Keith Burgess-Jackson

Cycling

I had a nice training ride with my friend Phil this morning. We rode out of Timberview High School in Mansfield. When Phil and I met about 20 years ago, as members of the Texas Wheels Cycling Club, this school didn't exist. In fact, many of the roads in Mansfield didn't exist! The area was rural; now it's suburban. While it makes me sad to see all the development, I can't blame the people who've moved away from the city. I'd like to live out there myself. We saw some gorgeous houses along the way.

Phil is still under the weather with bronchitis, but he rode like a soldier. At 16 miles into the ride, just as we reached Venus, I had a flat front tire. The first replacement tube didn't take; somehow it got a hole in it. I may have pinched it while putting it on. The second replacement tube took, thankfully. We had no further trouble during the ride.

I ended up with 56.05 miles for the day (elapsed time = 3:28:44). My average speed was 16.11 miles per hour. It's not as fast as a week ago (17.99), but there were no packs in which to ride, the course was hillier, and there was more wind. Many of the roads were rough as well, which makes it hard to keep up a good speed. It sure was nice to be out in the countryside, with birds chirping and cows grazing. We saw a herd of longhorns on one of the small roads. They were as interested in us as we were in them. A mangy dog chased us. Phil outraced him, while I stopped to threaten the critter with bodily harm should he attack me. He finally cowered and retraced his steps to the house from which he came. You have to be stern with dogs.

My average heart rate was 112 and my maximum 149. I burned 3,130 calories. My maximum speed was 35.3 miles per hour. The sun peeked out during the final hour of the ride, which brightened my mood. I'm a sun person. The wind bothered us on the outward stretch, but helped us immensely on the return trip. Phil rode well for a sick man. I enjoyed his company and our conversation.

I hope you're getting exercise this weekend. You may not be interested in it, but it's in your interest.

Now Playing

From Today's New York Times

To the Editor:

“When Other Voices Are Drowned Out” (editorial, March 26) highlighted a glaring issue stemming from the Citizens United case: the potential suppression of concerned citizens by political front groups and other organizations that have the financial means to drown out the dissenting voices of others.

While the editorial appropriately identified the foible inherent in the Supreme Court’s ruling, it glossed over an equally critical matter: the lack of disclosure by independent political organizations, operating as nonprofits, that have risen up in recent years and been able to cloak their donors’ identities and motivating factors because of their nonprofit status.

Americans not only have the right to have their voices heard in equal proportion to corporations and political action organizations, but they also deserve to know the identity and motivating factors of corporate donors. This should include pertinent information concerning the formation and use of unethical front groups to sway politicians in their favor, since these groups have the ability to outmaneuver and outspend the average American voter.

The growth of front groups and “super PACs” perverts American politics and does the American electorate a disservice. These organizations, lacking full disclosure of donors’ identities or of the motivating factors behind specific attacks and messaging, represent an insidious attack on the public’s trust.

GERARD F. CORBETT
Chairman and Chief Executive
Public Relations Society of America
New York, March 26, 2012

Note from KBJ: What part of the First Amendment does this man not understand? If he wants to limit speech, he should work toward amending the Constitution. I am sick to death of progressives who believe that their vision of political speech supersedes that of the founders.

Note 2 from KBJ: What does it mean to "drown out" voices? Everyone gets to speak. You have no right to have your speech heard.

Kiss, "Ladies Room" (1976)

Rock and Roll Over (1976). A great song.

Dilbert

Here.

Television

Can you say "psychopath"? See here.

The Great Climate Hoax

John Pepple nails it. It's about trust. How can you trust "scientists" who are politicized? They're advocates first and scientists second, which is to say, not scientists at all.

Lottery

Don't hate me when I win the Mega-Lottery.

The 5th Dimension, "Up, Up and Away" (1967)

Up, Up and Away (1967). This one takes me back.

From Today's New York Times

To the Editor:

Re “On Day 3, Justices Weigh What-Ifs of Health Ruling” (front page, March 29):

Medicare for all would be constitutional. Everyone would be automatically covered regardless of employment or health status.

Businesses and individuals would pay a tax that varies with ability to pay. Business managers would be able to concentrate on their business without the distraction of having to provide insurance. Individuals would be able to switch jobs without worrying about insurance, and would choose their own doctors and hospitals. Based on experience, most retirees and their children are strong supporters of Medicare.

Medicare has a better record of controlling provider fees and administrative costs than private insurance companies. Under our private insurance system, medical costs are 17 percent of our gross domestic product, while in other advanced countries the costs don’t exceed 12 percent.

Whether or not the Affordable Care Act is ruled unconstitutional, it’s time to start building support for enacting Medicare for all.

LAURENCE SEIDMAN
Swarthmore, Pa., March 29, 2012

The writer is a professor of economics at the University of Delaware.

To the Editor:

Justice Antonin Scalia said that how the court rules could not be divorced from the realities of the political process in Washington, which he said was beset by “legislative inertia.”

Justice Scalia, thank you for announcing that the political dimension of the health care law is, in your opinion, relevant to deciding its constitutionality. Thanks to you, should a 5-to-4 decision by the Roberts Court invalidate the law, your statement will ratify the decision as a political one.

JEAN C. RUSH
Tucson, March 29, 2012

To the Editor:

On Wednesday, as the Supreme Court was deciding whether to throw out the entire health care law if the mandate was declared unconstitutional, Justice Antonin Scalia asked, “You really want us to go through these 2,700 pages . . . item by item and decide each one?”

Yes, Justice Scalia, I’d like you and your colleagues to do that. You’re paid to decide the constitutionality of acts of Congress, not throw out entire laws because of their length.

CARRIE ABELS
Montpelier, Vt., March 29, 2012

Note from KBJ: Laurence Seidman is identified as an economist, but nothing in his letter draws upon his economic expertise. Why, then, did he identify himself as an economist? Is he trying to get people to commit the fallacious appeal to authority? I'm not saying that he shouldn't have written. I'm saying that he should have written in his capacity as citizen. As for the New York Times, either it shouldn't have published Seidman's letter at all or it should have omitted his occupation (which is irrelevant and misleading).

Note 2 from KBJ: Jean C. Rush is preparing the ground for an attack on the motives and integrity of the justices. "It's all political! It's conservative activism!" This is how progressives work. They can't win arguments, so they attempt to delegitimize and destroy their opponents. How would Jean C. Rush like having her (his?) motives questioned? Oh, wait; that presupposes that Jean C. Rush subscribes to the Golden Rule.

Law

What in the world is going on in Wisconsin? Steve Burri, you got some splainin' to do!

Addendum: Steve splains:

 

Robert E. Goodin on the Voluntariness of Passive Smoking

In the case of the smoker, it could (wrongly, as we have seen) be argued that the risks were somehow voluntarily incurred. In the case of the passive smoker, that argument would be far harder to sustain. Passive smokers do not themselves light up. They merely breathe. You can voluntarily choose to do something only if you can, realistically, choose not to do it; and no one can choose not to breathe. Since passive smoking—or, more technically, "exposure to environmental tobacco smoke"—"generally occurs as an unavoidable consequence of being in proximity to smokers, particularly in enclosed indoor environments," the surgeon general prefers simply to define passive smoking as "involuntary smoking."

Smokers might sometimes have sought and been granted the permission of all nonsmokers in the vicinity for them to light up. Assuming that that consent was given freely (i.e., that it was not a tyrannical boss 'asking' permission of a secretary) and that it was based on full information about the hazards of passive smoking, nonsmokers' exposure to environmental tobacco smoke would indeed then be voluntary. Given the dangers of duress and of fraudulent claims that rights have been waived, we may prefer to treat the right to clean air as if it were as inalienable as the right to life itself. But in any case, this whole voluntary waiver scenario is plausible only among moderately small groups of people.

Among larger and more anonymous groups, the only sense in which passive smoking might be thought to be voluntary would be insofar as people voluntarily enter environments they knew were or would become smoky. Thus, it might be argued that if people do not want to breathe other people's smoke, they should not go into notoriously smoky places like English pubs.

There is, of course, the question of why nonsmokers should banish themselves rather than smokers controlling themselves. In any case, there is a range of places it is unreasonable to expect people to avoid going. One is to work. Another is onto public transportation. Another is into public buildings. Another, perhaps, is to public entertainments (restaurants, theaters, and such like). If people cannot reasonably be expected to avoid going to work, and getting there by public transportation, then the Humean doctrine ("no consent without the possibility of withholding consent") would imply that they have not voluntarily consented to the risks of passive smoking in those places, either.

(Robert E. Goodin, "The Ethics of Smoking," Ethics 99 [April 1989]: 574-624, at 601 [footnote and parenthetical references omitted])

Baseball

One week until Opening Day!

Dilbert

Here.

Liberty

Progressives will not like this.

Cycling

Everybody loves George.

Trade

Free trade (think NAFTA, CAFTA, &c) has been a disaster for this country, which is why conservatives oppose it. Progressives support it because it transfers wealth from rich nations (such as ours) to poor nations. Libertarians support it because it allows individuals (foreign and domestic) to accumulate wealth (by expanding markets). Here is an essay, by an economist, that explores the many bad arguments made by free traders. I have made the same points repeatedly in this blog over the years.

Academentia

Here.

Baseball

Is the American League West the best division in baseball? I think so.

Willie Nelson & Family, "On the Road Again" (1980)

Honeysuckle Rose (1980).