Carolinas

Why Am I Not Surprised?

When I heard a few weeks ago that Charlotte might be hosting a Democratic Presidential debate, I was excited. When I heard last week that the state Democratic Party was involved and that Raleigh was now in contention to host, I just knew Charlotte would be passed over. And I was right.

The state party's longstanding pattern of excluding Charlotte is getting more than a little annoying. I'm enough of a yellow dog that it won't affect my vote, but I can't say this won't effect my donations. I'll give money, but I would be more likely to be more generous if I got more out of it than a thank-you page on a website.

Making a 5 hour round trip to Raleigh doesn't make for a fun day, and springing for an overnight hotel stay is just money that the party is missing out on. But these would be things I would consider more seriously if I didn't have the distinct impression that the state party isn't willing to hit the road and visit the largest, richest city in the state from time to time. There are supporters with money here — don't ignore that.

"Lord Knows"

I guess it really depends on what you mean by "honor":

Local black leaders are decrying a recent performance by three white men at a church who wore blackface while pantomiming traditional black hymns.

The performance at Pilgrim Baptist Church was meant to honor gospel music history and was not meant to offend anyone, said the Rev. Thomas Holbrooks Jr., pastor at the church.

"It was in no way making fun," Holbrooks said. "Lord knows we love the old spirituals they sing. That's why they did it."

Welcome to Gastonia, NC, where it's still 1927!

Of course, to prevent people from getting the wrong idea, one of the three explained to the paper, "I have some real good black friends." Uh, yeah, probably not anymore.

But the most amazing bit of willful cluelessness comes from the pastor's wife: "A little tiny blond woman sang Randy Travis. So I guess Randy Travis should be offended. My husband pantomimed playing the piano. So I guess the piano should be offended." Maybe she should learn to sing that old Sesame Street ditty One of These Things Is Not Like the Others.

Bad Tricks

I received an email today from Jerry Meek, the NC Democratic Party Chair. Apparently, Republicans are engaging in a disinformation campaign at some early voting locations.

Yesterday, I received various complaints about deceptive Republican tactics during the early voting in Chapel Hill.

Apparently, Republican canvassers are approaching people entering the polls and asking if they’re Democrats. If the answer is "yes," they are given a flyer and told "This is a list of our judicial candidates." The problem: the list contains only the Republican candidates!

Because Party affiliation isn’t listed on the ballot, voters are being misled.

Real classy. Let's face it — it takes an awful amount of contempt for voters and the democratic process to pull stunts like this.

If you're a NC Democrat, or just want to try it on for size this year, the real list of Democratic candidates is here. And don't forget — you have to vote for these candidates separately. Voting straight ticket won't include these candidates since judicial elections are officially non-partisan.

Say What?

I got a letter from Senator Dole today. It begins:

Thank you for contacting me to express your concerns regarding the National Security Agency's terrorist surveillance program. I appreciate hearing from you and would like to take this opportunity to respond.

What follows is the standard set of GOP talking points: 9/11 changed everything, it's legal anyway, blah blah blah.

Funny thing is, though, I never wrote her about the NSA — I wrote her about the network neutrality issue. Here's the email I sent her.

I didn't expect to hear back from her office that Senator Dole agreed with me on this issue and had decided to vote for a bill sponsored by a Democrat. I didn't really expect hear back from her at all. But really, if she's is going to write back to constituents, then her staff should at least take the time to figure out what the original message was about. Otherwise, it's just kind of insulting.

Update: I got another letter from the Senator. The letter used my address, but was written to a Stefan Pienkny, thanking him for his letter about the Alito nomination. What's up with that?

Vote on May 2

Don't forget — Tuesday, May 2nd is primary day in North Carolina, so if you're registered, get out and vote. If you're not registered, get off your butt so you can vote in the next election.

Judicial elections in North Carolina are officially non-partisan, but the Democratic Party has posted a voter guide here.

More Bamboozling from Pittenger on Global Warming

I first wrote about Republican State Senator Robert Pittenger back in February, in response to his claim that human activity wasn't a significant cause global warming. Well, he's back, and as intellectually dishonest as ever.

This time around, Pittenger tries to argue that North Carolina shouldn't mandate reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Such reductions wouldn't affect global carbon dioxide levels significantly and would be very expensive to implement, he says. But as before, the "evidence" that he puts forward in support of these claims show him to be a grade-A science abuser.

To dispute the scientific consensus that human activity causes global warming, Pittenger relies on a few right-wing, industry-funded contrarian cranks like Robert Balling and Pat Michaels. To calculate the costs of reducing emissions, he throws together some numbers from New Jersey and an 8-year-old report from WEFA, a consulting company that brings "together leaders from the utilities, automotive, metals, and other key industries" to produce its climate briefings. And the punchline, that any regulations would be "all cost and no benefit", comes from Dr. Ed Erickson, an ally of Pittenger's and an anti-environmentalist who has also cast his lot with the cranks.

If Pittenger wants to side with big business and oppose new regulations… well, he's a Republican, of course he will do that. But he still has an obligation to make his case on the merits, and his preference for bamboozlement over science means he is just not to be trusted. Perhaps the editors at the Observer should take that into account before giving his distortions any more space in their paper. And perhaps the fact that Pittenger can't come up with any good arguments in favor of his position means there aren't any good arguments to come up with here.

Local School Board Caves In to Homophobes

Last night, the Rowan-Salisbury school board decided unanimously to kick the Gay-Straight Alliance out of South Rowan High School. This is just stupid.

The effort to ban the GSA was organized by "Operation Save America", a group of witless homophobes affiliated with the noxious anti-choice group "Operation Rescue". In their view:

Here is the problem. Homosexuality is not only out of the closet and parading its sin publicly in the hallways of South Rowan, it demands all bow down and be subject to it, or be sued. Friends, if we do not fight this battle now when we have a good chance of winning in Jesus' name, we may find ourselves having to fight when there is little or no hope of victory, realizing that it is better to die free than live under the bondage of homosexual slavery.

Some of the folks who came out to the board meeting to support the ban expressed similarly hateful sentiments:

Carl Ford, who has been an active supporter of the high school, said sodomy was illegal in North Carolina, so a Gay/Straight Alliance shouldn't exist.

He also wondered why South was forced to drop its old mascot, the Rebels, when this club — which offends more community members — was being allowed to meet.

But as asinine as Operation Save America and its supporters are, the school board here deserves the lion's share of the moral blame, if only because they are supposed to be the adults in the room. But not so much. Here's how it went down:

The law says that if any non-curricular club is allowed to meet, all must be, as long as they meet voluntarily, are student-initiated, not school-sponsored, and are not materially or substantially disruptive of school activities.

When board members asked South's principal, Dr. Ron Turbyfill, whether the club was disruptive, he said he did not consider it to be.

"If your measure of disruptiveness is whether or not we are able to conduct classes, it is not," he said, adding that classes have gone on every day as usual.

Kay Wright Norman said the board should define "disruptive" before adding the clause about it to their ban, but Shuping said it was up to the board to interpret that.

Other board members looked for ways around the issue that would not require them to ban all student clubs.

Dr. Jim Emerson asked Sayers if schools could have service clubs, like the Civitans, and academic clubs without allowing other non-curricular clubs, but Sayers said that would be against the law.

Kyle Huffman warned board and audience members that banning the Gay/Straight Alliance might force the board to ban other clubs.

"We will have other ramifications," he said. "We may lose some very good organizations because of this equal access law."

No matter that school principle said the club isn't disruptive (and indeed, how could it be?), the board decided that disruption was in the eye of the intolerant and that by saying it was so, made it so. Positively inspired bamboozling.

But worst of all is Board Chairman Bryce Beard, who seemed to want to do the right thing, but just couldn't summon up the guts to actually do it.

Board Chairman Bryce Beard said the board had a difficult decision: While it hoped to reflect the community's wishes, it also had to promote students' rights.

"We have to be for the children, and that's whoever we have that shows up at our door to receive an education," he said.

Allowing the Gay/Straight Alliance wouldn't be popular, but "at the same time, we don't want to stigmatize children," he said. "…In reality in our community, (homosexuals) are pretty good citizens."

Nice words, comparatively speaking, and yet the vote to ban the GSA was unanimous. Thanks for the profile in courage, Bryce.

Oh, and the fact that the school board chose to ban all "sexually-oriented clubs" as their way of killing the Gay-Straight Alliance just goes to show the board members didn't even bother to find out exactly what the GSA actually is, or just didn't care.

The courts will overturn this blatantly illegal decision when the school district is inevitably sued, and the school board undoubtedly knows this. But as this case winds its way through the judicial system, time, money, and credibility will all be wasted, and in the end the district will face the choice of either allowing the GSA back on campus, or eliminating all other student groups. I can't wait to see how this turns out.

And all this because a few kids decided to form a club dedicated to friendship and tolerance. It wouldn't be crazy to think that they won't make that mistake again, but I hope they do. And I hope that a lot of other students in schools everywhere do too.

He Can't Drive 55

It looks like South Carolina's Lt. Gov. just can't keep his foot off the gas. You might remember that The Honorable Andre Bauer got pulled over at gunpoint three years ago for doing 60 in downtown Columbia and running a couple of red lights. Now the word is out that Bauer has been pulled over twice in the last four months: in December for doing 77 in a 65 zone on I-385, and in February for doing 101 on I-77 at night.

Bad timing for Bauer, who, just on Friday, had explicitly denied having any recent run-ins with the law. Also bad politics, since Bauer is up for reelection this year, and already has a primary opponent. And as much as it pains me to see Mike Campbell exploit his father's name and the Campbell's soup logo in a bid to get a job he thinks is a waste of money, I do like the thought of Bauer getting unceremoniously tossed out on his butt.

It could also prove very expensive for Bauer from a ticket perspective if he loses his spot as "SC 2". He was let off with only a warning in December, and was just sent on his way after getting caught doing triple digits in February. Something tells me he won't be so lucky after he leaves office and doesn't get to make up stupid titles for himself on his government-issued police radio.

And while we're on the subject of the police, perhaps someone should ask the SC Highway Patrol why it doesn't think it needs to enforce the law when dealing with "almost famous" people — I'd be interested to hear the answer.

Sen. Pittenger's War on Science

In today's Charlotte Observer, Republican State Senator Robert Pittenger lends his efforts to his party's war on science by denying that human activity is a significant cause of global warming. As an example of its specious species, it's nothing special. But since Pittenger a member of the N.C. Legislative Commission on Global Climate Change (which I wrote about here), his wingnuttery actually has a public policy impact, so let's take a closer look at what he says.

Pittenger starts out by noting that there are natural warming and cooling cycles, and that human activity has very little additional impact.

A study by Jager and Barry from 1990 found that over the past 1 million years, there have been eight periods of glaciers and ice caps advancing and retreating — all of this occurring without automobile and power plant pollution from humans.

…While the Earth is currently warming, the real question that should be asked is, "Can we do anything about it?" The answer is very little, since this cycle was occurring prior to the first human civilizations.

This is nonsense. No one denies the existence of natural climate cycles, but the scientific consensus holds that human activity is the most significant factor in global warming. Indeed, Pittenger's punch line above about being able to do "very little" because there are natural factors at work begs the question of how important human activity is. He doesn't back up his assertion with scientific evidence because there isn't any that supports it.

Next, Pittenger bemoans the difficulty of climate science, and suggests that this complexity precludes us from making any reasonable predictions about the impacts of global warming.

While it is understood that human carbon emissions have a small effect on global climate, the computer models predicting global flooding and catastrophes rely on numerous variables that can greatly affect the long-term temperature change estimates, particularly particles, water vapor and clouds.

Particles, or aerosols, tend to have a cooling effect as solar energy is reflected back into space. Increased water vapor as a result of higher temperatures tends to enhance global warming if the lower atmosphere warms up, though satellite data has shown no such warming to date. Clouds can either cool or warm the climate depending on their composition and led the United Nations IPCC to state that "clouds represent a significant source of potential error in climate simulations."

Yes, climate models are not perfect, and no one seriously disputes that. But in the end the science here is stunningly clear: human-induced global warming will have dire consequences. To take an element of uncertainty acknowledged by the discipline and use that to undermine its overall validity is dishonest and not in keeping with the scientific method. Oh, and his claim about what the satellite data shows is completely false. In fact, the data actually lend quite a bit of support to contemporary climate models.

Pittenger concludes by claiming reducing carbon emissions would have a ruinous impact on our economy and hurt the world's poor.

These three variables combined make it extremely difficult to argue for significant carbon emission reductions, which will have enormous negative economic impact on developed and developing countries — all based on estimates for 100 years in the future.

The "negative impact" he mentions is asserted, never argued for, but I imagine he is thinking of the costs installing carbon dioxide scrubbers on smokestacks and the like. No doubt there would be costs associated with reducing emissions, but there are also costs to not acting, e.g. watching south Florida sink into the rising ocean. There are also the economic gains that the birth of a new environmental industry would generate, but Pittenger doesn't consider that side of the equation.

We must also consider the costs of diverting vital resources from important issues like feeding the world's poor and providing ample water supply to emerging countries, which is the most important factor to impact world health. Contrary to the wishful thinking of those who believe we can alter climate change, such an emphasis could adversely affect critical world issues. The billions and by some estimates even trillions that it would cost society to cut carbon emissions would have a minute effect on projected global climate change while diverting our resources from more important issues at hand.

How sad that the richest, most powerful nation on earth, which currently devotes a whopping 0.17% of its GDP on foreign aid, just can't afford to give any more. But seriously, foreign assistance is only a zero-sum game if our policy makers choose to make it one. In that case, the responsibility lies on those making that choice, and not those who are pushing the for more good to be done in the world.

In the end, reasonable people can agree on the scientific consensus and still disagree on what action needs to be taken — science doesn't overdetermine policy. But Pittenger doesn't get this. Instead of making his arguments based on the facts of the matter, he distorts the science, magnifies the uncertainties, and leaps to unsupported conclusions. Our future is not in good hands as long as people like Robert Pittenger are in charge.

Party Switcher

Via Ed Cone, it looks like my red state just got a touch bluer:

State Rep. Russell Capps of Raleigh will be getting a most unusual Democratic challenger next year — the president of the Wake County Republican Mens Club.

Chris Mintz, a Raleigh financial planner, is not only resigning as club president, but is changing his registration to Democrat.

Mintz, 30, said he decided to leave the Republican Party because he thinks it is too focused on social issues rather than on economic issues. He also said the GOP is becoming less tolerant of different viewpoints.

"The Republican Party appears to be going further and further to the right," Mintz said. "It's really not the party for me any longer. I'm not bitter. I have a lot of friends who are Republicans."

"I think we are ignoring issues that are important — like education, economic development and health care," he said.

A few or more years ago, when I lived in South Carolina as the Republican Party was growing in strength, it was common to hear some former Democrats explain their switch this way: "I didn't leave the Democratic Party; the Democratic Party left me." That was usually a coded way to express opposition to civil rights, an issue which represented, unfortunately, a real problem for many people after the Democratic Party's embrace of it in the 1960s. But today, perhaps, we're seeing the mirror image of that old trend, as some people are starting to realize that a Republican Party increasingly obsessed with god, guns, and gays has left them.