Stakhanovites Prefer Blondes

To: domo_arigato
Re: mannequin 3

Marilyn poses for a Soviet propaganda poster? I love this.

It's Not the 1970s

To: Mickey Kaus
Re: kf Looks for Heretics

Is it possible repeal of the Davis-Bacon Act was a good idea in the 1970s and a bad idea today? What are the odds the savings would go into a WPA-style program, or low-income housing, as opposed to say, helping to pay for the repeal of the Estate Tax? And would New Democrats support your spending proposals, or deficit reduction?

One problem you seem not to have gotten your head around: there's no shortage of low-wage jobs in American today, nor has there been for some time. What's lacking is sheer quantity of decent-paying jobs. Food stamps have become corporate welfare for Walmart. I'd rather eliminate them than Davis-Bacon.

Note: The extraordinary run of the Clinton-era did increase wages somewhat, but it's a tough row to hoe given high levels of immigration and the Fed's insistence that any increase in wages beyond that of productivity represents inflation (in fact, it can represent a redistribution from profits).

Kausfiles Strangely Silent on Katrina's Implications for Patronage

To: Mickey Kaus
Re: Federalism, Fingered!

Kausfiles laudably has used the Katrina disaster to beat the drum against Federalism, but has been strangely silent on the FEMA-leadership fiasco's implications for political patronage, which Kausfiles supports, not to mention the more complex -- I have no understanding of it whatever -- issue of how the relaxation of civil service standards under DHS (which got Max Cleland bounced, as he opposed the bill) affected performance.

In related news, Norwegian "Veteran politicians out of work":

"But I'm going to look around in the job market," she said. "There must be someone who has use for the experience I have from politics."

Theoretically, a country with a relatively large public sector should have a correspondingly large lobbying industry, yet the most aggressive lobbying industry in the world is in the relatively low-tax USA. Another interesting problem far too complicated for me...

Data Mining Obsoletes Hunches (in Part)

To: Mickey Kaus
Re: Open Source Health Studies

You don't need a public database on which people can test their hunches. If you're just looking for correlations, a database plus data mining software would be much more effective. I don't know the status of data mining in medical research. I'd be surprised if anyone has as good a database as your friend presumes. Medicine, unlike credit card transactions, is notoriously paper-bound.

If Government Is Effective, Intelligent People Will Rely on Government

To: John Tierney
Re: Magic Marker Strategy

You fail to carry your column to its logical conclusion. The man responsible for the disaster in New Orleans is James Lee Witt. By running FEMA effectively, he made local leaders believe they could rely on it.

P.S.
You also:

1) Fail to separate questions of policy from those of execution. Advocating the elimination of the federal role in natural disaster response does not excuse a failure to fulfill the current mandate, and to properly apply federal resources already paid for by tax dollars.

2) Fail to acknowledge the enormous reduplication of resources that would be necessary for each locality to prepare, separately, for an event of a scale that is likely to occur in the entire nation only once a century.

3) Fail to verify the claims of the local officials you cite as exemplary, or to compare the challenge of evacuating the residents of Newport News to evacuating those of New Orleans.

P.P.S.
Your previous column was excellent. I hope flood insurance is privatized. The strategy wouldn't be practical in the Netherlands, but America has enough high ground for people to move to it if the actuaries veto their current locales.

Straw Gods

To: Maura Gerald
Re: PETITION TO REINSTATE PRAYER IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS

You don't need 2,000 people to reinstate prayer. You just need anyone who is not an agent of the state to lead the prayer. Student prayer groups must be given the same access to school facilities as any other student group (Good News Club v. Milford Central School).

What part of conservatism requires the government to do your praying for you?

Incomprehensible, but Intriguing, Statistics

To: Mickey Kaus
Re: Stix Trix

The 2000 census shows 1999 per capita money income in the states you mentioned as:

$23,389, New York
$21,989, Nevada
$19,613, Nebraska
$19,134, Wyoming

and 1999 median household income as:

$44,581, Nevada
$43,393, New York
$39,250, Nebraska
$37,892, Wyoming

And according to the PDF linked to by newsalert (Table 9), the 2003-2004 2-year average median household incomes are:

$46,864, Nevada
$44,577, Wyoming
$44,458, Nebraska
$44,301, New York

Note: the newer figures aren't directly comparable to the older ones, and there isn't a per capita money income by state in the pdf.

This doesn't actually clarify anything, except that it's complicated.

The Good Indian

To: Bruce Reed
Re: Changing Speeds

Questions for John Roberts:

1. What would you say to conducting the Supreme Court's business in Latin?

Note: Roberts will answer in Latin.

2. Where was the Good Samaritan from?

Note: This was the question the priest asked me during my Opus Dei interview. Wrong answer: occupied Palestine.

3. Do you believe you would have received this appointment if you had found differently in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld?

Note: Roberts may be arrogant and moral enough to answer honestly.

P.S.
The Mendoza Line is when a player can't hit his weight. Maybe that's why Bush has been trying to lose weight.