Thanks to all two readers who have sent concerned emails asking if I am ok.

I am fine and just very busy with two new projects that are leaving me with very little time for browsing the blogosphere and offering my three cents here on E!!

The first project – RFC Radio – is the brain child of my All American Media business partner and dear friend Andrew Riley.  Ideally, he would do all the work and I would reap the benefits.  Alas, he says he needs me to help with the To Dos.  And check his spelling.  And help make Duane feel guilty for missing our conference call last week.  (there, I did it)

The second project is Nevada News Platoon. Apparently, in a fit of extreme congeniality during which I hallucinated that I have spare time and that I am independently wealthy and do not need to paid for my work, I agreed to be the volunteer editor of this soon-to-launched grassroots news and blog site.

The gist is that we will cover news and politics in Nevada from an openly conservative and/or libertarian perspective.  We will not advocate for political parties, but we will unapologetically promote free-market, small government policies.  And provide valuable information to Nevada citizens who would like to Do Something about the current sad state of affairs.

February 5th is the “soft launch” (that’s New Media talk for all you greenies) and then the ”hard launch” and related fanfare will be sometime in March.

If anyone wants to help, here’s what I need from the conservative and/or libertarian citizens, activists, bloggers, writers, media-gurus, and leaders in Nevada (choose the one that fits):

- Commit to visiting the News Platoon site weekly and signing up for our news briefs

- Comment on our blog posts and stories so we know what you think

- Forward select Platoon news items to help spread the word (at your discretion)

- Send me news tips and story ideas (now and on an ongoing basis)

- Keep me informed of all your interesting political and business activitites (this is your opportunity to share info or expertise that only you have and maybe shed light on things for the public)

- Write letters to the editor (me) when you are upset about something going on in NV

- Refer bloggers and citizen journalists to me as potential contributors

- Tell anyone who’s not reading us that they Should Be

I think that about covers it.

Oh - and if anyone figures out how to squeeze more hours out of the day, please let me know.

Hat Tip:  Conor Friedersdorf @ Culture11

In short, the Republican party became undisciplined, greedy, weak and ineffective.  This dirtied and eroded the Republican brand such that it became unrecognizable and uninspiring. 

We need new leadership.  We need new voices and/or the renewing and rejuvination of existing voices.  Our elected officials need to stop concerning themselves with power grabs, pandering, and placating.  We must unapologetically and unashamedly stand on True Conservative values.

We need to get back to basics and get on message, recognizing that effective and persuasive communication matters.  As Laura Ingraham said today, “We must cultivate a new generation of leaders who are both proud of their conservative beliefs and comfortable articulating them with vision, clarify and optimism.” 

I hereby invoke part of Russell Kirk’s introduction to Ten Conservative Principles:

Perhaps it would be well, most of the time, to use this word “conservative” as an adjective chiefly. For there exists no Model Conservative, and conservatism is the negation of ideology: it is a state of mind, a type of character, a way of looking at the civil social order.

The attitude we call conservatism is sustained by a body of sentiments, rather than by a system of ideological dogmata. It is almost true that a conservative may be defined as a person who thinks himself such. The conservative movement or body of opinion can accommodate a considerable diversity of views on a good many subjects, there being no Test Act or Thirty-Nine Articles of the conservative creed.

In essence, the conservative person is simply one who finds the permanent things more pleasing than Chaos and Old Night. (Yet conservatives know, with Burke, that healthy “change is the means of our preservation.”) A people’s historic continuity of experience, says the conservative, offers a guide to policy far better than the abstract designs of coffee-house philosophers.

I have always loved Kirk’s Ten and that intro.  Not an ideology but ”a state of mind, a type of character, a way of looking at the social order.”

Conservatives are skeptical of change for its own sake and will always pause to ask, “but what are the unintended consequences?”  Conservatives value that which has been good, and is good, and are not eager to dismiss that good in favor of untested new ideas.  Conservatives are open minded but cautious.  Social experiments are looked upon with great skepticism.  As Kirk later writes:

Therefore the intelligent conservative endeavors to reconcile the claims of Permanence and the claims of Progression. He thinks that the liberal and the radical, blind to the just claims of Permanence, would endanger the heritage bequeathed to us, in an endeavor to hurry us into some dubious Terrestrial Paradise. The conservative, in short, favors reasoned and temperate progress; he is opposed to the cult of Progress, whose votaries believe that everything new necessarily is superior to everything old.

Just so.

It’s sweet that they care only about me, though I must say in all fairness that the other BlogLadies are nearly as bright and funny as I.  (ha ha!)

Following are a few of my most recent LadyBlog posts.  Forward the links and/or leave comments if you wish; it earns us points with the editors.

Planetary First:  Rwanda’s Parliament Has Female Majority:  http://culture11.com/blogs/ladyblog/2008/10/30/planetary-first-rwanda%e2%80%99s-parliament-has-female-majority/

Well Done, Laura Bush:  http://culture11.com/blogs/ladyblog/2008/10/29/well-done-laura-bush/

Next Season’s Dancing With the Stars:  http://culture11.com/blogs/ladyblog/2008/10/24/next-seasons-dancing-with-the-stars/

Sarah Palin’s Shoes:  http://culture11.com/blogs/ladyblog/2008/10/22/sarah-palins-shoes/

Ledeen on Noonan:  Singling Out Palin (lots of comments on this one; good discussion):  http://culture11.com/blogs/ladyblog/2008/10/17/ledeen-on-noonan-singling-out-palin/

Women and the Commentariat:  http://culture11.com/blogs/ladyblog/2008/10/16/women-and-the-commentariat/

Mr. Nintendo, Meet Ms. Couture:  http://culture11.com/blogs/ladyblog/2008/10/08/mr-nintendo-meet-ms-couture/

A Shoe by the Side of the Road:  http://culture11.com/blogs/ladyblog/2008/10/01/a-shoe-by-the-side-of-the-road/

Just before I was on KNPR with Steve Sebelius this morning, State of Nevada host Dave Berns had Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller on the air discussing yesterday’s raid on the Las Vegas ACORN offices.

After Sec. Miller summed up the situation, Dave mentioned some grousing about the timing of the raid by managers at ACORN.  Apparently their offices were stormed just hours before a celebratory potluck dinner was planned in recognition of 80,000 new voter registrations. 

The insinuation was that there had been a deliberate intent to interrupt the event.  SOS Miller denied this in an eloquent statement that can pretty much be summed up as, “No, we did not try to wreck their little potluck.”

In response to ACORN regional director Matthew Henderson’s claims that the raid was a “politically motivated stunt,” Sec of State Miller reminded listeners that he is a registered Democrat and stated his commitment to “fair and honest elections in Nevada.”

Apparently submitted voter cards included addresses and names that do not exist, duplicates, and names gleaned from the Dallas Cowboys roster.  It is also alleged that ACORN hired 59 felons through a work release program.

 Miller says new registrations are serial coded on arrival, that he is committed to reviewing and systematically weeding out bogus forms, and that he is “very confident” all the bogus cards can be flagged and invalidated between now and November 4^th. 

Meanwhile, Michelle Malkin did us the favor of combing through the 20-page search warrant from yesterday’s Las Vegas raid.  She flagged the section where ACORN employee Jason Anderson referred to some of their canvassers as “lazy crack-heads”.

Anderson said ACORN sets quotas of 20 registration forms per canvasser per shift and that slackers are put on probation or terminated if they do not produce.

AN ACADEMY CLASSIC

On the folly of rewarding A, while hoping for B

Editor

Whether dealing with monkeys, rats, or human beings, it is hardly controversial to state that most organisms seek information concerning what activities are rewarded, and then seek to do (or at least pretend to do) those things, often to the virtual exclusion of activities not rewarded. The extent to which this occurs of course will depend on the perceived attractiveness of the rewards offered, but neither operant nor expectancy theorists would quarrel with the essence of this notion.

Nevertheless, numerous examples exist of reward systems that are fouled up in that the types of behavior rewarded are those that the rewarded is trying to discourage, while the behavior desired is not being rewarded at all.

Fouled Up Systems

The American citizenry supposedly wants its candidates for public office to set forth operative goals, making their proposed programs clear, and specifying sources and uses of funds. However, since operative goals are lower in acceptance, and since aspirants to public office need acceptance (from at least 50.1 percent of the people), most politicians prefer to speak only of official goals, at least until after the election. They of course would agree to speak at the operative level if “punished” for not doing so. The electorate could do this by refusing to support candidates who do not speak at the operative level. Instead, however, the American voter typically punishes (withholds support from) candidates who frankly discuss where the money will come from, rewards politicians who speak only of official goals, but hopes that candidates (despite the reward system) will discuss the issues operatively.

(Hat Tip:  Joe Carter @ Culture11)

Obama on Yucca Mountain

[Edward John Craig writes] Max Schulz in the D.C. Examiner suggests that Obama has a bad read on Nevada voters’ position on Yucca Mountain.

Obama is gambling that his anti-Yucca stance will put Nevada in his column. Conventional wisdom holds that Obama has taken the safer bet. Yet it’s actually a risky strategy, based on the highly questionable assumption that Nevada voters oppose Yucca Mountain as fervently as do the state’s elected officials. The last two presidential elections suggest they don’t.

In 2000, Yucca supporter Bush took the state with more votes than opponents Gore and Ralph Nader combined. Those five electoral votes were the difference between victory and defeat.

Shortly after taking office, Bush pushed Yucca Mountain legislation through Congress, sparking fresh outrage from Nevada’s political leaders. It didn’t matter. In the 2004 presidential election, Bush again won the Silver State. Incredibly, he tallied nearly 39 percent more votes than four years before.

A big problem with Obama’s reflexive Democratic opposition to Yucca Mountain is that he proposes no viable alternatives at a time when Washington is on the hook for an answer to the nuclear waste question.

Failure to come up with a workable solution throws a wrench into plans to revive nuclear power’s fortunes just when voters are increasingly worried about climate change and over-reliance on foreign energy sources.

Without an alternative proposal, Obama’s pro-nuclear comments are merely lip service. That could have ramifications in states other than Nevada. All signs point to a public and an investment climate increasingly supportive of nuclear power.

Obama is a savvy politician who for two years has run a nearly flawless campaign for the White House. He is also known to be a pretty good poker player. But with his opposition to Yucca Mountain, as with his dissembling on offshore drilling, he looks to have played the energy card all wrong. It just might cost him a big pot on November 4.

Most Nevadans probably don’t even know the NWPO exists (see my post below on Bob Loux), let alone how it came about or what it does.  For a little tutorial, here are some excerpts from a history written over ten years ago by author/researcher Stuart D. Waymire (emphasis mine; non-italicized sarcastic comments also mine):

“Nevada’s Nuclear Waste Project Office was created using money set aside from the Nuclear Waste Fund. Under its director, Bob Loux, NWPO has consumed nearly fifty million dollars over the last decade, much of it employed in opposition to nuclear energy…”

So, the Waste Project Office wasted Money from the Waste Fund.  Seems logical to me.

“…Robert Loux…has become as notorious in Nevada as a one-man anti-nuclear wrecking ball. A high school teacher with a major in history and minor in psychology from the University of Nevada, Reno, Loux had been involved in state energy and nuclear waste programming since 1976. In fact, except for a few years of teaching high school, this appears to have been the only career he has ever pursued.”

A high school history teacher was obviously the best choice to head up an agency overseeing the largest proposed nuclear project in our nation’s history.  “Duh”

“Since becoming executive director of NWPO, Loux’s lack of scientific expertise and technical credentials has become a raw wound in the Nevada technical community which sees him as a political manipulator and engineering dilettante. This hasn’t stopped Loux from gaining carte blanche over what has now grown to more than $5 million dollars per year in funds, in large part distributed to foes of the nuclear industry.”

I think $13,698.63 per day is a very reasonable rate for all the non-expert misinformation we’ve gotten from Loux and his staff.  

“As a result of action by the 1985 Nevada Legislature, NWPO became, officially, the Agency for Nuclear Projects – a statutorily established entity responsible for monitoring and overseeing U.S. Department of Energy activities related to the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site. In the hands of then-Governor Richard Bryan, it also became part of a political strategy designed to bludgeon political opposition into submission – notably former Senator Chic Hecht in the 1988 senatorial campaign eventually won by Bryan.

 “Under the troika of Senator Bryan, director Robert Loux and former governor Grant Sawyer (who was enlisted to head the Nevada Commission on Nuclear Projects), the Nuclear Waste Project Office became an anti-nuclear propaganda machine.

“Oversight by the Sawyer Commission transformed into show trials masquerading as fact finding. Science conducted by NWPO’s technical and planning division was corrupted by political considerations. The social scientists of the planning division, given lucrative contracts worth $15 million, used their expertise to generate anti-nuclear hysteria in Nevada. Less abusive but no less disturbing was that some of the technical studies were designed to support the party line rather than investigate real technical questions at Yucca Mountain.”

Kudos to ex- Nevada Governors Richard Bryan and Grant Sawyer for administrative efficiency:  they ordered skewed technical studies, effectively smeared the Yucca project, and defeated their political opponents using the same agency.

 “Nevada’s politicians, notably Senator Bryan and ex-governor Sawyer, looked the other way as Bob Loux awarded millions of dollars of contracts without Requests For Proposals and without competitive bids.

We don’t need no stinking bids.

“Even more problematic was that the Department of Energy, which was supposed to oversee the spending of NWPO, caved in to the political pressure and allowed the state to violate federal laws rather than risk making political waves…

Given a choice between upholding federal law and being called a bunch of Big Meanies, the DOE made the obvious choice.

“For example, NWPO openly violated the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) against using funds to run public relations and lobbying campaigns. Whenever questioned about the legality of these public relations activities, Bob Loux simply claimed the regulations didn’t apply, or that his agency was in compliance because its activities were strictly ‘informational’. The pertinent regulation regarding limits on public relations and lobbying by agencies accepting Federal grants is FAR 31.205-22.”

Loux’ activites were actually MIS-informational, but let’s not split hairs – or atoms, as the case may be.

Twenty-three years later, Loux, Richard Bryan, the NWPO, most of Nevada’s elected officials, and many of Nevada’s citizens are still rabidly anti-Yucca Mountain.  And, unfortunately, many well-intentioned people remain completely uninformed about the facts and benefits.

What a shame.

(I’ll collect and post assorted contact info for the appropriate persons and agencies later today, so please stand by.)

If we wished to ensure that a bright, ambitious, and capable woman would not make it in contemporary national politics, as practiced by most successful contemporary office-holders and adjudicated by the New York-Washington media, then we would insist on the following ten requisites:

A friend recently asked if I jot down all my bloggy ideas as they come to me and then type them up later.  The answer is Yes, I have between two and twenty scraps of paper shoved in my purse or pocket at any given time and/or I type reminders in a Word doc if I’m at a PC when inspiration comes.  One of this morning’s looked like this:

Check out Pindell Reprt on Politicker.  If poor, slam for sub-title “dynamic and deeply reported” – WTF does that MEAN?  If good, give props.  Also, email webmaster re: typo on About page.

And the result is something like this:

Today’s Pindell Report has Nevada as most the closely contested swing state in the nation. 

The report ranks and re-ranks races by competitiveness, so the race ranked first will be won by the smallest margin of victory and the race ranked last is believed to promise the largest margin.  The report’s About page says it takes into account polling, fundraising, past election data, demographic changes, interviews with the nation’s top political strategists, and Politicker.com’s reporters out in the field.  The rankings are evaluated daily to ensure they’re current.

Seems like a good system to me, and I like the little “+2” and “-4” notations to show whether the race rose or fell on the list.  (Make sure to click on the Senate, House, Governor and Presidential tabs to see all rankings for all races.)