1-1-11 - It's all aces this year and other reasons for optimism.

I had this weird feeling all New Year's Day that I just couldn't shake. It was kind of deja-vu-ish, in the sense that - I was sure I felt this way before - but I just couldn't quite remember why or when. Then it finally hit me - I was experiencing "optimism." I was actually feeling good about our future prospects and looking forward to the new year. This was a sensation I'd almost forgotten, as I've not felt this way on a New Year's Day in at least a decade. I was much more accustomed to the overwhelming sense of relief at leaving the prior year behind, while looking forward with a nameless dread at the year to come. Well - this was such a unique sensation, that I thought it worthwhile to try and put my finger on the source of this irrational exuberance cautious optimism.

Lets start with the easy ones - the date itself. Just look at it: "1-1-11". Now that is a date to start a year with - Four Aces. It just doesn't matter how the deck was cut, or how much bad luck you've been dealt up to now. When you flip those cards and see four aces staring back, you are feeling good about life. I felt so good about it that I am going to deal myself four more aces by posting this at exactly 11:11 PM.

In a few weeks the Chinese New Year kicks off and in the Chinese zodiac, this is the Year of the Bunny ( 兔 ). Need I say more? What's not to like about the Year of the Bunny? This year, the Year of the Bunny is also the 3rd year of a presidential term and if you believe in bunnies or investing based on presidential cycles, then this should be a good year for the stock market.

At almost every level - nationally, locally, in sports, politics, even looking globally - there was good news to be found and something to look forward too. Let's tick them off..

Reason for National Politics Optimism
On Wednesday the new Republican majority in the House of Representatives will gavel in a restoration of divided government after a disastrous two years under One Party Democratic rule. The 111th Congress, including the lame duck session just completed was a perfect example of the kind of fiscal irresponsibility and insane spending that seems to accompany One Party Rule by either party. Wednesday, January 5th has been declared an official National Dividist^® Day of Celebration by... um... The Dividist. Everyone should take the day off and spend the day watching c-span with a fifth of Kentucky bourbon.

In general, our expectations and hopes for divided government can be found on the post linked here. Historical evidence shows that divided government restrains the growth of spending and is more fiscally responsible than one party rule. Our specific expectation for the new Congress is that this historical precedent will hold when comparing the divided 112th to the united 111th. How could it not?

The 111th has made this comparison easy and inevitable. The 111th Congress and Democratic One Party Rule will go down in history as the single most fiscally irresponsible episode in our nations history, funding a trillion+ of new spending in bailouts and Stimulus I without being paid for, another trillion+ in new spending with Obamacare – passed on the pretense of being paid for by shifting costs to the bankrupt states and by pretending the “Doc Fix” does not exist and capped off with yet another trillion+ dollar hole in the deficit from the stimulus II/tax bill just passed in the lame duck session over the objections of the still ineffectual fiscal hawks.

The divided 112th Congress will undoubtedly improve on that record. It just can’t get any worse. Of course, I used to say that about One Party Republican rule. We'll see.

Reason for Sports Optimism
My Chicago Bears have locked down the number 2 seed in the NFC playoffs. It does not even matter (to the Bears) what happens in Sunday's game against the Green Bay Packers. I actually hope the Bears rest their starters. If Green Bay moves on as a wild card, they may meet again in Chicago for the NFC Championship a few weeks hence. I may have to go to that game, and I may have to rewrite and update the "Bears Song in Prose." Hopefully with a better ending this time.

Reason for San Francisco Values Optimism
My New Year's Day hangover was not as bad as I deserved, and I was greeted the first day of the new year by a great headline in the Chron to enjoy with my ibuprofin and coffee:

San Francisco chosen to host America's Cup
"It's a new year and a new dawn for the sport of sailing in San Francisco. The city was chosen Friday to host the next America's Cup in 2013, heralding a potential renaissance in competitive sailing and a boon of more than $1 billion to the local economy. This "marks the beginning of an extraordinary new chapter for our city and for the sport of sailing," said Lt. Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom, who sought to secure the Cup as a capstone to his seven years as mayor. "We don't think there is any better showcase in the world for sailing than San Francisco Bay." [...]"

This is going to be great. It'll be one heck of an economic boon to The City and enable us to upgrade rotting piers and waterfront infrastructure that we otherwise could never afford to fix. This was such an obvious good thing that even our dysfunctional Board of Supervisors had to get behind it, despite the usual carping from the batshit left in the City who can't stand the idea that Larry Ellison might make some money on the deal.

Reason for International Optimism

Eugene Volokh of the Volokh Conspiracy has been all over a troubling European legal investigation that makes the Wikileaks legal travails pale into insignificance. Last August, he linked to a breaking story on Italian police opening an investigation into a topless sunbather for inappropriate application of sun screen:

"A TOPLESS sunbather is being investigated by police after being accused of sensuously rubbing sun cream on herself on a public beach. Police were called to a beach at Anzio south of Rome by a furious mother who said the way the “attractive” sunbather was rubbing lotion on her body had “troubled her sons aged 14 and 12.” “She is amazed that she is being condemned for simply sunbathing topless,” [the woman’s] lawyer Gianluca Arrighi said.“Let’s be clear my client is tall, brunette and has an ample breast and is therefore going to naturally be sensuous when she applies cream to her chest....”

Well I hope I don't have to paint a picture here to show what a troubling precedent this investigation represents. This is about...um... Freedom. But - good news! In a New Year post, Volokh follows up on the story:

“the claimant mother has been condemned for ‘calumnie’ ... (a false accusation leading to the beginning of a criminal trial) and ordered to pay 25k to the young woman.” He points to an Italian video on the story, but since I can’t speak Italian I can’t understand it, except to note that the word for “topless” in Italian is apparently “topless.”

The most revealing in-depth analysis is to found in the linked Italian channel TG5 video news report. These screen shots are from that video. And yes, Italian TV News is much better than US TV News.

UPDATE:
The Italian story has "legs" and noted by the likes of McCain and Instapundit.

Divided and Balanced.™
Now that is fair.

Clinton cleavage captures attention of 25,000th visitor

SiteMeter informs us that we hosted our 25,000th visitor yesterday. Almost missed it - but we were able to track down the visitor before he/she disappeared over the 100 visitor horizon we are limited to with the free sitemeter:


Our 25,000th visitor found us by way of Jon Swift's fine post Hillary Clinton's Cleavage Emboldens Our Enemies. I posted a comment linking back to my not unrelated essay - Sizing, Dividing, & Balancing Government - An Illustrated Primer. This being one of the illustrations from that post:

So what do we know about our 25,00oth visitor? He/she has a Firefox browser on a Windows XP computer with a high resolution screen, subscribes to Comcast cable, is interested in politics, enjoys satire, is attracted to women's breasts, and according to the sitemeter latitude/longitude, is standing in this field next to a pond near Round Lake, Illinois.

Maybe he was fishing for catfish while browsing for breasts. I don't know what he was doing. I do know that 25,000 visitors in 16 months is a very small fish in a big blogospheric lake, but nevertheless noteworthy. We last took note of a milestone with our 10,000th visitor in January after nine months of operation. Seven months later we are up to 25,000. Maybe we can get to 50,000 by the end of the year. Maybe not. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: 07/27/2007
BREAKING: We have not yet received a letter from the Clinton campaign demanding an immediate retraction of this blog post. However, given the objections to the Washington Post fashion article expressed in Clinton campagin advisor Ann Lewis' fund raising letter, we expect to be hearing from them soon. It is probably just lost in the mail. We will inform the DWSUWF readers immediately upon receipt.

Divided and Balanced.™ Now that is fair.

Technorati tags: divided government, libertarian, Hillary Clinton, Round Lake, blogging, breasts, sexist.

S, M, L, XL - Sizing, Dividing, & Balancing Government

An Illustrated Primer on Divided & Balanced Government

Preface
This blog is in the service of promoting one topic and one objective, the benefit of voting for and securing divided government in Washington D.C. We have researched and cited articles, white papers, and books from journalists, scholars and leaders that explicate in detail the benefits of divided government. We have debated the merits of divided government with blog readers and authors. We have offered example after example from the news of the day, demonstrating how single party control of the federal government leads to bad governance, while government divided between the major political parties leads to better governance. Still, it is not enough.

The Problem
The idea of divided government as a positive, actionable political objective remains mired in the collective subconscious of the voting electorate. While we occasionally hear and read about divided government in the newspaper, on the web, and on TV, it always seems to be in the context of an off-hand comment, or a brief observation of an interesting but seemingly unimportant political element, worth noting, but quickly forgotten. The idea has yet to successfully fertilize and germinate, let alone give birth to a real political movement. Net net - we need to impregnate the body politic with this potent political idea. In an effort to inseminate this idea into the broad populace, I have assembled this educational illustrated primer, which I hope will serve as an invitation to explore and appreciate the seductive beauty of these ideas.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I found these photographs on the internet, and cannot speak with 100% certainty as to their veracity, provenance, or accuracy. However, since they were secured from Reuters, a highly respected photo-journalism and news service, you should have all the confidence in the accuracy of these photos that is merited from a source with Reuter's reputation.

Nipping the Problem in the Bud - A Divided Government Primer
First, it is important to understand that there is no absolutely right or wrong answer to the question of exactly how big government should be. Government can be appreciated in a variety of sizes. In this primer we will illustrate that, regardless of size, it is more important to ensure that our government be divided and in balance.

Big Government

For some, the bigger the government the better. The seductive charms of big government are easy to see. Advocates of big government believe the milk of human kindness can only be effectively distributed and enjoyed with a bountiful, abundantly large government. Others believe that an overly large government is not natural, creates inflated expectations, and requires excessive support. They fear the single-minded pursuit of the benefits of large government will lead to an artificial enhancement of government size. While this may provide short-term gratification for government patrons, the long-term effects are often unexpected, and can lead to sagging government fortunes and other expensive unintended consequences. Now, both the right and the left have their favored constituencies, who can be expected to grab and grope for all the government largess they can get their hands on. This is the important point: If the government of the right and left are not in balance, the perception of these abundant government assets will be distorted, creating confusion and dissatisfaction among all government patrons, users, and abusers alike.

Limited Government

Limited government advocates believe that as far as government is concerned: more than a modicum is wasted. Limited government advocates believe that government has a proper purpose, that government should be limited to a size that is appropriate to that purpose, and anything beyond that purpose is a perversion of the proper use of government assets. For limited government advocates, a large government detracts from the sleek and supple performance of the socio-economic body. They see big government as a distraction at best, and at worst, a dangerous, resource sucking, freedom restricting, gold-digging promiscuous harlot (Limited government advocates are generally not considered to be as much fun as the proponents of big government).

Moderate Government

Others choose a middle course. They point out that people will always want what big government has to offer. At the same time, they recognizing that there is only so much to go around, and there must be some limitations on how government should be used and contained. Correct sizing of the government containment cup is important, and properly cleaving a decision between the A, B, C or D choice requires careful consideration and handling.

Balanced Government

The seductive appeal of suckling from government resources, whether large or limited, cannot and should not be denied. It is this very appeal that makes government so attractive and so dangerous. It is only through maintaining a balance between right and left, that we can be assured that government resources are used to nurture, to protect, and not to corrupt.

I hope this simple primer will stimulate your interest in exploring the benefits of divided and balanced government in detail. By stripping back the facade of partisanship, we expose the truth about limiting our focus on the right or left, and can appreciate the glory and symmetric perfection of a government divided and balanced.

UPDATE: Friday, August 26, 2006
I was questioned whether my message was being trivialized by my illustrations in this post. Then, reading wapo this morning, I decided that if MSM pundit Eugene Robinson can take Washington Post Op-Ed space to write: TomKat vs. the Tom-Toms -"The real news today ... is too depressing for a summer morning when we all ought to be on a beach somewhere... Let's wallow instead in the tabloid news" ... Then I can wallow in a few gratuitous humorous metaphors to make my point.

UPDATE: Friday, July 25, 2007
Added tags. Added Labels. Edited offer. Fixed typos.

Technorati tags: divided government, libertarian,blogging, breasts, blogging, sexist.