The View from Right Field

Back In a Bit

We've got a couple of things going on, so I won't be able to post for a little while.  I should be back in the middle of September.  In the meantime, Go Cubs!

Something Is Going On in China –

And I don’t know what it is.  For that matter, I don’t think anybody knows what it is for sure.  But unusual things are happening in China.  The foreign minister, a close associate of Xi Jinping, all of a sudden disappeared and after almost a month was replaced by the man he replaced, all with no explanation.

The head of the PLA Army’s rocket force, a separate branch of the Chinese military, was replaced by a person from outside the rocket force, the first time this has happened.

And more: The economy has not taken off after the strict Covid restrictions were lifted late last year.  The prices for housing, a key way of saving for Chinese, are down.  Jobs for graduates are harder to come by (and the government has stopped reporting youth unemployment statistics).  And the economy is suffering from a bout of retail price deflation, even though the government is saying deflation isn’t happening.

Affirmative Action, Law School, and the LSAT

With the Supreme Court prohibiting affirmative action in college admissions, I would not be surprised if more and more colleges eliminate, or greatly reduce, the role of standardized tests in the admission process.  Law schools will probably do the same with the Law School Admission Test, the LSAT, if they have not already done so.  Which makes me a little sad because I’m pretty sure it was the LSAT that got me into the law school I went to. 

Some people get into law schools because their parents went there or somebody makes a big contribution.  (Given the tuition to law schools today, paying the full list price might almost be considered making a big contribution.)  Other students check different boxes that help them get in.  I had the LSAT.

We Need to Adapt to Climate Change – Now.

If the extreme weather that is happening around the world is a result of climate change, i.e., because we are putting so much carbon into the atmosphere, three things are true: (i) we need to reduce the amount the carbon we put into the atmosphere; (ii) number (i) is not going to happen for quite a while; and (iii) therefore, we need to figure out how to adapt to and deal with the extreme weather we are having because it is going to be around for quite a while.

Items (ii) and (iii) are not something people want to hear.  Their response is going to be: We have to do something now! That may what they want, but it is not what is going to happen.  Even if the United States, Europe, and other developed nations meet their announced plains, they are not going to reach “Net Zero” carbon until 2040 (or maybe 2050) at the earliest, which means they are going to be putting more and more carbon into the atmosphere until at least 2040.  If too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the problem today, then even based on what the developed countries are promising to do, the problem is going to be with us for a long time.

If Congress Can’t Deal With Our Deficits, Here’s an Idea – That Frank Wolf Had 15 Years Ago

George Will writes about the looming fiscal disaster the United States faces: we’re spending too much, and that spending will only increase (for things like Social Security and Medicare), but Congress can’t stop the spending increases – or raise enough revenue to pay for them: 

“What can be done to prevent risk-averse politics from producing this self-reinforcing doom loop?  The  Cato Institute’s Romina Boccia a suggestion: ‘a BRAC-like fiscal commission.’

Where Are All the Military Correspondents - Just When We Need Them?

Back in the day (not that long ago), major newspapers had military correspondents.  Not just reporters who covered the Pentagon, but reporters who really understood how militaries worked, how battles were fought, and how wars were won and lost.

At the turn of the century, i.e., the nineteenth to twentieth century, Winston Churchill was a military correspondent for newspapers in London, covering the Second Boer War in South Africa, among others.  Between the World Wars, there were people like B.H. Liddell Hart, who wrote for the Daily Telegraph and then The Times, as well as writing books on strategy and on military history.  More recently, a military correspondent I particularly remember was Drew Middleton of The New York Times, who, in addition to writing for them, wrote books such as Can America Win the Next War? and Submarine.

Stop the Burning of the Koran – By Ignoring It

The Financial Times had an interesting article today on the issue of the burning of the Koran in Sweden and Denmark.¹  Apparently, there is a lot of it going on, especially outside embassies of Islamic countries.  The question is what, if anything, these countries, both of which have a strong commitment to freedom of speech, can do about these actions.

It seems to me there is a simple solution to the problem of Koran burning in Denmark and Sweden.  It is not for those countries to ban it.  It is, rather, for Muslims to stop paying attention to it.  I understand that, for Muslims, the Koran is their holy book and desecration of the Koran is an insult to Allah.  But the people burning the Korans are not Muslim, they do not believe in Allah, and they do not think the Koran is a holy book.

Illinois Public Employees’ Contracts: Increases Now. Pension Funding, Later.

What I found most interesting about the contract between AFSCME and the State of Illinois, which the Union recently ratified, was not the wage increases, the benefit increases, and the very limited increases in the amount union workers have to pay for health insurance.  All of those were to be expected.  Governor Pritzker is, after all, the unions’ governor.

What I found interesting was there seemed to be no mention of the workers’ pension plans – or at least there wasn’t in the articles I read about the contract.  (See here and here.)  While the contract requires the State to pay the workers more money (including a contract signing bonus, apparently called a “stipend”), give them more benefits, etc., what did it provide about how the State is supposed to fund the workers’ pension plans?  If there was anything, the articles didn’t say. 

“Oppenheimer”, the Bomb, and Should It Have Been Used

With the new movie “Oppenheimer” out, we are once again debating whether it was right to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II.  I have talked about this question many times before, so I will not go into it again,¹ except for one thought that I have had for a while but not written about before.  Actually, it’s more of a possibility or a question than a certainty.  In any case, I thought of it again because of a couple of things in a review of Road to Surrender, a new book by Evan Thomas focusing on three men involved in the decision to drop the bomb and end the war:

“After receiving a full description of the destruction wrought on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, including an account of the civilian death toll, President Truman ordered that further atomic bombs would be used only on his explicit order – first time in American history that a president had taken direct control of a military weapon. …

IRS to Stop Surprise Visits on Taxpayers at Home. What Took So Long?

The Internal Revenue Service announced today its agents will no longer make unannounced visits to taxpayers’ houses.  According to an article in The Washington Post, the policy shift was “meant to protect employees’ safety due to the fear of potentially irate taxpayers answering the door.” 

The article quoted IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel as saying “[t]his is the right thing to do and the right time to end it.  We have the tools we need to successfully collect revenue without adding stress with unannounced visits.”