There’s no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you.
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Romney-Biden 2012?
The most interesting presidential election in U.S. history may have been the fourth, wherein Thomas Jefferson won. Sort of. How Jefferson got to be president may be relevant in this election, which is now so close that some wonder what would happen if there were an Electoral College stalemate, 269 votes for Romney and 269 for Obama. (Remember, it’s the electors who count, not the popular vote.)
In 1800, because of a constitutional glitch, Jefferson and his running mate Aaron Burr got the same number of electors, and the whole issue went to the House, which the Federalists still controlled, and it took a lot of negotiations and in-fighting to put Jefferson in office as the president.
The 12th Amendment settled the VP glitch, and cooked up a solution to the possibility of an Electoral College tie, as well. It’s never been used.
If, this Tuesday, the distribution of the popular vote forces the Electoral College into stalemate, the 12th Amendment would kick in, and the House would vote in a peculiar fashion (one vote per state), to select the President — Romney, considering the complexion of that body. Then the Senate would select the Vice President — Biden, considering the complexion of that body.
A wild finish, but it could get even wilder. In 1972, an elector jumped ship, voting for the Libertarian Party’s John Hospers/Tonie Nathan ticket (making Nathan the first woman to receive an electoral vote). Even against state laws forbidding it, a similar jump for Libertarian Gary Johnson or the Green Party’s Jill Stein — or Ron Paul — might complicate further. Or simplify.
Happy voting.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Will Rogers
This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.
There they go again!
You’d think after Nebraskans voted three separate times for eight-year legislative term limits that the state’s legislators would finally accept the vote of the people they claim to serve.
But you’d be wrong.
The limits passed in ’92 and ’94 were struck down in court rulings that re-wrote the state’s initiative petition requirements. Voters responded to that judicial tyranny by booting out a supreme court justice in a retention election for the very first time in state history. A second justice resigned the day after that 1996 spanking by voters.
In 2000, citizens gathered enough signatures to put the limits back on the ballot and again they passed.
But that hasn’t stopped State Sen. Tom Carlson and his fellow legislators from placing Amendment 3 on tomorrow’s ballot. If passed, Amendment 3 would allow Carlson & Co. to stay in office 50 percent longer.
Strange, we limit the president to eight years; George Washington stepped down after two four-year terms to set that example. But somehow eight years isn’t enough time for a state senator.
In a last minute radio ad campaign by a purposely mis-named Nebraskans to Preserve Term Limits, Sen. Carlson says that he and his gang “believe in term limits.” But seconds later Carlson mentions “coaches, teachers, doctors” and suggests, “It is unlikely we would consider limiting their service to eight years.”
Well, he’s right that we don’t limit brain surgeons to eight years. But then again, being a legislator isn’t brain surgery.
As Nebraska voters will remind members of the state’s Unicameral Legislature tomorrow — for a fourth time.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Will Rogers
You know everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.
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Edmund Burke
Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.
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Video: Nebraska’s Trojan Horse
What the people fight against in Nebraska, another Trojan Horse:
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Judicial Temblor
A scientist does not kill anybody by failing to predict an imminent earthquake, even if he believes and says that it is unlikely to occur just before it does occur. Non-omniscient seismologists don’t kill people; earthquakes kill people.
Nevertheless, Judge Marco Billo sentenced six Italian scientists and a government official to six years in prison for manslaughter, and also billed them for court costs and damages to the tune of $10.2 million.
Some residents of the Italian town of d’Aquila applaud the penalties.
The seven defendants were members of the National Commission for the Forecast and Prevention of Major Risk, which had convened not long before the earthquake struck d’Aquila in April 2009, killing 309 people. Commission members did not issue a warning because the kind of small tremors that had been putting townsfolk on edge were, in their experience, not often the prelude to a major earthquake.
Their crime, then, was for uttering less-than-omniscient judgments in their field.
Suppose the defendants had instead determined that there should be an evacuation, that the town were then evacuated, and that a person died on the way out of town in a way directly attributable to the evacuation — but no earthquake then ensued. Also manslaughter?
If inability to eliminate uncertainty about future hazards is a crime, then we’re all guilty. But the real crime was committed by anyone having anything to do with this miscarriage of justice.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Edmund Burke
The use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment; but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again: and a nation is not governed, which is perpetually to be conquered.
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The Greek Misprize
Sometimes a great misunderestimation.
George W. Bush’s “misunderestimate” still has a jolly ring to it, in my ear, just as does the common barbarism “irregardless.” Yet I realize that, in both cases, the prefix adds no new meaning to the word it would seem to modify.
Regardless, underestimation is today’s theme.
Matthew Feeney, at Reason.com, notes the shock-without-awe of the Greek government’s 2013 budget, just released. “The budget is worse than the 2010 projections,” he notes. And that simple statement almost qualifies as understatement:
The IMF had been hoping that the Greeks would manage to get their debt to GDP down to 120 percent by 2020. Considering that the newest budget projects a debt to GDP rate of 184.9 percent in 2016 it is unlikely that this goal will be reached.
That 184.9 percent figure was revised up from previous estimates of 179.3 percent.
The amount of debt is now way beyond the country’s annual income, as measured by GDP. I’m not one to rely heavily on GDP figures, but we need some comparison, and a market/private sector income figure would not make the 2013 ratio look any better.
And this is not a new thing. The Greeks have been underestimating their debt-to-GDP ratio for years now, as a nifty graphic from Zerohedge shows.
When a country is as overladen with government workers and other tax consumers as Greece is, this is to be expected. Zerohedge was right in 2010, to note that “Greece just got bailed out so it can get into even more debt!” At some point, hope morphs into fantasy and misunderestimation of future insolvency becomes a way of life.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.