HWX, Easy LIke Sunday Morning

It was a special Sunday edition of the Hinderaker-Ward Experience, with John Hinderaker of Power Line and Brian Ward of Fraters Libertas reconvening to deliver a joint sermon on the vital issues of today.  Topics addressed include:

*  a synopsis of John's actual Sunday school teaching to 2nd grade Lutherans of Minnesota

*  Barack Obama's strange and highly flawed attempts to delay Obamacare mandates

*  Obamacare advertising come-ons in Colorado, featuring free sex and beer

*  Loon of the Week with apparently imminent and inevitable passing of comprehensive immigration reform

*  150th anniversary of the Gettysburg address, with a related TWIG  correction (150 years in the making)

This episode is brought to you by John Swon and Focus Financial.  Focus Financial is a leading independent financial advisory firm focused on providing comprehensive wealth management and financial planning services to clients.  John Swon and his team have over 25 years of investment experience, are dedicated to giving you the kind of one-on-one advice and analysis you deserve.  And as independent advisers, they are focused on your priorities, not selling products.

Call now and request a free financial analysis at 952-896-3888.  

HWX is also brought to you by Encounter Books.  Our pick this week is their important and timely new broadside:  How Medicare Fails the Poor by Avik Roy.   This is available at Encounter for a low, low price of $4.19   And listeners of Ricochet can get an additional 15% off this, and other

titles, by entering the code "RICOCHET" at checkout.  Our thanks to Encounter Books for sponsoring HWX.

There are many ways to hear the podcast, including over on the mothership at Ricochet. You can be sure to never miss an episode by subscribing via iTunes. Or just use the player embedded in the upper right hand corner of this website.  If all of these fail, send me an email and I'll come to your house and read from a written transcript. Hope you enjoy.

Speaking the Same Language

Last week, while on a business trip in Europe, I ended up at dinner with four coworkers: a Brit, an Australian, a Singaporean, and a Dutchman. At some point in the evening, talk turned to geopolitics and specifically what the future would hold for China and its relationship with the rest of the world. My Dutch colleague was rather sanguine about the prospects of the continued rise of China. He explained that we should not fear a scenario where China ended up eclipsing the United States in the role of the world’s preeminent superpower. In that situation, the baton of being the world’s policeman would pass from the US to China much in the same way it had passed from Great Britain to the United States after World War II.

I took exception to his view and argued that while the US and the current Chinese government bore little resemblance to each other, Britain and the US had much more common politically and culturally.

In Saturday’s WSJ, Daniel Hannan explored the importance of the ties that bind not only the US and the UK, but the rest of the Anglosphere. The World of English Freedoms:

Above all, liberty was tied up with something that foreign observers could only marvel at: the miracle of the common law. Laws weren't written down in the abstract and then applied to particular disputes; they built up, like a coral reef, case by case. They came not from the state but from the people. The common law wasn't a tool of government but an ally of liberty: It placed itself across the path of the Stuarts and George III; it ruled that the bonds of slavery disappeared the moment a man set foot on English soil.

There was a fashion for florid prose in the 18th century, but the second American president, John Adams, wasn't exaggerating when he identified the Anglosphere's beautiful, anomalous legal system—which today covers most English-speaking countries plus Israel, almost an honorary member of the club, alongside the Netherlands and the Nordic countries—as the ultimate guarantor of freedom: "The liberty, the unalienable, indefeasible rights of men, the honor and dignity of human nature... and the universal happiness of individuals, were never so skillfully and successfully consulted as in that most excellent monument of human art, the common law of England."

Freedom under the law is a portable commodity, passed on through intellectual exchange rather than gene flow. Anyone can benefit from constitutional liberty simply by adopting the right institutions and the cultural assumptions that go with them. The Anglosphere is why Bermuda is not Haiti, why Singapore is not Indonesia, why Hong Kong is not China—and, for that matter, not Macau. As the distinguished Indian writer Madhav Das Nalapat, holder of the Unesco Peace Chair, puts it, the Anglosphere is defined not by racial affinity but "by the blood of the mind."

At a time when most countries defined citizenship by ancestry, Britain was unusual in developing a civil rather than an ethnic nationality. The U.S., as so often, distilled and intensified a tendency that had been present in Great Britain, explicitly defining itself as a creedal polity: Anyone can become American simply by signing up to the values inherent in the Constitution.

For a variety of reasons I don’t think that China will surpass the US as the world’s leading super power. If it does, I doubt if the transition will be as smooth and as seamless as the one from the UK to the US. However, whatever happens with China, the bigger risk to the future of the US is if we lose sight of the shared values that have united the countries of the Anglosphere.

There is, of course, a flip-side. If the U.S. abandons its political structures, it will lose its identity more thoroughly than states that define nationality by blood or territory. Power is shifting from the 50 states to Washington, D.C., from elected representatives to federal bureaucrats, from citizens to the government. As the U.S. moves toward European-style health care, day care, college education, carbon taxes, foreign policy and spending levels, so it becomes less prosperous, less confident and less free.

We sometimes talk of the English-speaking nations as having a culture of independence. But culture does not exist, numinously, alongside institutions; it is a product of institutions. People respond to incentives. Make enough people dependent on the state, and it won't be long before Americans start behaving and voting like...well, like Greeks.

Prayer for Veterans

Heavenly Father, on this day, help us remember those who gave of themselves to keep us safe and secure.

Enkindle in our consciences a desire to serve those who served their country selflessly.

Give us the grace to aid those who have given aid and protection to us and others both here and overseas.

Let is never forget the causes for which they fought or the bravery they showed on the battlefield.

May we be always be mindful of those who paid the price for our freedom, just as your Son gave his life to free us from the bondage of sin.

Amen.

HWX, with John Nolte

It’s a special edition of the Hinderaker-Ward Experience. John Hinderaker of Power Line and Brian Ward of Fraters Libertas reconvene to bring you the finest in armchair Internet punditry. Topics addressed include:

* the autumn leaves

* the Obamacare roll out and administration knowledge in 2010 about the millions soon to have their health insurance policies taken away as a result

 * The impact and implications of Barack Obama’s continued false assurances that Americans could keep their plans

* How your political orientation predicts who you’d like the Minnesota Vikings to start at quarterback 

* Loon of the Week (Rep. Frank Pallone on the real villain behind cancelled health insurance policies)

* This Week in Gate Keeping (Set your clocks back, just kidding!)

 Special guest was the great John Nolte, editor at Breitbart.com. John gives us an update on how things are going at Breitbart, reflects on the continuing legacy of founder Andrew Breitbart, and gives us his insights into Obamacare and Hillary Clinton’s already functioning campaign for President in 2016.

 This episode is brought to you by John Swon and Focus Financial. Focus Financial is a leading independent financial advisory firm focused on providing comprehensive wealth management and financial planning services to clients. John Swon and his team have over 25 years of investment experience, are dedicated to giving you the kind of one-on-one advice and analysis you deserve. And as independent advisers, they are focused on your priorities, not selling products.

 John Swon and Focus Financial - Liberal with their advice; conservative with your money. Call now and request a free financial analysis at 952-896-3888.

There are many ways to hear the podcast, including over on the mothership at Ricochet. You can be sure to never miss an episode by subscribing via iTunes. Or just use the player embedded in the upper right hand corner of this website.  If all of these fail, send me an email and I'll come to your house and read from a written transcript. Hope you enjoy.

Skate Away

Front page story in today’s WSJ features the breaking news that the New Football Stadium in Minnesota Will Allow Skaters:

Workers will tear down Minneapolis's Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome early next year, clearing the way to build a sleek, $975 million stadium. The design element in the Minnesota Vikings football team's new home that most concerns Jim Hoffner isn't the sloped clear roof or the 95-foot pivoting doors on one end. It is the hallways.

For more than two decades, thousands of people like Mr. Hoffner have been strapping on in-line roller skates and cruising the corridors of the Metrodome on cold days when the stadium doesn't host a major sporting event. Mr. Hoffner loves the Dome's two continuous concourses—the upper one for faster skaters aged 16 and older, the lower for everyone else—and the polished-concrete floors gloriously free of ruts or twigs.

But Dome skaters face an end date—currently Dec. 27—and have nursed anxiety that the program won't continue in the new stadium. As the final full season of skating wound down last winter, some of the skating program's regulars "just started to cry," Mr. Hoffner recalled. "They said, 'Jim, what are we going to do?' "

Here’s a suggestion: Get a life. C’mon people, inline skating at the Dome is fun, I’ve hit the cooridors a number of times over the years, but is it really worth crying over?

Rollerdome, as the program is called, costs $4.50 per session for kids and $6.50 for adults—plus $5 to rent skates. Dome-skating programs in Pontiac, Mich., and Indianapolis have fizzled as the Dome's has thrived, Mr. Cofrin said, because of the Twin Cities' health-focused populace and the colorful community it has spawned.

Women in their 70s skate alongside children at birthday parties. One frequent skater, "looks like Santa with a very long beard, and he dresses up for the holidays," said Scott Schulte, a 53-year-old regular. Mr. Schulte has completed eight of the Dome's annual 26.2-mile marathons—that is about 70 laps—as well as several 50-mile skates that have become a rite of passage for people turning 50.

Paul Dyrud, a long-track speedskater who is training to try out for the 2014 U.S. Olympic team heading to Sochi, Russia, retreats into the Dome to vary his workouts and when winter temperatures make it counterproductive to use a nearby 400-meter outdoor ice oval. (Yes, it sometimes gets too cold in Minnesota even to ice skate.)

Fact check: mostly true although the number of days it’s actually too cold to skate outside in a typical winter is in the low single digits.

The powers-that-be have listened. In an interview with the Journal, Ms. Kelm-Helgen, the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority chair, confirmed that the new stadium will allow skating. In fact, the activity is even informing its architecture.

"We made sure we designed a new stadium with two concourses that have 360-degree access so that the Rollerdome program could continue," Ms. Kelm-Helgen said.

Still, skaters will have a 2½-year hiatus while the Dome is demolished and the new stadium is built on the same site. Mr. Schulte, the 53-year-old skater, was pragmatic about the layoff: "In the meantime I have to go outside and cross-country ski during the winter, I guess."

Somehow life and winter in Minnesota will go on. It always does.

Cutting Through

Now that the FAA has agreed to loosen up restrictions on using electronic devices from gate to gate, a debate has begun on whether to do the same for cell phones:

Federal approval to use electronic devices throughout flights has revived a related debate over whether airline passengers should also be able to make voice calls while airborne.

Under the Federal Aviation Administration's new guidelines, fliers can use tablets, e-readers and even smartphones from gate to gate, but those devices must be switched to "airplane mode," disabling cellular connections.

The FAA has said it doesn't have safety concerns about the in-flight use of cellphones. Instead, the agency is complying with the Federal Communications Commission's ban on cellular connections in flight, designed to avoid interference with cell towers on the ground.

The same FAA advisory group that recommended lifting most restrictions on electronic devices also considered the pros and cons of allowing fliers to talk on cellphones in the cabin. But partly because the FAA determined voice communication was outside the committee's jurisdiction, they punted to the FAA and the FCC to discuss the ban on in-flight cellular connections.

As I’ve mentioned before, I would oppose letting people use mobile phones during flights. The views of fellow travelers are mixed:

Fliers appear split on whether voice calls should be allowed. A survey of more than 1,600 U.S. adults included in the FAA advisory group's report shows that 51% of respondents felt negatively toward in-flight phone calls, while 47% felt positively. When asked what, if anything, should be banned during flights, 61% said phone calls, more than double the response for the No. 2 answer: alcohol.

So somewhat less than 30% of fliers think alcohol should be banned? That’s a rather frightening number in favor of prohibition.

If I had my druthers, I would ban the following behavior of travelers:

- Grabbing the seat in front of you and pulling it back in order to get to your feet. It’s a seat, my seat, not a device to make it easier for you to stand.

- Piling into the aisle and pushing your way forward to deplane before the rows in front of you have. We all want to get off the plane as much as you do. Wait your turn.

- Crowding around the boarding area when the process hasn’t yet started and you’re in Zone 3 (a Delta specific example) and then being surprised that people with Sky Elite status have to fight their way through you to board the plane.

I could go on and on with examples that are far worse than anything I’ve encountered due to alcohol.

Meanwhile, Joe Doakes e-mails to note that now that electronic device usage is being reconsidered we should look at other safety restrictions that don’t really keep us safe:

That’s good news. Now, let’s revisit the pocket knife issue.

Like many older men, I routinely carry a tiny pocket-knife. The feds know there is miniscule danger from people like me. They proposed allowing me to carry my pocket-knife so they could focus on real threats. Hysterics forced them to retreat but hysteria shouldn’t drive security decisions.

I used to have a small Swiss army knife in my backpack that I carried on trips for years. I forgot it was even there until I was going through security in Denver one time when the TSA noticed it and disposed of it. I had probably carried it on twenty flights in the post 9/11 period without it ever attracting attention. The idea that we must have a zero tolerance approach to such “weapons” is absurd.

Common sense is finally prevailing with electronic devices. It would be nice to do the same with pocket knives.

Separated At Birth

From Berkeley Breathed's Facebook page, Bill the Cat and Miley Cyrus:

Beer of the Week (Vol. CLXXXVI)

After a couple of weeks in hiatus, we now return to our regular Beer of the Week programming sponsored as always by the thrifty folks at Glen Lake Wine & Spirits who can help save time and money while finding the beer, wine, or whiskey you need.

Daylight Saving Time, which in reality saves nothing and should be eliminated post haste, ends on Sunday which means evening darkness will descend even sooner. Along with the leaves on the ground and the nip in the air the end of DST signals that winter is close at hand. While winter beers are appearing on the shelves and soon will be the focus of this beer drinker’s desire, there’s still time for one last offering more suited to warmer climes.

Our beer this week is the first we’ve featured from White Birch Brewing in Hooksett, New Hampshire.

Welcome to White Birch Brewing, Hooksett New Hampshire’s own craft brewery. We started making beer in June of 2009 in 15 or 20 gallon batches. The advent of our first calendar year saw us go from about a half barrel a day brewing to about two barrels a day. Thanks to the continued interest in our beers we have grown to a custom seven barrel system made by Macy Industries right here in Hooksett. Yes, we’ve grown but our beer is still all brewed by hand in our modest brewery.

It’s their Berliner Weisse:

Napoleon’s troops referred to Berliner Weisse as the “Champagne of the North” due to its lively and elegant character. Today this style is described by some as the most refreshing beer in the world.

Our approach was to brew this beer with Lactobacilius for a refreshing and authentic interpretation of a classic summer refresher.

220z brown bomber bottle goes for $6.99. Simple white/tan paper label.

STYLE: Sour Wheat Ale

ALCOHOL BY VOLUME: 5.5%

COLOR (0-2): Golden brown and cloudy. 2

AROMA (0-2): Sour apple. 2

HEAD (0-2): White color, light volume which fades fast. 1

TASTE (0-5): It starts out quite tart, but that sharpness fades and becomes a touch sweet at the end. Flavors of apple, cranberry, lemon, and yeast. Nicely carbonated. Light bodied and very drinkable. 3

AFTERTASTE (0-2): Lasting and rich. 2

OVERALL (0-6): Sour beers are very trendy right now. I haven’t jumped on the bandwagon yet as my experience with the style-while admittedly limited-has been mixed. White Birch Brewing’s Berliner Weisse makes me more willing to explore the sour side. It is very refreshing and delivers a nice flavor mix. While it retains its tart edge throughout, it mellows as it warms so I’d recommend letting it sit for a bit before you commence to sipping. 4

TOTAL SCORE (0-19): 14

Power Up

FAA Says Fliers Can Use Devices During All Phases of Flight:

Federal aviation regulators on Thursday unveiled steps to lift restrictions on fliers' electronic devices, concluding that tablets, e-readers and other gadgets generally can be used during all phases of flight by the end of this year.

The Federal Aviation Administration's decision, embracing recent recommendations by a high-level agency advisory group, effectively ends years of safety debates over the use of the devices. The FAA said it is providing airlines with guidelines to carry out the new policy.

The agency said it expects many carriers to be able to allow their fliers to use devices gate to gate by yearend. Specific implementation plans and timetables will vary among airlines, the FAA said.

The new rules require passengers to hold electronic items or put them in the seatback pocket during takeoffs and landings.

Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connections will be allowed below 10,000 feet, but the agency said cell phones must be switched to airplane mode for the entirety of flights, as inflight cellular signals remain banned by the Federal Communication Commission.

This is welcome news and the implementation schedule is actually much sooner than I expected. Being able to use a tablet or e-reader throughout the flight is admittedly a minor luxury, but after years of air travel becoming increasingly painful and less comfortable, any step in the other direction deserves to be celebrated. And combined with other improvements such as the Global Entry and the TSA Pre Check program which make immigration and security checks more bearable, it’s actually quite reasonable to conclude that things are indeed getting better.

By the way, I’m glad that cell phones still are restricted to airplane mode during flights. While some travelers might view being able to chat during flights as an improvement, for me that would be an added distraction that we simply don’t need.

Subsidizing the Shore

While it’s probably too early to start conclusively counting candidates out or in for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, it’s good to keep your ears and eyes open to see what potential nominees are up to. Today’s WSJ had a front page article on the how real estate prices have risen in many areas hit by Hurricane Sandy. The piece contained this nugget that caught my eye:

The Federal Emergency Management Agency says 261,884 New Jersey households applied for FEMA grants; 61,375 were approved, with an average payment of $6,000, and others are being processed. FEMA doesn't give aid to second-home owners, a FEMA spokesman says, because "if you have a second home, you have something to go back to."

New Jersey says it has given about 15,000 people $10,000 grants to resettle after Sandy and another 140 people rebuilding-and-repair grants totaling $12 million, with another 200 grant signings scheduled and more being processed.

Michael Drewniak, a spokesman for Gov. Chris Christie, says Mr. Christie believes the federal government should give rebuilding aid to second-home owners. Without help, many of them are likely to be priced out, unable to pay for rebuilding or insurance, he says.

"There is a concern from immediately after the storm that all our shore neighborhoods won't be able to return to themselves as far as character and being populated by all income levels," he says. "The Jersey Shore was never just a place for large second homes owned by the well-to-do."

Chris Christie believes that a legitimate function of the federal government is to shoulder some of the cost so that people can rebuild their vacation homes in New Jersey? So money collected from folks in Maine, Montana, and Minnesota is redistributed to others in New Jersey so they can continue to have their summer getaway homes?

Again, by itself this is not enough to disqualify Governor Christie from consideration. But it should certainly raise concerns and eyebrows among conservatives.

Explaining the Inexplicable

The latest and greatest course offering from Prager University is called "Is Evil Rational?" and features the dean himself:

Nowadays, it's fashionable to use the terms "rational" and "irrational" (or "sick") to describe good and evil. Mass murderers are routinely described as "irrational madmen," while extraordinary acts of goodness are deemed "rational."

But is this accurate? Are "reason" and "goodness" the same thing? Or is reason, like any tool, something that can be used both for good and for bad?

In this week's video, "Is Evil Rational?" Dennis Prager answers these questions. You'll learn what role reason plays in a moral life, and whether those who do evil are inherently irrational, or are merely acting in their rational self-interest.

Blueprint

Mother Jones features a fascinating look at how Minnesota progressives got their mojo back and turned a state that seemed to be trending purple back to a solid blue. Wellstone's Revenge: How Minnesota Democrats Took Their State Back:

America Votes' fourth-floor office, which it shares with the Alliance for a Better Minnesota and WIN Minnesota, is located in St. Paul near the Minneapolis border, in a LEED-certified building covered with hideous green tiles. Inside are photos of native sons Walter Mondale and Hubert Humphrey along with posters for fundraisers—captioned, ironically, "Minnesota is Not For Sale," under an umbrella with dollar bills raining down.

I swung by one morning to meet with the new generation of operatives running the Minnesota machine: America Votes' Beadle; Carrie Lucking, ABM's executive director; and Adam Duininck, the executive director of WIN Minnesota. Each attended Camp Wellstone or Wellstone-inspired training programs; Lucking had a Wellstone sign on the wall of her office. "We're the three-headed monster," joked Lucking, a feisty former high school teacher who'd downed five shots of espresso earlier that morning.

I asked them about the 2014 elections, which stand to be their toughest challenge yet. It's all about defense now for Minnesota's progressive machine as it gears up to protect a 12-seat majority in the state House, as well as Gov. Dayton and Sen. Al Franken, who ousted Norm Coleman in 2009 after a seven-month recount.

Up to this point, the ingredients in Minnesota's left-leaning takeover—data, money, grassroots organizing, and deep coordination—have given Democrats the edge. And in races decided by a few thousand votes or a recount, that edge can make all the difference. But they also recognize that the Republicans are not asleep at the wheel. "We've been very fortunate so far in that hustle in Minnesota has been effective at counteracting late, big money," Lucking says. "The question is: How long can the hustle outlast that?"

Ken Martin, the DFL chairman, seems less worried. Some Republicans, he notes, have been trying to pull together the GOP's socially conservative factions and the bottom-line-focused business community, and once they do, "they could be immensely effective." But they've had little luck so far. "That's the challenge for these guys in '14 [that] they have not figured out yet." (One outcome of his May luncheon, Hubbard says, was commissioning a plan to coordinate big-business support in 2014.) As for the DFL, Martin's sights are set just where Karl Rove had his in 2004. "Most important to me," he says, "is how do you set yourself up to build a permanent majority?"

A couple of quick thoughts:

- Considering the source, the article is surprisingly fair in not sugarcoating the fact that money-lots of it-have played a key role in the DFL resurgence and the impact of negative attacks launched early and often against Republican candidates by Alliance for a Better Minnesota.

- Republicans who dismiss this success by saying “yeah, we could do the same thing if we had that kind of money” are missing the point. Money is part of the equation, but it’s more than that. It was the coming together and coordination between progressive groups combined with the money that made the effort so effective. Too often on the MN GOP side the money and the activist base are not connected or coordinated.

- The article spawned some good discussion among local conservatives on Twitter today. One key point that came up a few times is the advantage that progressives have by having paid political activists who share the same passions and positions as their base. Republicans tend to look down on paying people for their political work relying instead on volunteers. And when they do pay, it’s for people more for interested in politics as a profession than a passion. How’s that been working out for us?