Arizona's Own Espresso Pundit

Stupid is as Stupid Does.

Could the Fiesta Bowl have botched the investigation and subsequent over reaction any worse?

First, the Fiesta Bowl management broke the law by reimbursing employees for political contributions.  There is no way that the elected officials could have known that Bowl officials were violating the law.

Then the Bowl compounded the problem by seeking reimbursement from the political candidates instead of from the bowl employees--after all, the contributions were legal, it was the reimbursements that violated the law.

Then the Bowl management violated the law by inviting the elected officials to games...and claiming that they had invited entire committees.  The tickets were legal if the Bowl invited entire committees, and only the Bowl officials could have known what invitations went out.  Again, elected officials take the hit for the Bowl management's mistake. 

Now the Bowl's management has decided to bill the lawmakers for the trips themselves.  This despite the fact that the trips were clearly legal and were offered as business trips. Do you travel for business?  Can you imagine if your employer decided to retroactively charge you for your last five years of business travel?

To their credit, most of the legislators have told the Fiesta Bowl to pound sand.

The bowl's research since then concluded that it spent $161,876 on the politicians. So far, those officials have reimbursed the bowl $7,311, it says.

So what's the next step?  I would like to think that the Fiesta Bowl is smart enough to simply be content to send letters to politicians and not follow up after the letters are ignored. 

But that would be too smart.  Take a second and put on your stupid hat and ask what the Fiesta Bowl will do next...

The Bowl is going to send out 1099s...

Think about it.  The Bowl is going to claim that the trips were income, send 1099s to the legislators and then let them negotiate with the IRS.  That move would be stupid and unfair which puts it exactly in line with what the Bowl has done so far. 

I hope I'm wrong on this one.

When Liberals Dream...

The Republic's Kathleen Ingley devoted her "Quick Hit" in today's Republic to the myth that California's budget crisis was causes by the 1978 tax revolt that spawned Proposition 13.  This is a great example of the classic liberal world view.  The reality is that California State tax revenue continued to skyrocket in the wake of Proposition 13.  Spending, however rose much faster than revenue.

The chart at the left shows rate at which various tax revenue grew in the years following Prop 13.  The green line is property taxes. 

Ironically, on the same day that Ingley ran her "Quick Hit", the Republic ran this wire story about California's new budget---$86 billion.  There's plenty of revenue.  If spending had grown at a reasonable rate, there would be plenty of money. 

For a thorough debunking of the Prop 13-root-of-all-evil myth, check out this article.

 

Why Do People Who Can't Manage a Forest think that they can manage an Economy?

Steven Pyne has written numerous books about fire and I especially enjoyed "Fire on the Rim" about his summers spent suppressing fires on the north rim of Grand Canyon.  Pyne is perhaps the foremost expert on forest fires and the Republic asked him to write an Op Ed piece about the Wallow fire.  Unfortunately, the article was largely incoherent.  Seriously, read it and you will see that he has no point.  I spent some time wondering why Pyne--who won a McArthur Genius grant and is a best selling author--would write such a weak rant.  I finally figured it out--Pyne is the world's foremost expert on forest fires and has finally realized that he has no clue how to manage a forest.

Let's go back to his book "Fire on the Rim."  While is sounds like a history of Los Dos Molinos, the book is actually about Pyne's extraordinary efforts at fire suppression.  We all grew up with Smokey the Bear and understood that forest fires were bad.  Well, for the last 50 years, experts "knew" that the best way to prevent fires was to...well, prevent fires.  They set up fire spotting stations and fast crews who could put out fires as soon as they started. 

Experts have now realized that they got it completely wrong and we have seen the results. Fire suppression--together with misguided efforts to prevent logging--have allowed the forests to grow so thick that when fires do eventually occur, they become conflagrations of Biblical magnitude.  If you see pictures or read stories about early life in Arizona, you will realize that forests in their natural state are like large meadows--early settlers could drive wagons in nearly any direction.  Now you can't even walk through a forest. So fires that used to clear out debris, underbrush and small trees, now destroy entire forests, kill old growth trees and caramelize the soil. 

My point isn't that the experts can't manage the forests.  By now, everyone understands that.  My real point is that forests--while inherently complex systems--are not nearly as complex as economies, or for that matter climates. 

Those same people who were telling us about Smokey the Bear, were also telling us to eat lots of carbs via the now defunct "food pyramid" (and before that, the even more discredited "four food groups."  They are the same group that warned us of the next Ice Age, the population bomb and banned DDT. 

Steven Pyne's article is incoherent because he's out of ideas.  After 100 years of expert forest management, the forests are much worse off than when we started.  Pyne is not the first one to realize that smart people who are well intentioned can cause disaster; the central lanners the USSR, East Germany and South Korea had the same epiphany a few decades ago.  That's about the time that "Japan Inc." collapsed.  Now the Western European Democratic socialist model is collapsing as well.  The American blue states are in the same boat.  The only difference between Greece and California is that Greece will be bailed out by Germany and California will be bailed out by Texas. 

So can we step back and examine the past with a little humility?  Can we admit that we are not smart enough to govern complex systems?  Can we stop trying to control the Climate?  Can we admit that Government run health care might not be a good idea?  Can we stop the Cash for Clunkers, Quantitative Easing, crony capitalism and bailouts?

While it seems like a great idea for smart people use the power of govenment to combat complex problmes, it generally leads to disaster.  Think of that the next time you go to eastern Arizona and see the ashes that remain after 100 years of centrally planned expert forest management.

"I'll Have Political Theater for $1,000 Alex"

Answer:  "Term used to describe Legislative Trips in which the Arizona Cardinals invite an entire Legislative Committee to a Game."

Question:  What is "Legal."

Sunday's Republic had a breathless story about Legislators attending Cardinals games and not reporting it.  Of course, it is legal for legislators to attend Cardinals games and there's no requirement that they report it--but it makes a nice story. 

 

Arizona Law Enforcement Emails Hacked and Released!

This announcement was posted today by the Hacker group LulzSec.

We are releasing hundreds of private intelligence bulletins, training manuals, personal email correspondence, names, phone numbers, addresses and passwords belonging to Arizona law enforcement. We are targeting AZDPS specifically because we are against SB1070 and the racial profiling anti-immigrant police state that is Arizona.

The documents classified as "law enforcement sensitive", "not for public
distribution", and "for official use only" are primarily related to border
patrol and counter-terrorism operations and describe the use of informants to
infiltrate various gangs, cartels, motorcycle clubs, Nazi groups, and protest
movements.

Every week we plan on releasing more classified documents and embarassing
personal details of military and law enforcement in an effort not just to reveal
their racist and corrupt nature but to purposefully sabotage their efforts to
terrorize communities fighting an unjust "war on drugs".

Hackers of the world are uniting and taking direct action against our common
oppressors - the government, corporations, police, and militaries of the world.
See you again real soon! ;D

 

 

Sen. Antenori Makes it Big

I was at Costco over the weekend and much to my surprise while looking through the books, I found a stack of Sen. Frank Antenori's Iraq memoir "Roughneck Nine One."  That's pretty impressive.  I don't know it that's a local Costco item, or if the book is available at all Costco stores.  If it's widely available then he should enjoy some pretty brisk sales. 

 

Say Goodbye to Daniel Gonzalez on your way out.

Gannett announced today that it is going to layoff another 700 newsroom staffers.

While we have sought many ways to reduce costs, I regret to tell you that we will not be able to avoid layoffs. Accordingly, approximately 700 employees within USCP, or about 2% of our company’s overall workforce, will be let go.

I sympathise with those who are being laid off in this economy.  Reporters who are let go have virtually no chance of finding a job that will provide the income and status that they currently enjoy.  It's not simply that their company is dying, their profession is dying.  I have no idea why anyone has enrolled in the Journalism school. 

I'm sure that reporters will say that they are victims of the economy and to a certain extent that's true.  But yesterday, I provided a good example of why the newspaper industry is declining so rapidly.  Monday's Republic lead with a story by Daniel Gonzalez that was pure propaganda.  The story was about a guy in Tucson who opposes Israel's policy in Gaza.  The story had no local news value, and was simply a thinly veiled swipe at United States's immigration policy.  Meanwhile, important stories that don't fit the media narrative--like Fast and Furious scandal and Mindy Shields indictment--are ignored. 

Editors and reporters don't seem to understand that propaganda pieces like that really tick off readers.  Those readers then complain to other readers and eventually people get fed up and cancel their subscriptions. 

I'm sure the media planners buy into the narrative that younger readers don't subscribe yada yada.  But how do you explain the constant cancellations by middle age adults?  Why are subscription rates falling in the fastest growing county in the nation?  Sure, some of the readers decide to just get their news from the web.  But there is a significant number who prefer to subscribe, but simply can't handle the propaganda. 

So if you are a news professional, take a moment and read the Gonzalez piece.  Ask yourself why it was on A 1 and, in a moment of introspection, admit that it was pure agenda journalism and that most of the Republic readers probably support Israel's right to defend its borders as well as the US right to defend our own borders. 

Subscribers who see crap like that on the front page eventually get pissed off and cancel.  That's why you are going home early today. 

Say goodbye to Daniel on your way out.

It's all fun and games until they are indentifying you by your tattoos.

"Jackass" millionaire Ryan Dunn is dead.  Gosh, what a surprise.  Maybe it's time that grown ups at some of these networks decided not to give guys like Dunn a forum.   

Do You Feel Like a Mushroom?

The mainstream media has often treated readers like mushrooms--left in the dark and fed a steady diet of manure.  Here's a great example:  Did you see the lead story in today's Republic?  It's about a guy from Tucson who plans to protest the Palestinian blockade.  Seriously.  That's the story.  It's a guy from Tucson who is planning to join one of the flotillas that try to smuggle stuff--usually weapons--into Gaza.  At best, the article is meaningless, at worst, the article is simply a vehicle to compare US border policy with Israel's border policy in an attempt to make them both look bad. 

Hey, maybe it's a slow news day.  What should the paper be covering this morning?  How about this huge story that so far has only been covered by New Times.

A Grand Jury indicted Mindy Shields, daughter of influential Phoenix lobbyist Billy Shields, for Class 2 felony theft.

The charges against Mindy Shields stem from the embezzlement of more than $77,000 from Friends of Greg Stanton, a political campaign belonging to the former councilman and Phoenix mayoral candidate. Shields, a close friend of Stanton's, was his campaign treasurer since early 2000.

That's right.  The Phoenix Mayor's race is a big story and as part of that story, the daughter of one of the state's most powerful lobbyists has been indicted for allegedly embezzling money from one of the leading candidates.  Sure, the papers covered the original story a few months ago, but why no update? Why no coverage of the indictment?  Why no Montini or Laurie Roberts columns?  I would argue that the silence is because all the players are big time Democrats. 

Speaking of big time Democrats who are in serious trouble.  Why no local newspaper coverage of the ATF Fast and Furious scandal?  After all, the story is HUGE in the national media and it originated in Phoenix.  It's much bigger than the Fiesta Bowl story. 

On May 19th I pointed out that the scandal was being picked up by the national mainstream media--it had circulated in the blogs for months--but that it still had not been covered by the local media.  Since then, Brahm Resnik has been all over it, but the rest of the local media have been silent.  The ATF story is actually much bigger than the Fiesta Bowl story--some are comparing it to Iran Contra. Yet there is little local coverage.

Eventually, there will be a massive shakeup in the local US Attorney's office as well as the local ATF office and the Republic will be forced to cover it.  At that point, readers who get their local news exclusively from the Republic will wonder what the heck happened. 

Meanwhile, those readers who have never heard of Mindy Shields or Dennis Burke, and certainly have no idea that they are in trouble, have been treated to a story about a guy in Tucson named Gabriel Schivone who is unhappy with the Israel's border security policies--an article that only exists so that Republic reporter Daniel Gonzalez can slam Israel and US border patrol policies at the same time. 

So the readers are kept in the dark about important stories and fed a steady diet of manure so that reporters can advance their own political agendas.  But the mushrooms are figuring it out...that's why newspaper credibility and circulation have been falling so steadily for so many years.

During the next round of layoffs when Republic security is escorting a bunch of formers employees out the door--on the way to scrapping the parking sticker off their cars--maybe the reporters can stop by Daniel Gonzalez's cubicle and remind him of his role in the decline.

 

 

Isn't that your Bus?

Yesterday I speculated that the "Fast and Furious" gun running scandal would work its way up the ranks of the Justice Department and that President Obama and AG Eric Holder would try to contain the damage by shifting the focus the US Attorney for Arizona  Dennis Burke. 

Today, the Washington Examinar called for Holder's head.

Watergate cliches though they are, two questions beg to be asked about the exploding Fast and Furious scandal at the U.S. Department of Justice: What did Attorney General Eric Holder know and when did he know it concerning the underlying concept, operational protocols and legal status of the Operation Fast and Furious program in the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms bureau?

Of course, it's quite possible that Burke is fully to blame for the fiasco and he certainly knew enough about details to deserve his upcoming fate.  It will be interesting to see if Holder can contain the damage by jetisoning Burke, or if Obama will have to throw holder under the bus as well. 

I'm betting that they both go.