Maarten

Aww, thanks everyone! I'm having a very good day so far My wife and I are watching movies tonight, so that should be fun.

Well, before the election I noticed that our local liberal stronghold was quite demoralized; there were barely any signs out for their chosen candidates, and in the primary for the 2nd CD the Republican primary had about twice as many votes cast as the Democratic one, even though both were quite competitive. And because we have an open primary, it also suggested that independents were breaking heavily for Republicans; it doesn't make much sense for someone to vote in the Republican primary and then vote Democratic in the general, and that looks like it didn't happen. One other interesting thing here is that our Democratic governor won re-election fairly comfortably, and won almost every county in the state with 8-10% (or more) margin. He's actually pretty decent, and before the legislature flipped to Democratic control in 2006 he did a good job with a Republican legislature. So a lot of people ended up voting for him, and voting straight Republican on the rest of the ticket. The response locally was quite hilarious, though. NHPR had a bunch of state Democrats on and they all swore up and down that this couldn't possibly have anything to do with them overreaching; even the (fairly leftist) NHPR host was incredulous about that. Which only ends up hurting them in the end, because it makes clear how little regard they have for voters. All the arguments I've heard both in the state as well as nationally revolve around voters being angry/confused/afraid, and I can't see how that's a good strategy. Oh well, all the more power to us. Last year it was quite funny, the legislature passed a "LLC tax" that basically taxed any business owner for 5% of their profits, and they signed it but then went ahead and repealed it once it became obvious how incensed the people here were about it. But they do have a long way to go, and the budget has some problematic areas because of the State Supreme Court ruling the state has to fund education, and I bet another huge expense is the inflated medicaid rolls... Maybe that's another thing we can look forward to. In the WSJ an article mentioned that several states are now looking at roadblocking the proposed Medicaid expansions in PPACA (Obamacare), but it looks like they can only really do that if they give up Medicaid entirely. Let's hope some states do that, it would be a wonderful precedent both because it allows them to set up their own, better program instead as well as it shifting costs to the national level, making Obamacare even more expensive (and likely unpopular). It definitely looks like come January the list of states suing the Government over Obamacare will grow

Oh, I agree that we're certainly nowhere close to being home free. I live in one of the more liberal parts of NH so my own state senator and state representatives are probably the most liberal of the bunch. This collection of towns usually votes about 3-4 to 1 for the Democrats, and they almost managed to cancel out Bass's lead in the more sane southern part of the state (thankfully they didn't, the Democratic nominee for NH 2nd district was terrible). I think I will spend a good amount of time writing letters to various legislators to try and give them feedback and keep them on the right track. I was incredibly encouraged, though, when reading the right-leaning Unionleader where by far the majority of people said explicitly they didn't want the Republican legislature to do anything except focus on the budget and jobs, and making it easier to do business here (we dropped quite significantly as a good place to do business since the Dems took over in '06). The Senate leader definitely sounded off on a good note, and I think the people in the house will be fairly sane as well. Our legislature only works for about 6 months out of the year, and then a few days a week (and they're not really paid), so I am hoping that the economy/budget will keep them busy enough not to get into any social engineering shenanigans. There are some very good bills that got shelved last session, though. In no particular order: - A state constitutional amendment proposal that would restore some sanity to education funding; our supreme court ruled that the state has an obligation to fund local districts and it's really killing the budget because it puts the largest sector completely off-limits from cuts. If they can pass that it would be an enormous success. There really is no sane reason to hard-code annual 5-6% increases into perpetuity. And I am quite sure that one would pass both the legislature and pass on the next ballot in '12, even our liberal town voted down the school budget last year which was unheard of. - The last legislature passed some really big restrictions on homeschooling that made it a huge pain, as you had to get approval from the local school board for a lot of stuff, making you entirely dependent on whatever ideas the school superintendent in your district has on homeschooling. What it basically came down to was that you had to move to somewhere where the district didn't completely despise homeschooling. I think that'll pass, as it almost did last year and a lot of the same sponsors are now empowered with a majority - I think they're likely to reduce the rooms and meals tax back to what it was before the Democrats raised it, and possibly the increase in the cigarette tax can be undone. For all the howling the left was doing here about how you can't possibly cut any more from the budget, it remains a fact that spending increased by about 20% per legislative session, and you can't tell me that is all impossible to cut. I think almost any state would have been fine through the financial downturn if they hadn't increased spending so much. No wonder you run into deficits if spending goes up 40% while revenues stay flat. A five year old could probably tell you that's an issue =P

I wouldn't be too surprised if he became chairman of that committee. He is the ranking member, and it's pretty unusual to bypass someone. If the Republican leaders in the house didn't want him there they wouldn't have put him on that committee in a senior position. I certainly don't agree with all of Ron Paul's views, but I think it would both be hilarious as well as potentially very effective to see what he can do in terms of oversight and monetary reform. Can you imagine how amazing it would be if we get back on the gold standard in, say, the next decade?

Hi everyone! I hope I'm not the only one who was encouraged by last Tuesday's results. Part of me is actually glad the GOP didn't take a majority in the senate because it makes it a lot harder for Obama and national Democrats to blame the country's problems (that will likely still be substantial, especially if Obama vetoes everything the House passes), and I think leaves a better chance to get someone else as President in two years. And the arrogance that national Democrats displayed afterwards was stunning to me, not a single important figure conceded they may have overreached, and now we're getting an early Christmas present in Pelosi staying on as minority leader. That's about the worst signal Democrats could have sent to voters; it's pretty much a big middle finger saying they don't care what Americans think. So that should severely increase the chances this will last. One of the things I found most encouraging, though, was the total bloodbath that were the state legislatures. Even here in New England the Republicans took several legislatures; where I live now in New Hampshire the GOP went from 175 seats in the house (400 total) and 10 seats in the senate (out of 24), to 298 and 19 seats, respectively. I think 14 or 15 other legislatures changed hands to give the Republicans control of almost 30 state's legislatures. I can't speak for how the state parties are in other places, but here the 4 years of Democratic rule have been horrible. The only positive thing they accomplished has been passing gay marriage... but they increased spending enormously, tried to pass all sorts of taxes, restricted homeschooling, started all sorts of new environmental regulations and pretty much tried to run the state into the ground. The new state senate president and the house leaders all responded in a very encouraging manner, saying that they understood this election was about economic issues and that's what they were going to focus on. Ewv, do you have any comments about the virtual clean sweep Republicans made in Maine? I've read so many of your posts about the things the Maine government was doing that were terrible that it must be an enormous relief to get them out?

Another huge issue is whether the government generally respects individual rights. Not paying much in nominal taxes doesn't really mean much if you have no freedom from various forms of government coercion, or if there's a poorly functioning rule of law in that particular country. Such considerations are probably more important than tax rates as they form the foundation for making money successfully.

The problem is as they discuss in certain of the emails, that most journals aren't accepting papers that challenge the concensus; the reviewers and editors hold them back or refuse to publish them. So the scientific literature is very much biased in a lot of journals that publish on the subject. But don't believe much of what you hear about the consensus, anyway. The media ENORMOUSLY overstates the conclusions of even the most flagrantly alarmist "scientific" reports written by the IPCC and other groups. When you actually read the papers and studies, even the alarmists don't claim half the things that most media outlets claim they say. They just take advantage of the reputation of the scientists and of the fact that most people won't bother to actually read the source material that's quoted (or don't have access to it).

I just found this on RCP.com. Apparently someone hacked into the British center for climate change and downloaded and posted a whole load of emails and documents. I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have wanted them public... Just read it, it's worth the time and effort. Global warming email leak

Yeah, I think originally the American system of local teachers that taught the children of a village or town was replaced by the Prussian organized education system, with strict discipline and larger classes and all that. I think that is one event that really moved education into the wrong direction because the German type education was much more collectivist and intended to produce loyal citizens and all that, and I think one of the greatest tragedies of the 19th century is the gradual elimination of free schooling that existed before that time.

I've been posting these videos on facebook. Hopefully some people watch them and benefit!

Agreed completely. That talk is amazing and I would strongly encourage everyone to take the time to watch it. He both exposes the lack of scientific evidence underlying many public pronouncements and policies, as well as the actual models. One thing that struck me was his comment that they basically already published the same (radiation) data in 2000, yet apparently no one bothered to change the models. It's bizarre to me that people cling to their beliefs so strongly that they simply ignore what reality says; at any point when your hypothesis is contradicted by the experimental data, you need to change it. That is one of the most basic principles of science, and any honest scientist should know that, and not simply change things around enough so that the data somehow still fits. That simply puts global warming "science" into the same ballpark as marxist theories that were proven false time and time again, and its proponents simply changed their story enough so that the theory once again (sort of) fit history. I thought science was beyond that, but apparently there is enough government involvement distorting that to make that not true any longer.

Yes, it seemed that schools were much less affected by Progressive educational philosophy back in the Netherlands. Especially when I was in elementary school it was much harder and more rigorous; for my younger siblings not so much. Even the two years' difference between my sister and me made a fairly large difference because I think it started going downhill in the 90s, as well. Then they reformed the high school system to make it more modern or something, and quality again suffered quite a lot. Compared to the exams the people a few years before me had to take, we had it extremely easy, and after that it was made easier year by year because the students complained that tests were too hard, etc. It was quite sad to see that. I think one thing that helped a lot was that the Dutch education system is divided into tiers starting in the first grade of high school (that's age 12/13 there), and then again in the second grade. That allows them to separate the students' abilities much better and make sure there is not too much difference between the fastest and slowest learners in each class. Also, they have tracks that students choose that determine to a certain extent what classes you need to take, so if someone is really interested in liberal arts they take mostly courses in that area and have less science/math courses, and vice versa for science people. While it makes people less well-rounded than a traditional education here in the US makes them, the specialization aspect works quite well and I think to a certain degree it is responsible for students from those countries being further ahead in their field of study. After about age 15 I didn't really have to take many languages or liberal arts courses any more, and in college I only took classes in my major. This allowed us to study so many more aspects of the discipline that I think it gives you a huge head-start over an American student who is forced to take a lot of courses they aren't necessarily interested in, or that even have any application to what they want to do in life. On the downside, it does require students to know what they want to do at a really early stage, long before they need to make these choices in the US. You start the process at age 15, and then you choose your major right after graduating high school. For the people who aren't sure what to do it doesn't work very well because they tend to just do one thing and then change, or have to backtrack because they miss certain courses. But I think for the ones who know what they want it allows them to go through a more demanding curriculum that places them ahead of most students over here.

Carlos, not to mention that you have no choice over what public school your child is sent to. Sometimes they mess with districts because of racial quotas and your child gets sent to a further away school, meaning they spend an extra hour a day traveling. As if they don't have better stuff to do...

Yeah, I can see that part of it myself as well. It seems like year by year what freedoms still exist in schooling are being eroded ever so slowly. Some of these voucher programs are a good sign but they are so limited in scope that it's not really going to make a difference unless they apply them on a massive scale in the near future (and no Democrat is going to support that because the unions oppose school choice). Part of my reasons for home-schooling revolve around the fact that I would very much like to spend that much time with my kids; being around them and seeing them develop is one of the most profoundly selfish values I can achieve in my life and I would love to maximize that. I also believe I can give them a very good education. But the other component is definitely that most alternatives are so horrible that home-schooling is also a damage control measure of sorts. I don't know of any awesome private schools around here and I don't know if I could afford to send my kids to one even if there was one, so it seems like it is the only viable option in that case if you want your children to have a good education none-the-less. A lot of education policy is made on the local and state level, though, and I think certain states are much better than others. That helps a lot because it doesn't tend to be as vulnerable to huge changes in public opinion. At least, the better states (in this respect) seem more stable than the federal Gov't is.

ewv, I do agree with what you and Carlos are saying. It is incredibly important to have a good education available to children here, because that to a very large extent makes any kind of cultural change possible. That won't ever happen if kids continue to be so poorly educated that they can barely understand basic arguments and concepts. My point was primarily that taken by itself, an open immigration policy is a desirable thing and it does make the country and everyone living here better off. It is by no means the most important component, though, and I should have chosen better words than I used before.