Health Care Costs

I should have been blogging about Obamacare this past year, but family and work obligations overwhelmed me.

One of the big claims that the administration has made on this push is that the bill is deficit neutral, or even better: it will "bend the cost curve" down. Critics like Republican Paul Ryan (Wis) have done a good job dismantling that argument. The reality is that we cannot afford this new entitlement, especially at a time when we're faced with the insolvency of our two existing entitlements.

The Wall St Journal revisited the issue yesterday with The Cost Control Illusion, a rebuttal of administration propaganda being sown in a last-ditch effort to counter the charge of fiscal irresponsibility. It concludes with this zinger:

ObamaCare's real cost-control plan boils down to this: First subsidize coverage so much that costs explode, raise taxes as much as possible to pay for it, and when that isn't enough hand power to an unelected committee to limit treatment and control prices by government order. This is what Democrats are voting for.

I concur.

Tax Time

One little-covered story, hidden in the Washington Post just after tax day, was this gem:

As a candidate in 2008, Obama earned about $2.6 million from the sale of his books, "The Audacity of Hope" and "Dreams From My Father," according to returns the White House released yesterday.

And further down the page:

Most of Biden's income was from his Senate salary, although he reported about $9,500 from audio book royalties related to his 2007 autobiography, "Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics."

In short, Obama's book sales outearned Biden's by better than 270:1. Actually, the fact that anyone would pay to hear Biden talk on an audio CD is amazing. Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?

Vermont Part II: To The Moon!

One of the announcements the week we visited Vermont was from Democrat Gaye Symington, candidate for Governor in the fall election. She made the bold declaration that her administration would push the use of wind power from 0.2% to 20% of the state's total energy in 10 years.

This sounds familiar. First, there was Al Gore speaking in Washington D.C. July 17th:

I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean, carbon-free sources within 10 years

Gore was primarily talking about wind, solar and geothermal energy sources according to sources at his nonprofit, the Alliance for Climate Protection. More recently, Barack Obama made the following challenge at the Democratic National Convention in Denver:

For the sake of our economy, our security, and the future of our planet, I will set a clear goal as president: in 10 years, we will finally end our dependence on oil from the Middle East.

Everyone thinks they're JFK launching us on another moon mission. Enough already! What do all these statements have in common? Answer: they are ill-conceived and unnecessary environmental posturing in the face of a real energy crisis. Nobody seems to have mentioned to Gore or Symington the simple fact that wind and solar energy both require some measure of backup, because they are not reliably continuous sources of energy. A single cloudy or windless day can mean that the utility company must reconfigure the electric grid to supply the missing power from another site.

The scale of the conversion necessary to fulfill each challenge is lost on these Democrats. Clearly none of them have scientific or technical backgrounds. We should strive to achieve change, but we should set reasonable goals for ourselves. A consultation with the experts on energy might yield a reality check, see Making Gore's Switch Isn't Quite So Simple in yesterday's Washington Post.

Tellingly, Gore and Symington both ignore nuclear power, which is perhaps the only currently available technology for generating power in sufficient quantity without carbon emissions. Obama mentions nuclear power in a strange way, after listing natural gas and clean coal he says he'll "find ways to safely harness nuclear power." Safely harness? Is he reassuring nutty environmentalists or does he really believe that nuclear power plants are somehow unsafe?

Green Posturing

The mayor of Denver has challenged the organizers of the 2008 Democratic National Convention to "make this the greenest convention in the history of the planet." The Wall Street Journal reported that they've hired environmental activist Andrea Robinson as Director of Greening. How does one become an activist for a living anyway? Is that really a valid career, going around to protest rallies and writing angry letters to politicians? I digress...

The WSJ article contains alot of gems, like the litany of liberal interest groups each making demands that ultimately over-constrain the problem:

The host committee for the Democratic National Convention wanted 15,000 fanny packs for volunteers. But they had to be made of organic cotton. By unionized labor. In the USA.

Official merchandiser Bob DeMasse scoured the country. His weary conclusion: "That just doesn't exist."

This is absurd on so many levels, I don't know where to begin. There is no logic to the position that trading with other countries, or products made by non-union labor, or cotton that is grown with modern farming techniques are bad for us as a society. I look at this and wonder if the Dems wish that the miracle of the industrial age (enabling the dramatic rise in living standards we enjoy today) never happened. Economics says that competition, another name for trade, forces improvements in productivity, which in turn reduces costs for everyone. Unions, nationalism, and unfounded superstitions about agricultural technology are all antithetical to those goals.

Speaking of agriculture, the real kicker was the description of the catering guidelines:

No fried food. And, on the theory that nutritious food is more vibrant, each meal should include "at least three of the following colors: red, green, yellow, blue/purple, and white." (Garnishes don't count.) At least 70% of ingredients should be organic or grown locally, to minimize emissions from fuel burned during transportation.

The rainbow food claim sounds like typical new age unscientific garbage. It may be good for culinary artistry, but I doubt that color has any correlation with nutrition. A pile of gray sunflower seeds can pack some vitamins and other essentials, can't it?

The second claim about local food is a common meme going around in enviromental circles these days. It's adherents even have a name: localvores. Trouble is, the idea that local food uses less fuel during transport is actually wrong in most cases. The Boston Globe had an article in 2007 explaining the details:

Judged by unit of weight, ship and rail transport in particular are highly energy efficient. Financial considerations force shippers to pack as much as they can into their cargo containers, whether they're being carried by ship, rail, or truck, and to ensure that they rarely make a return trip empty. And because of their size, container ships and trains enjoy impressive economies of scale. The marginal extra energy it takes to transport a single bunch of bananas packed in with 60,000 tons of other cargo on a container ship is more than an order of magnitude less than that required to move them with a couple hundred pounds of cargo in a car or small truck.

"Local food systems are often built around small-scale logistics," says Chris Foster, a research fellow at England's Manchester Business School and co-author of a December 2006 study on the environmental impacts of food production and consumption commissioned for Britain's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. "You begin to make more trips in cars. More food is shifted around in small trucks and vans, which are relatively energy-inefficient ways of moving."

Democrats and Deficits

John McCain undoubtedly bites off more than he can chew when he promises to balance the federal budget. He is a champion for fighting earmarks and pork, but those amount to a tiny sliver of the budget pie. The real budget meat is in the entitlement programs: Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, and other transfer programs that currently amount to more than half of the total spending per year. Even if he is successful in forging a compromise fix for Social Security, it is unlikely to shrink.



Meanwhile the Democrats have done an about-face on deficits this election year, and nobody seems to notice. For most of George W. Bush's reign, the Democratic minority in Congress were deficit hawks. They complained incessantly about the supposed squandering of the Clinton surpluses, and held press conferences touting "record deficit" numbers (fiscally irresponsible, but not close to record if you adjust for inflation). Now that they're the majority party in Congress and Obama is the frontrunner, suddenly deficits don't matter at all. Asked about McCain's balanced budget pledge, Obama said:

"I do not make a promise that we can reduce it by 2013 because I think it is important for us to make some critical investments right now in America's families"

Note the weasel word he uses, investment. How did we go from Bush deficits being terrible to deficit spending = investment? It's simple, Democratic overspending is good, Republican overspending is bad. Libertarian Steve Chapman takes both sides to task for the coming fiscal disaster. The scariest part is that if the Dems control both the Whitehouse and Congress, the new spending burden will likely be much worse than if control is divided. Chapman notes:

The National Taxpayers Union Foundation added up all the promises made by the two candidates and found that McCain's would cost taxpayers an extra $68 billion a year. Obama's add up to $344 billion a year.

Please Do Piss on the Third Rail

I was not particularly impressed when John McCain said he'd balance the federal budget in 4 years. I think that such a goal is pure fantasy, especially with a Democratic Congress. Many analysts and observers agreed, noting that McCain's own numbers just don't add up. Still, I give him credit for trying. He has his heart in the right place: control spending! Maybe he should throw the Dems a bone and compromise on retiring the Bush tax cuts in exchange for tough cuts on the spending side. Of course that's really only something he could do as President, after winning the election.

I was stunned when he dared touch the third rail of politics a few days later, in Denver July 7th. McCain was roundly criticized by the lefty blogosphere for boldly declaring the impending Social Security crisis "a disgrace." The liberal nuts went insane, he muddied their sacred government cow. Matthew Yglesias called it "peeing on the third rail." The comments sections were flooded with the usual claims that Social Security has no real fiscal shortfall. This issue is the Dem equivalent of Global Warming denial: the science is all against them. The Trustees of Social Security themselves, actuaries with pocket protectors, publish a detailed report projecting demographic trends and resulting revenue versus spending. It says the program is in trouble. What's more, Obama believes there is fiscal imbalance. Why would he propose eliminating the payroll tax cap of $102000 if there were no need for higher revenue?

McCain was asked to clarify. Young people, he said, "are paying so much that they are paying into a system that they won't receive benefits from on its present track that its on, that's the point." Here is a courageous politician, willing to take on an issue that burned George W. Bush just 3 years ago. Anyone under the age of 40 should think long and hard about that. We pay more than 12% of our paycheck to FICA, yet the funds don't legally belong to us. The money is not in an account, it doesn't accrue interest or grow, and it can be redefined by Congress on a whim. In all likelyhood, future benefits for today's workers will be 75% of current benefits or less, and we will be forced to work years longer until retirement.

Note that McCain was not even proposing private accounts as the solution, that was D.O.A. for Bush in 2005. His very reasonable, politically moderate full response reads:

"Now, how do you fix it? Now, how do you fix it? You fix it by reaching across the aisle, and you say to the Democrats, 'Sit down with me at the table. Sit down with me, the way Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill did the last time that Social Security was in deep trouble, and that was way back in 1983.'"

It Be Not Right

The Times-Dispatch had a Sunday column a couple weeks ago defending Jeremiah Wright, so of course I had to read it. I dislike Wright and his race-hustling contemporaries like Jesse Jackson. The author, Mark C. Hopson has this biographical info:

Mark C. Hopson teaches in the Department of Communication at George Mason University. He is completing a book entitled "The Talking Drum: Exploring the Role of Critical Memory in Intercultural Communication."

The larger point in the article seems to be that we should be sensitive to cultural minorities, this is a view I largely agree with. But being an academic, Hopson tries too hard to tie his defense of Wright into some larger context of language and clashing cultures. The real zinger was this:

Linguist Geneva Smitherman found that such stereotypes hinder the educational process for children. For example, a black child might be called "deficient" for using the phrase, "It be hot in here." But Smitherman and others recognize the interactivity of "be" as perpetually and concurrently encompassing the past, present, and future tense. Thus, "It be hot in here," indicates that it was hot yesterday, it is hot today, and undoubtedly it will be hot tomorrow. Three dimensions of time spoken in one simple word: Is this a deficiency, or a distinct rhetorical artifice? Perhaps it is time to re-present language and culture in our North American school systems.

Is this revisiting Ebonics? I'm all for admitting that language is dynamic, obviously, since Americans don't speak Elizabethan english these days. I freely admit that my diction is not perfect, and I'm sure you'll find some grammatical errors in this blog. But should schools really teach improper grammar to boost a minority's self-esteem? Barack Obama seems to speak the language relatively well.

The Character of a Great Man

There was a retrospective piece on John McCain earlier this month over on Slate, The Great McCain Story You've Probably Forgotten. This political season, it seems that people are looking for a President who can work across party lines, one that respects the other side and can transcend partisanship. Barack Obama has frequently claimed that mantle, but how do we reliably identify such a rare breed of politician when we see them? History has shown that we certainly can't trust what they say. When George W. Bush campaigned in 2000, he claimed famously to be "a uniter, not a divider." Look where that got us.

I think that there are three things to look for in identifying a true bipartisan who governs with principles rather than ideology:

1. Bipartisan legislative achievements
2. Key differences with the party base on some major issues
3. Strong friendships across party lines

McCain has worked on a number of bipartisan bills and cooperative efforts, such as McCain-Feingold, McCain-Kennedy, and the "Gang of 14" to name a few. He also holds positions on immigration, global warming, campaign financing and the religious right that contradict Republican orthodoxy. In fact, idealogical extremists on the right like Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity see John McCain as a traitor because of these views. Finally, it is well known that Senator McCain has a close friendship with independent Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman, with whom he has sponsored many climate change bills.

All of this is fine, but what kind of man is he? I know the answer to that after I read about his friendship with Democrat Mo Udall, the senior Arizona congressman who took McCain under his wing. The Slate article highlights a profile written in 1997, years before McCain first ran for President. Udall was dying with Parkinson's disease in a veterans hospital:

A nurse entered and seemed surprised to find anyone there, and it wasn't long before I found out why: Almost no one visits anymore. In his time, which was not very long ago, Mo Udall was one of the most-sought-after men in the Democratic Party. Yet as he dies in a veterans hospital a few miles from the Capitol, he is visited regularly only by a single old political friend, John McCain.

Rumsfelded

We've all heard the term "to Bork" someone, a verb meaning to malign a person with the intent of denying a promotion or title, particularly with respect to a political appointment. The term comes from Robert Bork, who was nominated to the Supreme Court in 1987 by President Reagan. His nomination was contentious from the start, and ultimately he was voted down by the Senate after Democrats and civil liberties groups united to smear his reputation.

Few words derived from political surnames have entered the vernacular. Bork is perhaps the most widely used example. The next most popular must certainly be "Clintonian", meaning charismatic yet slippery, or a convenient parsing of language for personal gain, among others. That such terms are so rare makes them all the more unique and worthy of study.

Now David Brooks has freshly coined the term "Rumsfelded" on the PBS Newshour, referring to Hillary Clinton's dismissal of Mark Penn from her campaign:

I think the basic momentum of this race on the Democratic side is Obama going along smoothly, really no problems, continued potholes for the Clinton campaign. Mark Penn was fired, or pushed out, or "Rumsfelded" out.

Brooks defined the new verb as "Slightly pushed out, much too late, that sort of thing." I'd like to add some new words to the dictionary myself:

• Goreified - greatly exaggerated for environmental hysteria purposes
  
• Kerryness - lacking human qualities; resembling the undead
  
• Krugmanosticate - repeatedly predicting doom despite evidence to the contrary
• Obamatopoeia - naming an action using only empty soundbites containing "hope" and "change"
  

Selling Grandma Out

Christopher Hitchens is a keen observer and formidable commentator. Last week, following the uproar over the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama spoke of his grandmother having "once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe." Hitchens, in typical dry humor, writes:

You often hear it said, of some political or other opportunist, that he would sell his own grandmother if it would suit his interests. But you seldom, if ever, see this notorious transaction actually being performed, which is why I am slightly surprised that Obama got away with it so easily.

Obama's grandmother is now 85. I confess that I mused about what that phone call from the campaign trail might have been like. "Hi Grandma, how are you? Listen, tomorrow I'm giving a speech and you're in it. Yeah, isn't that great? Oh, hey I'm going to imply you are just a tiny bit racist, but just ignore it. When I'm President I'll buy you some knitting supplies and a bigger scooter. Love Ya!"

Jesus, MLK and the Rev. Wright

Oh boy, another post on race. On Monday, Richmond Times-Dispatch writer Michael Paul Williams tackled the controversy over Obama's ex-pastor Jeremiah Wright, and actually had the balls to equate Wright to Jesus and Martin Luther King Jr. I'm pretty sure that Jesus and MLK preached unity and love for people of all races, while Wright was consumed by hatred and bile. Michael Paul Williams is the T-D's voice of the African-American community, and I occasionally read him to gain some insight on that perspective, but this time I'm floored.

I'm left wondering why it's necessary for one man to have to explain or defend another man's words -- particularly a man most of us hadn't heard of until recently.

Why? We hold candidates for President, the highest office in the country, to a higher standard. We vet them thoroughly, and in this case "another man" happened to be a close spiritual adviser. I agree that Obama has handled the issue well, but don't think that the attention was unwarranted. I wonder if Williams and other African-Americans would be so forgiving if it were found that Bush or Cheney attended a church for the past 20 years that preached wild conspiracy theories about minorities?

America, for so long, denied black Americans fundamental rights. We have made enormous progress. But it appears some people still balk at hearing our anger and reject certain ugly truths about our nation.

Tactically slather on the liberal guilt, then try to claim that Wright was just preaching alternate truths. I'm not buying it. I think that it is perfectly acceptable to criticize policy, fight for a bigger voice in government, and expose the corruption and racism that still exist. I don't think it is acceptable to peddle divisive theories with no basis in fact, like the "HIV was invented by the government" doozy. My family is Catholic, and if I ever hear our priest spew such lazy internet garbage my children will no longer attend that church.

Superdelicate & Undemocratic

Many Obama supporters would like to rewrite the Democratic party rules. Their candidate holds a narrow lead over Hillary Clinton in the delegate count at this point, so they look to the superdelegates to simply affirm the voice of the people. This self-serving spin on the issue is understandable, but if the superdelegates are to be constrained in this manner they could logically be removed from the equation entirely. Their whole reason for existence would be null and void, and they most certainly would not be super.

In fact, the rules the Democrats adopted were expressly designed to inject a non-democratic element into the selection process. At some point in the early 1980's the Democrats designed a formula that awarded 20% of the vote to party bigwigs, thinking that they would help guide the nomination with their superior vision of the long-term goals. It was supposed to avoid another nasty convention battle like the one that erupted in Chicago in 1968. Of course, they did not have better luck in the Eighties, nominating spectacular losers like Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis.

The Democrats seem to be headed for yet another trainwreck in 2008. The vote is a matter of some delicacy for the superdelegates, who would need a compelling reason to overturn popular opinion on the matter, lest they anger the supporters of the losing candidate. Still, they are not bound to the democratic result by any law. Dr Stanley Fish blogged about the issue recently at the NYTimes. The next time an Obamamaniac complains about "undemocratic" rules, whip this list out:

Anti-democratic elements are everywhere in our political system. The presidential veto is undemocratic. The rules governing filibusters and the closing off of debate are undemocratic. The procedural devices by means of which floor leaders or committee chairmen can prevent issues from coming to a vote are undemocratic. The fact that Rhode Island and California have two senators each is undemocratic. The appointment of senators by governors in the wake of a death or a resignation is undemocratic. The presidential line of succession is undemocratic. The fact that a vice president who has not been elected to the senate presides over it and can cast a deciding vote is undemocratic. Judicial review – the practice by which the Supreme Court invalidates laws passed by the people’s representatives – is undemocratic.

Oil Honesty

John McCain was interviewed by Scott Pelley on 60 Minutes Sunday:

"What do you do for the person who just saw gasoline go from three and a quarter to three fifty on its way to $4?" Pelley asked.

"I would love to tell you that I have an immediate answer for that. And I don't. The only way we are going to fix it is to eliminate our dependence on foreign oil. We've got to have a crash program, a all out effort," McCain said. "But, I can't give you straight talk and tell you that tomorrow I can change the price of a gallon of gas."

An honest man in Washington! Compare and contrast this with Hillary Clinton.

Oil Entitlement

Hillary Clinton was stumping in Hattiesburg, Mississippi recently. Here is an excerpt:

"Oil hit a $104 a barrel," said Sen. Clinton. "The president said 'I sure wish they'd drop the price' and they said 'No, we won't, Mr. President.' And he said he was disappointed."

Sen. Clinton continued, "I've got to tell you you won't see me holding hands with the Saudis. You'll see me holding them accountable for what they do to the oil price and to our country."

Hold them accountable. Uh, actually Canada supplies more oil than Saudi Arabia, and neither is close to cornering the U.S. import market. Do Democrats actually believe this conspiracy stuff? Oil is a fungible commodity, and the price is set by a world market. Hillary and Obama both lamented the Bush administration's lack of tact on foreign policy. Now, it seems she's saying that we should twist arms to manipulate the outcome of free market trade in our favor.

I'm seeing a pattern here. Democrats think that the solution to everything is a new entitlement. Need healthcare? By golly, government will give it to you. Wages too low? We'll just pass a law saying you get a "living wage." Oil too expensive? Government will make it cheaper by dictating to those dastardly foreigners! No thought is given to the fact that all of these are economic exchanges, people trading goods and services for mutual gain. Strong-arming the Saudis isn't going to change anything. The world oil supply cannot be changed much by an angry woman in the Whitehouse. In the long run, oil demand driven by growth in China, India and all parts of the world will continue to rise.

Election Demographics

Ann Coulter on the Vermont primary:

Obama won Vermont, but that was earlier in the day. Exit polls indicate he took the black vote. Literally. There was just the one.

Having grown up in Vermont, I can vouch for this. I had one African-American classmate in junior high. His name was not Token.

Praising Bill Clinton?

I strongly believe that economics should be the deciding issue for any Presidential contest. A robust economy heals many problems by increasing the size of the pie for everyone. The private sector adds jobs, tax receipts grow, and the annual deficit shrinks. At least that's the theory.

The economy is like a very complex machine, with many inputs. The President sets the national agenda, and has the power to influence some of these inputs. Chief among those are:

• Controlling federal spending
• Liberalizing trade
• Maximizing investment capital

Of course there are many other factors outside the control of the Executive:

• Domino effects from foreign economies
• Consumer spending
  
• Monetary policy controlled by the Federal Reserve
• Energy prices (oil!)

Surprisingly, Bill Clinton did quite well with the top three. On spending, he was checked by a Republican congress for 6 years, and his early first-term healthcare proposal was defeated. On trade, he supported and extended NAFTA, despite the opposition of many Democrats. He also signed GATT, which created the World Trade Organization that is so hated by many progressives. Much of this was due to the Clinton Administration's ties to the Democratic Leadership Council, the New Democrats that advocated liberalizing trade, support for Israel, and more business-friendly policies. Clinton also passed the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997, lowering capital gains taxes and fueling the superheated economy of his second term.

So, what can we learn in 2008 from all this? Bush does not merit praise for his economic contribution over two terms, especially on federal spending. Outlays as measured against GDP are below the 40-year average, but in the longer term the new Medicare Part D entitlement and Iraq spending will hurt:

Total Revenues and Outlays as a Percentage of Gross Domestic Product

The Democrats running for the nomination are not any better. Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton propose new healthcare entitlements which will swell the budget. Both have been shamefully pandering to the rust-belt voters over who can slam NAFTA and globalization more:

Democratic Myths Collide with NAFTA Reality

Passing ECON 101 should be a prerequisite to voting in this country.

Mock the Conservative

I'm not one of those who believe that we need to bomb Hollywood to save America. Okay, many of the stars are loudmouthed lefties: Sarandon, Sheen, Penn, Streisand. We have the First Amendment, it's within their rights to say whatever they please. They often end up looking like idiots anyhow.

Usually I can watch my chosen entertainment without getting ambushed by some writer or director. I don't look too deeply for hidden messages, and I don't take offense at jokes on Saturday Night Live or the Daily Show. I can laugh at the creepy Dick Cheney character without violating my political ethos. If I rent an An Inconvenient Truth or anything by Michael Moore, I know what I'm getting and I take it as it is. Recently I ran across two cases where I thought the anti-conservative sentiment was in bad taste.

I'm a sci-fi fan, and I'm working my way through the first season of Dark Angel. I watched the show when it first aired back in 2000-01, but I didn't see every episode. In one of the early episodes the character who runs Jam Pony bicycle courier, "Normal", mentions that his idol is G.H.W. Bush (a.k.a. Bush 41). Up to that point, I thought that Normal was just an effort at creating a bossman character that everybody loves to hate. Keep in mind that this was written well before bashing Bush 43 became a national pastime. So the secret in-joke is that Normal is a conservative. He is constantly ridiculed by the other cool (stereotypically ethnic) side characters for the sin of, um, ASKING THEM TO ACTUALLY WORK FOR THEIR PAY. If you look him up on IMDB, the character's full name is actually Reagan 'Normal' Ronald. It would be excusable if it were actually funny, but most of these "comic relief" efforts could be cut out completely and the episode would probably improve.

The second incident is much more serious, and occurred while watching the documentary film Crossing the Line. I like the documentary and I highly recommend it, but afterward I made the mistake of watching the interview with director Daniel Gordon. He talks about his epiphany that the U.S. and North Korea both have statues and lots of flags in common. In particular, he implies that James Dresnok is "like a Republican sitting on his porch" spouting nationalist propaganda, except that he happens to be sitting in Pyongyang. Excuse me? The flags that fly on porches in the U.S. are flown because its citizens have that freedom to express themselves. The flags that fly in North Korea, not so much. The fact that many Republicans in the U.S. still have a sense of national pride is a good thing, nothing to be ashamed of. Gordon (who is British) might not understand that concept. The Brits, whose empire has shrunk alittle lately, don't have much national pride left. They also share a uniquely European fear of nationalism brought on by WWI and WWII.

Gordon drew parallels between Richmond, Virginia and Pyongyang because they both have statues of men with their arm out. Wow, I guess that Britain, France and any other country that has advanced to the bronze age doesn't have such incredibly unique statues? North Korea has an estimated 800 statues of Kim Il-sung, who died in 1994. The Great Leader and Eternal President created a cult around his own persona. I live near Richmond, and I can tell you that we don't have a nuclear-armed cult following of Arthur Ashe or Matthew Fontaine Maury.