Voter ID Laws – How Many People Really Don’t Have Photo IDs?

Anti-ID zealots point to the Brennan Center for Justice of NYU, which sponsored a survey in 2006 to ask people if they had a current photo ID. They’ve been trumpeting the results ever since:

As many as 11 percent of United States citizens – more than 21 million individuals – do not have government-issued photo identification. Eleven percent of the American citizens surveyed responded that they do not have current, unexpired government-issued identification with a photograph, such as a driver’s license or military ID. Using 2000 census calculations of the citizen voting-age population, this translates to more than 21 million American adult citizens nationwide who do not possess valid government photo ID.

But before we get too worried about disenfranchising all those poor ID-less voters, let’s look at the questions they asked:

Post No. 1000!!!

Yes, folks, after 5+ years of cyclically starting and stopping this site, I’ve finally managed to reach the 1000th post. I’ve really enjoyed writing here, as well as at JunkYardBlog, Innocent Bystanders, and Ace of Spades HQ.

This occasion is especially significant, as it also marks the date of the 5000th post at Innocent Bystanders!! Congrats, Michael and Retired Geezer!

So, over the past 5 years, what have been the most popular posts here? I’m glad you asked:

1. Daily Debunking (sort of): The miraculous powers of Preparation H
2. Recovery? Hah! Just Oscillating Unemployment Claims
3. Cold War II: Sino-russian economic ties
4. Obama denies
5. The right to self-defense
6. Car crash hysteria from the Washington Post
7. China’s Secret Nuclear Submarine Base
8. Daily (sort of) Debunking: pronunciation of “primer” and “flaccid”
9. About the Famous Obama Tax Cuts
10. Daily Debunking: Pronunciation of “forte”

There are also a few posts deserving an honorable mention:

1. Paul Anka Transcript: Find out what the guys get and who’s the most important one on the stage!!
2. The Creation Myth: Obama’s 4 Million Jobs & Are we stimulated yet?: These were the first appearances of The Chart, which went viral when I posted it at Innocent Bystanders in May 2009.
3. Q. When is 45 million not 45 million?: This post addressed the inflated and misinterpreted statistics for health insurance. When I reposted it at JunkYardBlog, it got 24,000 hits in one day. I think that’s a personal record – not even The Chart managed to pull in that many hits.

When I started this blog I had unrealistically high hopes that it would be a fact-centered place where reason and right would prevail. As a new blogger with that lofty goal, I was very fascist in the early years, booting people off when they didn’t meet my standards for commenting. I’ve mellowed and gotten a little wiser, I hope, so that now I don’t mind so much if people make illogical or unsupported arguments.

Well, at least I don’t boot them off so quickly.

Newt Gingrich and the “Schoolchildren as Janitors” Brouhaha

I’m a month late on this one, but I only recently heard about Newt Gingrich’s “using schoolchildren as janitors” kerfuffle. Apparently Newt said:

“You say to somebody, you shouldn’t go to work before you’re what, 14, 16 years of age, fine,” Mr. Gingrich said. “You’re totally poor. You’re in a school that is failing with a teacher that is failing. I’ve tried for years to have a very simple model. Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would actually do work, they would have cash, they would have pride in the schools, they’d begin the process of rising.”

He’s repeated this idea several times on the campaign trail, causing quite a bit of hyperventilation at The Atlantic, where they connipted:

This suggestion is, on its face, insane. It sounds like a bad Stephen Colbert joke. But if you stop and consider its merits for a minute or two…well no, it’s still quite insane. And if you spend an evening researching the nitty gritty of what public school custodians actually do for a living, it turns out to be downright cruel.
…
So what do janitors actually do? It’s a lot more than mopping. To get a sense, look over this job description for a New York City public school custodial engineer–a “master janitor,” as Gingrich would put it. He and his team of cleaners and handymen are responsible for cleaning, yes. That part involves hazardous chemicals like hydrochloric acid. They also operate the school’s heating system, do electrical repairs, maintain the school grounds, take care of the HVAC equipment, and handle basic plumbing fixes, among other assorted jobs. I ask: What parent wants a nine-year-old, or even a thirteen-year-old, toying with the HVAC in her school?

He goes on to claim that Newt’s flippant disregard for the real nature of custodial work reflected “a deep disrespect for and ignorance of American work.”

Enter FactCheck. But a few weeks later FactCheck, in their haste to make Newt look foolish, ended up making The Atlantic’s Jordan Weissman look like a complete idiot. FactCheck, took issue with Newt’s concurrent claim that, “… New York City janitors, the most expensive janitors in New York are paid more than the highest paid teachers. The entry-level janitor is paid twice as much as an entry-level teacher. It’s all because of the union.”

FactCheck debunks this claim by pointing out that Gingrich is mixing up entry-level cleaners, who make a little less than entry-level teachers ($37.7K vs $45.5K), with custodial engineers, who make almost twice as much ($81K):

There are several classifications of custodial workers, but the one that probably most closely resembles a janitor is a “cleaner,” said Robert Troeller, president and business manager of Local 891 of the International Union of Operating Engineers in Brooklyn, N.Y. These are the folks who dust, mop and sweep, among other things. Cleaners get paid $18.13 an hour.

So Newt was confused, conflating “custodial engineer” with “janitor.” He might be forgiven, since “custodial engineer” is often used as an inflated or humorous description of a janitorial position (thanks, PC language!).

But how about The Atlantic? Well, as I said above, Weissman ends up looking look a moron. He went off on his rant about how demanding and skilled the requirements for a New York Custodial Engineer were, but Newt was obviously talking about a cleaning position. Everything Weissman said was completely irrelevant, up to and including his claim that Newt was disrespectful of American work. Instead, it looks like it is Weissman who is completely out of touch with labor.

Look, I was a janitor in high school and my first summer in college, and my brother eventually inherited my high school job from me. My dad was also a janitor in high school, and both he and I washed dishes in college (and my brother washed dishes in high school). These jobs were great ways to make some money, take on some responsibility, and get introduced to the working world. It also taught us that no one is “too good” for any sort of job.

The Big Picture. Let’s look at Newt’s major points:

1. Cleaners are overpaid w/respect to teachers: Yup, even though they have no degree or skills, they are making more than 80% of what teachers make. Pity the poor teacher who spends 4 years in college and acquires $100K in debt, only to find that cleaners have been earning money for 4 years and have no debt nor any obligation to earn a masters.
2. The unions are responsible for these pay scales: Duh.
3. Kids could do cleaning jobs: Again, duh. I used to do these jobs in high school (see below).
4. Kids could benefit from earning money: Is there any doubt?
5. Giving kids jobs puts them on the track for success: I believe that’s true, though it’s a hard thing to prove. I’m pretty sure that it can’t hurt.

I would also posit that Newt’s points are part of a bigger trend in the job market, which has replaced high school and college labor with cheap immigrant labor and unionized careerists. College kids don’t work in the cafeteria or on the janitorial staff anymore, and they don’t come home in the summer to work construction or landscaping jobs like they used to. High school kids have been pushed out of fast food jobs, and middle school and high school kids no longer deliver newspapers.

The labor market has changed in the past 30 years, so that fewer and fewer kids get a chance to get a job and start preparing for adult life. The self-centered, avaricious “Occupy” movement shows us exactly what the penalties can be for denying them that chance.

The Real Reason Final Fantasy XIII Sucked

A lot of people have complained about Final Fantasy XIII’s linearity and leaving the player with no control over the party, and these are worthy complaints. But they didn’t address my biggest complaint with the game, and that is:

Square Enix forces you to play the game the way they want it to be played, rather than the way you want to play it.

In the old days you could play the FF series in a variety of ways: you could be smart and use great strategies in battle. Or you could be lazy and just level up until you could hammer on anything. You could use status attacks or just stick to offensive magic. Or use no magic at all, save for the occasional cure spell.

In fact, there were so many ways to play the game, that people used to offer challenges to go through the game with absurd rules. For Final Fantasy XII, for instance, they offered up the following challenges:

• Enforced Class System Challenge
• Low Level Challenge (also known as the 122333 Challenge)
• No License Board
• Solo Character

I’m sure there are more, but you get the point. Every game prior to FFXIII had enough flexibility for a variety of challenges. For FFXIII, there’s essentially only one: No Crystarium Usage.

Then Square Enix grades you on how well you play the game per their criteria. In the old days there were reasons to prolong some battles, and no penalty for doing so. Now it’s all about status attacks and speed.

I used to like mindlessly leveling up – it was relaxing, and I loved fussing over the stats of each character. FFXIII doesn’t let me do that, because they’ve limited the number of baddies in any given area. Sometimes I didn’t want to watch cut scenes for a while, so I’d wander off into the field and just kill stuff. FFXIII has an unrelenting stream of cut scenes. There’s no escape.

So not only do you have to play it the way they want it played, you have to follow the storyline on their timetable.

Anyway, FFXIII-2 and FFXV are supposed to come out sometime. I hope that Square Enix remembers that they’re developing for players, not an audience that’s allowed limited interaction with their story.

Sounds Like a Good Time to Tighten Emissions Standards

Auto sales were stronger this month, but it wasn’t the compacts and hybrids that led the surge:

Pickups and SUVs helped accelerate U.S. auto sales in September, although carmakers remain concerned that worries about the economy could dampen demand later this fall.

General Motor Co.’s sales rose 20 percent compared with last September, led by a 34-percent rise in full-size pickups and SUV sales. Chrysler Group LLC’s overall sales rose 27 percent.

Let’s see, what could we do to dampen these sales? Hmmmmm…. Hey!! I know, let’s announce the tightening of emissions standards next month! They won’t kick in until 2017, but I’m sure the announcement alone will have an effect!

Open for Business Again

The Righthaven bogeyman seems to be fading away, so it’s time to bring this blog back from its coma.

I hated to go on hiatus back in April, particularly since I had written 995 posts here. This is the 996th. Four more…

Blogging: I Just Cain’t Quit You (But I’m Gonna Try)

Getting too busy to blog, even sporadically, so for like the 4th time I’m going to quit blogging for the foreseeable future.

Skyline, the “Movie”

I’ve had issues with Skyline chili. I love it, but it hates me. I’m usually incapacitated within the hour, with all three phases of matter emanating from me without my consent.

The movie Skyline was much the same, except that I didn’t love it. At all. The movie seemed to be an exercise in pointlessness. Start the movie – rewind to 15 hour earlier in story time – 20 minutes later in audience time we’re back where we started.

Go forward with grand plan to break for the boat (why? did it ever make any sense?), 20 minutes later in audience time we’re back where we started. We never left the freaking condo building during the entire movie, until our heroes(?) are finally captured by the aliens. And after that it’s just stupid.

Movie theme? I’d have to go with “Love conquers all.” Which creative genius thought that up?

Decent special effects, but in the end nothing the characters did had any meaning to the movie or to the audience. It was a husk of a movie. Don’t buy it, don’t rent it, don’t download it, don’t watch it.

I don’t usually do movie reviews, but this was such a POS I figured I’d do this one as a public service.

The Debt Chart

Some people had asked for a different site to download the graphic from the post I did at Ace’s. Here it is:

William Ayers Didn’t Affirm Squat

Jack Cashill, who’s been on a tear lately trying to show that Obama’s first book was ghostwritten, sez:

Last Thursday evening at Montclair State University, with a video camera rolling, Bill Ayers volunteered that yes indeed he had written the acclaimed Barack Obama memoir, Dreams from My Father.

He then links to the video of Ayers supposed making this confession. More on that in a second. Continuing, Cashill says:

Not surprisingly, Ayers retreated into irony as he ended the session. “Yeah, yeah,” he said after confirming again that he wrote Dreams, “And if you help me prove it, I’ll split the royalties with you. Thank you very much.”

But when I watch the video, it’s clear that Ayers didn’t “retreat into irony.” His statement that he wrote the book was a calculated jab at Cashill: he was ironic from the start, and continued that vein until the session ended. Everybody in the audience took it the same way, laughing at the claims because they think Cashill’s out to lunch.

I didn’t have an opinion on Cashill before this, but his leap to try to squeeze a confession out of an obvious joke is pathetic, and doesn’t reflect well on his objectivity. It sounds like he’s wed to his hypothesis, and he’ll force-fit any facts or statements into supporting it.

Unfortunately this seems to be spreading in the blogosphere – picked up by Gateway Pundit and linked in the sidebar at Ace’s. I’d hoped people were a little more skeptical than that.

The F-35, Its Engine, and the Philosophy of Second Sources

This one’s a toughie. The DoD has historically tried to maintain at least two sources for critical components, even if they have no intention of using the second source. They have often had to make procurement decisions based on keeping a second company alive, rather than simply picking the best bid. Basically, they have to look at the strategic picture and make decisions that ensure the long-term health of the military-industrial sector.

This philosophy also has the benefit of avoiding monopolies in the military, ensuring continued competition among contractors. That competition is not just in pricing, of course – competition drives the engineering teams from each company to push their designs past the performance of their rivals, not just past the requirements specified by the military. And the more rivals there are, the more competitive the teams become. As a 2005 Rand study found:

The initial periods of high technological innovation that began each technology era were all characterized by an increased competition to innovate among at least seven experienced, credible prime contractors/integrators. 

Maintaining second sources has become more difficult in modern times because rather than having a number of systems in development in parallel, we currently tend to have one system under development for a decade. Development of major systems, such as fighter aircraft, is hugely expensive so only one system can be afforded. The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is a prime example.

The F-35 and the Combat Aircraft Industry. The F-35 development program is now expected to have cost $50 billion and taken 15 years when it is finally complete in 2016. The procurement is expected to cost $323 billion for 2457 aircraft. Can we really afford afford a second source? The F-35 is also a development program shared among the military branches: the Joint Strike Fighter is supposed to meet the needs of the Air Force, the Navy, and the Marines (this universal design approach is intended to save money). The sharing goes beyond the US since both Canada and the UK will be buying F-35s as well.

So the F-35 is the only game in town – there is nowhere else to go to find fighter development work. Not another military service, not another country. This extreme situation is the culmination of two decades of cost-saving measures, reduced emphasis on defense, and military program/military contractor consolidation. You can see the process in action in the chart below (taken from the Rand report above), which shows the number of fighter aircraft manufacturers over the previous century. As you can see, the number of major combat aircraft manufacturers dwindled from 8 in 1990 to 3 in 2000. In one decade the number of contractors dropped from more than Rand’s spec for the critical mass for innovation (7) to less than half that number.

By now the situation is even worse. Two of the 3 contractors surviving to 2000 are essentially out of the development game: Northrop-Grumman is a subcontractor to Lockheed-Martin, and Boeing lost completely. Essentially we have one fighter aircraft company that is maintaining an active development team. And this is in a world where other countries are not so complacent:

Russian fighter and military modernization efforts are proceeding rapidly, defying the expectations of many. In August, Russia undertook the largest airborne military exercises since the collapse of the Soviet Union, making “use of automated command and control systems.”[6] On January 29, 2010, Russia conducted the first test flight of the T-50, a prototype of the PAK FA, Russia’s fifth-generation fighter jet, which was designed to rival the American F-22. With advanced stealth technology and high-tech avionics, the PAK FA could eventually—as Moscow has repeatedly proclaimed—seriously challenge U.S. air supremacy.

The upshot is that:

The U.S. Air Force’s former top intelligence officer warned a roomful of generals this week that the U.S. has lost its air power advantages and is dangerously ill-prepared to stop the gap-closing efforts of China and Russia.

Lt. Gen. David Deptula, a former F-15 pilot, challenged Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ fundamental belief that U.S. air power vastly overmatches any foreign military.

“For the first time, our claim to air supremacy is in jeopardy,” Deptula told the Air Force Association’s national convention on Monday.

The F-135 Engine. Which brings us to today, where the Pentagon and the Obama administration are trying to kill off the F-135 alternate engine program. Pratt & Whitney has the primary contract to develop the F-35′s engine, and GE and Rolls Royce have formed a team to develop a backup version. But the Pentagon says:

The Pentagon on Thursday ordered a halt to work on an alternative engine for a next-generation warplane, angering congressional backers who vowed to fight President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates to save the program.

“The administration and the Department of Defense strongly oppose the extra engine program,” the Pentagon said, noting that Obama did not include money for a second engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter in his budget for the next fiscal year.

“In our view it is a waste of taxpayer money that can be used to fund higher departmental priorities, and should be ended now,” the Pentagon said in a statement announcing that it had issued an order to stop work.

Is it really? As we said above, there are a number of good reasons to maintain a second source, and the GAO corroborated those reasons just last week:

based on past defense competitions (including a fighter engine competition started in the 1980s between these same manufacturers) and making certain assumptions about relative quantities purchased from each, competition could be expected to yield enough savings to offset the additional investments required to sustain a second source. Prior studies also indicate a number of nonfinancial benefits from competition, including better performance, increased reliability, and improved contractor responsiveness.

Gates says we can’t afford the extra $3 billion for the 2nd engine. The GAO says that we’ll make the money back. I say that strategically, we have to maintain a second source for these engines, which are designed for greater operating ranges, higher thrust-to-weight ratios, and higher fuel economies than commercial engines. So, whether you keep them as a second source or throw them a bone and start them on a development project for another sort of fighter engine, you’ve pretty much got to spend the money.

It’s also cheap insurance against Pratt & Whitney continuing their poor cost and schedule performance. Does Pratt & Whitney really care that they have a competitor? Oh yes, just look at this site, where article after article talks about their hope that the alternate engine program will die.

I should mention that I don’t particularly care for P&W. On the several occasions where I’ve interacted with them, they’ve been poster children for the “not invented here” syndrome (NIH, meaning that if they didn’t think of it or do it, it’s meaningless). And when I visited the USAF turbine engine group many years ago, I was told as an aside that they were essentially a branch of P&W. P&W told them what they wanted, and the Air Force worked to make it happen. It’s not supposed to work that way, and it’s another great reason to have a credible second source.

Conclusion. Right now we’re faced with such overwhelming deficits and debt that any extra costs seem unacceptable. But not all costs are the same. A strong military gives a geopolitical advantage which helps the economy. Taking money from defense contractors and handing it to the unemployed is compassionate, but only makes the economic situation worse. The defense industry is also one of the few areas where the US exports more than it imports.

In addition, the trickle-down technologies which are driven by these development efforts have benefited all other industries as well: lightweight alloy development, CAD systems, finite element codes (FEA), and computational fluid dynamics software (CFD) were all started and/or supported by defense projects (and aircraft development projects in particular).

It’s entirely possible that GE & Rolls Royce will survive without the F-136 contract (the alternate engine development contract). They’ve vowed to continue development on their own funds (at least for a while). That would be great, but it won’t be due to the foresight of the Pentagon or the Obama administration.

Obnoxious Atheist Gives Up Quest to Prohibit Saying “Under God” in Pledge

There’s nothing wrong with being an atheist: I myself am a kind of atheist/agnostic/deist sort of guy, depending on how the economy is doing. [<== that there is a joke, BTW] But there is something wrong with being a jerk about it, and I define someone who tries to undermine long-standing traditions for the sake of their anti-religious fervor as a jerk. For examples, those who protest Christmas plays and Christmas vacation in schools, Christmas trees at civic centers, crosses on hills which have stood for decades, or the words "Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Which brings us to Michael Newdow, the famous atheist who has apparently finally given up on his quest to force the State of California to drop the words “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance when recited in California schools. Hallelujah!!

It would be nice if this reflected a change of heart, wherein Mr. Newdow decided to try to get along with harmless traditions instead of taking umbrage at institutions that existed before he was born. But I suspect it was really the fact that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals told him that saying “under God” didn’t constitute “establishment of religion,” and he realized that the Supreme Court was likely to agree.

Many Christian celebrations, phrases, values, and icons have infiltrated American culture. They are now part of the richness of that culture, and part of what it means to be an American. Attempting to excise them on behalf of a personal antipathy toward religion is immature and narrow-minded.

And one of the 7 warning signs of being a jerk.

Easter Means Different Things to Different People…

…and to some people in Denver it means that it’s time for the Denver Post Peeps diorama contest. Here’s the scoop:

Enter the fourth annual Denver Post Peeps diorama contest: Create a scene with marshmallow Peeps inside a small box, such as a shoebox. Think about movies, music, sports, politics or current events for your theme — the more details, the better.

A winner from last year’s contest.

Substitute Fodder for DinTX’s Football Posts

Football season’s long since over, so this ought to please his restless fans at AoSHQ (though it’s a little old): The 30 Hottest Cheerleaders at the 2011 NCAA Tournament

You Don’t Say

Leonard Green Weighs Bid for BJ’s Wholesale