled asking.

The man explained that Mayo wanted to market himself before going to the N.B.A., and that Los Angeles would give him the best possible platform.

“Then why aren’t you at U.C.L.A.?” Floyd asked.

The man shook his head. U.C.L.A. had already won 11 national championships. It had already produced many N.B.A. stars. Mayo wanted to be a pioneer for a new era.

Can Tubby provide that to the Gophers? I don't know, but he's the biggest hiring that program has had in a very, very long time.

In an entry on the Chronicle of Higher Ed's Daily News Blog, a new report is noted that talks about barriers to Islamic students studying in western schools.

The report offers nearly five dozen recommendations for improvements. Among them are retaining Muslim faculty members and offering halal meals, which meet Islam’s dietary restrictions. One of the biggest problems facing Muslim students is the loan-based student-aid system.

“Interest-bearing loans are forbidden in Islam, which means that provincial- and federal-government loans are simply off-limits for many practicing Muslims,” said Mohamed Sheibani, president of the Muslim Students’ Association National of the U.S. and Canada...

The Islamic banking restrictions are familiar, and these countries have developed many instruments that allow for purchase-and-resale transactions that meet Islamic strictures. There's little reason Islamic banking could not create these student loans. But there's also no reason why a western country that engages in assisting the student loan market -- not a great idea in my view, but a widely accepted practice -- should be compelled to create a secondary market for Muslim student loans.

In principle if a university wanted to attract these students it would be possible to create a contract to charge them a higher tuition than non-Islamic students, then have them replay the loan on installment after graduation without interest. The university would receive the same amount of money either way. But could you imagine how the news would handle the idea that Islamic students paid a higher tuition?

Labels: higher education

How can you not love this?

In a certified "Manny being Manny" moment, Red Sox left fielder Manny Ramirez is selling a gas grill on eBay. Ramirez will tack an extra $70 on to the winning bid for shipping cost.

Bidding closes on March 28 at 2:57 p.m.

Enclosed in the ad is a picture of Ramirez proudly standing next to the large Jenn-Air grill.

Ramirez enclosed the following message with his ad:

"Hi, I'm Manny Ramirez. I bought this AMAZING grill for about $4,000 and I used it once. ... but I never have the time to use it because I am always on the road. I would love to sell it and you will get an autographed ball signed by me. Enjoy it, Manny Ramirez."

Dude makes $17MM and needs to hawk a grill on eBay. Don't ever trade Manny.

Labels: sports

I noted last week that Minnesota was about to release its new incidence study -- the study of how taxes affect people by income class, between businesses and households, and between Minnesotans and non-residents. It's out now, and shows stories that support both some Republican and DFL talking points.

The DFL's point that property taxes are increasing, and that these taxes are regressive (placing a higher burden on lower income families) is borne out by the study. Assuming no change in taxes, property tax rates in the local effective tax rate in 2004 of 5.1% on the second decile of income (families earning $13,500 a year), rising to 5.5% in 2009. Now, because this study like most uses money income as their definition of household income -- excluding savings or retirees spending down their retirement assets -- this may overstate the true burden. (See the box on page 17 of the report.) Still, it's predictable that the DFL will use the talking point of how high property taxes are burdening lower-income families and that relief is needed. (I need someone to explain to me, by the way, why that relief does not show up in a more generous renters credit. That seems to be the right way to target that money, but I've heard nary a peep about using it for property tax relief for renters.)

On the Republican side, the effective tax rate on Minnesotans rose under the Republicans from 11.3% in 2002 to 11.6% in 2004. Assuming no change in tax policy, that rate rises in 2009 to an expected 11.7%. This is down from the 13% of the bad old days in 1994, but below the 11.2% that existed during the Ventura year of 2000.

More interesting will be the burden of the tax on the rich: the top 1% of income earners (incomes over $354,758( in Minnesota pay 24.3% of the state income taxes in the state; the top 5% ($146,809), 43.1%; the top 10% ($105,451), 55.4%. Other taxes are not nearly so progressive, but state sales taxes are shifted onto consumers to a significant degree (a little more than half) and businesses pay about half of property taxes as well.

One fact you won't see in the published reports, I will guess, is the extent to which excise and sales taxes are regressive (even with the exclusion of clothing and food). The sales tax is unavoidable for the poor who cannot use the internet to grab goods from out of state. If one wanted to deal with tax equity, that would be an area to address. And another would be business taxes, including such taxes as the business property tax, corporation franchise tax, taxes on capital purchases and excises and fees paid on goods used by businesses for production.

Although the legal impact of each of these taxes falls on the business entity, each is partially shifted to consumers (in higher prices) or in some cases to labor (in lower wages). Only a portion of business taxes are borne by capital owners as a lower rate of return on their investment. Part of the burden of each of these taxes is also shifted to nonresidents. This study estimates the degree to which such shifting occurs and then allocates the estimated burden to Minnesota households based on each household’s sources of income and patterns of spending.

Overall, the burden of Minnesota business taxes on Minnesota households was regressive. ...the effective tax rate fell as income increased. The effective tax rate was 5.6 percent in the second decile; it fell steadily as income rose, reaching 1.9 percent in the tenth decile. (p. 32)

So as the DFL proposes taxes on everything from fuel to deeds, the Republicans can argue that these taxes are in fact running in the opposite direction of the soak-the-rich schemes other DFLers have proposed.

Labels: economics, legislature, Minnesota

We've reported in the past that this university makes it a habit of enforcing on-campus rules for off-campus behaviors, particularly where move-in day is concerned. But this is extending to the internet. Greg Lukianoff and Will Creeley notice how much enforcement is being done by schools of one's behavior on MySpace and Facebook. I take the public/private distinction to this direction: If you go to a private school and sign off on the school verifying your moral education, this is permissible. I could imagine a religious institution doing this. But a public institution? I should hope not.

Labels: education, higher education, Minnesota

Though born in 1957, I pass Mitch's test for post-boomerism. Though at least I have outgrown that Springsteen thing. I would like to propose the Clapton Test, however. If like me your first brush with Clapton was Layla, you're still a boomer. I Shot the Sheriff? Post-boomer.

Though Talking Heads '77 changed everything, and led to many albums being sold.

Comments about the quality of the St. Cloud Times interactive bracket (and the quality of St. Cloud hockey fans) are small salve for the guy who had to tolerate Rick Barnes and D.J. Augustin blowing up his NCAA brackets. (By the way, I actually saw Danny Ainge sitting with Kevin Durant's family, for which Ainge now owes the NBA $30,000. If we sign Durant, Danny should be compensated.)

I obviously know nothing about hockey (the parenthetic note above should be proof of which sport I follow) but I will say that the team goes as far as the goalie takes them. Having had Bobby Goepfert and Nate Raduns both as students, I can say firmly that if they're as good hockey players as they are students and young men, we're in good shape. Nate, by the way, is up for the Lowe's Senior CLASS Award -- Celebrating Loyalty and Achievement for Staying in School -- so how 'bout everyone go vote for him? Notice: no Gophers on that list.

I also know we beat Clarkson twice, here, early in the season, and Maine is experiencing the same late-season swoon we are. So if we can get Bobby rested up and the offense actually getting shots on goal again, it's possible to see SCSU in the Frozen Four.

But again, I know nothing about hockey. Just waiting for Durant and baseball...

Labels: SCSU, sports

One of the humorous events that happened in DC this past weekend was a conversation with a recently returned from Iraq American soldier.

He and his dad, a retired vet, were on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial offering to hold signs for those wishing to go inside the memorial. We gave them ours.

As we left, we talked with them, telling them we both had been shipping packages to soldiers for years. I asked the current soldier (he was not participating in the demonstrations) what they needed. His response caused me to chuckle.

Soldier, "We would like some "foo-foo" coffee."
Me, "What? We thought you got coffee."
Soldier, "We do but it is plain stuff - we would like some other, like Hazelnut, or..."
Me, "Foo-foo, huh?"
Soldier, "Foo-foo."
Me, "Okay, ground or beans?" At this point, who knows what those guys are capable of doing creatively.
Soldier, "Ground preferred. We had a grinder (I did not ask what it was) but others, well they might not be able to grind beans."

Conclusion, foo-foo coffee in the next shipment.

When pitchers lose the foot on their fastballs that make the difference between striking out batters and being battered themselves, the aging pitcher goes through an adjustment in which they learn to pitch with their fastball (rather than whizzing it past, you have to have pinpoint control) or they learn to throw off-speed pitches, sometimes called junkballs. In an update to an article that I discussed last night, Rep. Al Juhnke shows he can't throw his stuff past the voters any more and resorts to throwing junk.

Juhnke told the Independent the DFL spells out exactly what it's chief funding priorities are, and how they'd be funded — and they are not the things Seifert points to in his op-ed piece.
Health care, all-day, every-day kindergarten and property tax reform are among the DFL priorities. Juhnke said they'd be paid for through closing corporate tax loopholes (requiring companies that do business in Minnesota to pay taxes in Minnesota), forcing compliance on tax cheaters, and creating a fourth tier of income tax on those who make, after all deductions, $400,000 or more. That aspect would be revenue neutral, Juhnke said, and not really an increase in taxes.
Juhnke said Seifert ignored the concrete steps the DFL proposes, and chose just to attack.
"We are funding the basic items Minnesotans are asking for, and we've put out exactly how we're going to pay for them," Juhnke said. "It does Marty no good to be be misleading. That does nothing to foster debate down here. What he's doing is creating exactly the thing (the GOP) has been great at — the politics of division.
"You can lead in a good, positive way, or lead in a negative way. Apparently, he's chosen the latter at the present time."

First, it's not the job of the minority leader to highlight the good parts of the majority's tax-and-spend bill. That's your job, Rep. Juhnke.

Second, it's interesting that you rely on the old dodge of Russell Long and call the tax increases revenue-neutral. They might be to the median voter ... but you've divided out the people who make more than $400,000 in a year. What is that if not the politics of division? Taxing businesses means that you can do that without ever costing a job, without ever seeing tax incidence shifted forward to purchasers, and without ever leading that business owner to spend less on goods and services in her or his town. (Entrepreneurs operate households as well as firms, Rep. Juhnke.)

Third, and perhaps most galling, is the idea that somehow you can invent this money by closing loopholes and forcing compliance. These are not free goods. They mean further persecution of Minnesota businesses. They mean hiring more people to go over your tax return. They mean businesses spend more money on tax compliance and avoidance and less on research and development and jobs.

Labels: legislature, Minnesota

One thing the internet and places like FIRE and NoIndoctrination have done is to let students know that they don't have to put up with faculty who are spouting off their political views in a class and disguising themselves as practicing academic freedom. The recent case at North Idaho College gives an example of this. A freshman comp course, taught by an adjunct instructor (though the instructor says she has taught for 25 years), in which the instructor wants to "spur debate and get students to think critically." As RightWingProf notes, critical thinking as practiced here "has nothing to do with thinking, unless you consider groupthink and parroting the left-wing PC party line to be thinking, and it certainly isn't critical." The student -- a former aide for Rep. Helen Chenoweth, so not your usual student here -- marched out and demanded her money back. The school paid her off.

That's certainly one way to go. But the faculty member complains that she had no idea the student was offended. And while you and I, as people of the right, might think "why should I have to explain to you that lipping off about how Republicans can't read in a classroom is inappropriate?", there are others who would say there has to be some due process given to the faculty member. So if you are a student or parent of a student facing this, here's what I say to do.

1. Talk to the instructor. I hear complaints about faculty. Until the student and the faculty member have a talk, there's very little I can do. The student will come in and vent, and I will give a sympathetic ear, but I cannot do anything as a department chair on that basis. Frankly, nobody can. Students fear retribution, but until it actually happens there's not much we can do. When retribution does happen, we have ways of dealing with that. Not always effective, but better than you might think.
2. Document everything. Take good notes, noting the time, what was said, what was the topic being discussed before the rant, what was on the syllabus for discussion that day, etc. Take a tape or digital recorder to class. If your student handbook says you must ask permission first, do so. If it doesn't, put it on your desk and turn it on. Say you're using it to assist note-taking. That may get the faculty member to desist. I've seen it work a couple of times. (There does not appear to be any restrictions on taping here.)
3. Talk to classmates. Ask them if they hear the same things and if they have similar reactions. That can help verify the complaint. Meeting collectively with the faculty member, in or out of class, may solve things.
4. When all that fails, go to the mattresses. That means the blogs, the press, the president of the university, everywhere. It is not illegal for the faculty member to indoctrinate, but it's unprofessional behavior. Call them on it, and if it's at a public school whip out the taxpayer card. If it's a private school, mail the link or the newspaper clipping to the trustees.

Labels: higher education

While I'm relieved that the College Republicans at San Francisco State will not face punishment, their exercise of free speech should not have been put on trial.

“We are relieved that SFSU has come to its senses and recognized that it cannot punish students for constitutionally protected expression,” FIRE President Greg Lukianoff said. “But the fact remains that the university should never have investigated or tried them in the first place. This was a protected act of political protest and it is impossible to believe the university did not know that from the start.”

Yesterday afternoon, President Corrigan wrote to FIRE with the welcome news that “the Student Organization Hearing Panel (SOHP) unanimously concluded that the College Republicans organization had not violated the Student Code of Conduct and that there were no grounds to support the student complaint lodged against them.”

The trial, however, is a farce. David Frum reviews the history of San Francisco State's bouts of anti-Semitism and concludes:

There is obviously something profoundly wrong on American campuses... Apologists for terrorism receive maximum protection for the most vicious bigotry, for menace and intimidation, and even outright violence. Yet that zeal for free speech vanishes altogether when opponents of terrorism engage in much, much milder forms of protest. This goes beyond double standards. It is a moral collapse.

Labels: censorship, higher education

A substantial TV ad campaign turned Education Minnesota into the top-spending lobbying organization in 2006, according to a tally produced by the Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board.

The state teachers union reported spending $1.5 million last year. Annual reports were due to the board last week.

Source. I'm shocked to learn that teachers would lobby politicians! What is the world coming to? Who's in second and third?

The Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, the 2005 lobbying leader, estimated its spending at $1.38 million. The Minnesota Vikings spent $1.16 million — roughly the same as the three previous years combined — in pursuit of state subsidies toward a new stadium.

My God, the Vikes are as bad at spending lobbying dollars as they are at picking coaches or free agents!

Teachers gave $156,250 to the DFL Senate Caucus alone.

Labels: education, Minnesota

I received a copy of an email today from Rep. Al Juhnke (DFL-Willmar), sent from his House email account -- must be scrimping on travel with his measly House per diem; he should run for Senate and get their upgrade -- that is unhappy with Rep. Marty Seifert's latest editorial.

From: "Al Juhnke"

Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2007 17:29:20 -0500

To:

Subject: Seifert Column

I thought you all would get a kick out of the column put out by Rep. Marty Seifert on Friday. This is one of the most laughable, putrid, inane, bizarre, out-to-lunch, out-of-touch, inaccurate, misleading, untruthful, pieces of prose I have seen in a long, long time. Can you believe a supposed caucus leader would actually write such dribble much less send it out to papers or actually stop into media outlets and try and convince educated journalists that this is true?

Good grief.

Here's the press release. It was talked about by Michael and me with Rep. Seifert on the Final Word of the NARN on Saturday (you can listen here -- the good representative comes on at about 23 minutes into the program.) I can't understand why Mr. Juhnke is so upset. Perhaps it's because he hasn't gotten any coverage for his fertilizer bill? A man who knows his way around manure is an excellent judge of 'putrid'.

UPDATE: I see the email made it to the Marshall paper.

Seifert found it ironic, because he had been in Willmar on Friday for an interview with the Willmar paper. He had good things to say about Juhnke, seeing Juhnke as a good rural leader.

And even Monday morning before learning of Juhnke's e-mail, Seifert had sat by Juhnke at a committee hearing. He said he was cordial, but that Juhnke responded awkwardly.

"He must have thought I'd already seen the e-mail," Seifert said.

Labels: legislature, Minnesota

The documentary on campus political correctness by Evan Coyne Maloney is now ready. The trailer is pretty good. Getting 500 people to sign up for a local showing would be pretty hard, but not a bad idea for St. Cloud State, looking for a cure to its appearance on Penn and Teller.

The new president of Arizona State has performance bonuses for ten different items, one of which is the school's ranking in U.S. News and World Report's annual college survey. He stands to get $10,000 if they go up from their current third-tier ranking. Michael Crow will also get $10,000 each for increased freshman retention, increasing the university's graduation rate, and six other items. If all ten targets are reached the Board of Regents tosses in an extra $50,000. I doubt our new president gets performance bonuses (he'd be the only one on campus who does if so.)

Since posting yesterday, I've read and learned more about the protesters.

First - many big names posted by ANSWER never showed. Sure, Cindy Sheehan and Ramsey Clark showed but where were the others? McKinney? Fonda? Pearl? Their names were on various protest websites as speakers. These people, if ever really scheduled, were "no-shows". Hmmmm - are they starting to think MAYBE there is something amiss here? I doubt it but one can dream. However, their absence shows something.

Second -The only soldiers I saw interviewed by the mainstream media (MSM) were those who "supported the demonstrators right to demonstrate" or were questioning the war or were against the war. How about those soldiers who know that we're fighting for freedom? The more nations free, the safer we are.

Third - Most of the "problems" were identified with Vets. Let me tell you, I was there at 8:00 AM, left at 3:00 PM. I stood along that "parade route for over two hours". The handmade signs of the anti-war crowd, along with their verbal and physical language often was foul - you didn't see this on the "news".

Fourth - This is very telling about the naivete and innocence and lack of information of so many protesters. Source: Washington Post, Sunday, March 18, 2007, p. A 12: "One group had come by overnight bus from Iowa..........'We just couldn't take it (the cold) anymore," said Christine Gaunt, 50, a hog farmer from Grinnell, Iowa. Now tell me how long Christine Gaunt will be in the hog business if we lose this war??????

Fifth - Overall, I will not move from my max of 10,000 protesters, many of whom never showed up until noon or later. The Vets had arrived at 7:00 AM and never left until the protesters crossed the bridge to the Pentagon (note, 7-8 hours in very windy, cold weather). By the time the questionable number of protesters got to the Pentagon and heard the speakers, only about 1000 were left. The rest had bailed out, found a subway station and went away.

How reliable is the 10,000+ number if only 1,000 heard Sheehan and Clark speak at the Pentagon? Questionable at best, inflated at worst.

Whom do you want defending you? Lefties who can't handle 30 degrees with wind? or American soldiers who are the best?

No brainer!

The demonstration is over! The Vietnam Vets had a terrific turnout. Let me take you through the day.

My friend, Chris, and I were a bit worried about the turnout, but as we came down the hill from the Metro station and looked to our left, our concerns diminished rapidly. There were Vets everywhere, from all over the country.

Security for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was tight. Visitors could enter from one end only and exit at the other side. Everyone had to pass an electronic screening. The line was long but orderly.

For the demonstrations, The National Park Service had set locations for each side and patrolled the interim space constantly. There were no altercations that I saw. Some anti-war people tried to get to the Vets but they were asked to leave quickly and quietly - they did. It was apparent that the anti-US crowd did not expect a Veterans turnout of this size.

What will the media show? I don't know but the line up of protesters walking to the Pentagon to protest will look long. What will be missing from the scene are the thousands of vets who lined the protest route and thousands more were on the other side of the grounds. Take all numbers with caution - my best guess, having walked back and forth multiple times is that the numbers were even at worst, Vets outnumbering protesters a bit at best.

I have just watched the "news" on Channel 4 in NBC in Washington DC. Their statement of "tens of thousands of protesters" is flat out wrong! More biased coverage - NBC never showed the number of vets other than the ones at the Wall. Thousands of Vets were everywhere. Perhaps NBC had to inflate the numbers because the crowd was s