On Specter & The Swine Flu

For those of you who haven’t heard – and especially for those of you who don’t care – Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) is now Senator Arlen Specter (D-PA), switching parties, as he says, to avoid getting thumped in the 2010 election primary by another Republican. This puts the D’s in the US Senate at 60, counting the clown from Minnesota.

So, I recall some years ago when the R’s had majorities in the House, Senate, and held the White House, D’s across the nation decried the state of affairs as out of step with the founding principle of “checks and balances.” But it wasn’t a true monopoly. The Senate, as some may know, is designed to protect the minority (unlike the House, which resembles a mobocracy)…to some extent.

The Senate rules seek to adhere to this spirit of protecting the minority by requiring 60 votes to do anything. You must have at least 60 votes to agree to vote on an actual bill. You have to have 60 votes to agree to move from “Morning Business” (sort of like open mic night), to the “Executive Calendar” (where the Senate exercises its right to “Advise and Consent” Executive Branch matters), and to the “Legislative Calendar.” Doing anything in the Senate requires 60 votes. So, when the D’s held 40+ seats in the Senate during the R’s “reign of terror” some years ago, they were able to block anything the R’s wanted to do. If the D’s held party discipline, the R’s wouldn’t have been able to pass anything.

So, the R’s never had unfettered power in DC, even though they had majorities in both the House and Senate, and held the White House. However, thanks to Mr. Specter, the D’s now* have unchecked power (*I’m not sure when exactly he will change his registration, and caucus – or, count himself – with the D’s).

Now, for all those angry R’s out there, let’s not fall into the intellectually bereft argument that this unchecked power violates the “checks and balances” principle. That foolish, lame, and deceptive argument the D’s used a few years back is foolish, lame, and dishonest because “checks and balances” referred to the three branches of government checking each other, not multiple political parties checking each other.

And in this, our bleak hour of R’ness, bear in mind that now that the D’s do have true, unadulterated, unchecked and unfettered power, we can be juvenile and blame them for everything that goes wrong during this season of darkness…including the swine flu ;-)

"Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.”

So I saw an headline in The Oregonian newspaper this morning reporting: “Oregonians sending less to landfills in economic downturn.” It caught my eye, as most headlines are designed to do. I read on…: “It's because there's less garbage -- likely the result of slowdowns in consumer spending, consumption and manufacturing.”

And that’s about where I stopped reading because it got me thinking about something I would hope is common sense. That is, it just seems to make sense that – in bad economic times, as well as good – we should seek to repair broken things (if feasible) or reuse old things.

I think of some well-used pants of mine that had a tear on the pocket. Rather than throwing it out and buying a new pair of pants, I sewed it. (Granted, my sewing skills are quite weak, but the Boy Scouts did teach me some basics.) And, instead of throwing out my old shirt, my wife suggested we use it as a rag.

“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without,” is an old saying, and it became a saying at some point because it had value. I think it still does.

If I continued reading the article in the newspaper, I’m sure it would say that rather than buying a new dvd player, people are taking their old ones into the repair shop…or just doing with out it for a while. Isn’t this something we could or should be doing in good economic times as well?

Call it thrift, conservation, recycling, or economic survival. Put whatever label on it that is politically comfortable for you. Regardless of what you call it, it’s wise.

President Obama's Good Move

Those faithful followers of my "status updates" on facebook will note that some time ago I suggested some Navy SEALs deal with the pirates off the Somali coast. And, a few days later, they did. I won't claim sole credit for the success of the operation, because some must be shared with the guy who actually had the ability to authorize it: President Obama.

Good move, Mr. President. But be careful to not make it out to be more than it was. It was a small scale crisis. You handled it well, showed an appropriate level of patience and an effort to sort it out by other means. But you didn't wait too long to put an end to all the silliness. And, in three simultaneous muzzle flashes in the dead of night, the world was reminded that - despite strategies sought after by the rest of the world's nations - the United States will not tolerate punks harassing our citizens. Again, good move.

But, again, this was a small scale crisis, and should not be used as a foreign affairs trophy by the administration. Nor an attempt to somehow redeem the Democrat party from consistent troubles they have had (don't spend too much time debating this - I've heard enough democrat pundits concede this point) handling similar crises in past administrations. Let us all accept this episode with the pirates for what it is: a good move in a small scale crisis. And, perhaps, "hope" that this pattern of decision making in the midst of crisis holds true in larger scale events.