August 2, 2005

Schmidt wins in Ohio?

Posted by Jon Ham at 10:44 PM

Blogger David Wissing reports that Republican Jean Schmidt has won the Ohio 2nd District race. She had an 800-plus lead with Clermont County still out but he says she has won Clermont by 58-42 percent over Democrat Paul Hackett. This has not been reflected yet on the Cincinnati Enquirer's or WCPO-TV's Web sites. 

UPDATE: It's official. Schmidt wins 52-48. Wonder how many of those votes can be attributed to Rush Limbaugh. 

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Intelligent Design

Posted by Jon Ham at 6:30 PM

The blogosphere is humming about Bush's notion that Intelligent Design should be taught in schools. A liberal friend of mine emailed me today asking how I would teach ID, what I would say about it. This is what I wrote him:

Every time I see a NOVA or something explain how genetics and heredity work, I can only think one thing: this didn’t happen by accident. Even how everything fits together — animals die, worms eat them, they crap and it all recycles; clouds hold rain, it falls, goes into the ground and the rivers and streams, evaporates and goes upward to form clouds that cause rain; flowers grow, attract bees looking for nectar, who accidentally propagate the plant before flying away; Earth is just the exact distance from the sun that it needs to be, no more, no less, anything different and we wouldn’t exist, etc. Just accidents? I think not. That’s how I would describe it. Also, ask a parent to look at their newborn child and tell me its just an accident of protoplasm.

Even one of my old lefty political science professors used to give a lecture about the compatibility of evolution and religion, basically coming down on the ID side. I'm not sure what is so upsetting about this, even to the righty bloggers.  

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Homeschool researcher to speak in Asheville

Posted by Hal Young at 5:49 PM

If you read any serious research about home education, or nearly any news article about it, you will soon encounter Dr. Brian Ray of the National Home Education Research Institute. If you'd like to encounter him a bit more personally, he will be speaking this Thursday in Asheville (well, Weaverville, to be exact), courtesy of North Carolinians for Home Education.

Time, place, and manner are posted here, but admission is free.

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Cleavages in the EU

Posted by Jon Ham at 4:56 PM

The Bavarian dirndl ban, proposed by EU nanny-state bureaucrats to keep beer-hall waitresses from being exposed to "optical radiation," has been forestalled. As one Bavarian official said:

"The dirndl is an integral part of Bavarian culture and joy of living -- a culture that many are jealous of," said Frank-Ulrich John, the spokesperson for the Bavarian Association of Hotels and Inns.

"I have spoken with many servers, and I have never heard that a sunburn in the cleavage area has been a problem," John said.

Now, maybe Germans, or at least their Bavarian citizens, will begin rethinking giving all that power to desk jockeys in Brussels.

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Wilson Outed Wife

Posted by Joseph Coletti at 4:43 PM

We've gone over this before, but how long until the MSM accept that Joe Wilson outed his wife in service to his vanity. Anne Kornblutt writes:

In the Who's Who directory for 2003, personal information about Mr. Wilson includes his origins in Bridgeport, Conn., and the names of his previous wife and his four children. His current wife is listed as Valerie Elise Plame, and the date of their marriage April 3, 1998.

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Terrorists will start buying tacks

Posted by Jon Ham at 3:14 PM

How absurd can multicultural sensitivity get? Just read this. My first reaction was similar to The Corner's Kathryn Jean Lopez: "This is a joke, right?" Now all an Islamist terrorist has to do is have a bag full of tacks to throw on the floor before the bobbies bust in.

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Speaking of Hackett...

Posted by Jon Ham at 2:58 PM

I'd love to be a fly on the wall of the Paul Hackett campaign headquarters in Ohio's 2nd District. He and Republican Jean Schmidt are on today's special-election ballot to replace Rob Portman. Usually, by this time of day on election day things are winding down in a campaign. But since about 12:30 today Rush Limbaugh has been playing audio of misleading Hackett TV commercials and directing listeners to watch it on his Web site. With the polls open for several more hours, you know the Hackett campaign is pulling their hair out.

The ad in question begins with President Bush speaking at Ft. Bragg, followed by Hackett talking about how Bush inspired him to re-join the Marines and go to Iraq. Not once does it mention that Hackett is a Democrat and not once does he mention his statements that Bush is an "S.O.B" and that he should never have sent forces into Iraq. In fact, it looks like a Bush endorsement, something that has upset the Ohio Republican Party.

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New PC-term alert?

Posted by Jon Ham at 2:32 PM

I was reading some background info on the Schmidt-Hackett congressional race in Ohio and came upon this in a Cincinnati Post endorsement of Hackett (emphasis added):

They share certain similarities.

Both are products of financially secure families - Schmidt's father was a builder and entrepreneur in Clermont County; Hackett's father was an engineer and manufacturer's representative who settled in Indian Hill.

"Products of financially secure families"? Is that now the PC term for "rich"? Or is the new term for "middle class", with "rich" still being available for use as family worth rises? I'm confused.

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Mike Munger on the invisible hand

Posted by George Leef at 1:45 PM

Mike Munger's essays are always worth reading -- clever and instructive. Here is one on the invisible hand that I'm sure all Locker Room readers will like.

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More on cost increases and inflation

Posted by Dr. Roy Cordato at 11:45 AM

Karen Palasek's most recent Free Market Minute does an excellent job at describing the difference between an increase in the cost of something--a rising individual price--and inflation. There is no time period where this confusion was more prevalent than in the 1970s when it was argued that the cause of the double digit inflation problems that the country was experiencing was due to rising oil and gasoline prices. Of course, as Karen points out, this reasoning was simply ignorant. Rising prices cannot be both the result and the cause of inflation. In a growing economy inflation is caused by increases in the money supply.

As an aside, during most of the 1970s, from 1975 to1979, the price of gasoline and crude oil actually fell relative to inflation, making the claim that rising oil and gas prices were causing inflation doubly illogical.

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Re: Greener Pastures

Posted by Dr. Roy Cordato at 11:04 AM

The quote below is from the blog response that John Hood links to in his Locker Room post from yesterday.

“Dr. Jay P. Greene has devoted his career to promoting vouchers and other measures aimed to weaken or dismantle public schools. The Manhattan Institute... is dedicated to eliminating the public schools."

I find it unfortunate that conservatives are rarely as good on issues as their left wing detractors make them out to be. Another one of my favorite examples include accusations from the left that George Bush wants to abolish Social Security. and who can forget the days when Newt Gingrich was accused of wanting to abolish Medicare. If only conservatives would actually embrace the positions that the left accuses them of taking, we wouldn't need a libertarian movement.

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Why does Robin Hayes want to tax me?

Posted by Jeff A. Taylor at 10:22 AM

What have I done to merit a 27.5 percent tax hike? How could that possibly be good for the economy or working families, especially if it helps usher in a world-wide recession?

Since when has economic central planning ever worked? And most of all, why have so many local Republicans collectively lost their minds?

Or should I say spines?

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Words to warm the heart

Posted by John Hood at 07:59 AM

Here are some public comments in the news Tuesday that might give Locker Roomies a nice, warm feeling.

First, there’s a new candidate for town council in Chapel Hill:

[Robin] Cutson, a graduate of Wake Forest University's School of Law, has built her public profile over the last few months, writing letters to the editor and columns in local newspapers. Before she even filed for the council election, Cutson had a Web site up and running. On it, she preaches fiscal responsibility, saying budget shortfalls, coupled with rising taxes and fees are making life more difficult for many Chapel Hill residents.

"Rising taxes and fees make housing unaffordable for those with moderate incomes and drive out small businesses who can no longer afford the high rents and fees," Cutson writes on her site.

Speaking against the incentives were Richard Moore and Eric Smith, both of Reidsville, and Beverly Wilcox of Wentworth.

"It is ethically and morally wrong to force a small business owner and homeowner to subsidize the profits of a large private company," Moore told the board. His sentiments were echoed by Smith and Wilcox, who said the board should not give tax breaks to multimillion-dollar companies.

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