Same-sex what?

The Dallas Blog's William Murchison tries to fire up the religious right again just before an election with scare stories out of New Jersey, where the Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples deserve similar legal protections and benefits that society gives to heterosexual couples.

Mr Murchison trots out the old argument that discrimination is just common sense. Let's take his own words and recast them as they might have been said during a different civil rights struggle. See how Mr Murchison's arguments sound in a different setting.

What's good enough for whites is good enough for African-Americans, right? Many things are, yes. Civil rights isn't one of those things, as the great majority of Americans seem to know in their bones: otherwise they wouldn't have kept enacting Jim Crow laws at the polls.

In fact, the segregationists never asked for the fight they commenced a half century ago against attempts by judges to ram down society's open throat the judges' own notions like "all men are created equal." It was the judges who started this brawl.

A century ago, Americans had to struggle for women's right to vote. A half century ago, Americans had to struggle for African-Americans' civil rights. Today, Americans have to struggle against discrimination based on sexual orientation. The victims are different in each case. The enormity of the crime is different in each case. But discrimination, large or small, is wrong in all these cases, whether Mr Murchison knows it in his bones or not.

Mr Murchison asks about the resistance of the Christian right wing, "How come those who merely fight back, exercising their First Amendment rights, get accused of seeking darkly to turn culturally diverse America into a Puritan theocracy?" The answer is simple. It's because some people today are, in fact, trying to turn culturally diverse American into a Puritan theocracy.

Mr Murchison says "The notion of heterosexual marriage as an institution worthy of protection and nurture is not vastly popular on the political left." Nonsense. A century ago, advocating a woman's right to vote in no way diminished the respect given to a man's right to vote. Likewise today, extending basic protections and benefits to same-sex couples in no way diminishes the respect given to the institution of marriage. Mr Murchison, on the contrary, is not "protecting" or "nurturing" marriage at all. He's discriminating against gays and lesbians, pure and simple.

US and Iraqi leader at odds

Dallas Blog | Tom Pauken:

“On 9-12 of this year (one day after Mr. Bush praised him in a speech to mark the anniversary of 9-11), al-Maliki was cordially greeted by Admadinejad in Tehran. The genial host declared that 'Iran and Iraq, as two brotherly neighbors, will stand by each other, and unwanted guests will leave the region,' while al-Maliki stood smiling and nodding approvingly.”

Ed Cognoski responds:

Tom Pauken of the Dallas Blog approvingly quotes Srdja Trifkovic of Chronicles magazine in his story about the recent disagreements between the US and Iraqi governments. Mr Trifkovic is a paleoconservative. Take his reporting on Islam with a large grain of salt. Here are two other quotes from Mr Trifkovic:

"Islam is akin to fascism and bolshevism."
"For a Christian the real task is to help our fellow humans who are trapped in Islam and to help them become free."

Mr Pauken is forever concerned about monolithic, global Islam overrunning Christian Europe (and eventually America). From his viewpoint, al-Maliki and Ahmedinejad, both Muslims, are indistinguishable and equally evil.

It's enlightening to compare Mr Pauken's characterization of the meeting between Iraqi and Iranian leaders with the report of the meeting published in Iraq's own press. Here is what Alsumaria Iraqi satellite TV network said transpired:

"Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki conducted his first official visit to Iran since taking office. He delivered a blunt message that Tehran should not interfere in Iraqi affairs."

No indication of smiles, nods or winks. No grand alliance of Iran and Iraq against the US. In fact, anyone who thinks that Iran and Iraq, two countries that recently fought a bitter war against each other, suffering millions of casualties on both sides, might suddenly develop brotherly love, is guilty of simplistic thinking. In fact, the Middle East is a cauldron of conflict... between Sunni and Shiite, between Arab and Persian and Turk, between Bedouin tribespeople and oil sheikhs and slumdwellers and a rising middle class, between autocrats and theocrats (and maybe even a few democrats). Americans, always wanting to divide the world into black and white, good and evil, with us or against us, could benefit from a little study of the region and its internal complexity.

SETI failure: Extinguishing our moral values

“A vote for Republicans is truly a vote for preservation of the Constitution. The Republic will be dead when Democrats gain their apparent goal to abrogate the Constitution and extinguish the moral values our Forefathers cherished that have carried our nation to greatness. The American experiment has never been in more jeopardy.”

Ed Cognoski responds:

Today's failure in our Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence comes from the Dallas Blog, where our deep space antenna picked up the above transmission from a reader named RelicMM. It sounds like English but does it indicate an intelligent source? It was in the comments section of a blog entry about the Republican Party's chances in local elections in Dallas County.

Let's see, the national Republicans are giving us signing statements, secret prisons, torture, wiretapping and revoking habeus corpus. On the other hand, the Dallas County Democrats are focused on school funding, child protection, and capping sales taxes. Yes, those county Democrats are putting the American experiment in grave jeopardy alright. Maybe on RelicMM's planet.

The above quote was reason enough to select RelicMM as today's SETI failure. But then our deep space antenna picked up another RelicMM communication that sealed the selection. This time, RelicMM offers his take on medical science: "The reason scientists are trying to bring embryonic stem cells into the limelight is because they want to prove that they can improve on what God has created."

RelicMM... today's SETI failure.

Patrick Henry on Australian Muslim clerics

After rambling on for three long paragraphs, praising the quotation he's about to share with readers, Davic C. Hunnicutt, a Dallas Blog reader, finally quotes Patrick Henry. At least, he thinks he's quoting Patrick Henry. What he gives us is better filed in the too-good-to-be-true category, as a minute or two with a search engine would have revealed:

"Another spurious quotation. These words appear nowhere in the writings or recorded utterances of Patrick Henry."
( http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/capital.asp )

"This has been cited at a some sites as being in a speech to the House of Burgesses in May 1765, but the date and quote both seem spurious: it is extremely anachronistic to have Henry speaking of the colony of Virginia in 1765 as a "nation" that afforded "peoples of other faiths" the "freedom of worship." ( http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Patrick_Henry#Disputed_quotations )

"Henry was an anti-federalist, and vigorously opposed the Constitution when Virginia discussed ratification. Quoting Henry to prove things about the constitution is like quoting the chairman of the Republican National Committee to prove things about the platform of the Democratic party."
-- http://www.sullivan-county.com/id3/debate.htm

May I have a word? I'm sorry

A Muslim cleric in Australia, Sheikh Taj El-Din Al-Hilali, ignited a firestorm of protest when he appeared to blame the victim for being raped. He was quoted as saying:

"If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the back yard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it... whose fault is it, the cats or the uncovered meat? The uncovered meat is the problem."

I'm pretty sure that I won't agree with much of this cleric's view of women and women's rights, but I will say that he knows how to apologize. He quickly issued this statement:

"I unreservedly apologise to any woman who is offended by my comments. I had only intended to protect women's honour. Women in our Australian society have the freedom and the right to dress as they choose. Whether a man endorses or not a particular form of dress, any form of harassment of women is unacceptable."

He apologized.
He professed his good intentions.
He stated his position, which women's rights advocates should agree with.

Contrast this with Pope Benedict's reaction to the protests provoked by his speech at Regensburg University in which he quoted from a fourteenth century Christian emperor who said Muhammad had brought the world only "evil and inhuman" things.

The pope apologized.
He professed his good intentions.
But he didn't retract the sentiment of his speech, which is that Islam is tainted by violence and is in some way, evil. Muslims were not appeased.

That man doesn't know how to apologize.

Unhelping the homeless

Startle Grams | Paul Bourgeois:

“By supporting homeless shelters, are we sending a mixed message? Are we in any way enabling more homelessness in our area? Are we really helping these people?”

Ed Cognoski responds:

Yes, yes and yes.

Without shelters, a few homeless people would be motivated to get jobs and move into homes of their own. Not many, but a few. Others would die, from exposure or malnutrition or disease. Still others would move to more hospitable cities.

Shelters enable all of them, the lazy, the mentally ill, the poorest of the poor, to be homeless and yet survive. Providing shelters may not really help the lazy, but it really helps the mentally ill and the poorest of the poor.

The best approach is multi-faceted. Besides food kitches and shelters, offer counseling, drug and alcohol treatment, preventive medical care, job training and job opportunities. The best way to get the homeless off the streets is not to let them end up there in the first place.

May I have a word? Rejuvenation

Eighteen former employees of The Dallas Morning News filed an age discrimation lawsuit against the DMN and Belo Corporation. The complainants allege that DMN stereotyped older employees as being inflexible and unable to adapt to new technology, and unlikely to accept changes based on marketing "focus groups" rather than excellent, ethical journalism. The complaint charges DMN with deliberately hiring younger writers to "rejuvenate" the newspaper and appeal to younger readers. The eighteen charge DMN with targeting employees over age 40 in a reduction-in-force in 2004.

It sounds like maybe the DMN executives knew pretty much what was wrong with the newspaper, except they wrongly attributed the failings to the age of the employees. The housecleaning needed at the DMN was not limited to any one age group. The whole newspaper, top to bottom, was in need of "rejuvenation." Rejuvenation is the phenomenon of vitality and freshness being restored, as in "the annual rejuvenation of the landscape" (wordnet.princeton.edu). Landscapes need it annually and it has nothing to do with the age of the gardener. Newspapers need it periodically, too, and it has nothing to do with the age of the staffers in the newsroom.

Those eighteen complainants might have a case against the DMN for workplace discrimination based on age. Ironically, that doesn't necessarily mean they should still be working there. Firing all the DMN employees because of the poor product they turned out would have been defensible.

Rush Limbaugh is a big fat idiot -- the sequel

Uncle Barky's Bytes | Ed Bark:

“On the issue of Michael J. Fox -- to name just one -- Rush Limbaugh is a fathead. And a big, fat idiot, too.”

Ed Cognoski responds:

Ed Bark, former television critic for The Dallas Morning News takes the gloves off in lambasting Rush Limbaugh's reaction to Michael J. Fox's television ad in support of Missouri Senate candidate, Claire McCaskill, who backs embryonic stem cell research, which Fox views as promising hope for better treatment for diseases like the Parkinson's Syndrome he is afflicted with.

Ed Bark - Unplugged. It's enough to show what big fat idiots the executives at The Dallas Morning News were to let Ed Bark get away. And for keeping him on a short leash for so many years before that.

UT law professor says US Constitution obsolete

A law professor at the University of Texas, Sanford Levinson, has published a book, Our Undemocratic Constitution, in which he calls for more democratic apportionment of Senators, replacement of the Electoral College with direct election of the President, constraints on the imperial presidency, term limits on federal judges, and many more reforms. He admires the Founders' political genius, but argues that it's time to review the compromises they struck in order to win ratification. The conditions of the time that led to the compromises have changed (e.g., the split between slaveholding and free states). In his view, maybe it's time the Constitution did, too.

The Dallas Blog's Tom Pauken is appalled that liberals are trying to "impose their progressive vision on our country." He claims that, while liberals want to "ditch" the Constitution, conservatives are the true defenders of its principles.

So, let's take a closer look at the claim. Recent attempts to amend our Constitution have come mostly from the right, not the left. President Bush wants the Constitution to discriminate against gays. Others want to whittle away free speech rights to protect the flag. Jesse Helms called for a Constitutional Convention to require balanced budgets (though we don't hear that anymore from Republicans). For others, like right-wing author Bruce Walker, a constitutional convention is needed to combat judicial activism and "the trend toward indifferent, centralized and undemocratic elitist leftist rule." A couple dozen states have already petitioned the federal government to convene a Constitutional Convention. The list of desired amendments is long.

• balanced budget
• repeal of income tax
• restrictions on taxation
• term limits
• line item veto
• defense of marriage
• school prayer
• funding for religious and home schools
• restrictions on courts
• restrictions on treaties and world government

You decide if it's the right or the left that is the bigger threat to our Constitution.

A wolf among the sheep

Recently, Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) taped a telephone message used in California to encourage voters to reject Proposition 85, which would require parental notification before abortions are performed on minors.

We can quickly dispose of the Dallas Blog's report of this news. Tara Ross repeatedly tells us that parental notification is "common sense" supported by "mainstream" Americans who are "rational". On the other hand, she tells us that Senator Clinton is a "wild-eyed liberal" or a "ranting liberal", a wolf in "moderate's clothing." It's as if she believes that if she just asserts something enough times, sooner or later we'll just believe it without requiring evidence or logical argument.

Ms Ross, like others on the right, opposes Senator Clinton's goal of making abortion safe, legal and rare. Tara Ross is no moderate. That Ms Ross is so quick to pounce on Senator Clinton reveals just who the real wolf is.

But Ms Ross' a priori logic doesn't let Senator Clinton off the hook. She does seem to have a hard time articulating just where she draws the line on parental notification laws.

In the telephone recording, Senator Clinton is clear in opposing California's parental notification law, which includes a judicial bypass clause. She says,

"We are opposed because 85 will put our most vulnerable teens at risk -- teens who may already be endangered by negligent or even abusive homes. We can do better. Let's work together to protect all our children."

Last October, when California was debating (before rejecting) a similar proposition requiring parental notification, Senator Clinton was quoted as saying much the same thing.

"We obviously hope and expect that our children will come to us if they face difficult circumstances such as an unplanned pregnancy, but we also know that sometimes in the real world, families are in crisis, or there's a history of violence, and young people simply cannot confide in their parents. In situations like that, laws cannot mandate family communications, and there needs to be recognition and acceptance of that."

But in between, in January, 2005, at a news conference after a speech before abortion rights supporters, Senator Clinton referred to an Arkansas parental notification law, saying

"I supported parental notification with a judicial bypass."

Because both the Arkansas law and the California proposition contain judicial bypass clauses, one of which Senator Clinton supported and another opposed, Senator Clinton owes the voters an explanation. Exactly what kind of protections does she require in a parental notification law to find it acceptable?

Senator Clinton is obviously struggling to balance the benefits of parental counseling against the damage of stripping away the protections some young women need against negligent and abusive family situations. In that she is a moderate, as many in the vast political center are struggling to find that balance themselves.

Senator Clinton is probably also doing some political triangulation, too. That makes it all the more important that she resolve this dilemma. It's good to know that a politician struggles with difficult issues, rather than parrots simplistic, ideological positions, but leaving the impression that the politician is trying to have it both ways serves no one any good, including the politician herself.

How hard can it be?

The Star-Telegram's Gregg Cantrell lays out a sobering history of "joke" candidates for governor in Texas. It doesn't bode well for a Kinky Friedman administration. A Friedman administration is not going to happen, but Mr Cantrell's column does foretell something that is likely to happen that does mirror the distant past.

Gov Perry has appointed Tom Pauken chairman of something called the Texas Task Force on Appraisal Reform. Despite the noble sounding name, the purpose of the task force seems to be nothing more than a disguised push to cut taxes again. The national real estate boom has not bypassed Texas. Those rising property values lead to rising appraisals. With a steady tax rate, that leads to rising tax collections. Normally, prosperity is considered a good thing. Rising incomes and rising wealth are normally things politicians trumpet. Given that Texas ranks near dead last among the states in education, you'd think people would welcome the new prosperity to allow Texas to finally do something about that. You'd be wrong. Many people think the reason for Texas' falling educational standards is that schools have too much money. So, they want to cap appraisals or cap tax revenue to make sure that none of our new-found prosperity is spent on schools or other local gov't needs.

What does Mr Cantrell's history lesson have to tell us about this? Well, one of those "joke" candidates for governor all those years ago, "Farmer Jim" Ferguson, ran on a platform that promised to cap the rents that landlords could charge to tenant farmers. "Farmer Jim" Ferguson was elected. The rest, as they say, is history:

Ferguson was ultimately impeached, convicted on a lengthy list of corruption charges and banned from holding office in Texas. Never one to back down, he ran his wife, Miriam (who became "Ma" to his "Pa" in the public vernacular), for governor in 1924, promising "two governors for the price of one." Ma won, and she served a second term in the 1930s. Legislative ineffectiveness and outright corruption were the principal hallmarks of her administrations.

That's the trouble with simplistic solutions to complex problems. Voters go for them in a big way because they promise so much for so little. But in reality, they bring with them more problems than they solve. How hard can it be? Plenty hard, as it turns out. Whether it's the rent caps of yesteryear, or the appraisal caps of today, beware politicians from Austin promising simple solutions. And that's no joke.

Supreme Court clears Arizona to require picture ID to vote

The Supreme Court, in a purely technical decision, set aside an injunction against requiring photo IDs to vote in the upcoming elections in Arizona. The decision was made on procedural grounds and did not rule on the constitutionality of the measure itself. That remains to be decided.

Nevertheless, the news triggered the usual arguments. Requiring photo IDs is needed to keep illegal aliens out of the voting booth. It's not a burden, as photo IDs can be obtained for $15. And there's no way that this requirement is racist.

In fact, requiring people to pay $15 to acquire the identification needed to vote discriminates against poor people, who are less likely to have driver's licenses and less likely to be able to afford the $15 for a special ID. Because a greater percentage of blacks and Hispanics are poor than whites, the requirement ends up having a racist effect.

And because the poor and blacks and Hispanics tend to vote Democratic, the Democrats oppose such measures and Republicans support the measures. It has little to do with illegal aliens voting. Neither the Democratic nor Republican Party really thinks illegal aliens are voting. Heck, not even Hispanic citizens are voting in large numbers. But the illegal alien angle makes a great red herring to get this racist, anti-Democratic and anti-democratic measure passed.

If the proponents of this requirement were not politically partisan, they would be working to make it free and easy for everyone to get a photo ID. Pass them out in convenience stores and gas stations and check cashing stores, where you get your drivers' license and welfare checks, have police offer them with every traffic stop, etc.

What are we banning when we prohibit smoking?

Dallas Morning News | Mark Davis:

“How, in a free country, can people favor government dictating that a restaurant cannot allow a legal act desired by its clientele?”

Ed Cognoski responds:

Mr Davis' deceptively worded question contains a false premise and that is that smoking in public places is legal. In fact, it is in some places and isn't in others. Even in a free country, the people collectively, through government decide what is and what isn't legal, by definition. So, the issue isn't government not allowing "legal acts", but government banning smoking, in particular, in specific places.

Properly phrased, Mr Davis' question is, "How in a free country, can people favor government dictating that restaurant cannot allow smoking, even when desired by its clientele?" That question is easy to answer, too. Second hand smoke kills. It's a legitimate government function to stop people from killing each other. All the rest of Mr Davis' rant about nannies and busybodies and perfume and whatnot is mere smoke.

On TV, It's Politics As Usual

BusinessWeek | Jon Fine:

“As of September 24, according to media tracker TNS Media Intelligence (TNS), all political spending on broadcast TV was $710 million, which nearly triples 2004's non-Presidential TV spending. Web spending through July, the most recent figures available: $1.7 million.”

Ed Cognoski responds:

Is local television reaping the local political advertising dollar, too? I checked out Dallas Blog to get a clue. The banner ad at the top rotates among six ads: two for issue advocacy (water rights, Robin Hood), one public service (Veterans' Day parade), one for a state university (Texas Tech), three for local businesses (a dentist, an industrial controls supplier, and a hot dog vendor), two for other news media (D Business Journal and D Magazine) and two for candidates for elective office (David Lewis and Susan Rankin).

Are Judge Rankin and Judge-wannabe Lewis showing their Internet savvy by advertising on the Web? Or are they so strapped for cash that they cannot afford Channel 8? It may be telling that David Lewis' banner ad is the only one run by Dallas blog that is not an active link to a Web site. If he has a Web site, Google didn't list it on the first page of hits. So, I'd guess cash poor, not Internet savvy.

Like most Internet surfing, my original search raised new questions. What's with all those D Magazine ads on Dallas Blog? Is there more of a relationship there than just banner ad seller and buyer? Perhaps a reciprocal agreement to promote each other? Not if the banner ad on Frontburner is any indication. Sewell Cadillac seems to have that space sewn up. The fact that Frontburner attracts the luxury car advertisers and Dallas Blog attracts the hot dog vendor maybe says more about the pecking order than Tom Pauken and Scott Bennett would like.

Address the faith

Mark Davis can't understand why Muslims don't gather in a visible gesture to say they will not have their faith defined by Osama bin Laden. The simplest answer is usually the best. Osama bin Laden doesn't define Islam to the billion people who practice that religion. If Americans in general, and Mark Davis in particular, are confused about what Islam is all about, so be it. Muslims themselves aren't and, for them, that's what important.

Christians, in general, don't feel a need to gather in a visible gesture to say that Christian extremists like abortion clinic bomber Eric Rudolph don't represent Christianity. Eric Rudolph may cite Biblical passages that call for death for offenses as murder, cursing one's parents or simple Sabbath violations. But most Christians have no difficulty in rejecting association with Eric Rudolph without having to provide theological justification. Mark Davis distances himself from Eric Rudolph unequivocally.

Likewise, Muslims have no difficulty in rejecting association with the 9/11 suicide hijackers without having to provide theological justifications. Yet somehow Mark Davis, not a particularly noted theologian, does not hesitate from asserting that suicide bombers are true followers of Quranic teachings. He assumes most Muslims must literally accept his own simple-minded reading of passages of the Quran taken out of context.

Mark Davis should probably spend more time in Bible class learning why Christians can selectively assert as true whatever Bible passages they want and less time asserting what other religions teach.

Instead, Mark Davis offers his "outlandish" idea. He decides that what Islam needs most of all is a Reformation. Not only does Mark Davis reject one of the world's great religions, Islam, but he implicitly rejects Orthodox Christianity and Roman Catholicism, too, major branches of Christianity that thrive today, centuries after Mr Davis's outlandish idea split Western European Christianity. Mr Davis is right about only one thing, that is, it's the height of presumptuousness for "the Christian guy" to unfurl his master plan, which amounts to little more than asking everyone else to be just like him.

Priest beheaded in Iraq

In a comment to a news story reporting yet another religion-motivated killing in Iraq, the Dallas Blog's Tom Pauken rightly says that we have to avoid pursuing a policy which has the effect of radicalizing more Muslims and making the situation worse. Mr Pauken rightly recognizes the failure of President Bush's foreign policy. President Bush has simplified the war as a war against evildoers, lumping together as diverse enemies as Saddam Hussein, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong-Il and driving everyone in the world who isn't 100% behind America into their camp. Unfortunately, Mr Pauken himself has simplified the war as a religious war, Christianity against Islam with Western secularists aiding and abetting the enemy. Both President Bush's policy and Mr Pauken's result in radicalizing more Muslims and making the situation worse.

In fact, the Middle East is a volatile brew of Shiites and Sunnis; Arabs and Persians and Turks and Kurds; oil-rich sheikdoms, dirt-poor Bedouins, and a rising urban middle-class. An informed foreign policy is needed, one that takes into account these differences and exploits them, encouraging the growth of moderates and isolating the extremists. Unfortunately, neither President Bush's simplistic approach nor Tom Pauken's, holds much promise of success.

Would you swap property taxes for sales taxes?

Tom Pauken, chair of the Texas Task Force on Appraisal Reform, says that the "the key to passing reform is producing a package of legislation, rather than focusing on the individual parts." OK, let's look at the whole package...

• Mandatory sales price disclosure: Good because it leads to accurate appraisals.
• Appraisal caps: Bad, because it distorts the real estate market.
• Revenue caps: Maybe. But let state legislators start by imposing a state revenue cap, just to show the local governments how well it works.

  And don't require a local referendum to set rates that will exceed those revenue caps. Government by referendum is how California is governed. Instead, just require local government officials to publicly vote on the tax rate each year. Voters can decide themselves to throw the bums out if they vote wrong.

• Direct election of appraisal boards: Bad because it politicizes the appraisal process. If the goal is accurate appraisals, this won't lead to it. Appraisers should be tasked with providing fair and accurate appraisals, not pleasing voters.
• Local option property tax-sales tax swap: Bad because Texas already relies too heavily on regressive sales taxes. Broad-based taxation is good. The last Legislature shifted some of the property tax burden to business. If more shift is needed, it's time to consider an income tax, the one leg of the table not yet holding any of the weight.

May I have a word? Appraisal reform

Texas Governor Rick Perry created the Texas Tax Force on Appraisal Reform, naming Tom Pauken to chair the advisory group. Mr Pauken is the former chairman of the Republican Party of Texas and, more recently, publisher and frequent contributor to Dallas Blog. His posts there give the lie to Gov Perry's claim that the task force not have any pre-arranged conclusions. It is clear now that the goal of the task force has little to do with "appraisal reform" and everything to do with cutting taxes and imposing state restrictions on the power of local government to set tax rates. Calling it "appraisal reform" is so much more likely to gather bipartisan support than the "Texas Tax Force on Cutting Taxes" would have. Control the language and you control the debate. But I get ahead of myself. First, some background...

Property appraisals are rising because property values are rising. The country has been in a real estate bubble. It's that simple. Texas hasn't participated in that like some other areas of the country, but property values are rising here, too. It's not a conspiracy. It's not devious plot to raise taxes. If you tax income and incomes go up, so do tax collections. If you tax wealth and property values go up, so do tax collections. Increasing incomes and wealth are good things, folks.

Appraisers do the best they can to determine fair market values, but are handicapped by one big restriction. Texas does not require sales price disclosure. The best tool for determining fair market value is to look at the prices that comparable properties sold for recently. That requires sales price disclosure. Without that tool, appraisals sometime come in well off the mark, both high and low.

Mr Pauken's task force could address the biggest problem with appraisals just by giving county appraisal boards the power to require sales disclosure. But erroneous appraisals actually serve Mr Pauken's larger purpose of state-imposed tax cuts on localities. It's in Mr Pauken's self interest to let this weakness go unaddressed. Erroneous appraisals foster taxpayer complaints against the system as a whole, creating an opportunity for Mr Pauken to "solve" the problem by recommending rate caps, revenue caps, rollback elections, instead of just giving the appraisal boards the only tool really needed for "appraisal reform".

To support his argument, Mr Pauken strangely chose to report on a recent meeting of the Cypress-Fairbanks school board, where some 300 residents turned out to protest a tax rate increase to pay for an $80 million, voter-approved, athletic stadium and multipurpose center. How this illustrates a problem needing Austin-imposed "appraisal reform" is a real stretch. This is a case where 300 residents don't like paying for what a majority of their community voted for. And they went to their school board to protest, not to Austin. Local solutions for local problems. But Mr Pauken apparently thinks the solution is to have the state require the local citizens to vote again and again and yet again, once for the school board to represent their interests, once for the bond package for the athletic stadium and multipurpose center, and now yet again to avoid rolling back taxes in the face of rising property values. I suppose if the voters again approve the tax rate, Mr Pauken will devise yet another "reform" until he gets the tax cuts that he and 300 residents are really after.

So much for "appraisal reform." Rather than discuss the issues surrounding property appraisals, Mr Pauken plays word games, using Dallas Blog like some kind of focus group to see what bumper sticker slogans are effective at building support for his and Governor Perry's pre-arranged conclusion. Mr Pauken's blogs are filled with loaded terminology like "stealth tax" and "taxpayer protections" and "appraisal reform" when the real goal is plain and simple tax cuts. Criticize Mr Pauken's proposal to impose state regulation on localities and he asks why you are against "taxpayer protections"? In the comments section of the blog, one appraisal board member called him on using the term "appraisal creep" instead of the neutral (and more accurate) term, rising property values. But don't look for Mr Pauken to change his tactics. Not if it's beneficial to demonize the appraisal boards through use of loaded terminology. Just talk about the issues, Mr Pauken and leave the word games out of it.

May I have a word? Democrat vs Democratic

Mrs Griffith, my third grade teacher, and grammar school teachers everywhere, hang your heads. All those years of teaching the difference between good and well, between it's and its, between imply and infer, were lost on the political party of the education President, the party of No Child Left Behind.

Teachers have drilled children for generations on the parts of speech: nouns, verbs, adjectives. For example, a believer in democracy is a democrat, a noun. A government based on democracy is a democratic one, an adjective. Likewise, Bill Clinton is a Democrat, a member of the Democratic Party.

Simple, no? You'd think. So how come Republicans have such a hard time with this concept, habitually saying things like "Democrat Party" and "Democrat candidate." Are they all simply uneducated? Or is this a colloquialism like "nucular" that is impossible to shake despite the ridicule it triggers.

A thread on Dallas Blog finally prompted me to dig into the subject. Trey Garrison quoted Kinky Friedman's blog, which referenced "Democratic candidate Chris Bell". Only in Trey Garrison's own commentary, he said, "Democrat gubernatorial candidate Chris Bell."

There it was. Side by side. Kinky gets it right. Trey Garrison gets it wrong, even when Kinky's text is staring him right in the face. Why is that, I wondered? A little Googling turned up this:

“This tick was a custom that went into disuse for nearly 50 years. Its origins, however, are interesting and were toxic. It was Senator Joe McCarthy who, with his twisted mouth often oozing the charming brew of beer and saliva, would snarl out the words 'Democrat Party,' as if they referred to vermin. Perhaps it is an indication of Republican panic that they have descended to using McCarthy's cheap tactics to discredit the opposition.”

I don't think panic motivates Republicans, but "cheap trick" certainly fits. So, now we know that the locution goes back at least as far as the 1950s, but we still don't know why Senator McCarthy chose to use the term. A little more Googling and I had the answer, from The Columbia Guide to Standard American English:

“The proper noun [Democrat] is the name of a member of a major American political party; the adjective Democratic is used in its official name, the Democratic party. Democrat as an adjective is still sometimes used by some twentieth-century Republicans as a campaign tool but was used with particular virulence by the late senator Joseph R. McCarthy of Wisconsin, a Republican who sought by repeatedly calling it the Democrat party to deny it any possible benefit of the suggestion that it might also be democratic.”

So, there you have it. Republicans continue to pay homage to anti-Communist, witch-hunting, Senator Joe McCarthy all these years later, playing word games to imply that the Democrats (big D) are not democratic (little D).

Juvenile and petty? Certainly. Uneducated? That's harder to answer. My guess, and it's only a guess, is that the majority of Republicans aren't even aware of sounding uneducated, and of the ones that are aware, most of them don't have a clue why Democrats are offended, just that they are. And that's good enough. As Trey Garrison puts it, cluelessly, "I am amused, however, how much it rankles Democrats to be called Democrats. :)"

Ironically, Trey Garrison also says, "I think Tom Pauken would get a kick out of the idea of someone thinking I'm a Republican." Despite his denial, his subconscious misuse of the word Democrat gives him away as a Republican as surely as a peek inside the voting booth would. Personally, I am amused how much it rankles some Republicans to be called Republicans. There's a lot of that going around Washington these days. But the irony is probably lost on Mr Garrison. Doncha think, Mrs Griffith? ;-)

Demanding attention

Mark Davis says, "When it's time to purge the world of an intolerable cancer, things can get violent. The toll is worth it against the unacceptable status quo." Doesn't that just evoke an image of a little boy hiding behind his mother's apron, knowing that he himself is safe, hurling insults at playmates?

President Bush says, "The United States affirmed that we have no nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula. We affirmed that we have no intention of attacking North Korea." The President is trying to keep the crisis from spiraling out of control. Compared to Mark Davis, President Bush looks like the grownup. That's not a small accomplishment. Maybe that was Mr Davis' goal.

But it makes you wonder why President Bush didn't extract any concessions from North Korea for making such a commitment. Maybe because he's not talking to North Korea. Or maybe because he withdrew the commitment in the same press conference. President Bush went on to say that the US "reserves all options to defend our friends in the region." Iraq showed how loosely President Bush defines "defend", including pre-emptive attack. All clear? Ambiguous, even contradictory, talk is a dangerous tactic in a game of nuclear brinkmanship. Maybe as dangerous as Mark Davis' saber rattling. Anyone else worried whether our team captain is up to the job?

Dems to Kinky: Go To Bell

FrontBurner's Rod Davis is the first D/FW blogger to call for Kinky Friedman to drop out of the race for Texas Governor and throw his support to Democratic nominee Chris Bell - sort of. He at least lays out the positives for Friedman for doing so.

Paul Bourgeois doesn't quite hop on board, either, but he does find intriguing possibilities, suggesting the Kinkster could jazz up Bell and Bell could tone down Kinky.

Tom Pauken, of Dallas Blog, plays it straight, reporting Chris Bell's call for Friedman to drop out and Friedman's rejection of the overture.

Michael Landauer, of Dallas Morning Views, straddles the fence, saying it could send Mr Bell shooting up through the polls or make him look desperate and whiny. Actually, Mr Bell's action won't do either, causing Mr Landauer to be wrong even as he tries to cover all bases in his wishy-washy analysis.

Faith and Freedom Revisited

Wes Riddle, in an essay in Dallas Blog, imagines a past that never was, a past where America's Founding Fathers resemble modern-day conservative, evangelical Christians, a past where "the whole idea of there being very many drug addicts would have been absolutely shocking."

The colonials would have no trouble understanding modern drug addiction. For them, alcohol addiction was a widespread and continual problem.

The colonials consisted of many Christians, to be sure, but there were Deists and atheists and others, too, and the government they collectively instituted was secular, not Judeo-Christian. That was deliberate, based on a profound distrust of organized religion.

The following quotes by Thomas Jefferson should be enough to dispel the notions that Mr Riddle is trying to peddle about the Christian nature of our early Republic. There are many more. Interested readers should spend some time reading the Founders in their own words, instead of notions Mr Riddle imagines them to have believed. All the founders. You'd learn that there was a wide variety of religious opinion, not the uniform Christian mentality Mr Riddle presents. And it was because of that diversity, our Founders wisely decided on a secular government.

"In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own."

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Horatio G. Spafford, March 17, 1814

"And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerve in the brain of Jupiter."

-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823

Censorship at Dallas Blog

Dallas Blog blew a kiss Exxon's way today. It cited a self-congratulatory piece in bizjournals.com about Exxon funding math and science programs. The blogger, Trey Garrison, failed to ask any of the obvious journalistic questions (like what's in it for Exxon). However, he did make a sarcastic reference about criticism of Exxon's recent record-breaking profits, so he can't plead that his story was intended as only a simple, straightforward news piece.

My own comment in the thread on Dallas Blog was apparently censored without explanation. Perhaps, I had too much fun at Mr Garrison's expense (see below). Who is unhappy now? ;-) I'll repeat my point here, knowing it won't be deleted.

Exxon funded Cato Institute and other groups to try to cast doubt on the science of global warming. Dallas Blog embarrasses itself by acting as a mouthpiece for Exxon, filling its site with links to partisan studies. Dallas Blog would serve its readers better by doing some independent journalism and not taking at face value the accounts of speeches by corporate spokesman published in outlets like bizjournals.com.

(By the way, the joke at Mr Garrison's expense went something like this: Mr Garrison acts like an unpaid shill for Exxon. ... P.S. In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that I have no evidence that Mr Garrison's shilling for Exxon is unpaid.)

North Korea Explodes Nuclear Bomb

Dallas Blog accompanies the story of an underground nuclear test with a fear-inspiring photograph of an aboveground nuclear explosion. It makes Dallas Blog look amateurish... or irresponsible regarding truth and accuracy.

A little search shows the stock photograph was also used by "Emergency Preparedness and Survival Guide", a survivalist's guide to ... well, survival. Maybe next, Dallas Blog can cut-and-paste the rest of the helpful advice in the book:

• Canning your meats and vegetables
• Emergency power for $950
• How do you live without electricity?
• Long-term food storage
• Medical kits for self-reliant families
• Seven mistakes of food storage
• What to do when there's no doctor
  ... and my favorite ...
• Sensible gun choices after September 11

Dallas Blog presented this story as a straight news piece. I favor truth and accuracy in news. Giving readers the impression that North Korea detonated an atmospheric hydrogen bomb is, in effect, a lie. If I cannot trust the accuracy of the photo that Dallas Blog led with, why should I trust the accuracy of the text? The truth or falsehood of news stories regarding something as potentially cataclysmic as nuclear war matters, whether Dallas Blog cares about truth or not.

Why you shouldn't let metro columnists cover financial news

Bold Types | Scott Parks:

“Flew back to Dallas and landed at Love Field. Just outside the aiport, saw gasoline at $1.99.9 a gallon at a Quick Trip on Mockingbird.”

Ed Cognoski responds:

$1.99.9 a gallon? $1.99.9? Must be the new math.