The Z Spot

Thursday, May 8, 2008
Continuing the Dem Primary
Alright. I apologize in advance to the 60% of Democratic voters I am about to call idiots.

But, 60% of Democratic voters are idiots. That is the 60% who want Hillary to stay in the primary until after the last primary. First of all, she’s running out of money. Second of all, the polls are showing how terrible this idea is.

While the polls are still within or just outside the margin of errors, they have flipped into the Republicans’ favor. Originally, both Hillary and Obama were polling ahead of McCain by a couple of points in general election polls.

Now, McCain is ahead of both of them, again, only by a few points, but still. Why would you want to continue the primary that is obviously draining your party’s energy, as well as both candidates’ electability?

Second, Hillary is really screwing Obama, who, let’s face it, is going to be the Democratic nominee. Look at her last big ad campaign, which criticizes Obama for not having any plan related to increasing fuel prices, and points out that Hillary would like to put a summer moratorium on the federal gas tax. That’s great, except for one thing. What other candidate has plans for a moratorium on the federal tax? McCain.

Now, of course, whenever Hillary finally gives up, she will get behind Obama, and try to unite the party. How serious are people going to take that, when Obama still has no fuel plans, and his opponent (now also Hillary’s oponent) has the same plan she has?

I knew that when McCain won, people would be pointing their fingers at “racism,” “sexism,” etc. and saying that a Dem really should have won. I was okay with that, becasue it was pure bullshit.

Now, when we win this election, in addition to the race card, people will legitimately be able to point their fingers at Hillary. McCain and the Republicans are not going to win this election. Hillary is going to hand it to us on a silver platter.
Posted by Zach at 1:51 PM 0 comments Links to this post
Labels: 08, barack obama, Democratic Party, elections, hillary clinton, John McCain

Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Jeremiah Wright
I’m getting really sick of hearing about Jeremiah Wright. Let it go. There are several reasons I think this should be a non-issue, but the main one is this. Obama is far from the first person to go to a church whose pastor he does not entirely agree with.

The biggest example of this would be American Catholics. Catholics have been told repeatedly that voting for pro-choice candidates is a sin. Yet, Catholics are a consistent strong base of support for the Democratic Party.

Church and politics should be separate, first of all. What religion someone is or is not should not affect their chances of being elected. Second of all, organized religion, by nature, is very doctrine and dogma based. How many Christians belong to churches where some of the members believe in creationism? Do all of them believe in creationism themselves? How many Catholics have sex before marriage with a guilt-free conscious, or, even if they practice abstinence, believe that others have a right to make choices about their own reproductive lives?

Unless Hillary and her supporters are prepared to publicly ridicule all of the Irish, Italian and Latin Catholics that keep her party in power, especially in big cities, the Jeremiah Wright issue should be dropped.
Posted by Zach at 10:27 PM 0 comments Links to this post
Labels: 08, barack obama, elections, hillary clinton, jeremiah wright

Monday, March 17, 2008
Time’s Interestng Comments
Time Magazine recently criticized other journalistic outlets for endorsing candidates. They said it compromises journalistic integrity. First of all, this is not true. What’s the difference between editorializing on one issue (an election) versus any other issue? It’s just as non-neutral, and often just as partisan. There is a place for endorsements, and any other opinion and editorial material (conveniently called the OpEd section, imagine that), and papers should feel free to use them, or allow their columnists and readers to use them, as they see fit.

And the idea of there being a clear place (the OpEd section) for these comments, is a key point, and one that perhaps the staff of Time should pay more attention to. I know that magazine is a different medium than newspaper, and that as such, there’s a little more room for editorializing throughout the publication. I think it’s absurd, however, that Time ran this article in its briefing section. To simplify, let’s say there’s three types of stories: news, features, and OpEd. Which category should a section called “Briefings” fit into? How about lines like, “This is embarrassing for the Bush Administration;” “But blaming the Administration alone for this sad state of affairs is off the mark;” or ” In the Middle East, it’s not just the fighting that’s cyclical; it’s also the desperate chase for an improbable resolution.” That’s right. An issue after Time attacked other media outlets for endorsing candidates, saying it compromises their journalistic neutrality, the magazine runs a story with several examples of obvious editorialization, and not a single source cited during the entire article, as a news piece.

Who’s really risking journalistic integrity?
Posted by Zach at 5:51 PM 0 comments Links to this post
Labels: Chicago Sun Times, journalism, journalistic integrity, media, neutrality, press, Time magazine

I’m really surprised that with how much people love to rip on our politicians for making mistakes in speeches, that the Obama car comment hasn’t received more attention. Mr. President, the automobile was invented not in the U.S., but either in France (if you count a steam engine-propelled car) or Germany (if you only count the internal combustion engine).

Maybe France or Germany shouldn’t abandon the auto industry, but why are you talking about them?

In fact, Ford invented the first mass produced automobile. Perhaps what you meant to say is that the country that created the auto industry should not abandon the industry. And you would have a point. But let’s look at something here.

While an American invented the first mass produced automobile, did America, or, especially, the American government?

In fact, the reason that the auto industry (along with so many other industries) started and thrived here was because of our open markets and capitalist ideals. The idea that if one was willing to take a risk, and offer a product or service that had superior value and quality, they could make their millions. In other words, you take a risk, to offer a competitive product.

Henry Ford created the automobile industry. The U.S. government did not. So rather than stand by one industry, perhaps we should stand by the market capitalism that allowed that industry to exist. Stop bailing out Union industries, and start encouraging sustainable, competitive industry to thrive as it always has.

Friday, March 14, 2008
Who gets all the blame?
So I caught a little bit of Real Time with Bill Maher the other day. Some Clinton aide was on TV talking about why it’s not hypocritcal to attack Obama for his lack of experience and optimism. The Clinton aide said that, when Bill Clinton was President, we didn’t have 9/11, we didn’t have Al Qaeda, we didn’t have Iraq. That’s why it wasn’t as important when he was running to look for somebody with a lot of experience.

I’ve gotten over (or should I say that his actions have gotten me over) defending Bush Jr. all the time. He’s messed up. BUT for anyone to try to say that Al Qaeda, or Iraq, were new during his Presidency, or to try to say that either Bill Clinton or even George Sr. couldn’t have done anything differently that would have led to a better situation in the Middle East right now is ignorant.

We had been bombing Iraq, killing its civilians, and sanctioning its economy for 15 years before the Iraq War actually started. That encompasses not only Bill’s presidency, but also a significant portion of Bush Sr.’s. In fact, Saddam tried to kill Bush Sr. And remember, we fought a war in Iraq in the ’90s.

People need to realize that the world, and our relations with it, don’t “reset” every time we decide to elect a new president. The impact of our policies many years ago can still be felt. So to say that Bill didn’t need to be as experienced as the next president should be is absurd.
Posted by Zach at 2:47 PM 0 comments Links to this post
Labels: 08, Al Qaeda, barack obama, Bill Clinton, elections, George Bush, hillary clinton, iraq

So there’s a lot of talk about the stimulus package and what it does or does not do. One thing I think has been beat into the ground, so I’m not going to talk about it here, is whether everything does, or should, create new jobs.

I am going to touch on this, though, since even CNN commentators were pointing out one issue with this the other day. Arguably, any kind of spending creates jobs. The question to ask then is what kind of jobs are being created? Largely, the stimulus plan calls for the creation of short term job opportunities, and a few long term job opportunities. In the following sectors:

Short Term:
Construction
Roadwork

Long Term:
Police and Fire
Teachers
Public Works

Notice anything interesting about these jobs? That’s right. They’re all Union jobs. I guess that shouldn’t be surprising from a Chicago Democrat. The guy who was defending the proposal made the argument that this is actually a good thing, since Union jobs are the best jobs out there. But let’s look at that list again. Not only is it all Union work, it’s all skilled labor. These jobs are going to re-employ a very specific subset of the population. Joe Blow off the street is not about to go get a teaching certificate, and get a Union job (especially in some places, ahem, Chicago, ahem). He’s not going to pick up a jackhammer and build a highway. He’s not going to go fight fires.

This is not creating new jobs. This is Obama pushing the government to do what individual agencies and companies have been unable or unwilling to do: keep Union employees employed. It’s no secret that by and large, the Unions (except the teachers’ union) backed Obama against Hillary, and certainly that they all backed him against McCain. I’m curious to see how many Union-funded PACs contributed to his campaign. And I’m curious to see what Chicago union organizers he’s having lunch with.

Whatever his intentions, it does not look good for a Democrat from a very union/Democratic/(corrupt) city/state to come into office and push a trillion plus dollar stimulus package, which instead of putting the population at large to work, or encouraging long-term, sustainable economic growth, essentially guarantees a continued plethora of a) publicly funded, and b) Union work.

Thursday, March 6, 2008
Break from the election, let’s talk education
I’m going to take a break from talking about the election for a moment here. At least from talking about the candidates specifically.

Instead, I’m going to comment on an issue recently discussed in Time Magazine. The article was on merit pay, and was interesting. What was more interesting was people’s responses in the next issue.

People saying “merit pay doesn’t make sense,” “teachers shouldn’t be judged on test results,” “teachers need more freedom.” In theory, I agree. All teachers should be paid more, and get more support, and more independence. They shouldn’t be teaching to the test, but should be focusing on individuals.

Although there do need to be standards. Granted, I’ve never taught in a classroom. I have, however, trained employees in the event industry, and taught lifeguarding certification classes, and, most relevantly, swim lessons. I know what a pain it is when a previous instructor says, “You know, maybe this stroke isn’t perfect, but this kid has learned a lot, and her other strokes are way above the level they should be at. I’ll make her a level X anyway.” Even with four students, this creates problems.

Imagine a class with 2o or 30 kids. If each of them was given more leeway in the previous class, and were taught by a teacher with a lot of independence, imagine the difficulty being a new teacher in a class where one student can do long division, but doesn’t know basic multiplication, one is a master of fractions, but doesn’t know what a percent is, etc.

Good teachers can overcome this. The real issue, in my mind, is this, though. Teachers are unionized. They still get underpaid (good ones included), but it’s hard to get rid of the bad ones. Bad teachers, who have lost their passion, or who are simply incompetent, make it hard to give good teachers more freedom. A woman said that teaching is interrupted by too much observation and paperwork. Is this the school’s, the system’s, or the state’s fault?

I would argue it’s not. It’s the Union’s fault, as well as the fault of every teacher who is not doing the best they can be. If every teacher was passionate, focused on individual students, reached out to parents, and reached out to other teacher’s or the administration to get new ideas, new methodology, etc. and took continuing ed seriously, and as an opportunity to improve their own subject knowledge, we wouldn’t need so much observation and paperwork.

Don’t get me wrong. 98% of teachers have the best of intentions. With coaching, resources, a little leeway, and better pay, they could be great teachers. The other 2%, however, make it so that resources are spent babysitting and punishing teachers, and rewarding those who manage even to meet the minimum requirements of their job. That 2%, and the cities and Unions that keep them in their jobs, are the real problem.

Until there is a way to get rid of poorly performing teachers based on subjective opinions of their superiors, students, and parents, we need an objective measurement. Even though everybody could probably name their worst teacher, as could that teacher’s boss, they’re still teaching, becasue a principal can’t say “You’re a bad teacher, you’re fired.” without somehow proving that the teacher is bad. Although they may be flawed, standardized tests are the best objective measure of teaching that we have right now. And they are needed.
Posted by Zach at 11:18 PM 0 comments Links to this post
Labels: education, merit pay, standardized test, teachers, union

Anyone else think it’s interesting that Obama nixed his idea for a car czar? If I recall correctly, he was pretty loud about wanting one a while ago. Hopefully the committee he puts together to overlook the auto bailout can work just as well. But why do we think he doesn’t want a car czar anymore?

He can say it’s because it’s not the ideal structure, or it will save money, or be more efficient, or bring more great minds together. Let’s consider another possibility. So far, Obama has had some dismal failures with appointments. He can’t even find a Commerce Secretary on the first or second time. Maybe he ditched the car czar idea because it’s one more person with potential issues he would have to appoint.

Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Who are the real “mavericks?”
Okay. I was thinking today about the image that both Barack Obama and John McCain have as being renegades, mavericks, and outsiders. And I think it’s a bunch of bull. How can Hellary or Huckabee claim that these candidates don’t really stand for their party?

Let’s talk about not supporting your party. You are losing the primary. Everybody but you knows it. In one case, you even said that you needed to win both of today’s large primaries by large margins. Your margins shrunk, or disappeared altogether in the runup to today. You are taking supporters, campaign staff, and fundraising efforts away from the candidate who is obviously going to win your party’s nomination.

Not only are you costing them money that would be better spent battling the other party in the lead up to November by forcing them to spend it running against you, you are distracting your party’s followers, who might otherwise be opening their checkbooks up to the nominee-to-be. You are slinging mud at the candidate who, in 2 months, you will inevitably be supporting. That forces them to turn around and sling it back at you, instead of across the aisle where it should be.

Let’s get realistic here. Barack and McCain. Independent? Yes. Traitors to their parties? No. The real traitors are the candidates that don’t know when to throw in the towel.
Posted by Zach at 8:35 PM 0 comments Links to this post
Labels: 08, barack obama, elections, hillary clinton, John McCain, mike huckabee
Saturday, February 16, 2008

So I’m not one of those people who say Obama had a love affair with the media, or was more celebrity than politician. But I have all along said that he set the bar too high, and that he’s not the Messiah the media, the Democrats, or anyone else, expects him to be.

Even the media seems to be losing their infatuation with him. CNBC cut off his first televised press conference to broadcast the Westminster Dog Show.

In a New York Times article, they say, “The images, while presidential, bore only a faint resemblance to the man who charmed voters with an outside-of-Washington persona.” And polls are also starting to show that support for His stimulus package is dwindling.

Is the country starting to see the Messiah as more human? Only time will tell.