Aren Cambre’s Blog

Kim Jong Il, twit extraordinaire

When you’re out of options, you do crazy stuff.

Does this explain North Korea’s missile diplomacy? They backed up implied threats against Hawaii only with mid-range missiles?

Is North Korea angering its best friend? I can’t believe China appreciates pointless destabilizing provocation of its neighbors and trading partners.

I don’t see a logical end. Sure, North Korea’s threats usually rocket past any logical end, but this is a new color of nuttyness.

Is North Korea having an internal struggle? Can freedom-loving nations capitalize on it? Has the media investigated this?

The Texas GOP’s extreme social stances are a losing strategy for two reasons.

1: They are paradoxically liberal. If we fully legislated the Texas GOP platform’s social stances, we would make the government the moral compass, usurping the proper role of the church and individual wisdom. (It’s as if we want to reverse the Protestant Reformation, but that’s an issue for another blog post!)

2: They turn away mainstream conservatives and moderates. This is proven by two polls:

First is a recent Gallup Poll. It finds that conservatives are the largest single voting bloc. But they are neither a majority nor “very conservative”:

Second is a Pew survey, interpreted by Texas Monthly editor Paul Burka to show that the Republican party “hemorrhaging” voters. Indeed, party affiliation is:

• 36% independent
• 35% Democrat
• 23% Republican

If the Republican Party was the mainstream conservative party, it would have more affiliates than Democrats.

But no: the Republican party is hemorrhaging voters because of its extreme social stances. Per the Pew survey: “[independents] more closely parallel the views of Democrats … on the most divisive core beliefs on social values, religion and national security.”

Juxtaposing these surveys, an inescapable conclusion: Extreme conservatism, especially extreme social conservatism, is a losing strategy.

Any winning strategy for Republican domination must not alienate moderates; we can’t win without them.

I am a Republican. I am pro-life. I believe that every abortion is a tragedy. High abortion rates speaks poorly on how society values fragile lives.

I believe abortions should never substitute for effective birth control, and I support banning those abortions. I respect individual privacy, but human life is sacrosanct. Stopping life is not a casual matter.

That’s my limit; I support no further restrictions. That means I would not seek to prevent abortions that:

• Protect the mother from serious medical risk or death.
• Terminate pregnancies from non-consensual sex.
• Terminate pregnancies with fetuses with conditions incompatible with life.

You may ask, “So do you want all these people to have abortions?” If the pregnancy endangers the mother’s life and abortion can help, yes, save the mom. If the fetus cannot possibly survive, there’s no life to be preserved, so the mom should have the right to avoid pregnancy’s risks and costs if she chooses.

The nonconsensual sex part is tough. In an earlier post, I commented on the perception of men telling women what to do with their bodies. I hope and pray rape victims will keep their babies, but I don’t wish to force societal or collective judgment on rape victims. Rape-induced pregnancy introduces too many moral traps to have a decisive argument.

Abortion is a tragedy. There is no excuse for casual abortions, but I do not see a rational case for a total abortion ban.

An interesting Gallup poll on abortion was released today. Pro-life Americans surged recently. I think it’s a reaction to our recent abortion-friendly ideology shift.

I found two things more interesting.

First is how only 22% want a total abortion ban:

This starkly contrasts with the Texas Republican Party platform, which calls for no abortion whatsoever.

The second interesting part is the stances of women and men:

They’re hardly different: within 5 points either way.

Pro-choicers complain that men are telling women what to do with their bodies. In other words, they say men cannot regulate female-specific issues. Sorry, but the numbers show women and men have roughly equivalent positions! If you substituted male legislatures with female legislatures, you would get the same results.

This week I formed Limitless Technologies LLC.

I’m not rushing into long term plans: computer and information technology consulting need little physical capital, so I can use a “pay as you go” system for now.

I have two objectives.

First, the obvious one: As a separate legal entity, Limitless Technologies LLC bears almost all liabilities for all actions performed through it, protecting me and my family from financial harm.

Second, I have political aspirations. The citizen politician ideal is a myth for ordinary citizens like me, mostly because you can’t make up for lost wages and benefits while campaigning. That’s a huge dent for families, especially in a time-consuming competitive race. I need to develop an asset pool and a more flexible income stream that can bridge me through a leave of absence from my main job.

This is the closest I have come to publicly annoucing a run for office. Don’t worry: we don’t see it happening in 2010!

I titled this “back in business” because I used to co-own Scarsdale Computers, Inc. in the late ’90s. Supposedly I was the brains to back up the sales acumen of the other guy, but I really couldn’t contribute much. My IT knowledge dropped off a cliff past computer hardware and desktop OSes back then.

Dallas’s proposed city-owned convention center hotel is 9 mistakes wrapped in one package:

1. Fiscally stupid. The convention center loses $3 million a year. The hotel costs half a billion dollars. That’s 166 years of convention center losses! So you say I should consider return on investment, but…
2. Success not assured. The convention industry’s future is uncertain. In addition to broad economic pressure, telepresence technology is rapidly maturing, and the green movement frowns upon travel.
3. It’s a distraction. City resources used developing and monitoring the hotel come from other city functions.
4. Can hurt taxpayers. Even though revenue bonds finance the hotel, they are still backed by Dallas taxpayers. If the hotel can’t pay the bonds, taxpayers will!
5. Can hurt credit rating. If taxpayers must pay the bonds, that effectively increases Dallas’s indebtedness, hurting credit ratings. Credit ratings affect how much Dallas’s can borrow. Since Dallas puts almost any improvement on the “bond credit card,” good credit ratings are critical.
6. If it was so assured, a private company would have done it already. We have many wealthy developers with access to vast amounts of capital. They would have already done such an assured project.
7. It’s socialism. The city has no business competing in a well-functioning, established private market.
8. Ugly as hell. Looks like those ’50s-style “office buildings of the future”:
   

   Looks like some of those old goofy office buildings.

9. Harlan Crow is not evil. Yes, Harlan Crow is financing virtually all the anti-hotel effort. But he’s done a lot of good for Dallas. And he’s right.

Please join me in voting YES on Dallas Proposition 1. Stop the hotel. It’s 9 mistakes wrapped in one package.

Yosemite Sam, a Texas Republican nut job?

In Despite state mythology, Texas lacks right to secede (Dallas Morning News,  April 18, 2009), political consultant Bill Miller intimated that Republicans are nut jobs.

Bill, a partner in HillCo Partners LLC and supporter of discredited former House Speaker Tom Craddick, said the following in response to Governor Rick Perry’s moral support of secessionist nuts:

Clearly, he’s playing their song. And he was tone-perfect actually, for that group.

[When it comes to the GOP base] there’s no downside for him [using the secession argument]. He can ride that horse all day long.

Um, Bill, most Republicans aren’t insane. The vast majority of us laugh (or cry?) at this secession talk.

It’s unfortunate that this kind of view gets any press. But maybe it’s accurate when the party platform has provisions that would:

• Criminalize use of oral contraceptives.
• Eliminate use of Presidential executive orders.
• Allow religious organizations to break current 501(c)(3) restrictions on political activism.
• Allow party bosses to effectively disqualify candidates because of their adherence to certain platform issues.
• Punish certain forms of free speech.
• Require teaching of religious viewpoints in science classes.
• Enforce values of certain religious sects on all Texans.
• Ban termination of unnatural life support measures (e.g., feeding tubes on brain dead patients who cannot possibly recover).
• Withdraw from the United Nations.
• Etc.

To be clear: I am a Republican. I am a Christian (and an unusual one since I attend church!). I believe the vast majority of the Texas Republican platform is right. But as long as extremist views like these are in our platform, how can we be taken seriously?

I support the calls for a new generation of Republicans, ones who see beyond the last generation’s radical issues. If we don’t, we’ll get the failure we deserve.

I ran across a bizarre article: a La Marque, TX woman was arrested and ticketed for dropping an F-bomb in a Wal Mart by–get this–a city fire marshal! Help me: what does swearing have to do with fires?

Texas has many overlapping law enforcement agencies. Here’s a sampling from the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, organized roughly by agency type:

1. County sheriffs, deputy sheriffs, and reserve sheriffs
2. County precinct constables, deputy constables, and reserve constables
3. City marshals (presumably the process serving kind)
4. City police and reserve police
5. Texas Department of Public Safety, including Texas Rangers
6. Investigators for county district attorneys, criminal DAs, and and county attorneys
7. Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission’s officers
8. Texas school district police officers (jurisdiction is entire district boundary and any property outside district boundaries that is owned, leased, or rented by or otherwise under the control of the school district) (source)
9. Public university and college police officers (full jurisdiction within entire counties that contain property owned, leased, rented, or otherwise under the control of the university or college) (source)
10. Private university and college police officers (jurisdiction is on property owned by the school or anywhere within a county in which the school owns property as long as the officer is performing duties assigned by the university and which are consistent with the school’s educational mission) (source)
11. General Services Commission officers
12. Parks and Wildlife Commission officers
13. Airport police officers for airports exclusively operated by Houston, San Antonio, or Dallas or any political subdivision of the state.
14. City park and recreational department officers
15. State comptroller’s security officers and investigators
16. Water control and improvement district’s police officers (jurisdiction appears to be limited to any land, water, or easement owned or controlled by the district) (source)
17. Municipally-owned harbor or port police officer (source)
18. Texas Medical Board investigators
19. Dallas County Hospital District, Tarrant County Hospital District, or Bexar County Hospital District officers (jurisdiction limited to district property or adjacent roads) (source)
20. County park rangers in Harris County or any county bordering the Gulf of Mexico (jurisdiction limited to county parks and unincorporated parts of islands or isthmuses) (source)
21. Texas Racing Commission investigators
22. Texas State Board of Pharmacy officers (may not carry a firearm or make an arrest) (source)
23. Metropolitan rapid transit authority or regional transportation authority officers
24. Texas Attorney General investigators
25. Texas Lottery Commission security officers or investigators
26. Texas Department of Health officer (limited to enforcement of food and drug portions of Health and Safety Code) (source)
27. Supreme court, the court of criminal appeals, and each of the courts of appeals can appoint a police officer “to protect the court” (source)
28. State fire marshal’s fire and arson investigators (source)
29. Texas Department of Insurance investigators (source)
30. Texas Youth Commission inspectors general (source)
31. Texas Youth Commission apprehension specialists (source)
32. Texas Department of Criminal Justice inspectors (source)
33. Commission on Law Enforcement Officer Standards and Education investigators (source)
34. Texas Commission on Private Security investigators (source)
35. Emergency Services District police officer (source)
36. Emergency Services District fire hazards investigator (source)
37. State Board of Dental Examiners officer (only to enforce relevant portions of the Dentistry subtitle of the occupations Code) (source)
38. Texas Juvenile Probation Commission investigator (for the purpose of investigating allegations of abuse, neglect, and exploitation in juvenile justice programs and facilities) (source)

Do we need thirty eight different forms of state law enforcement?

The AIG bonus revolt is political buffoonery.

The Obama administration should have said:

Yes, the bonuses are bad, but they were contractual obligations that were reinforced by my administration and my Democrat friends in the House and Senate (link). We’re not changing the rules of civil contracts; that would destroy the confidence in American economic system, which is still quite sound.

This is not time to make political hay. AIG has to pay this round of bonuses. But since the US now owns AIG, we’ll stop this from happening in the future.

Instead, the Obama administration and Congressional Democrat fiends friends acted like spoiled children caught with their hands in the cookie jar–excuses, whining, and threats.

That’s not leadership. That’s liberalism.

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed and hence clamorous to be led to safety by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

-H.L. Mencken