ProfessorBainbridge.com

Opening Weekend

It was great to have real football back on Sunday, so here's my opening 10 Things I Think I Think (with apologies to Peter King):

1. Absolutely loved the old school Redskin burgundy and gold uniforms. They should become the norm.
2. It was an ugly Redskin win in many respects, but any win over Dallas is okay by me. Game ball should go to Alex Barron. What a bonehead. Plus, what was Romo thinking at the end of the first half?
3. It was a pretty good fantasy weekend. I'm in good shape in both H2H leagues and a pretty solid #2 in the points league. But with two games on tap tonight, I'm not counting my chickens yet.
4. Starting Arian Foster and Hakeem Nicks were both very good ideas. Benching Wes Welker to start Percy Harvin was a very bad idea.
5. I really want the Vikings to just give the ball to Peterson time after time after time. Otherwise, I'm going to spend the whole season fretting over whether to start Harvin in two of my three leagues.
6. A QB controversy in Philadelphia? Where one of the candidates is a felon dog abuser? How lovely. Couldn't happen to a nicer team and its fan base, except maybe Dallas. Seriously though, I wonder if the Philly fans are starting to regret the McNabb deal.
7. McNabb needs some receivers. I don't usually approve of Danny Snyder's penchant for trading picks to sign high priced veterans, but Vincent Jackson would look awfully good in burgundy and gold.
8. Houston-Indy was the best game of the day. I like Indy, but found myself rooting for Houston as they finally dominated their nemesis. You put a real running attack together with the Schaub-Johnson-Daniels passing team and an emerging defense and they could be a contender.
9. Norman Chad's right that fantasy football changes the experience of the game. Because Dallas is my DST in one of my fantasy leagues, I spent last night rooting for the Redskins to win without scoring a lot of points against the Dallas defense. Hence, for example, my joy at the TD off Romo's boneheaded play at the end of the first half. So it does change your priorities. OTOH, I now follow a lot of games in which I previously would have had no interest. E.g., Giants versus Carolina (because I own Nicks and DeAngelo Williams). And because I own Schaub and Foster I watched most of what turned out to be a great game between Indy and Houston that I might otherwise have missed. Overall, I think fantasy has been a really positive contribution to what was already my favorite sporting event.
10. Helen and I are going to New Orleans in November to see the Saints play the Seahawks. If the latter's performance yesterday was no fluke, that could be a very exciting game.

5 Things Tom Coburn Said that I Liked

I'd love to see a transcript or video of Senator Tom Coburn's town hall meeting from last Friday. As reported, he blasted both left and right, saying some things with which I find myself in near complete agreement:

• "If the conservatives in Congress gain control and don't live up to expectations," he said, "the Republican Party will be dead." 

And deservedly so.

• The problem is, we have allowed the military-industrial complex to make things unaffordable. ... When the cost of an F-35 triples during development, something's wrong." 

I don't know how much money it takes to defend America, but surely there's got to be ways of doing so more efficiently

• Newt Gingrich is "the last person I'd vote for for president of the United States. His life indicates he does not have a commitment to the character traits necessary to be a great president." 

Damn straight. Of course, in my book, the same thing can be said -- albeit in each case for various reasons -- of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Sarah Palin, and Mitt Romney, just to name a few.

• He said schools "are no longer about kids, they are about teachers' unions,"

Yep.

• Coburn also repeated what has become a popular line among conservatives - that "no one has ever been hired by a poor person" - to support tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations.

I guess it ill-behooves me, as someone who has suckled at the government's teat for most of his working life, to concur. But I'll concur anyway.

20 Worst Americans

John Hawkins asked a bunch of right of center bloggers to list the "20 Worst Americans of all time," from which he compiled the following list. The comments are mine. Personally, I find the collated list pretty much of a joke. It reflects the partisan passions of the moment, not anything resembling a serious verdict of history.

23) Saul Alinsky (7)--a bad guy, to be sure, but top 20?
23) Bill Clinton (7)--GOPers still mad because he beat the crap out of them; sour grapes
23) Hillary Clinton (7)--I don't like her, but I think she's making a good Secretary of State
19) Michael Moore (7)--agree
19) George Soros (8)--maybe top 40
19) Alger Hiss (8)--the traitors are way to low on this list
19) Al Sharpton (8)--eh
13) Al Gore (9)--depends on whether global warming is as bad as he thinks it is
13) Noam Chomsky (9)--annoying to be sure, but not in top 20
13) Richard Nixon (9)--fair enough
13) Jane Fonda (9)--has been much less annoying in recent years
13) Harry Reid (9)--he's effective and wrong but not evil
13) Nancy Pelosi (9)--annoying? yes. one of the worst? no.
11) John Wilkes Booth (10)--finally somebody I wholeheartedly agree with, but should be higher
11) Margaret Sanger (10)--nope
9) Aldrich Ames (11)--yes, but should be higher
9) Timothy McVeigh (11)--yes, but should be higher
7) Ted Kennedy (14)--higher than the worst domestic terrorist? no
7) Lyndon Johnson (14)--ditto
5) Benedict Arnold (17)--too low
5) Woodrow Wilson (17)--huh?
4) The Rosenbergs (19)--good
3) Franklin Delano Roosevelt (21)--give him some credit for managing the winning coalition in WW II
2) Barack Obama (23)--way too high, even if socialized medicine ends up being his legacy
1) Jimmy Carter (25)-- being feckless and sanctimonious doesn't make him a bad guy

All in all, I have to agree with Jim Geraghty that:

I’m no fan of most of the Democrats on the list, and there are some good picks. But most of the modern political figures look ridiculous when we compare their actions to some of America’s most really notorious figures.

I agree with a lot of his alternatives too.

Anyway, I was one of the bloggers Hawkins polled, but as you'll see my list differs in a number of respects from the norm. Mine's in alphabetical order, BTW.

1. Aldrich Ames--traitor
2. Benedict Arnold--traitor
3. John Wilkes Booth--killed our greatest President, contender for #1 on my list if rank ordered
4. James Buchanan--feckless President whose inaction allowed the Southern rebellion to get off the ground
5. Aaron Burr--traitor and murderer of Hamilton
6. Robert Byrd--KKK member and the worst pork politician in history, plus an insufferable prig
7. Jefferson Davis--leader of the traitorous Southern rebels
8. Louis Farrakhan--race hate monger
9. Nathan Bedford Forrest--treasonous Rebel general, caused or condoned the mass murder of black soldiers at Fort Pillow, founder of the KKK, contender for # 1
10. Rutherford B. Hayes--President who threw Reconstruction under the bus to steal election
11. Paris Hilton--personification of the celebrity obsessed culture
12. Alger Hiss--traitor with really annoying apologists
13. Jim Jones--mass murderer and race hate monger
14. Ted Kennedy--Chappaquiddick, probable rapist, almost certainly a rape abettor, and progenitor of what might become socialized medicine
15. Bernie Madoff--worst financial swindler
16. Timothy McVeigh--worst domestic terrorist, probably # 1 on my list if rank ordered
17. Michael Moore--he just oozes evil
18. Ethel and Julius Rosenberg--atomic bomb traitors
19. Roger Taney--Chief Justice who decided Dred Scott and Ex Parte Merryman
20. Morrison Waite--Chief Justice whose decision in United States v. Cruikshank effectively disabled the federal government from protecting the freed blacks from white southern terrorists during Reconstruction

As you see, I focused mainly on traitors, since it is in some ways the worst of social crimes. Few crimes affect all of society in the way that treason does. Since I believe the Southern rebellion was the worst act of collective treason in our history, I gave it high priority. Since I believe the failure of Reconstruction is one of the great tragedies of our history, it deserved recognition too.

And then there's just a couple of folks who really annoy the crap out of me. But I tried to keep them to a minimum. And I really think you can make a case for Byrd and Kennedy deserving to be at least in the top 100. In their own ways, they each personify and symbolize some of the worst aspects of our political life. So I'd argue that only Hilton and Moore are real reaches on my part.

The one person who slipped my mind, but whom I probably would have found room for if I had thought of him in time is L. Ron Hubbard as our worst religious false prophet.

Update: Tyler Cown comments:

It's also hard for me to see how Bainbridge ends up with Paris Hilton and Michael Moore in his list of the worst and he seems to acknowledge this oddity toward the end of his post.

I did acknowledge that they were both a reach. Having said that, let me run the following defense of including them up the flag pole to see if anybody salutes:  Moore and Hilton--like Byrd and Kennedy--may not deserve to be on my list on their own demerits, but they personify and symbolize--indeed have become icons for--things that really bug me about our culture:

• Byrd for runaway pork barrel spending
• Kennedy for the arrogant licentiousness of some many of our political elites
• Hilton as one of the earliest examples of how it is now possible in our culture to be famous merely for being famous without having any significant merit or worth
• Moore for the coarsening of our political discourse and the legitimation of propaganda as entertainment

These are all bad things, even if they aren't all bad people. Since I wanted somebody to symbolize them, these 4 seemed plausible candidates.

Speaking of the coarsening of our political disclosure, kudos to Brad DeLong for being his usual classy self.

It's getting to be embarrassing to be a conservative

These days it's getting increasingly embarrassing to publicly identify oneself as a conservative. It was bad enough when George Bush 43, the K Street Gang, and the neo-cons were running up spending, fighting an unnecessary war of choice in Iraq, incurring massive deficits, expanding entitlements, and all the rest of the nonsense I cataloged over the years in posts like Bush 43 has been a disaster for conservatives.

These days, however, the most prominent so-called conservatives are increasingly fit only to be cast for the next Dumb and Dumber sequel. They're dumb and crazy. 

Conservative pundit David Kilnghoffer has a great op-ed in today's LA Times that nicely captures what I'm on about:

Once, the iconic figures on the political right were urbane visionaries and builders of institutions — like William F. Buckley Jr., Irving Kristol and Father Richard John Neuhaus, all dead now. Today, far more representative is potty-mouthed Internet entrepreneur Andrew Breitbart, whose news and opinion website, Breitbart.com, is read by millions. In his most recent triumph, Breitbart got a U.S. Department of Agriculture official pushed out of her job after he released a deceptively edited video clip of her supposedly endorsing racism against white people.

What has become of conservatism? ... With its descent to baiting blacks, Mexicans and Muslims, its accommodation of conspiracy theories and an increasing nastiness and vulgarity, the conservative movement has undergone a shift toward demagoguery and hucksterism. Once the talk was of "neocons" versus "paleocons." Now we observe the rule of the crazy-cons. ...

Conservatism wasn't just a policy agenda, a set of partisan gripes or a football team seeking victory on the electoral field. Above all, it was a satisfying, sophisticated critique of modern, materialist culture, pointing a way out and up from liberalism.

Let's tick off ten things that make this conservative embarrassed by the modern conservative movement:

1. A poorly educated ex-sportwriter who served half of one term of an minor state governorship is prominently featured as a -- if not the -- leading prospect for the GOP's 2012 Presidential nomination.
2. Tom Tancredo calling President Obama “the greatest threat to the United States today" and arguing that he be impeached. Bad public policy is not a high crime nor a misdemeanor, and the casual assertion that pursuing liberal policies--however misguided--is an impeachable offense is just nuts.
3. Similar nonsense from former Ford-Reagan treasury department officials Ernest Christian and Gary Robbins, who IBD column was, as Doug Marconis observed, "a wildly exaggerated attack on President Obama’s record in office." Actually, it's more foaming at the mouth.
4. As Doug also observed, "The GOP controlled Congress from 1994 to 2006: Combine neocon warfare spending with entitlements, farm subsidies, education, water projects and you end up with a GOP welfare/warfare state driving the federal spending machine." Indeed, "when the GOP took control of Congress in 1994, and the White House in 2000, the desire to use the levers of power to create “compassionate conservatism” won our over any semblance of fiscal conservatism. Instead of tax cuts and spending cuts, we got tax cuts along with a trillion dollar entitlement program, a massive expansion of the Federal Government’s role in education, and two wars. That’s not fiscal conservatism it is, as others have said, fiscal insanity." Yet, today's GOP still has not articulated a message of real fiscal conservatism.
5. Thanks to the Tea Party, the Nevada GOP has probably pissed away a historic chance to out=st Harry Reid. See also Charlie Crist in Florida, Rand Paul in Kentucky, and so on. Whatever happened to not letting perfection be the enemy of the good?
6. The anti-science and anti-intellectualism that pervade the movement.
7. Trying to pretend Afghanistan is Obama's war.
8. Birthers.
9. Nativists.
10. The substitution of mouth-foaming, spittle-blasting, rabble-rousing talk radio for reasoned debate. Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, Hugh Hewitt, and even Rush Limbaugh are not exactly putting on Firing Line. Whatever happened to smart, well-read, articulate leaders like Buckley, Neuhaus, Kirk, Jack Kent, Goldwater, and, yes, even Ronald Reagan?

Update: Patterico says the foregoing are "reasons that conservatives should not support the Republican party," not reasons for being embarrassed about being a conservative. Fair enough. I'd accept that as a friendly amendment, but we're not friends.

I am reminded of Russell Kirk's great essay on Republican errors, in which he wrote that "in my lamenting of the present state of Republican leadership in Washington, I am more moved by sorrow than by wrath." Unfortunately, the present GOP leadership in Washington continues making many of the same errors of which Kirk complained 20 years ago. As such, sorrow begins to give way to wrath.

What I'd Do With LeBron Money

Michael O'Hare at The RBC blog:

[Lebron James] is under no legal obligation to northeast Ohio; this is obviously advice for chumps and losers. If he thinks the $28m he made there last year is cramping his style, it’s the American way to add to it. I myself have no conception how to spend a tenth of that; it’s easy to possess a lot of stuff (many houses with many rooms, many expensive cars, jewelry, and the like), but James only has about sixteen waking hours a day to experience it, just like everyone else.

In contrast, I have lots of ideas as to what I'd do with $2.8 million:

1. Tithe
2. Encourage Helen to quit work
3. Make a big gift to the UCLA law school endowment
4. Enroll in a fractional jet ownership program so I never have to fly coach again
5. Arrange lifetime supply of first growth Bordeaux wine
6. A Lamborghini Murciélago LP640.
7. Season tickets to the Washington Redskins
8. Down payment on a retirement home in La Jolla
9. Vanity publish my science fiction novel
10. Dinner at Tetsuya for myself and a dozen close friends and family

10 things of which I am sick and tired

1. Vampire novels
2. Vampire TV shows
3. Vampire movies
4. Reality TV
5. Democrats
6. The gladiator-sandal-meets-pumps look in shoes
7. The war on drugs
8. The World Cup
9. Taxes
10. Losing in my own fantasy football leagues

My 10 Favorite iPad Apps

As a public service, here's my 10 favorite iPad apps:

1. iBooks
2. Wall Street Journal
3. Kindle
4. Wikipanion
5. Backgammon NJ HD
6. iThoughts HD (a mind mapping program)
7. Epicurious
8. Opentable
9. Weather Channel Max+
10. Yahoo Fantasy Football

Suggestions most welcome.

10 Things I'd Like on my Kindle

I'm a big Kindle fan. I'll probably keep using it even if when I buy an iPad. Yet, it's not perfect. If you're listening Jeff Bezos, here's 10 things I'd like:

1. Folders to organize books by author, series, or what have you
2. A way to separate read from unread books
3. Footnotes should display on same page as text (that's a big one)
4. More sort functions (e.g., genre)
5. Better graphics display--maps and pictures suck on Kindle
6. Easier navigation
7. A touch screen instead of that stupid 5 way button and those miniscule keys
8. Color
9. Better audio/music player interface (you sell them too)
10. Something totally unexpected that will make me want to keep using Kindle even if I fall in love with the iPad.

10 Things I Think I Think about Football Free Agency 2010

1. It's a new day in DC. I guess little Danny Snyder has finally let the grownups run the ship.
2. Anquan Boldin going to the Ravens makes Joe Flacco a much more viable fantasy QB in 2010.
3. It's instructive that anyone would voluntarily join the Lions. Maybe there's finally hope in Motor City.
4. The Cardinals' streak of NFC West championships is over. Look for the 49ers to break through.
5. Chicago hasn't fixed its main problem; i.e., the space between Jay Cutler's ears.
6. The Bears also still need a WR1.
7. I'm not sure signing Chester Taylor does anything to make Matt Forte a better player.
8. A team with both Terrell Owens and Chad Ochocinco would be combustible. How many prima donnas can one locker room take?
9. I don't understand why the Eagles are keeping 3 QBs, any one of whom could start for most teams in the league. But maybe they plan to move Michael Vick later in the year when teams with QB needs start getting desperate. I would if I were their GM.
10. Would you rather have Vick, Sam Bradford, Jimmy Clausen, or Tim Tebow. I despise what Vick did to those dogs, but he's paid his debt to society and if I had to win now (see, e.g., John Fox?), I'd take Vick.

10 Things I Believe

1. Sabine Schmitz would kick Danica Patrick's ass in either a race or a beauty contest
2. Danny Snyder is the worst owner in the NFL
3. I make a lousy committee chair
4. The Mossad did not hit Al Mabhouh
5. Steak au poivre frites with Cabernet Sauvignon followed by a Dunhill Peravia and a lot of Port is a good way to end a crappy day
6. When it comes to cars Germans beat Japanese beat Americans ... bummer
7. The greatest athlete of my lifetime was named Michael ... I just can't decide if his last name was Jordan or Schumacher
8. A three hour faculty meeting shaves 3 millennia off my stint in Purgatory
9. Vegetables are not food, they are what food eats
10. I need a vacation 

10 Things I Think I Think Super Bowl Eve Edition

1. The Colts are going to win tomorrow. (Update: As usual, my prognostication skills sucked.)
2. I base this prediction on having run the game in Madden 2010 ten times with the Colts winning 8.
3. I doubt whether Lucian Bebchuk owns Madden 2010, which probably explains a lot about our relative standing as corporate law professors.
4. Pierre Garcon will be the Super Bowl MVP.
5. I base this on nothing but a gut feeling.
6. Speaking of my gut: A dinner of steak, potatoes, and arugula salad with a good red wine, followed by a cigar and some Tawny Port is a wonderful way to end the day.
7. Chicago's transformation from the City of Broad Shoulders to the Nanny State makes me sad.
8. Andrew Sullivan's beard is going grey. So is my goatee. One of us is using Just for Men hair dye. One of us isn't.
9. My frustrated desire to be a successful standup comedian sometimes bites me in the ass, with yesterday's faculty meeting being a good example.
10. I've owned some great cars. The pre-emissions control Olds 88 with a 455 Rocket V8. The Cosworth Vega. The BMW M3 convertible. The Porsche 911. But I've never loved a car as much as my new Mercedes E550. The combination of technological bells and whistles, comfort, and power is just right. More later.

10 Things I Think I Think Tonight

1. If God can get by on 10% of my income, why can't Washington?
2. It must have been a tough week to be a progressive.
3. Chicken marsala + mushroom risotto + Tignanello = happy tummy
4. Virginia + New Jersey + Massachusetts = a trend
5. Virginia + New Jersey + Massachusetts ≠ 103 House Democrats
6. A new season of Top Gear starts on BBC America on Monday. This makes me happy.
7. If the climate change wonks at the IPCC were wrong about when the Himalayan glaciers would melt, what else are they wrong about?
8. Ilya Somin asks "Should People Acting through Corporations be Denied Constitutional Rights Because Corporations are “State-Created Entities”?" My answer = no.
9. I'm going to be rooting for the Colts this weekend.
10. I'm having a really hard time deciding whether to root for the Vikings or the Saints this weekend. Remember when Henry Kissinger said of the Iran--Iraq War that it was a pity they couldn't both lose? I think it's a pity the Saints and Vikings can't both win.

10 Things I Think I Think: Politics

1. Gallup: "The increased conservatism that Gallup first identified among Americans last June persisted throughout the year, so that the final year-end political ideology figures confirm Gallup's initial reporting: conservatives (40%) outnumbered both moderates (36%) and liberals (21%) across the nation in 2009." Personally, I doubt whether 1 in 100 of the self-identified conservatives could name more than 1 in 10 of The Conservative Principles. But I'm feeling grumpy today.
2. I still think Bush 43 pissed away the conservative moment. But the great thing about time, is that there's always a new moment right around the corner.
3. Entrusting to the economy to Chris Dodd by having him take over as Secretary of the Treasury, would be like asking Beavis and Butthead to run the space program. The dude's an empty suit who's spent the last few decades spouting whatever the bankers who bought him told him to say.
4. Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal is considered a likely replacement for Chris Dodd as Connecticut's next Senator. It's just possible that he'd be even worse than Chris Dodd. certainl;y, our friends over at Overlawyered aren't very fond of him.
5. Hotline: "A poll of GOP insiders suggests that ex-AK Gov. Sarah Palin (R) has little support among the party's professional class -- and maybe that's just how she wants it." In related news: "Palin is making at least $75,000 and at most $100,000 for her speech" for her speech to the Tea Party convention." Why? I doubt Palin could name 1 in 10 of The Conservative Principles. I really just don't understand why she's so popular.
6. Simple Justice: "As hard as it may be to imagine, the most significant force against the reform of failed criminal justice programs have been the unions, and the politicians who depend on them for financing, representing prison guards." Actually, it's not hard to believe at all. Out here in California, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association has been one of the biggest obstacles to reforming our absurd three strikes and mandatory minimum laws.
7. Paul Caron links discussions of whether higher taxes will cause wealthy people to emigrate from the US. I'm wondering: Suppose I decided to retire in Costa Rica so as to avoid the confiscatory taxes that Obamacare and ObamaStimulus will impose on us in the coming decades. P{resumably I could transfer all of my defined contribution retirement funds to foreign funds that will be outside US tax jurisdiction. But what do I do about my US-based UC defined benefit plan? Will the US be able to tax it even if I'm living in Costa Rica? I wonder if Paul will give me some free tax advice.
8. Eric Posner: "Many of us said during the days of the Bush administration that restrictions on civil liberties motivated by the conflict with Al Qaeda would be maintained during any subsequent administration, whether Democratic or Republican, as long as the terrorist threat remained.  This prediction has been amply confirmed."
9. In response to proposals to regulate credit cards, Geoffrey Manne opines that "incessant claims that consumers are idiots, fooled time and again by rapacious capitalists, [are] tiresome."
10.  Melanie Reid: "Snow, I’m now convinced, brings out the inner Tory in all of us. In extreme situations, when forced to decide where shifting responsibilities lie, most of us revert to a doctrine that could be best be described as pragmatic, old-shires, compassionate Conservatism ...."

10 Things I Think I Think

1. The "bribes" people like Senator Ben Nelson got to vote for Obamacare don't bother me. It's a normal part of the legislative process. You do know the line about not watching the sausage being made, don't you?
2. This business of changing Senate rules so that it would take a supermajority to repeal portions of Obamacare, however, is pure evil on Harry Reid's part. Bad form, old chap.
3. "We live in an era in which identity politics drives a lot of pork spending." Gail Heriot on Obamacare
4. Shouldn't the President of the United States have better things to do with his time than calling talk radio? Even to speak to a Governor?
5. Brett Farve will break down by the playoffs and the Vikings will not win the Super Bowl.
6. A Colts-Saints Super Bowl would be the best case scenario.
7. I had a lousy fantasy football season. Details later
8. It's 60 degrees in Hollywood. It's 32 degrees and overcast in Chicago. It's 40 degrees and cloudy in Charlottesviile. And, yes, I'm talking to you and you too.
9. If read widely, Wayne Lafave's satirical Christmas Letter might just put an end to that awful tradition. (HT: Ribstein) It's worse than fruit cake.
10. My books make great Christmas gifts

10 Things You Ought to Read

1. Larry Ribstein's ideas on federalism approaches to health care
2. Rick Hills' comments on Ribstein's ideas
3. James Joyner's musings on a "war skeptic" right
4. Russell Kirk's essay Political Errors at the End of the Twentieth Century is an outstanding example of a war skeptical conservative argument
5. Kevin Drum clearly understands that politics is about rent seeking, so why doesn't he understand that bigger government inevitably results from and leads to even more rent-seeking behavior?
6. Tom Smith's musings on the nature of marriage amongst the rich and famous, with application to Elin Woods' role in Tiger Woods, Inc.
7. "Deposition videos you have to see to believe"
8. Jim Lindgren's two posts on the climate change hockey stick graph
9. Ilya Somin's post Is Ayn Rand Bad for Libertarianism?
10. Speaking of Rand, here's a collection of links to parodies, jokes, and other humor directed at Objectivism