The Pope gets it Right on Socialism

It worries me when religious people embrace the thoroughly evil ideas of Socialism. So I was pleased to read this column in which the late Pope is shown to have opposed Socialism, and for excellent reasons.

Oregon Legislature to Confiscate Gift Card Value

For some reason, the Oregon Legislature wants to confiscate the unused portion of all gift cards and gift certificates in Oregon.

Gift certificates and gift card programs are not free to run (and are not always good deals for consumers), but they an turn a profit for the issuer. That profit comes from several sources.

1. Gift cards can increase total business traffic, as when you buy your friend an El Gaucho gift card and he goes to that restaurant when otherwise he may not have done so. 

2. The business gets the money up front and only incurs a cost when you redeem the card - it's a free loan to them.

3. For some - like the KFC "Chicken Checks" of the 1980s - there was a high rate of dropout - the gift was given but never redeemed.  That means the money falls directly to the business' bottom line as profit.  The industry average is approximately 15% drop-out.

On the other hand, gift cards also must be accounted for as a liability on your business' books, much as frequent flyer miles are a liability on the books of the airlines.  Since most businesses don't like to keep endlessly open liabilities on their books, expirations are a way to close those books and reduce liabilities.  If a particular gift card is still not redeemed after (say) ten years, odds are it never will be redeemed.  It was lost or misplaced years ago - you don't want to upset the accountants or investors by pretending those cards are going to all show up and get redeemed.

The Legislature is using an "unclaimed property" concept that I first ran into in the insurance world.  When I was consulting for a large insurer, I ran into something called "Escheats to the State" - when an insurer couldn't pay out a claim or refund or other money owed because it couldn't find the person, the insurer had to set the money aside into a special account.  After three years (it varies by state) the money was forfeited or "Escheated" to the state government.  This is common for unclaimed property of various kinds, but doen't always include gift cards.

That wasn't because the government owned or deserved the money.  Rather, it was a way to remove a conflict of interest.  If the insurer was allowed to keep the money, they might see an incentive to "oops" not find you when they owed you money.  Escheating is a way to ensure that no such conflict arises.  But escheating is entirely inappropriate for gift cards, where YOU control the money.

Also: you cannot offer interest on a gift card without running afoul of banking and investment laws - at that point you're really selling CDs - certificates of deposit.

Public Education's Intellectual Conformity Police

Thanks to the progressive, free-thinking leftists who control Oregon public education, you will soon be eligible to lose your teaching license if you don't think the right thoughts.

That's because - whether or not Senate Bill 50 passes - Oregon's education establishment have already decided that it's appropriate (and that they have the power and discretion) to require all licensed Oregon public school teachers to share a specific political ideology, flying under the code phrase "Cultural Competence."

I'm simple. When I see a phrase like "Cultural Competence" I assume it means things like respect. Courtesy. Not assuming your foreign-born students all know who Abe Lincoln was, or are all aware of (whatever's left of) shared American culture. Perhaps it means not demeaning their country of origin or their heritage, or becoming aware of subtle nonverbal communications habits common to different cultures.

No, ODE says "Cultural Competence" and means teachers need to think alike and share the same political values.

I wish I were making this up.

As detailed in their report, the Oregon Department of Education says they have a consensus that:

...cultural competence is more than more just effectively meeting the needs of all students by providing teachers with the requisite knowledge and skills. Rather, cultural competence entails actively challenging the status quo and advocating for equity and social justice. [p. 3]

So it's not enough if a teacher is "effectively meeting the needs of all students"? I'd be delighted if we were just doing that. But no, teachers must do all that and more - they must be required - their word not mine - required to "advocate" for "social justice".

Lest you consider me an alarmist, look at the details offered by the ODE. They want to:

· Revise rules [...] including possible revocation of licensure for culturally incompetent behavior
· Ensure licensed educators are culturally competent
· Require cultural competence for licensure renewal
[p. 9]

No big deal, right? Just gotta understand your students and teach them, right? Nope. In order to get and keep your teaching license, ODE is contemplating requiring that you "Apply competencies and believe it [p. 60]." A teacher is only safe if s/he "Advocates for social justice [p. 5]," which seems to start off with a nod to equal opportunity but quickly degenerates into economic re-distribution and Socialism Lite.

Conscientious objectors apparently need not apply. So much for honoring diversity.

Republican Utopianism

Peggy Noonan and I both feel a little worried that Bush II is embarking the US on a too-ambitious program of excessive involvement in foreign affairs. I especially liked her phrasing:

Ending tyranny in the world? Well that's an ambition, and if you're going to have an ambition it might as well be a big one. But this declaration, which is not wrong by any means, seemed to me to land somewhere between dreamy and disturbing.

Now David Reiff agrees, writing about the possible downsides if any of our efforts to "export freedom" should fail:

But if it goes wrong, as I desperately fear that it will, perhaps John Quincy Adams's words in his Independence Day speech of 1821 will resonate once more. "Once enlisting under other banners, were they even the banners of foreign independence, [America] would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assumes the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force."

I agree.

In Richland, WA

I'm staying with Mike Badnarik - literally sharing a room with him - and it's already a hoot. Mike is such a sound, decent, nice man, and so firmly rooted in love of country and confidence in liberty... and also a nice guy to hang out with and drink a beer and talk.

We're co-teaching a class tomorrow for four hours titled simply "Candidate Training", so I tore him away from the reception long enough to go over the outline one last time, talk over how we wanted to approach things, and get his feedback on my last minute addition, the Seating Plan. We'll see how that actually plays out.

Now it's time to go back out and kiss hands and shake babies.

I'm an hour from hitting the road to drive to Richland, WA for the LPWS state convention. I'll be co-teaching a four hour Candidate Training class with LP presidential candidate Mike Badnarik. More later.

Why I think the UN is dreadfully broken

Time for a Churchill quote:

"There is no worse mistake in public leadership than to hold out false hopes soon to be swept away. The British people can face peril or misfortune with fortitude and buoyancy, but they bitterly resent being deceived or finding that those responsible for their affairs are themselves dwelling in a fool's paradise."

- Winston Churchill, quoted in this review (http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0312.meacham.html) of Ripples of Battle by Victor Davis Hanson


This strikes at the heart of my unhappiness with the UN, and my impatience with its apologists -- we keep getting asked to trust the UN do perform this or that task, and it reliably fails at the task, often with tremendously tragic consequences.

My correspondent Marty's example is perfect:  The UN makes a promise to refugees by
setting up a "safe area" -- and then fails to uphold the promise. Repeatedly.

If the UN or the individuals or nations setting up the "safe area" would just be honest, and say "we're setting up a collection point for refugees, but we won't defend you -- we're just making it easier for your attackers to find you" then I'd be much less upset.

The inability to defend may not be the UN's fault.  But the lying about it is very much the UN's fault.  The subsequent bloodbath is at least partly the UN's fault, as enablers.

The corruption of the UN's Oil for Food program is the UN's fault.

The unwillingness of the UN's apologists to be honest about the UN's flaws makes reforming the UN harder or impossible, so the persistence of these flaws is at least partly the apologists' fault, as enablers.

The UN's stated goals are in many cases my own goals or desires as well.   But if the UN as it *actually* exists is getting in the way of those goals or making things worse, then defending the UN's dysfunction is *impeding* those goals.

Honesty on this point is crucial.  No fix can occur before one admits a  thing is broken.

Secret, Top Secret, and SCI

From my expert source:

You may find this useful:

http://www.dss.mil/search-dir/training/csg/security/Contents.htm#Shortcut

As you drill down into it (all you'll need is the Overview section, I think), you'll notice that the kind of info that is classified that we were talking about is SCI (Sensitive Compartmented Information).  That's sources and methods.  And that is not just SECRET or TOP SECRET, that's TOP SECRET/SCI (the black world).

Basically, once you get a TS, you can get read into an SCI level clearance -- but eventually you'll have to take (and pass) a polygraph to make it permanent.

It's not just knowing that Enemy State has an X -- that could be classified but not SCI.  It's knowing that they have it, and knowing because we have a Y (source or method) that detected it, and we also have a Special Forces SMU (Special Mission Unit) that can go and take it out because they are trained to be able to do Z (US capability).

:: Paul ::

Credit Card Fraud and Bad Databases

It's not that credit card workers are stupid. It's that their database systems are.
Had a call at the house from CitiBank, our credit card issuer. They had seen some "suspicious" transactions and wanted to know if we'd performed them or if someone else had.

One of the two was a gasoline purchase (a common ruse by thieves to find out if a card has been deactivated is to make a small purchase at a gas pump, swiping the card at the pump and avoiding the cameras in the store). The gas was purchased at "8:31 p.m." they said.

I was at home watching TV with my wife at 8:31 p.m. Yikes. Was it fraud?

Turns out the credit card employee was reporting it as 8:31 p.m. Central Time. We live in Oregon. At 6:31 p.m. PST (local) I was at the gas station buying gas.

I don't blame the credit card company's employee for reading the number on her screen. I blame a dumb database application that doesn't account for differences in time zones and doesn't report local times as such. It's a recipe for misunderstanding at the very least.

Is it any wonder we have a fraud epidemic, with rocket scientists like this designing the database applications?

B!x has Details, Lacks Big Picture

The coverage by B!x of the Portland JTTF flap continues to be excellent. That's now where I go first for background and details.

It's just a shame the author seems reflexively negative regarding the FBI, and why I have to question his grip on the idea of combatting terrorism. He seems to have a typically leftist myopia regarding anything that might look like profiling.

In this post he (reasonably) questions the credentials and expertise of apparently self-annointed "terrorism expert" Gary Perlstein, and goes on to give us this passage:

Take a deep breath for a moment, then come back and re-read the first part of that quote. ""The fact that a person was under suspicion because he was a Muslim, used a computer, transferred large sums of money, that's fine," Perlstein says in that article. "I want people to investigate that."

Abuse of innocent people via arrest and prosecution is something Perlstein apparently rejects. But abuse of innocent people by investigating them for spurious and illegitimate reasons, that's okay with him.

Sorry for the nested quotes, but here is my understanding of Perlstein, and then of B!x.

Perlstein thinks it's okay for law enforcement to go looking for people who might be terrorists, and thinks that looking for some combination of factors, including in this case (a) being Muslim, (b) using a computer, and (c) transferring large sums of money.

B!x seems to think that those three factors are the only factors present, and promptly starts to hyperventilate.

Go back to the original links on B!x's page, and you start to see that there is more afoot. If you think it's just "use a computer" - that could be anyone, and it supports B!x's paranoia. But the case at hand involved a person accused of operating web sites to support terrorism - which is a higher threshold of involvement than the generic "use a computer".

From the Spokesman-Review article:

Al-Hussayen, a UI graduate student in computer science, was the first person charged with providing material support to terrorists by operating Web sites. [William Banks, a law professor at Syracuse University and an expert on domestic and international terrorism] said the case seemed to show him as "what most of us would think of as the model for a Web administrator – you're a medium through which materials pass, you're not responsible for the contents, nor do you edit or survey the contents."

So the reality is that even being a web site operator isn't enough involvement under the law to make you culpable (thank goodness) . So, it's good that stupid provisions in the original misbegotten Patriot Act are being struck down.

As for profiling, once you get rid of race as a factor it becomes standard police procedure. Like Perlstein, I too expect the Feds to be looking for Muslim extremists who are doing some combination of things, such as (a) posting or reading extremist anti-American materials that justify terrorism; (b) transfering large amounts of money internationally; (c) attending any group meeting at which terrorism is promoted or encouraged or where potential terrorists are recruited; (d) writing or actively disseminating or helping disseminate pro-terrorist literature; (e) learning to fly large aircraft but not take off or land; (f) attending or seeking to attend terrorist training camps; etc.

Note that "being Middle Eastern" or "being Arab" aren't on the list - because the terrorists are recruiting across race and ethnic barriers.