Suitably Flip

Today's Reduction of Foreign Oil Dependence Was Brought To You By the Letter W

America's fans of driving and useful energy caught a break today, as three major U.S. oil companies (ConocoPhilips, Marathon, and Amerada Hess) announced a return to oil exploration in Libya.  Absent from the oil-rich country for two decades, our oil and gas industry was previously unable to operate in Libya due to U.S. sanctions that were finally lifted last year, upon Qaddafi's wise and unprompted renouncement of weapons of mass destruction.

Libya is home to the world's 8th largest oil reserves, just brimming with that delicious light crude we find so useful.  With several U.S. companies involved in the exploration and extraction of those reserves, dependence on OPEC nations and other foreign suppliers decreases, while aggregate supply increases (and prices thus decrease).  Good things.

To me, it seems difficult to read the causal progression any way other than this:

• Under President Bush's leadership, America finally gets tough on WMD.
• Rogue abandons proscribed programs.
• Sanctions are lifted.
• Huge oil supplies are tapped anew by firms from a friendly non-cartel nation (namely the United States).
• Happy economic and geopolitical consequences ensue.
• Masses rejoice.

Okay, that last piece may not fall neatly into place.  But if it doesn't, it'll likely be due to the fact that this development is either completely glossed over by the American news media or draped in the tired spin of "war on terror = oil lust".

Make no mistake, this is a big deal.  ExxonMobil already returned to Libya following the lifting of sanctions, so today's development isn't necessarily the stop-the-presses inflection point.  But this is nonetheless a significant and undeniably beneficial side effect to the U.S.-led war on terror.

Heck of a Rehash, Kruggie

A year ago, spastic rants that did little other than decry George Bush's supposed lack of honesty or flail at teasing out double standards ostensibly applied by Republicans and Conservatives, imbuing readers with inflammatory buzzwords like "cronyism" and "misled", and resisting at all costs the temptation to allow their rhetoric to be tainted by the astringency of reason or objective evidence, were still mildly novel.

Further: Read Paul Krugman's Heck of a Job, Bushie in its original form (if, for some reason, you've parted with hard-earned money for TimesSelect access).  Otherwise, it's here.

Save Farris

Taking a page from the "Look at me, I'm needlessly in harm's way; aren't I intrepid?" journalism playbook, Florida teenager and aspiring humanitarian Farris Hassan traveled (without his parents' permission or knowledge) to Baghdad, to "love and help [his] neighbor in distress."  Armed with a fistful of cash, a pocket full of grandeur, and a leaky heart full of American guilt, Hassan made his way to Baghdad determined to "broaden [his] mind."

Hassan's humanitarian travails primarily amounted to hanging out in his hotel, balking at the high fares charged by taxi drivers (whom he labeled "evil" for their rates), getting "freaked out" when he couldn't negotiate a food stand with his Arabic phrase book, and seeking solace with the Associated Press, who turned him in to the U.S. Embassy.

He is now on his way home.

Despite his inauspicious results, Hassan had lofty, if simpering and self-aggrandizing, aims, as detailed in his pre-departure essay (excerpting and annotation mine).

There is a struggle in Iraq between good and evil, between those striving for freedom and liberty and those striving for death and destruction. ... Those terrorists are not human but pure evil [they and cabbies, eh?]. For their goals to be thwarted, decent individuals must answer justice's call for help ... So I will. [Oh, thank God.]

I know I can't do much. I know I can't stop all the carnage and save the innocent. But I also know I can't just sit here ...
[Cue violins.]
I feel guilty living in a big house, driving a nice car, and going to a great school. I feel guilty hanging out with friends in a cafe without the fear of a suicide bomber present. I feel guilty enjoying the multitude of blessings, which I did nothing to deserve, while people in Iraq, many of them much better then me, are in terrible anguish. This inexorable guilt I feel transforms into a boundless empathy for the distress of the misfortunate and into a compassionate love for my fellow man.
...
If I know what is needed and what is right, but do not act on my moral conscience, I would be a hypocrite. I must do what I say decent individuals should do. I want to live my days so that my nights are not full of regrets. Therefore, I must go.

See, there's the problem, Farris.  You don't know what's needed.  You cutting school and running away from home to hurl yourself into a warzone was not needed by anyone.  The move took guts, I'll grant you that.  But it also took a misunderstanding of (or at least a willingness to ignore) what you could realistically expect to accomplish and, I suspect, a desire to make a splash simply by being brazen.

Bravery trotted out simply for sake of trotting it out, without any discernible purpose, doesn't serve any humanitarian or journalistic end.  The fully foreseeable net effect of this escapade was to cause much family heartache and to unduly burden coalition forces that saw to the teen's safe return.

That said, Hassan has to be given credit for getting a prodigious jump on some best practices of American journalism.  Next hurricane season, perhaps he can join the needlessly buffeted brigade of news anchors that bravely (if pointlessly) report on weather conditions from windy beaches and flooded intersections.

Elsewhere:  An alert reader has pointed me to his collection of "Save Farris" merchandise (that didn't take long).

Meta Top 10

End of year lists.  Love 'em or hate 'em, they're all around us.  With lists ranging from politics to pop culture, from technology to trivia, and from thoroughly worthless to merely time-squandering, readers can't be blamed for succumbing to ranking fatigue.  Mercifully, I've done the legwork for you, enabling you to enjoy only the best of these meticulously cataloged countdowns.

It's my great honor and terrible burden to present the Suitably Flip 2005 Definitive Top 10 Top 10 Lists (and their respectively excerpted number ones):

10. AOL's Top 10 Spam List 

1. "Donald Trump Wants You - Please Respond"

9. Real Clear Politics' Top 10 Foolish Myths

1. Life is getting worse.

8. New Media Musings' Top 10 Tech Transformations

1. The edges gain power.  From the video and music worlds to politics and culture, power is increasingly flowing away from the media, from the political elites and from the corporate suits and into the hands of ordinary users who are collectively wielding more influence in all walks of life, mostly thanks to the Internet. The forces of freedom are steadily chipping away at the power of the forces of control. It's pure beauty.

7. Merriam-Webster's Top 10 Words of the Year

1. integrity
   Pronunciation: in-'te-gr&-tE
   Function: noun
   1 : firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values : INCORRUPTIBILITY
   2 : an unimpaired condition : SOUNDNESS
   3 : the quality or state of being complete or undivided : COMPLETENESS
   synonym see HONESTY

6. Trivial Pursuit's Top 10 Trivial Moments

1. Cruisin' Out of Control - How did Tom Cruise turn falling into love into a can't-look-away train wreck?

5. Wired's 10 Best Tech Moments

1. NASA rovers survive a full Martian year

4. National Geographic's Top 10 News Photos 

1. Live Giant Squid Photographed - A First

3. Right Wing News' Top 10 Worst Quotes From The Democratic Underground

1. S1 on a helicopter with 9 American Blackwater employees in it being shot down in Iraq: Good. F*ck em. Live by the sword, go down in a Russian helo by the missile. Perhaps the rest of Blackwater will get slaughtered too, good riddance to bad sh*t.

2. 2Spare's Top 10 Craziest Science Stuff You Didn't Know

1. Picking one's nose and eating it might be healthy.

1. Captain Ed's 10 Worst Americans (prepared in response to All Things Beautiful's challenge):

1. John Edgar Hoover

A Tax Even Liberals Can Hate

Yes, it's a whiny act of "civil disobedience" and a mark of fundamental confusion about the vital purposes of our current military initiatives, but it's still encouraging to see liberal activist groups uniting against an unfair, outdated tax.

The scheme in question is the telephone excise tax, the quiet little 3% bump to your monthly phone bill, originally enacted in 1898 as a "luxury tax" to help fund the Spanish-American War (!).  Frankly, we telephonically endowed upper-crusters are getting a little tired of footing this bill...

So is Seattle peacenik Bert Sacks, who has launched a campaign to organize mass refusal to pay the excise tax, citing disagreement with current military policy.  From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (hat tip: Tax Foundation Blog):

Sacks is one of thousands of Americans believed to be refusing to pay the federal taxes attached to their monthly phone bills -- money that helps fund military operations overseas. Many are taking the step as a protest against the war in Iraq.

"We oppose the policies of 'pre-emptive war' and an 'endless' war on terrorism, which led to the Iraq war, which violate human rights and international law, and which have cost us hundreds of billions of dollars while our states and cities face unprecedented deficits, and cutbacks of vital services and programs," reads the statement on a Web site called www.hanguponwar.org.

Although many activists have been withholding the phone tax since the Vietnam War, the act of disobedience is making headlines again as more Americans began to question the rationale for the Iraq war...

The tax was given permanent status in 1990. It raises about $6 billion a year for general federal expenditures, including military spending.

Well, their rationale is screwy, and even their goal (convincing people not to pay their taxes, rather than encouraging lawmakers to repeal the tax) is warped, but this is about as close a brush with fiscal sensibility as the far left wing is likely to experience.

Happily, bills have been introduced this year in both the House (by Gary Miller (CA)) and the Senate (by Rick Santorum (PA)) to repeal the ancient tax, which the Tax Foundation has thoroughly dissected as cruddy policy.  Eliminating the telephone excise tax would return $6 billion a year from the general fund to taxpayers' pockets.

Hey, "peace activists", when you're done being disobedient, you might want to do something useful and encourage your elected representatives to support this legislation.  (Though, sorry to say, we're still going to be able to afford to pursue our national defense, which currently means prosecuting a war.)

So That's What People Who Think They're About To Die Look Like

Thanks to the quick video- and cell-cam work of Damon Zwicker and Jeremy Hermanns (respectively), we have a first-hand look at the inside of Alaska Airlines Flight 536, which made an emergency landing at Seattle-Tacoma Airport yesterday after losing cabin pressure five miles up.

No one was injured, but the incident appears to have been preventable, in that, according to the NTSB, a ramp worker (employed by British contractor Menzies Aviation) has admitted driving a baggage vehicle into the aircraft before takeoff and failing to immediately report it.  The resulting dent in the fuselage appears to have been the precursor for the foot-long gash that opened up once the plane got to altitude, leading to the loss of pressure.

Zwicker captured much of his girlfriend's and neighboring passengers' stressful apprehension in his video (an extra little nuisance that I'm sure everyone appreciated while they took stock of their lives, repented their sins, cursed their enemies one final time, etc.), as well as the relieved ovation offered up on landing.  "Catastrophe averted," Zwicker summed up, turning the camera on himself.

Uniquely compelling footage, to say the least.  But I wonder what this will do for the ever-changing in-flight usage policies for "portable electronic devices".  I'm still getting used to the perk of getting to turn my phone on on the taxiway.  This could set us back months.

As consolation, this will hopefully have some effect on the "what happens to you when you don't report driving a baggage cart into a plane" policy (whatever that may currently be) or at very least the "whether or not that guy ever again has a job anywhere near an airport" policy.

Atlas Sucked

Something stinks in Boston.  And we can't blame this one on the beans.

According to the results of a terrorism preparedness drill codenamed "Operation Atlas", which included a mock hijacking at Logan Airport, the city has a long way to go toward integrating and streamlining its protocol, technology, and overall response efforts.

The drill's "After Action Report" (prepared by Department of Homeland Security consultants) revealed that, according to The Boston Globe:

[L]ocal and State Police did not work together effectively because of confusion over who was in charge, and ambulances were delayed from reaching the mock scene at Logan International Airport. Mismatched computer programs also hindered the "Operation Atlas" response efforts.

The dispiriting results come just three weeks after three female ticket agents at Logan Airport were arrested on charges of smuggling and money laundering in connection with ongoing narcotics transactions to and from the Dominican Republic, using passenger flights out of Logan.

Further, less than three months ago, the FAA upgraded an investigation of a significantly increased frequency of "runway incursions" at Logan.  The airport saw 16 such incidents (logged when two planes come dangerously close to each other on the runways) in the 12 months leading up to October's scrutiny hike, more than twice the amount seen in the prior three years combined.

[FAA spokeswoman Laura] Brown said [a] group would analyze pilot and control tower procedures, as well as ''cultural issues" within Logan, including how well controllers work with one another.

Perhaps Boston is more of an aviation security focal point than it might be otherwise, due to the fact that the two planes that struck the World Trade Center on 9/11 originated from Logan.  But between the ballooning runway incursions, the alleged drug-related money laundering by airline employees using commercial airliners, and the glaring gaps in preparedness exposed by Operation Atlas, one can't be blamed for being somewhat perplexed as to how a major city's primary airport, owed such heightened attention over the last 4 years, can remain so distinctively deficient in so many areas.

Elsewhere:

Michelle Malkin notes the ACLU is doing its part to keep Logan unsafe.

What a Deal

In the final chapter of the now-seemingly-over MTA-TWU negotiation battle, the two sides met somewhere in the middle on the hotly contested issue of benefits.

Last night the executive board of the union, Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union, voted 37 to 4 to approve the tentative 37-month contract. One member abstained. The city's 33,700 subway and bus workers are expected to vote on the agreement early next month; some are expected to oppose it out of unhappiness over having to pay toward health premiums for the first time.

The agreement calls for transit workers to pay 1.5 percent of their wages toward the premiums, cutting into the raises they receive. That comes on top of the fines of slightly more than $1,000 that most transit workers face for participating in last week's illegal transit strike.

The settlement calls for raises of 3 percent in the deal's first year, 4 percent in the second year and 3.5 percent in the third year. The subway and bus workers' current base pay averages $47,000 a year, and with overtime, their average yearly earnings total $55,000.

That's a pretty sweet deal for transit workers, who maintain the ability to retire with full pension benefits at age 55 and now stand to receive nearly 11% in wage increases over the next three years, on top of average salaries already well above what their market rates would be.

One happy outcome is the 37-month term of the new contract, meaning there won't be a threat of a similar illegal holiday strike in 2008.

If you ask me, the best way to prevent such a strike would be to throw Roger Toussaint and his cohorts in jail, assess every last penny of fines accrued, and tighten up the enforcement of the Taylor Law provisions going forward.  Make the jail time and the most daunting fines ($1 million for the union and $25,000 per striking worker, doubling every day of the strike) mandatory and the credibility of the government threat (and thus its bargaining position) becomes a lot stronger.  The relatively tepid response to this selfish and illegal strike only served to lessen that credibility in the eyes of negotiators sitting across the MTA bargaining table in the future.

This was an incident of massive, deliberate, self-serving law-breaking that put our whole city at grave risk, and should be addressed accordingly.  In addition to the billion dollars in lost corporate revenue, New York was unduly subject to additional safety burdens.  An FDNY firefighter was critically injured during the strike while biking to work, when he was struck by a private company's van, chartered to shuttle its employees to and from work.  A transit worker who crossed the picket line during the strike died of a heart attack shortly after returning to work and was only found when a co-worker came across her in the restroom.

Given the low temperatures during the strike, we can also likely expect reports of increased heart attacks and other cold weather-related deaths that resulted from people being newly subject to the elements for up to hours each day.

On the topic of the MTA's contract concessions, one union board member had this to say:

"These were huge items for our membership," said Marvin W. Holland, a station cleaner and board member who voted to approve the contract. "If it took a strike to get it, so be it. I think this is an overwhelming success."

I respectfully disagree.

Previously:

Roger Toussaint's Billion Dollar Christmas Present
Back on Track
The [Unofficial] Not For Tourists Guide to NYC - Strike Edition
Strike 3 (Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $62,000)
Transit Strike Update
TWU Walks Out On New york
New Yorkers Behaving Like New Yorkers
T-Minus 1 Hour: Transit Union Walks Out
No Progress on Transit Negotiations
Bracing for Bedlam
Bloomberg Steps Up
New York's Looming Illegal Transit Strike

Saddam's Mass Grave in Karbala

Just another reminder of Saddam's hideous reign of terror for those wayleftward leaners who only begrudgingly - and only in cursory attempts to blunt their anti-liberation rhetoric - acknowledge him rather antiseptically as a "bad guy":

Municipal employees working on a sewage project in the Shiite holy city of Karbala found skeletal remains believed to be from a mass grave dating to 1991.

Officials said the grave may contain over 100 victims, including women and children, of a brutal crackdown by Saddam Hussein's regime following a Shiite uprising in the south after Desert Storm.

The slaying of 100 of his own people may seem like a mere drop in the bucket compared to Saddam's body of work, but bear in mind that this grave alone holds more victims than were claimed by Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacey, Jack the Ripper, and the Beltway snipers combined.

Further:

Video at Fox News

Elsewhere:

Captain's Quarters

Tsunami - A Year Later

Bloggers (et al) react to a year passing since the Indian Ocean tsunami that claimed 200,000 lives.

• Glenn Reynolds rounds up the relief trackers
• Michelle Malkin notes efforts to locate still-missing children.
• Blogs4God offers a roundup of reaction and tribute
• Mark Hutcherson considers US succeptibility to similar storms and the promise of an early warning system
• Jihad Watch notes Indonesian police efforts to make morality enforcement hay of the disaster
• The Storm Track has a wide-ranging roundup of video, images (some graphic), and other resources.
• 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake from Wikipedia

Roger Toussaint's Billion Dollar Christmas Present

Last week's 60-hour extralegal extravaganza put on by the Transport Workers Union cost New York businesses an estimated $1 billion in lost revenues, according to Mayor Bloomberg.  This of course doesn't include the cost incurred by the city itself, in the form of overtime payable to police, fire, and other emergency workers and the various logistical burdens imposed by the illegal strike.

Sort of makes the $3 million in fines that the TWU may or may not wind up paying pale in comparison.

For reference, $1 billion is roughly the amount of the short term pension shortfall forecast in the city budget under the current MTA-TWU contract.  In other words, that's money the city didn't need stripped away by way of a greedy, lawless tantrum.

The MTA and the TWU have still not inked a new contract, and negotiations are now under a media blackout.  Latest reports still held the possibility of jail time for local TWU chief Roger Toussaint and his fellow union thugs leaders.  It's great that the buses and trains are running again, but this is an important time for Bloomberg and Pataki to keep the pressure on to make sure the maximum fines are paid and the appropriate jail time is served.

'Tis the Season To Be Learning

A little educational interlude to spoil your Christmas downtime:

• The story of the real Festivus.
• The technology behind NORAD's Santa Tracker
• How mistletoe works.
• Christmas in Iraq
• "Wacky" Christmas facts (and FAQs)
• The significance of December 25th

Back On Track

It's back to work for New York transit workers.  Beginning with yesterday's 4pm shift, the TWU Local 100 sent its members back to work, though not in time to accomodate the evening rush hour.  Total fines racked up by the union: $3 million.

Will that be cash or charge?

The strike was called off without a new contract being signed, but it sounds like the MTA is going to relent on the contested pension issue for future transit workers.  Local TWU chief Roger Toussaint may still face jail time when he goes before Judge Theodore Jones to answer contempt charges and it's not entirely clear (based on historical precedent) that the $3 million fine will truly be assessed (though Bloomberg and Pataki have publicly claimed it would).

With the new contract not yet finalized, and in hopes of avoiding ever succumbing to such costly mass law-breaking in the future, we can only hope that the maximum penalties - both monetary and correctional - will be carried out against these lawless thugs who were so willing to harm the whole of New York City during such a crucial time, all for extraordinarily bountiful benefits for employees who aren't even among the workforce yet.

Toussaint turned much of the public battle into one about "respect", doing his best to class bait the public against the evils of billionaire politicians.  I hope Toussaint's 33,000+ members, each of whom lost 6 days of pay (and could've lost much more), place a similar value on the respect gleaned from fighting for fiscally untenable pension agreements for non-dues paying, non-existent employees.  I hope they also bear in mind that Toussaint was willing to hang tough on this final issue when the cost was the wages of his membership and cash from the union coffers, but bent as soon as he was summoned to court with what the judge called a "distinct possibility" of being sent to jail.

Time will tell exactly how much damage he and the rest of the TWU leadership (and indeed, the majority of rank-and-file union members for voting to authorize the strike) did to the City of New York and to its business community, but without a doubt, their pettiness and law-breaking illustrated their own utter lack of respect for their city, their employer, and their fellow New Yorkers.

Previously:

The [Unofficial] Not For Tourists Guide to NYC - Strike Edition
Strike 3 (Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $62,000)
Transit Strike Update
TWU Walks Out On New york
New Yorkers Behaving Like New Yorkers
T-Minus 1 Hour: Transit Union Walks Out
No Progress on Transit Negotiations
Bracing for Bedlam
Bloomberg Steps Up
New York's Looming Illegal Transit Strike

The [Unofficial] Not For Tourists Guide to NYC - Strike Edition

There's been plenty of back and forth griping about the hubbub and heartache caused by the New York transit strike, poised to cost the city hundreds of millions of dollars every day it drags on.  But rather than curse this darkness, we'd rather light a candle.  We want tourists to feel comfortable coming to New York City, despite the selfish lawlessness being perpetrated by the TWU.  It is in this spirit that we offer the following Not For Tourists Guide to New York City Strike Edition.

Co-produced by GOP and the City.

Q: How long will this strike be going on?
A: The strike will end once the MTA and the transit workers resolve their labor disputes.

Q: What transit options are still running?
A: There are still many convenient options for navigating New York City during the strike.

Queens to Manhattan: LIRR
Bronx: Metro North
Long Island: LIRR
New Jersey: NJ Transit and PATH Trains
Brooklyn to Manhattan: LIRR from Atlantic Ave. to Jamaica.  Transfer at Jamacia to a train to Penn Station.  In other words, you're screwed.
Midtown Manhattan to Downtown: You can catch a PATH Train from 33rd Street and it will eventually get you to the World Trade Center.  In the meantime, you will pass under the Hudson River twice.  Hint: Try not to think about the movie Daylight while crossing under the Hudson.
Inside Manhattan: Central Park horse carriages, Kramerica rickshaws, and homeless guys will give piggyback rides up 3rd Avenue for $14...just ask them.
Anywhere else: Bipedal locomotion.

Q: That all sounds fairly exhausting. Where I can get me a little pick me up?
A: There are 286 Starbucks within 20 miles of Midtown Manhattan, so if you need a $9 cup of joe, you are set. As you can see from this image, there are even Starbucks across the street from Starbucks which are on the same block as another Starbucks.

Q: Is New York safe?
A: Yes. There are cops on nearly every street corner, working extra shifts to ensure your safety, and during the strike, all the homeless people have been sent to New Jersey.

Q: What draconian measures was your transit authority trying to impose on its workers that led to this incredible illegal strike?
A: 9% raises, retire at 55, great benefits, and MLK Day as a paid holiday.

Q: Um, so... exactly how small are the cages they keep the MTA employees in?
A: To be clear, MTA employees are not caged, but live in their private homes as free people. Only the leadership of the TWU face the prospect of a cage on Rikers Island.

Q. I’m an accountant/banker/lawyer and I apparently make less money than many MTA employees. How do I apply for a job?
A:  http://mta.info/mta/employment/

Q: Okay, I’m willing to come do some holiday shopping in New york. How do I get to Macy's?
A: It's down the street from Gimbels.

Q: I'm a corporate fatcat.  I'd like my driver to take me to FAO Schwartz around noon tomorrow, while I eat pickled figs and Carlsfoot jelly in the backseat of my Maybach.  Should I take the Midtown Tunnel or the Queensboro Bridge?
A: Actually, to get into town, you'll need at least 4 people in your car. See if your monocle polisher and your watch fob detailer need a ride. Otherwise, there are various pickup locations (Shea, Yankee Stadium, Belmont Park, to name a few -  click here for the entire list).

Q: I don't have 4 people in my car.  But one time I saw Larry David pick up a prostitute so he could drive in the HOV lane.  Where does New York keep its prostitutes?
A: While the historic Times Square area used to offer an abundance of prostitutes, they were all shooed away by Rudy Giuliani.  Visitors with fewer than 4 passengers are therefore advised to pick up hitchhikers, drifters, and/or large roadkill before entering Manhattan to shore up their numbers.

Q: I'm coming in from Jersey.  Do the 2 bodies I have in the trunk count toward the 4 passenger requirement?
A: Only bodies in the passenger compartment count toward the 4 person minimum, so any deceased cargo will need to be propped up and properly restrained in a seat with a working seat belt.

Q: I've always wanted to visit the UN.  Can you tell me how to navigate my way to the epicenter of the international community?
A: Gladly.  It's a pleasant stroll up 7th Avenue to 2290 Adam Clayton Powell Jr Boulevard.

Q: What can I use my Metrocard for now?
A: During the strike, your Metrocard may be used as a beer coaster, back scratcher, dog poo scraper, tooth picker, frisbee, or a festive holiday tree ornament.

Strike 3 (Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $62,000)

Why is a Bill Murray vibe coming over me?  I'm getting an irresistible urge to hear Sonny and Cher and do the Pennsylvania Polka.

Anyway, it's day 3 of the illegal New York transit strike and we've got some exciting events lined up.  At 11am, Judge Theodore Jones will hold a hearing to determine if local TWU chief Roger Toussaint and his thug myrmidons will (finally) be sent to jail (what the judge yesterday called a "distinct possibility").  No word on whether they will be forced to walk there...

So far Jones has issued fines of $1 million per day for the TWU, $125,000 per day for the Amalgamated Transit Union, and 2 days worth of salary for every striking employee (which can be raised to $25,000 per employee and can be set to double daily).

According to reports, both sides have been meeting with mediators from the Public Employment Relations Board and have now returned to negotiations for the first time since the strike began.

Toussaint claims that the sole remaining sticking point is the MTA's desire to overhaul the employee pension system.  Under the old contract, employees with 20 years of service were eligible for full pensions at age 55.  When the two sides first sat down, the MTA wanted this raised to 62, while the TWU was pushing for it to be lowered to 50 (!).

The MTA has since reverted to the status quo on the age threshold but has asked that all future employees be required to contribute 6% of their earnings to their pensions.  Currently, they contribute a paltry 2%.

This is the sole remaining conflict.

Bear in mind no existing MTA employee will be affected by this either way.  Toussaint is crippling New York City (not to mention draining the coffers of his own union and subjecting his members to hefty fines) and risking going to jail to secure unreasonable benefits for non-existent TWU members.  This smacks of pride and perverse obstinance.  Today, the Post has labeled Toussaint a "thug - and an extortionist."

Let's let these thugs cool their heels in the hoosegow for a while and see if we can't put an end to their dangerous and illegal campaign.  It's of mild consolation that even a few days worth of fines should be sufficient to financially ruin the TWU, but the impact being borne by New York City is incomparably larger.

Governor Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg have held a fairly firm line in their statements on this issue, but both have fallen short in important ways.  Bloomberg has stated he doesn't want Toussaint and his band of maurauders to be sent to jail.  Pataki, for his part (particularly given his Presidential aspirations) blew a chance at a real Reagan moment here.  On Tuesday morning, he could've fired all 30,000+ employees, announced they were all welcome back on terms amenable to the MTA (terms certain to be attractive enough to replace any non-picket-line-crossing malcontents with new personnel in a heartbeat; average train drivers currently haul in better than $62,000 a year), then begun an effort to (at least partially) privatize the city's public transit system.

Many other cities with similar - even larger - subway systems are at least partially privatized.  Even the ones that aren't profitable are able to recognize the pronounced benefits of private sector operation by competitively bidding for the lowest feasible subsidies from local government.

Instant hero status would have been justifiably heaped on the Governor for saving New York hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars.  Anyway,  what's done is done.  But Pataki and Bloomberg both still have plenty of opportunity to guide the outcome of this unfortunate situation.  There's plenty of variability as to how this progresses from here in terms of the amount of pressure put on the TWU (most immediately whether to lock up TWU leadership).  And nothing short of the financial and physical security of New York hangs in the balance.

Previously:

Transit Strike Update
TWU Walks Out On New york
New Yorkers Behaving Like New Yorkers
T-Minus 1 Hour: Transit Union Walks Out
No Progress on Transit Negotiations
Bracing for Bedlam
Bloomberg Steps Up
New York's Looming Illegal Transit Strike

Manna From Hollywood

Apocalypto, you had me at "Mel Gibson's..."

(Hat tip: Drudge)

Tookie's Legacy Lives On

Gang confrontations and gunshots at belatedly departed Tookie Williams' memorial service?

That sounds about right.

(Hat tip: Ankle Biting Pundits)

Another Filibuster

First the Patriot Act, now ANWR.  It's been a busy few days of not voting in the U.S. Senate.

I'm eager to hear Senate Democrats' alternatives for safeguarding our country and minimizing American reliance on foreign oil.  Frankly, it's a relief that so many of these presumably bright, concerned legislators find such concerns to be trivial enough as to refuse votes on them.  I'd thought these were big deals with weighty, life-impacting consequences.

This is a real load off my mind.

Transit Strike Update

Update (4pm):  GOP and the City is hosting a transit strike joke-off.  Submit yours now!  My entry:

Q: How is Roger Toussaint like a cocktail waitress trying to earn a few extra bucks?
A: They're both spending Christmas behind bars.

Update (3pm):  Now we're getting somewhere.  Roger Toussaint and his cohorts may be sent to jail tomorrow for this criminal strike.  They should be forced to walk there.

State Supreme Court Justice Theodore Jones, who is hearing several legal issues related to the strike, directed attorneys from the Transport Workers Union to bring president Roger Toussaint and other top officials before the court Thursday to answer to a criminal contempt charge. He said he may sentence the union leaders to jail for refusing to end the strike, calling such a scenario a "distinct possibility."

Update (2pm):  Judge Theodore Jones has fined two chapters of a second union, the Amalgamated Transit Union, a combined $125,000 for their participation in the strike. Progress. But pennies compared to the ruinous damage this criminal activity is doing to our city.

---

- TWU Local 100 chief Roger Toussaint remains out of jail.  I remain nonplussed as to why.

- The TWU is being fined $1 million per day for carrying out their illegal strike.

- Public Employment Relations Board representative Richard Currieri held initial mediation between the MTA and the TWU.

- Wednesday morning temperature (at 8:30): 24 degrees (15 with wind chill).

- The Wall Street Journal ponders just how many hundreds of millions of dollars per day this strike will cost.

- Michael O'Brien of the TWU of America has stated his clear lack of support for the illegal strike and that the national union will provide no money or other assistance to the TWU Local 100.  O'Brien published this statement on the TWU website:

"TWU (International) hereby notifies all members of Local 100 of their obligation under the December 13, 2005 preliminary injunctions and the December 20, 2005 temporary restraining orders issued by the New York Supreme Court to cease any and all strike or strike-related activities and to report to work at their regularly assigned work hours and work locations.

"As has been reported in several media outlets, I personally spoke before the Local 100 Executive Board when it met on the morning of Dec. 20, and told them that I would not approve this strike. I told them that the only road to contract victory for the membership was not by strike but continued negotiation. I continue to believe this. It should not be construed in any way that my refusal to sanction this strike lessens my resolve to secure the best possible contract for this membership."

"I stand ready to assist the Local leadership in returning to the table."

- Lawyers are back in front of Brooklyn State Supreme Court Judge Theodore Jones today, where additional fines for union leaders and a second striking organization (the Amalgamated Transit Union) may be handed down.

- Ediotrials in local newspapers, including Newsday, The New York Times, the New York Post, and the Daily News, are appropriately unsympathetic to the TWU (hat tip: Wonkster).

---

I see no reason why we don't move immediately to the maximum fines and jail time provided by the Taylor Law which the union is so flagrantly breaking.  Their disregard for the law, their employers, and their millions of fellow New Yorkers is despicable and dangerous and should be addressed with every available legal tool.

Most New Yorkers are experiencing this strike most immediately as a long cold walk to work - an inconvenience, but not a dire one.  If prevailing estimates are anywhere near accurate, however, the financial toll being wrought on our city is incredibly severe, as businesses stay closed, tourists stay home, and Christmas shopping goes unshopped.  Add to that the compromised public safety environment, as police work overtime and are called upon to handle the incremental logistical problems created by the strike, and we find ourselves increasingly (and avoidably) susceptible to violent crime or terrorist threats.

This illicit strike needs to be quashed today.

Strikeblogging elsewhere:

GOP and the City on the zombification of New York.
Lawhawk on the rogering of New York.
Jeff Jarvis on editorial coverage.
The NJ Blog on the lighter side of the transit strike
Alarming News on the fledgling niche of transit strike poetry
Mary Katherine Ham @ Hugh Hewitt rounds up reaction

Previously:

TWU Walks Out On New york
New Yorkers Behaving Like New Yorkers
T-Minus 1 Hour: Transit Union Walks Out
No Progress on Transit Negotiations
Bracing for Bedlam
Bloomberg Steps Up
New York's Looming Illegal Transit Strike

Germany Paroles Convicted Terrorist/Murderer

Today, Germany announced they have set free Mohammed Ali Hamadi, the terrorist convicted of murdering U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem during the hijacking of TWA Flight 847 in June of 1985.  Hamadi was sentenced to life in prison, but has now been released to Lebanon, a country with which we have no extradition treaty.

Pictured is Captain John Testrake, leaning out the cockpit window, held at gunpoint by one of the terrorists.  A month after 9/11, three of Hamadi's alleged accomplices, Imad Fayez Mugniyah, Ali Atwa, and Hasan Izz-Al-Din, were all placed on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorist list, where they remain today with $5 million offered for each.

Nice work, Germany.

Lebanon, little help?

Terrorist Funpack Grows Legs

Bad news:

Officials are investigating the theft of 400 pounds of high-powered plastic explosives in New Mexico. The material was stolen from a bunker owned by a bomb expert who works at a national research lab outside Albuquerque, N.M.

ABC News has been told it's one of the most significant thefts of high-power explosives ever in the United States.
...
The theft was discovered Sunday night by local authorities. The thieves used blowtorches to cut through thick steel walls at the bunker, authorities told ABC News.

The missing 400 pounds of explosives includes 150 pounds of what is known as C-4 plastic, or "sheet explosive," which can be shaped and molded and is often used by terrorists and military operatives.

New Yorkers Behaving Like New Yorkers

Against the greed and lawlessness of the Transport Workers Union, NYC taxi drivers stand in stark contrast.  They're making good money today by picking up the slack, but not only are they not gouging, they're not even charging the maximum fares prescribed by today's special strike contingency zone-based fare system.

According to a spokesman for the city's Office of Emergency Management's joint information center, the caps set by a city are just that – caps. Drivers may choose to charge less, and riders may negotiate a lower fare.

"We're hearing for short hops drivers are charging less," he said.

That certainly seemed to be the case for Raheel Baig, a commuter from Brooklyn. Normally a ride from Brooklyn to Columbus Circle could cost $20 or more, and even under the new city limits the driver could have charged him $20. But Baig only paid a flat $10 with no tip. So did the other three passengers in his cab.

For the same amount and no tip, a woman named Fadwa got a ride from 42nd Street to 58th Street -- a mere 16 blocks. She made a point of expressing her support for the strikers and said her fellow taxi passengers felt the same way.

One commuter, an artist who has a booth set up at an outdoor holiday market at Columbus Circle, said there seemed to be a greater sense of community among commuters and cab drivers as a result of the strike. Her driver used his meter and charged her the normal fare for her ride from 14th Street.

Terry Walker, who hailed a ride from lower Manhattan said he just chose to give the driver $20 and expressed his support both for the transit strikers and the cab drivers. Under the city's zoning rules, he would have only been charged $15.

Meanwhile, a Time Warner employee said he paid $5 for a 10-block ride, less than the $10 the taxi driver was allowed to charge him.

TWU Walks Out On New York

Update (6pm): Update from Mayor Mike himself (emphasis, excerpting, and annotation mine):

"Since early this morning, the City's mass transit system has been shut down because of the selfish and illegal strike undertaken by the TWU. ... The good news is New Yorkers are following the strike contingency plan we developed and put into effect early this morning."
...
"911 is getting more calls than usual, about a 15% increase."
[Any preventable tragedies owing to incremental 911 response time are blood on the TWU's hands.]
...
"Retail, especially in Lower Manhattan, has been hit the hardest. Hundreds of stores haven't been able to open and some that did have had practically no business.  Along one stretch of 8th Avenue, 40% of the stores weren't open."
...
"Let me repeat, this selfish strike is illegal. We live in a country of laws where there can be severe consequences for those who break them. ... Roger Toussaint and the TWU have shamefully decided they don't care about the people they work for and that they have no respect for the law. The leadership of the TWU has thuggishly turned their backs on New York City, and disgraced the noble concept of public service. ... Roger Toussaint and the TWU need to send their members back to work and stop hurting their fellow New Yorkers."

Update (5pm): Bloomberg News reports the TWU has been found in contempt (no kidding) of the court order forbidding a strike and will be fined $1 million for every day it goes on.  Judge Theodore Jones noted, "This is a very, very sad day in the history of labor relations for New York City."

A nice start, but the Taylor Law allows for this fine to be doubled every day, for $25,000 fines (also daily doubling) to be levied on every striking worker, and for union bosses to be jailed for such mass lawlessness.  This strike is costing New York hundreds of millions of dollars per day.  The response to these criminals needs to be stepped up drastically.

Update (4pm): Newsday is reporting that Sandra Nathan, counsel for the Public Employee Relations Board (the agency that administers the Taylor Law, of which the union in is violation), has been assigned to mediate.  Note that this is non-binding mediation, distinct from the binding arbitration sought by the MTA and bitterly resisted by the TWU.

Update (1pm): A few details are emerging now about the mid-day criminal contempt hearing (a tool that may be used to impose appropriately debilitating fines on the unions and their illegally striking members and potentially to throw union leaders in jail), currently being held by Brooklyn State Supreme Court Judge Theodore Jones.  The TWU's Local 100's parent union, the Transport Workers Union of America, explicitly does not support the strike and maintains that negotiations were still progressing when the TWU chief Toussaint walked out and called for the strike.

Jones has rejected the local TWU's attempts to delay the hearing and to secure a jury trial.  The union is also now reportedly claiming that the MTA provoked the strike.  Says union boss Roger Toussaint, "We did not want a strike, but apparently the MTA, the governor and mayor did."  Governor Pataki has advised, "All I can say is go back to work, come back to the table."

Update (11am): The TWU has published its own strike blog, with an unrestricted commenting policy.  See the real-time backlash (interspersed with strikers' delusions of righteousness) in all its colorful New York phraseology (Hat tip: GOP and the City).

---

It's on.  After failing to come to a contract agreement with the MTA last night, the Transport Workers Union voted 28-10 to launch their illegal citywide strike on bus and subway lines today, disrupting the commutes of the 7 million New Yorkers they serve.

Estimates of the financial hit the city will recognize today alone range from $400 to $660 million.  The implications of compromised public safety may be even more serious.

This is the first time since 1980 that the union has made good on threats of an illegal strike, at which point an 11-day strike occurred under Mayor Ed Koch.  Koch has been vocal about the strike this time around, aggressively supporting levying the steep fines against the rank-and-files members, but not the jailing of union leaders provided by the Taylor Law (not because they don't deserve it, but because it serves only to elevate them to martyr status).

I disagree.

Union chief Roger Toussaint and the rest of the TWU leadership that felt using the financial health and safety of New York as leverage in their lawless pursuit of more money should be locked up until they call off this disgraceful anarchic campaign.

A criminal hearing is scheduled for 11:00 this morning to address the union's serious crimes against this city.

...State Supreme Court Justice Theodore Jones in Brooklyn scheduled the 11 a.m. criminal contempt hearing against the Transport Workers Union after MTA requested a hearing as soon as possible. "We must bring this illegal strike to a halt immediately to preserve the safety of the city," said Michael Cardozo of the city's Corporation Council.

During the rare 4:30 a.m. hearing this morning, Justice Jones also signed a temporary restraining order, ordering the union to immediately stop striking. "The judge issued a temporary restraining order, basically saying, 'I told you not to strike, now I'm telling you to stop striking,'" Cardoza said.

Strikeblogging Elsewhere:

Wonkster
GOP and the City
Evan Coyne Maloney
Alarming News
Blogmeister
Red Guy In a Blue State
Michelle Malkin
Mary Katherine Ham @ Hugh Hewitt
Pam Spaulding
Wizbang
Donkey Stomp

Previously:

T-Minus 1 Hour: Transit Union Walks Out
No Progress on Transit Negotiations
Bracing for Bedlam
Bloomberg Steps Up
New York's Looming Illegal Transit Strike

T-Minus 1 Hour: Transit Union Walks Out

Unless there's a late night surprise, New Yorkers are in for an expensive, dangerous, inconvenient day, thanks to the coordinated illegal activity of up to 33,700 Transport Workers Union members.

From Bloomberg:

NYC Transit Union Rejects MTA Contract Offer, Leaves Talks 

Dec. 19 (Bloomberg) -- New York City transit union officials rejected the latest contract offer by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and have left the negotiating table, an MTA spokesman said.

"The MTA has put a fair offer on the negotiating table,'' said Tom Kelly, an MTA spokesman. "Unfortunately that has been rejected by the union. They advised us they would leave the building and go to the union hall.''

Of some consolation is the fact that the city will accrue fines receivable of up to $843.5 million ($1 million from the TWU and $25,000 from each striking employee), which will double every day they remain on strike.  That's more than $12 billion by week's end.

Sure, the illegal strike will compromise the city's tourism, public safety, and the daily lives of its millions of citizens, but at least it'll offset those nasty deficit projections.

Governor Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg didn't mix words in their comments earlier today.

"A strike is illegal. Let me just reiterate that," said Bloomberg. "A strike is illegal, and the city and state, courts, everybody is going to enforce the law. And anyone that thinks that they can just go break the law is sadly mistaken."

"There's a reason it's illegal, because of its impact on the people, eight million plus people who need our mass transit system to get around, not just to get to work but to get to see a doctor or to respond to an emergency," said Pataki. "That's why the law makes it illegal and that's why the law has very real penalties for those who break it."

Here's hoping Bloomberg and Pataki draw inspiration from Ronald Reagan, Ed Koch, and Rudy Giuliani in their continued resistance to the union's brazenly illicit tactics.

Further: Official contingency plan resources:

• City of New York
• Taxi and Limousine Commission
• MTA

Previously:

No Progress on Transit Negotiations
Bracing for Bedlam
Bloomberg Steps Up
New York's Looming Illegal Transit Strike

Wrong Kong

With headlines simultaneously infused with WTO protests and big budget Hollywood remakes, and as I am a terribly careless and erratic headline scanner, I've found myself frequently mistaking news stories about "Hong Kong" for ones about "King Kong" (and vice versa) at first glance.

It's mildly bemusing, but occasionally highly amusing, given the headlines' altered implications. Consider these faulty interpretations:

• A guide to Hong Kong for the small-bladdered
• Keep kids away from Hong Kong
• Hong Kong prepares to take over Japan

• King Kong Releases Most Jailed WTO Protesters
• King Kong Lets Korean Rioters Off With a Caution
• Monkeys outbreed people in stress-laden King Kong

Bush Press Conference

President Bush spoke with members of the press this morning in the East Room of the Oval Office, in follow-up to last night's address to the nation.

Questions ranged from the improperly leaked NSA surveillance information to progress in Iraq to race baiting.  I haven't seen a transcript or video yet, but Bulldog Pundit at Ankle Biting Pundits put up a thorough liveblog.

None of the questions were particularly incisive, nor was there much new substance to the answers (at least to those that have been paying attention lately, which - judging by prevailing rhetoric and media coverage - includes a limited swath of the public).  But what impressed me about the back-and-forth was Bush's ability (and willingness) to smack down or sidestep all the flawed premises, poisoned wells, and loaded questions that saturated the press corps' barrage.

Capping this year-end blitz of renewed rhetorical vigor with an appropriately assertive interactive performance like this strikes me as a smart move and an indication the Bush feels he's got a bit of his groove back when it comes to defending sound policy and rebuffing faulty criticism.

Update:

The White House has released a transcript and video.

Birth of the Agriblog

University of Illinois Extension has launched The Farm Gate, a blog "for Cornbelt farmers and agribusiness".

The farm gate is the place to go to find integrated information across a variety of disciplines, including crop and animal sciences, ag economics, ag engineering and veterinary medicine. The farm gate will address these disciplines as they meet, intersect and often intertwine to shape the environment in which the ag community lives and works.

The blog is maintained by Stu Ellis, President of the Illinois Extension Agricultural Association, and Extension's advisory member of the Illinois Farm Bureau Board of Directors.

Farm Gate's topics range from crops and livestock production to veterinary medecine to federal fiscal policy and international trade negotiations.

Yoinks.

Looks like Wizbang may need another new category next year.

No Progress on Transit Negotiations

Transport Workers Union employees for two private bus lines in New York City will walk out tomorrow morning, according to union leaders.  The union's contract with the MTA expired on Friday and weekend talks have failed to yield an agreement.

The steep fines authorized by a Brooklyn judge under New York's Taylor Law at the request of the Bloomberg administration ($25,000 per worker, doubling each day) do not apply since the employees of Jamaica Buses and Triboro Coach Corporation are not public employees.

An MTA representative said Sunday night that talks had concluded for the night, but that additional negotiations were scheduled for Monday and that each side had plans to contact the other if any "new ideas" occurred to them.

This move of the TWU's might be a shrewd one, as it lends some credibility to their (reprehensible) threat, without incurring the devastating fines on striking rank-and-file members.

Still, the Taylor Law uses fairly sweeping language in its prohibition of strikes (Section 210):

1. No public employee or employee organization shall engage in a strike, and no public employee or employee organization shall cause, instigate, encourage, or condone a strike.

I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to me that, even if the only walkouts are private company employees, the TWU (the employee organization) would still be encouraging and condoning the strike, subjecting it to a $1 million (doubling daily) fine and the jailing of union leaders.

If my read is right, let's hope the fines are swiftly levied.  The last thing we need is for the TWU to be further emboldened to mount their illegal strike, which has been estimated to pose as much as a $600 million daily threat (not to mention the public safety implications) to the city.

Previously:

Bracing for Bedlam
Bloomberg Steps Up
New York's Looming Illegal Transit Strike

Oval Office Address To the Nation

President Bush's speech tonight on the Iraqi elections was his first address from the Oval Office since announcing Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003.

Bush used the occasion to reinforce the pushback he's been mounting recently against the war's unflinchingly defeatist naysayers:

In all three aspects of our strategy - security, democracy, and reconstruction - we have learned from our experiences, and fixed what has not worked.  We will continue to listen to honest criticism, and make every change that will help us complete the mission.  Yet there is a difference between honest critics who recognize what is wrong, and defeatists who refuse to see that anything is right.

Defeatism may have its partisan uses, but it is not justified by the facts. For every scene of destruction in Iraq, there are more scenes of rebuilding and hope.  For every life lost, there are countless more lives reclaimed.  And for every terrorist working to stop freedom in Iraq, there are many more Iraqis and Americans working to defeat them. My fellow citizens:  Not only can we win the war in Iraq - we are winning the war in Iraq.

Full text of the President's address.
The Political Teen has the video.

Shakedown, Breakdown, Takedown, You're Filibusted

52 votes failed to carry a cloture motion that would've allowed the Senate - already looking at its collective watch and dreaming of sugar plums - to vote on the Patriot Act Improvement and Reauthorization Act yesterday.

It would've been 53, but by voting with the filibusterers, Leader Frist retains the right to call for another vote down the line.  Frist is keeping Senators in session this weekend (as I'd hoped he might, ever since Dick Durbin started thumping his chest about a filibuster) in an effort to get a vote on the bill before they recess and the Patiot Act provisions expire on December 31st.

Other Republicans casting irregular votes:

• Lisa Murkowski (AK)
• Chuck Hagel (NE)
• Larry Craig (ID)
• John Sununu (NH)

Hagel's excuse was an ostensible lack of "confidence and trust in one's government" inspired by the legislation.  Conversely, Democrats Tim Johnson (SD) and Ben Nelson (NE) seem to prize the legislation's vital function over party doctrine and endless debate.

Trouble On the Tarmac

A Southwest plane was evacuated at Burbank's Bob Hope Airport this evening, after a passenger "allegedly made an inappropriate remark," according to airline spokesman Victor Gill.

Update:

According to SFGate.com, there are reports that two men and two women were escorted off the plane, but that the threat (which reportedly involved a bomb) is not believed to be credible.

Neither Rain, Nor Freezing Rain, Nor Snow Mixed With Rain...

...will keep New York bloggers from a good party.

I don't know what our total headcount was last night (60? 70? Hard to say as people were coming and going all night), but it was a great crowd.  I had the distinct (and mildly surreal) pleasure of finally meeting the faces behind the posts, including co-hosts Karol, Scott, and The Man, as well as my blogfather, and plenty of other charming and witty partygoers.

Every time I had a conversation with a blogger, I kept waiting for them to say something like, "You know who has something interesting to say about this topic?  Stan.  Here, let me point you out to Stan.  But first, let me quote you a little sample of what he told me."

But to my amazement, we all chatted and socialized and yukked it up much like normal human beings.

Among the other guests I had the pleasure of chatting with were Phil from Red Guy In a Blue State, Joan from Mamacita, Zelda from The Urban Grind, Owen from Light on the Sacred, Heavy on the Profane, Ari from Ari Goes Down, Ace from Ace of Spades, Yaron from Daily Lunch, Kat from The Wisdom of Change, and Pamela from Atlas Shrugs (who thinks I look like Frank Sinatra).

What do New York bloggers talk about when they get together?

• Transit strike
• 2006 elections
• 2008 elections
• Whether they've read your site
• Whether you've read their site
• When the bar staff might be bringing more quesadillas

It was a grand old time.  Thanks to everyone that was able to come!

On the Record

Resolved, by a vote of 279-109:

(1) the House of Representatives is committed to achieving victory in Iraq;

(2) the Iraqi election of December 15, 2005, was a crucial victory for the Iraqi people and Iraq's new democracy, and a defeat for the terrorists who seek to destroy that democracy;

(3) the House of Representatives encourages all Americans to express solidarity with the Iraqi people as they take another step toward their goal of a free, open, and democratic society;

(4) the successful Iraqi election of December 15, 2005, required the presence of United States Armed Forces, United States-trained Iraqi forces, and Coalition forces;

(5) the continued presence of United States Armed Forces in Iraq will be required only until Iraqi forces can stand up so our forces can stand down, and no longer than is required for that purpose;

(6) setting an artificial timetable for the withdrawal of United States Armed Forces from Iraq, or immediately terminating their deployment in Iraq and redeploying them elsewhere in the region, is fundamentally inconsistent with achieving victory in Iraq;

(7) the House of Representatives recognizes and honors the tremendous sacrifices made by the members of the United States Armed Forces and their families, along with the members of Iraqi and Coalition forces; and

(8) the House of Representatives has unshakable confidence that, with the support of the American people and the Congress, United States Armed Forces, along with Iraqi and Coalition forces, shall achieve victory in Iraq.

	Yeas	Nays	PRES	NV
Republican	220		2	8
Democratic	59	108	32	3
Independent		1
TOTALS	279	109	34	11

Roll Call for House Resolution 612.

The Joys of Typepad

Housekeeping note:

You may have noticed the site acting strangely today - the Typepad publishing platform has been out of commission all day.

My apologies.  The situation seems to have normalized.

Bracing for Bedlam

On the one hand, it's pretty impressive that New York City has done such extensive logistical planning ahead of the looming illegal transit strike.  They haven't advertised it all that much (so far as I've seen), but the city's online Alternative Transportation Information Center has a wealth of information for residents, businesses, and schools on how to get around in the event the Transit Workers Union decides to walk out on New York.

On the other hand, it's pretty irritating that a city already so mired in the critical burden of contingency planning is forced to divert resources to bracing for the coordinated illegal actions of more than 30,000 city employees.

Terror in the skies, terror undergound, cop killers on the prowl... these are all blights beyond our immediate control that need containment.  Rather, if the strike takes place, the interruption it will inflict on millions of people, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, not to mention a citywide effort that will leave reduced capacity to deal with anything else, is completely avoidable.

I don't mean it's avoidable in the sense that the MTA and the TWU ought to think about the greater good and work harder to form a compromise.  I mean it's avoidable in the sense that there is a clearly at-fault party if the status quo holds and the threatened walk out occurs.  The union is expressly legally forbidden from mounting a strike and it would represent nothing more than dangerous, expensive lawlessness in pursuit of financial reward.

The city faces enough real threats for us to inflict unnecessary ones upon ourselves.

Previously:

Bloomberg Steps Up
New York's Looming Illegal Transit Strike

A Historic Day

In mere hours, the world will at last see the culmination of a long period of planning, strife, dedication, and above all hope, as a diverse group of individuals - from different backgrounds and with different cultural and religious beliefs - turn out in record numbers for as important an occasion as we are likely to see this year, if not this generation.

As goes without saying, the unprecedented event in question is the NYC Bloggers' Holiday Hootenanny.

It kicks off at Proof tonight at 6.  If you've been pining for an invite but didn't know how to ask, just click Sidebar Santa and follow the instructions.

Just remember that everyone at this ball turns into a proverbial pumpkin at midnight, when our trusty stagecoach drivers go on strike.

Elsewhere:

Co-host Scott Sala finds the spirit of Christmas in the heart of New York.
Co-host GOP and the City predicts no strike but he's playing hooky just to be safe.
Co-host Karol Sheinin re-invites you to join the merriment.

Liveblogging the Iraqi Elections

And how.

Soup-to-nuts, on-the-scene, up-to-the-minute coverage at Pajamas Media and Iraq the Model.

Preliminary reporting suggests turnout is very high and irregularities are very low. (It's the Iraqis' first crack at this - you have to forgive them for getting it backwards.)

The Thin Line Between Capitalism and Communism

It's getting a little blurry.

Conference Call With Dan Senor On Iraqi Elections

Update: The call has just finished.

RNC eCampaign Director Patrick Ruffini introduced Dan Senor, chief spokesman for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq prior to the 2004 sovereignty transfer.

Mr. Senor made some opening remarks (lightly paraphrased throughout), looking back on the two prior Iraqi elections.  He noted that going into the January election for the transitional government, there was great uncertainty as to the percentage of Iraqis that would participate.  Still 8 million voters risked their lives to cast their votes.

10 months later, Iraqis returned to the polls to vote on the constitutional referendum, at which point critics labeled the first election's success an anomaly.  Indeed, Senor noted that many electoral experts look more closely at a nation's second election as the better gauge of its stability.  The referendum drew more than 9 million voters.

Tomorrow (actually in just a few hours), when Iraqis vote for a third time, now for a permanent parliamentary government, Senor foresees a yet higher turnout, with far greater Sunni participation.  Senor predicts the number of Sunni-held seats will rise from 16 to 40-50, while the number of Shia-held seats will drop from around 140 to around 110.  He also predicted a drop in the number of Kurd-held seats (though it would have to be minute if the above predictions bear out).

Q&A

I asked the first question, on the topic of today's New York Times article, which made the following claim.

Many politicians here and in other parts of the Sunni heartland are pushing the message of opposition to win over the electorate: Vote for me and I will rid Iraq of the Americans. Or, vote for me and I will thwart the plans of the Shiites and Kurds.

I asked if Senor felt this was accurate.  He did.  He said he recognizes that Iraqis may have a sense of humiliation associated with the symbols of foreign occupation.  Senor noted that when asked if they want Americans to leave, most Iraqis say yes.  But when asked if they want us to leave immediately, they say no.  The difference, which Senor described as seemingly illogical but understandable, is that the Iraqi people, while eager to cast off the symbols of occupation, recognize the major security implications of our presence.

Further, Senor noted that the key clause of the quoted statement was "vote for me".  Opposition that's expressed as, "Vote for me and... X," whatever X may be (rather than opposition expressed via violence) is progress.

Gary Gross asked exactly how tomorrow's vote will detract from the insurgency.

Senor observed that the leaders of the insurgency have moved from directly undercutting the American presence in Iraq to undercutting the Iraqi political process.  Zarqawi and Zawahri now view Iraq's political evolution as the biggest threat to the former Baathist/Saddamist/terrorist vision of Iraq.  This is reflected by the fact that attacks are now predominantly focused on Iraqi security and political institutions.

Senor also referred to Brookings Institution research published in The New York Times that quantifies certain benchmarks of progress in Iraq.  In particular, he noted that the number of Iraqis that volunteer tips about the insurgency each day had increased 2 or 3-fold over the last year.

It's actually a 14-fold increase (150/day vs. 10/day).  Check out the summary index data for additional insights into year-over-year progress.

Senor explains that this is indicative of a change in sentiment about the momentum of the struggle.

John Hawkins asked what effect the eventual drawdown of American troops will have on the insurgency.

Senor indicated that - assuming the drawdown occurs at a time when Iraqi forces are able to effectively provide for their ongoing security - the result will largely be a positive psychological shift.  The absence of "humiliation associated with the symbols of insurgency", as he mentioned earlier, will have a powerful effect.

Many thanks to Dan Senor and Patrick Ruffini for the informative call and kudos to our burgeoning small-d democrat friends as they Iraq (sigh...) the vote.

Elsewhere:

Mary Katherine Ham at HughHewitt.com

Further:

The full-length Iraq Index ("Tracking Variables of Reconstruction & Security in Post-Saddam Iraq"), courtesy of the Brookings Institution, published December 12.

---

This afternoon, Dan Senor will host a blogger conference call previewing Thursday’s Iraqi elections.

From the call invitation:

[Senor] served as the chief spokesman for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq until the transfer of sovereignty in June 2004. As Iraqis head to the polls, Senor will discuss his unique perspective on Iraq’s incredible transformation from a dictatorship to democracy. 

Dan Senor served as the chief Coalition spokesman and senior advisor to Ambassador L. Paul Bremer III, and was one of the longest serving American civilians in Iraq, entering Iraq on one of the first civilian convoys after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime. Few have a clearer understanding of the progress that Iraq has made than Dan Senor.

It should be refreshing to hear from someone who actually holds an informed view of the situation.

Watch this space for a subsequent synopsis.

House Re-Ups Patriot Act

Today, the House passed legislation to renew many Patriot Act provisions that will otherwise expire at year end.  The measure passed 251-174, meaning it broke slightly to the right of party lines (22% of Democrats voted for the bill, while 8% of Republicans voted against it).

The measure still has to pass the Senate, where Bill Frist is trying to get a vote in before the session breaks on December 17.  Dick Durbin, meanwhile, is wringing his hands to the bone as he promises a tenacious filibuster:

Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat, said the Republican leadership will have difficulty finding the 60 votes necessary to end debate and force a Senate vote on the measure. Republicans have 55 of the 100 Senate votes.

"There may be an attempt to shut off debate on the Patriot Act,'' Durbin said on the Senate floor. "That would be a mistake.''

Needless to say, the will of a supermajority to vote on legislation is not "an attempt to shut off debate".  It's an attempt to keep the minority from tyrannically stalling the business of the Senate.

On the temporarily extended provision allowing federal authorities to request access to library and hospital records, in the course of terror investigations and only upon receiving special court approval, Durbin gets a little tinfoily:

Durbin said the provision gives the FBI the right to conduct "a fishing expedition'' because "the government can look at thousands of individual records by companies or libraries or hospitals and look to see if there is anything suspicious they can glean from looking at those records.''

Not that all hand-wringing is unjustified.  The President articulated the genuine cause for concern in his commendation of the House earlier today.

The Patriot Act is scheduled to expire at the end of the month, but the terrorist threat will not expire on that schedule. In the war on terror, we cannot afford to be without this law for a single moment. I urge the Senate to pass this legislation promptly and reauthorize the Patriot Act.

If Dick and his like-minded colleagues truly require yet additional time past the 17th to mount meaningful debate on the re-authorization (rather than tactical stalling), so be it.  But if so, I hope Senator Frist is able to keep them in place as long as it takes, right up through and including the scheduled expiration on the 31st, in order to let them say their peace and cast their votes.

Further:

Dept. of Homeland Security statement released today detailing cases in which the USA Patriot Act has enabled Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the IRS to take down major money laundering operations.

President's Remarks on Iraqi Election

President Bush delivered a speech at the Wilson Center at the Ronald Reagan Building this morning on the topic of tomorrow's parliamentary election in Iraq and victory in the war on terror.

Here's the meatiest bit (IMHO):

Our tactics continue to change, but our goal in Iraq has not changed: a free and democratic Iraq. I strongly believe a democratic Iraq is a crucial part of our strategy to defeat the terrorists, because only democracy can bring freedom and reconciliation to Iraq, and peace to this troubled part of the world. Our efforts to advance freedom in Iraq are driven by our vital interests and our deepest beliefs. America was founded on the principle that all men are created equal, and we believe that the people of the Middle East desire freedom as much as we do. History has shown that free nations are peaceful nations. And as Iraqi democracy takes hold, Iraqi citizens will have a stake in a common and peaceful future.

As we advance the cause of freedom in Iraq, our nation can proceed with confidence because we have done this kind of work before. After World War II, President Harry Truman believed that the way to help bring peace and prosperity to Asia was to plant the seeds of freedom and democracy in Japan. Like today, there were many skeptics and pessimists who said that the Japanese were not ready for democracy. Fortunately, President Harry Truman stuck to his guns. He believed, as I do, in freedom's power to transform an adversary into an ally. And because he stayed true to his convictions, today Japan is one of the world's freest and most prosperous nations, and one of America's closest allies in keeping the peace. The spread of freedom to Iraq and the Middle East requires the same confidence and persistence, and it will lead to the same results. (Applause.)

The people of Iraq are now seeing some of the tangible benefits of their new democracy. They see that as freedom advances, their lives are improving. Iraqis have approved a bold constitution that guarantees the rule of law and freedom of assembly, and property rights, and freedom of speech and the press, and women's rights, and the right to vote. They see their freedom increasingly being defended by their own soldiers and police instead of foreign forces. And they see that freedom is bringing opportunity and a better life.

In response, Mark Noonan at Blogs For Bush asks some excellent questions:

Can you start to see it, now? We are about to midwife the first democracy the Arab world has ever known - this is a gigantic advance in the cause of human liberty and is an absolutely vital element in our War on Terrorism.
...
You on the left can wallow in your fetid Bush-hating if you'd like, but perhaps it is time for you to rethink your views and, you know, get on your country's side in this War on Terrorism. President Bush leaves office on January 20th, 2009...but this War on Terror will likely go on for another ten years or so. What will you do once Bush is gone? Suddenly decide you want to fight terrorism? What happens if by the time Bush is gone you've sabotaged the effort and the enemy is riding high? Think about that.

Bloomberg Steps Up

Mayor Bloomberg wisely heeded my advice yesterday (well, okay, he may have come up with it on his own...) and asked a judge to enjoin the Transit Workers Union from mounting their planned criminal strike, slated to kick off Friday morning if contract negotiations with the MTA continue to stagnate.  The judge, Justice Theodore T. Jones Jr. of the State Supreme Court in Brooklyn, granted the preliminary injunction.

From The New York Times:

The city's request would mean that on the third day, the union would face a $4 million fine and each striker a $100,000 fine. Transit workers' average pay is $55,000 a year, including overtime.

The issues at issue are the rate of salary increase under the new contract (the TWU wants 24% over three years) and the age at which pensions kick in (the TWU wants it lowered to 50).

To borrow a couple of points from my previous post, Bloomberg's move reflects the same tactic employed by Mayor Giuliani to prevent a similarly devastating, similarly illegal transit strike in 1999.  The Taylor Law, enacted in 1967, specifically forbids public employees and employee organizations from engaging in, causing, instigating, encouraging, or condoning strikes.

"A strike would pose enormous risks to the city and impose serious economic losses on all businesses and residents," said Michael A. Cardozo, the city's corporation counsel. "The city intends to hold the union and its members responsible for their conduct to the full extent provided by law."

Darn right.  During the 1999 standoff, Giuliani estimated the citywide impact of the threatened illicit strike would've been $25 million per day.  Bloomberg's 2005 estimate is that a strike would wreak an economic cost of up to $660 million per day in lost corporate revenues.

The last time such a lawless, dangerous, and economically disastrous strike took place in New York was 1980, when Democratic Mayor Ed Koch framed the argument bluntly, telling The New York Post, “Stand up! Stand firm! Don't give away the city because of an illegal strike. Don't let these bastards bring the city to its knees by engaging in an illegal strike.”

I'm not unsympathetic to transit workers, who work difficult, often thankless jobs, performing vital services for a complex city on systems as much as a century old (a problem for another day).  But they did vote to authorize their union leaders to call for this illegal, irresponsible strike in order to gain leverage against the city and their employer - leverage unavailable through legitimate negotiation.  By standing up to the TWU's illicit tactics, the Bloomberg administration has fought back on behalf of the city's fiscal solvency, not to mention its corporate community, tourism, and public safety.

Strong work, Mike.

Previously: New York's Looming Illegal Transit Strike

Greenspan Makes It a Baker's Dozen

As was widely expected, the Federal Reserve's Federal Open Market Committee announced this afternoon it would raise the fed funds target rate for the 13th consecutive time.  The 1/4 point uptick leaves the rate at a 4-year high of 4.25%

More carefully pored over were the slight changes in the language of the accompanying statement.  Key phrases like referring to the rate environment as "accommodative" and that the accommodation could be removed at a "measured pace" were incumbent vocabularial hints as to future moves (translating to "we expect to raise rates again" and "but only by a quarter point at a time" respectively).

Today, the Fed removed the word "accommodative", suggesting they feel they've raised rates to a level where they are no longer fueling accelerated economic activity, but are in (or are getting into) the "neutral" range.  This is the first time in 18 months the word has not appeared in the FOMC statement, suggesting the end is in site for this long, steady climb.

The market has priced in another 1/4 point hike upon Greenspan's swan song in January, and the possibility of another 1/4 point hike at Bernanke's inaugural meeting the following month.  All things being equal, for sake of continuity and confidence (no meager assets to monetary policy), the Fed would likely prefer to avoid reaching a policy inflection point that coincides with the Chairmanship turnover.

That said, it seems unlikely - assuming the inflation-neutral thing to do is to stop at 4.5% - that the newly-headed Fed would elect to raise to 4.75% solely to keep an even course heading, thus unduly constraining economic activity absent inflation concerns.  But if by January Greenspan feels his last hike should also be the end of the streak, I'd expect to see a yet greater, truly barefaced transparency in January's press release as to the intent to level off at the next meeting, in order not to saddle Bernanke with the burden of perceived discontinuity.

Market reax:
(favorable, at least in the knee-jerk)

Dow
Nasdaq
S&P 500

Bird Flu Insurance

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has been stockpiling millions of doses of a chicken vaccine, aimed at preventing an American bird flu (H5N1) pandemic.

From The Wall Street Journal:

With human vaccines for bird flu still in the development and testing phase, scientists say the best way to prevent a human pandemic is to stop H5N1 while it is still mostly a problem in birds.

"It would be irresponsible of us not to have vaccines ready," says Ron DeHaven, administrator of the Agriculture Department's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

Big Bird, however, is not so keen on the idea.  Poultry industry representatives from the National Chicken Council, which represents firms including Tyson Foods, Pilgrim's Pride, and Perdue Farms, balk (bok?) at the idea of a mass vaccination plan that could cost them billions of dollars in lost export sales.

The U.S. exports about 15% of its chicken meat annually, with $2.2 billion in shipments last year alone. The industry says importing countries would be likely to close their borders to chickens from states where poultry had been vaccinated. That's because the basic screening tests many importing countries use for bird flu can't tell for sure whether chickens have been treated with a vaccine or infected with the disease itself.

So let's think about this from a relative cost perspective.  Using figures quoted in the aforelinked article, as well as a Congressional Budget Office report cited in Friday's Journal, the major costs associated with a mass pro-active vaccination of domestic chickens breaks down as follows:

• Cost of vaccine: $500 million
• Cost of labor: $500 million
• Lost exports: Up to $2.2 billion/year

To handle the ongoing cost of reduced exports, let's plug in a year-one equivalent cost to represent all future lost sales (as a multiple of total current annual exports).  They would surely not drop all the way to zero, but assuming they drop by 90%, then slowly normalize over the following few years, let's attribute 250% of current annual exports as the equivalent year-one hit (e.g. that might manifest as Yr 1: 90%, Yr 2: 70%, Yr 3: 60%, Yr 4: 30%, not accounting for time value or industry growth, both of which would render the estimate overly harsh). 

In other words, 2.5x current annual exports seems like a adequate assumption to fully realize the cost.

Under these assumptions, the total equivalent year-one cost of the program (including public sector/taxpayer costs and the effect on industry) is $6.5 billion.  This doesn't take into account certain partial offsets, including the effect of the incremental vaccine sales and wages earned, as well as the sudden surplus of chickens available for domestic sale (I don't know what the price elasticity of chicken demand is, but it's probably fairly high, given the many substitute products, so some of the lost export sales should be able to be recouped via discounted domestic sales).

All the more reason why $6.5 billion seems like a high-side estimate for the total public/private cost.  Still a whopper of a number, to be sure.  But now let's consider the cost of the alternative.

The same report gauges the cost of a "mild pandemic" to be $675 billion.  The report qualifies the estimate:

"There is a substantial amount of uncertainty associated with these scenarios because there is scant empirical evidence available to inform many of the assumptions that are needed for the calculations underlying the economic effects."

If accurate, the price of the "premium" offered by the insurance policy of the poultry vaccination program is less than 1% ($6.5 billion / $675 billion).

Is there a 1% or greater chance of the program preventing the pandemic?  Beats me.  But that seems like an important question.

Further, that's the relevant threshold assuming we take a risk-neutral stance toward the prospect of this catastrophic outcome.  Clearly, this is a matter on which to be risk-averse, lowering the necessary odds that the program would prevent the pandemic, in order for it to make economic sense.

Worse still is the possibility of a "severe pandemic", the economic toll of which would be far higher and which would cause an estimated 2 million American deaths.  Under this scenario, not only is the cost much higher, but the risk aversion should be steeper still, as this is clearly an unacceptable outcome to which to maintain exposure, unless the odds of it occurring are vanishingly small.

In short, we seem to have pretty good data on the expected costs of the vaccination program: $6.5 billion, give or take.  Courtesy of the CBO, we have (admittedly rough) estimates on what the economic and human costs of a pandemic might be: $675 billion (or much more, if the pandemic is severe) and as many as 2 million lives.

The missing piece is a reliable forecast of the likelihood of a mild or severe pandemic taking place, and of the ability of this vaccination program to make the difference between its occurring or not.  Based on the above assumptions, the probability of even a mild pandemic being averted (via a means that scientists claim is the best way to prevent one) can be well under 1% and the program still makes sense.

An expected pushback to this argument is that "there are other, more productive ways to spend the money."  And there are undoubtedly other research programs, preventative steps, and response preparedness initiatives that can be invested in.  But that doesn't negate the attractiveness of this insurance policy, as money remains fungible.  If you're going to take up riding motorcycles, it doesn't mean that life and health insurance are sucker bets, just because a good helmet provides more preventative bang for the buck.

Bear in mind none of this addresses how the poultry industry ought to be made whole, assuming the program is implemented.  Surely that can be worked out, assuming the expected net impact of the initiative is as overwhelmingly positive as it appears to be.

I'm no fan of obstructing free enterprise or of placing undue constraints on international trade.  But given what's at stake, the good people at the National Chicken Council, in determining the aggressiveness of their resistance to this program, would do well to recall the perilous lessons of cost-benefit analysis once learned by Ford Motor Company.

All I Want For Christmas Is Child Protective Services

If Robert can't afford to keep his son clothed, heated, or hydrated (despite government and family support), how is he managing to keep him so dangerously obese?

(Hat tip: Fark)

No Clemency For Tookie

It's the end of the road for an evil monster.

Elsewhere:

Matt Margolis and Vodkapundit work in the puns.
Drew McKissick rounds up blogger reaction.
The Political Teen has the video.

Echoes of Insurgency

An excerpt from the President's speech earlier today at the Philadelphia World Affairs Council:

From the perspective of more than two centuries, the success of America's democratic experiment seems almost inevitable.  At the time, however, that success didn't seem so obvious or assured.

The eight years from the end of the Revolutionary War to the election of a constitutional government were a time of disorder and upheaval.  There were uprisings, with mobs attacking courthouses and government buildings.  There was a planned military coup that was defused only by the personal intervention of General Washington.  In 1783, Congress was chased from this city by angry veterans demanding back-pay, and they stayed on the run for six months.  There were tensions between the mercantile North and the agricultural South that threatened to break apart our young republic.  And there were British loyalists who were opposed to independence and had to be reconciled with America's new democracy.

Our founders faced many difficult challenges -- they made mistakes, they learned from their experiences, and they adjusted their approach.  Our nation's first effort at governing -- a governing charter, the Articles of Confederation, failed.  It took years of debate and compromise before we ratified our Constitution and inaugurated our first president.  It took a four-year civil war, and a century of struggle after that, before the promise of our Declaration was extended to all Americans.

That we ever reached this post-Revolutionary upheaval is astounding.  It must've been an unbearable annoyance having to tune out the Loyalists, constantly pestering the Patriots about the "Revolutionary quagmire", accusing rebel soldiers of "torture and terrorism", and urging George Washington to return us to a time when the King's oppression was a mere "nuisance".

Read the full text of the speech.

Elsewhere:

The Political Teen has the video
Conservative Outpost rounds up recent good news from Iraq (and its deafeningly silent coverage)

The Definitive Top 10 List

Merriam-Webster has published its list of 2005's words of the year, based on online lookups, providing a telling look at what concepts are occupying our collective minds (or confusing them anyway).

What's the number one item confounding us?

integrity

Pronunciation: in-'te-gr&-tE
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English integrite, from Middle French & Latin; Middle French integrité, from Latin integritat-, integritas, from integr-, integer entire
1 : firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values : INCORRUPTIBILITY
2 : an unimpaired condition : SOUNDNESS
3 : the quality or state of being complete or undivided : COMPLETENESS
synonym see HONESTY

Frankly, the rest of the top ten list doesn't paint a much brighter picture of what was on our minds this year:

1. integrity
2. refugee
3. contempt
4. filibuster
5. insipid
6. tsunami
7. pandemic
8. conclave
9. levee
10. inept

Then again, the previous lists have their share of pestilence and malaise as well.

2004
1. blog
2. incumbent
3. electoral
4. insurgent
5. hurricane
6. cicada
7. peloton
8. partisan
9. sovereignty
10. defenestration

2003
1. democracy
2. quagmire
3. quarantine
4. matrix
5. marriage
6. slog
7. gubernatorial
8. plagiarism
9. outage
10. batten

These are definitely illuminating lists.  But I'd really like to see their historical counterparts from, say, the 1920's.

While lacking the accuracy of tracking online queries, through careful research and examination of patterns of page wear-and-tear and the locations of thumbprint smudges in hundreds of antique dictionaries, I've compiled the following approximation:

1920-1929
1. suffrage
2. flappers
3. charleston
4. cat's pajamas
5. talkies
6. speakeasy
7. jazzbo
8. houdini
9. hooch
10. black tuesday

New York's Looming Illegal Transit Strike

Section 210 of The Taylor Law (Public Employees' Fair Employment Act), New York Civil Service Law, Article 14:

1. No public employee or employee organization shall engage in a strike, and no public employee or employee organization shall cause, instigate, encourage, or condone a strike.

So why is New York City preparing itself for a complete transit shutdown beginning Friday at 12:01am?

The MTA and the Transit Workers Union Local 100 have thus far failed to come anywhere near agreement on a new contract (the MTA has offered a 5% raise over 2 years; the TWU wants 24% over 3 years), prompting union members to authorize a strike if the Friday deadline lapses without a new contract.

If the strike goes ahead, there are few winners.  The city will all but shut down.  Workers will be fined double their daily salaries.  And union leaders can be jailed.

Fines, incarceration, and dealing a crippling blow to one's city and employer all give little pause to TWU President Roger Toussaint though, who notes:

“It may be illegal, but we believe that there is law and there is justice,” Toussaint said. “If Rosa Parks had stayed behind the bus and not stood for justice, many people would still be riding the back of the bus.”

Toussaint continued, “Jail is the easy part of it. Fines of my members are a much bigger concern to me…at the end of the day, I think the workers’ position is we will go on strike if we have to.”

Well, indeed he's right - workers have taken up the same position.  Then again, relatively few of them were likely on the MTA payroll during the last (also illegal) strike in 1980, when workers walked out for 11 days, and in the process lost 10% of their annual salaries.  Not to mention the lost productivity citywide.

In addition to the hefty salary increase, the union also wants the pension age lowered from 55 to 50, further burdening city coffers.  While the city is flush with surplus this year, massive budget deficits are forecast going forward, even without these MTA expenditure increases.  The immense pressure being applied by the TWU seems like a highly foolish attempt to capitalize on what can be (wrongly) painted as a situation wherein the city has lots of spare cash to sling around.

Depending on Mayor Bloomberg's appetite for controversy, he does have a card to play (or make a credible threat to play), namely to enjoin the union from striking, using the Taylor Law.  In 1999, Rudy Giuliani used this tactic (which would've risen the daily fines for walkers-out to $25,000, doubling every day) to avert a transit strike.

It may seem like an overly harsh measure, but the alternative is to accept that threats of illegal activity (which would wreak significant economic damage and genuine public safety hazards on our city) are an acceptable bargaining tactic.  The TWU is pushing New York City pretty hard.  It wouldn't be unreasonable to push back.

Another Man Makes Trouble On an Airplane

On the heels of last week's sad event in Miami, a Northwest flight from LA to Honolulu encountered some on-board disturbance on Friday.  An unidentified Mexican man apparently made repeated threats to a young couple's sleeping infant, ignored flight crew instructions (like "go back to your seat"), and eventually charged the cockpit.

Four business class passengers brought the lunatic down.

"He was behaving very strangely," [the baby's father] Jean-Francois said. "Stand up. Sit down. He was not listening to the orders of the crew.

"He looked mentally affected. His mind was not all there. ... He had a (cell phone) cord in his hand. We started to be afraid of that because it could be a weapon. ... He said to the flight attendant that he wanted to kill the baby."

Cheers to the business class passengers' vigilance and willingness to act.  Jeers to the flight crew for not dealing with the individual earlier.

If continued refusal to reclaim your own seat (in favor of one closer to the cockpit) isn't enough to win you the plastic handcuffs, threatening to kill a passenger ought to do the trick.  Sprinting for the cockpit shouldn't be the back-breaking straw.