Minor Thoughts from me to you

Economist David Henderson has a great idea.

What do you call people who want government solutions even when those solutions don't work?

In my latest article in The Freeman, I introduce the term "government fundamentalists." Here's a passage:

What should we call people who seem to regard government as the solution regardless of the evidence? I propose the term "government fundamentalists."

This is great shorthand for what the current administration believes in. No matter what the problem is, government is always the solution. This is a label I'll have to use more.

(Via EconLog.)

Last week, Tim Challies posted some reflections entitled An Inflated Predator Panic? He reviewed some of the current anti-male hysteria: some airlines will no longer seat unaccompanied children next to men, child advocates advise parents not to hire male babysitters, sports leagues advise men not to touch children under any circumstances, etc.

Tim then asked whether we're being fair to men and posed some questions to his readers. Ultimately, he concluded that we're being entirely fair to men as he stated that he'd never allow another man to babysit his children under any circumstances. A distressingly large number of Tim's commenters agreed that it was never ever safe to allow a man -- any man -- to babysit or be alone with their children. Many of these same commenters proclaimed that their policy wasn't born out of an unreasonable fear of men and that they wanted their children to have a healthy attitude towards men.

What follows is an edited, reworked version of several comments that I left on Tim's post.I'm a 26 year old male. I got married when I was 23 and I now have two young daughters (2 years old and 8 months old). As a young dad, I'm very sensitive to the "I don't trust any man with my kids!" line.

So, to answer Tim's questions:

1. Would you leave your children with male babysitters?. Yes. 2. Would you allow your teenage boy to babysit other children? Assuming he liked kids more than I do, yes. (I don't understand kids that aren't my own. They have weird language and habits.) 3. Are you immediately hesitant or nervous when a man shows friendly interest in your children?. No, not really. I'm actually more nervous around teens or other kids. They're not fully mature yet. Who knows what they'll think is a good idea. 4. For the men: if you saw a child standing alone and crying in the mall, would you stop to help the child? If so, would you do so with confidence or with some level of fear? I probably wouldn't. I'd be afraid of what other people would think. I'd be petrified that the child's parents would see me with their child and totally freak out. I'd be afraid of getting a bogus conviction as a child molester and having a judge forbid me to even see my own children.

Let's move on to the substance behind the questions though. So far in this conversation, I'm seeing a lot of blanket statements and few actual statistics. Statements like "the fact remains that the vast majority of predators are men" or "After all, the vast majority of children are molested by men whom they know AND trust."

This is, sadly, pretty common. And I wonder how much of those statements are driven by sensational news coverage and not by actual truth. So, I went looking for some statistics. They seem to be hard to find. 30 minutes with Google hasn't turned up much. Here's what I have seen, from the U.S. Justice department:

Currently, it is estimated that adolescents (ages 13 to 17) account for up to one-fifth of all rapes and one-half of all cases of child molestation committed each year (Barbaree, Hudson, and Seto, 1993)

By 1997, however, 6,292 females had been arrested for forcible rape or other sex offenses, constituting approximately 8% of all rape and sexual assault arrests for that year (FBI, 1997). Additionally, studies indicate that females commit approximately 20% of sex offenses against children (ATSA, 1996).

This looks like females and other children commit a significant number of sex crimes. Now, I'll look at the numbers another way. Rounded off, there are 500,000 sex offenders in the state registries. There are 119,566,275 men aged 15 and up in the U.S. I'll round that to 119,500,000. Now, assuming that every single registered sex offender is male (not true), that means male sex offenders are .4% of the total male population. Note that's point 4 percent, not 4 percent.

Put differently, assuming that no women is every guilty of molestation, only 1 out of every 250 men is a risk to your child. How many men does your child even interact with on a regular basis? And the odds are even lower than that. Women can -- and do -- molest children. Why are we so intent on punishing so many men for the sins of so few? With odds this low, why do I have to worry that anyone seeing me carry my daughters around or hold their hands will assume I'm a predator?

Abigail, your comment, in particular, saddens me immensely. You wouldn't let any male babysit your children. You won't let your own son ever babysit anyone's children. You believe that any trusted male is a potential predator. And then you say that you're not telling him that all males are bad. How is he supposed to believe that?

To everyone who feels that way, how am I supposed to believe that? Given that you would never, every allow a man to babysit -- solely because he is a man -- how should I or your children believe that not all men are bad? Eventually your children will notice that mom and dad are okay with them being alone with women but not with men. What kind of a signal will that send to them?

I ask that as a young, Christian male who desperately wants to be a man that children can look up. I want to be a man that young women see as a model of manliness and a model of what to look for in a husband. I want to be a man that young men see as a model of manliness and a model of how to treat women and children.

But I know that you and other mothers like you are in my church. Women that look suspicious every time I go to the nursery to pick up my daughters. Women that give me strange looks when I take my daughter to the park without taking my wife along. Women that stop whatever they're doing to continually watch my interaction with my children.

How am I ever supposed to have any confidence that I can be a role model if half of the adults in the room cringe any time I happen to pass near their child? How can your children ever begin to look up to me and trust me when their mother so clearly fears me?

As a man, I'm very grateful for the parents who have said that they would use a male babysitter. I'm heartbroken over the parents who categorically reject the option. To explicitly say that one person is more trustworthy than another -- solely on the basis of gender -- is extremely discriminatory and discouraging.

I am a parent. I feel a great weight of responsibility for both of my daughters. What really concerns me is the attitude expressed by "E" and several others today: "I must say though, that generally speaking men are perverts and predators and deserve the stigma."

That attitude is entirely offensive, untrue, and demeaning. I will not raise my daughters to believe that every man but me is suspect and dangerous. I am pleading for the opportunity not to be viewed as a potential predator first and a person second. I am pleading for the opportunity to be seen as a Christian, a fellow brother in Christ, a mentor, a friend, a husband, a father, a loving son, and a faithful employee. Instead, I've felt that stigma of being a potential predator. I've walked into the church nursery -- alone -- to pick up my daughter and seen people look at me suspiciously. I've taken my daughter to the park -- alone -- and seen mothers view me with suspicion and a little fear.

Yes, I will protect my daughters. I will raise them to know that men view sex differently than women. That men are more visually oriented. That they should be careful with how they interact with young men: don't be flirtatious or unknowingly seductive. Men view these things differently. I know.

But many, many men are trustworthy and honorable. Many young men are worth of respect in their interactions with young women and children. And we insult and cripple these men if we're collectively telling everyone to be very, very careful with letting their children be alone with men or emotionally close to men.

For me, this goes back to a particular, peculiar, Christian view of sex. Many church youth groups tell their teens to avoid sex until marriage. They explicitly or implicitly tell them that sex is dirty, disgusting, and embarrassing -- so you should save it for the one you love. Are we -- as a society -- giving our children the same view of men? Are we telling our children, our daughters, that men are typically vile, evil, and dangerous; and that it's best not to get too close to them? Are we telling them that all men are predators and therefore you should love, honor, and cherish one as your husband? Are we implying to our sons that men are inherently untrustworthy and then expecting our sons to grow up and suddenly act inherently trustworthy?

People will live up -- or down -- to the expectations that are set for them. If the expectations are negative, well, why try to hard? After all, everyone expects you to fail. We can complain that people should be better than that. We can proclaim that one should always live right no matter what the expectations of others are. But, realistically, most people don't work like that. So, what kind of expectations are we setting for our sons?

Are we telling them that they're sex obsessed predators just waiting for a private moment to commit a crime? Are we telling our sons that they can never be trusted with anyone's children? Are we giving them expectations to live up to or expectations to live down to? Our young men will take their cues from what we say. But they'll also take their cues from how we treat other men and how much we trust other men.

So will our daughters. If we never fully trust any man other than our fathers, if women never fully trust any man but their husband, how can we raise our daughters to trust their husbands? If they grow up believing that most men are predators how can they trust even their husbands? Will they ever be comfortable leaving their children alone with their husbands? How many future marriages are we poisoning today?

Speaking for myself, I will raise my daughters to know what a trustworthy, honorable man looks like. I will raise them to give a trustworthy man the trust he's earned over a lifetime. I'll raise them to know the signs of an untrustworthy man (or boy) and avoid him. But I will not raise my daughters to instinctively distrust men simply for the crime of being male.

I will not discriminate against 50% of the population solely because of their gender. Will. Not. Happen.

Hooking up twitter to the blog. We'll see how this goes.

Amazon introduced the Kindle DX at a press event this morning. It's the big screen Kindle everyone's been waiting for, but it comes with a big screen price: $489.00.

What do you get for that? Well, it's two inches taller and two inches wider than the normal Kindle, making it about an inch smaller than an 8.5" x 11" sheet of paper. This is important because it's the first Kindle to offer a native PDF viewer that displays full-size PDF pages without any modifications or unsightly wrapping. It's being pitched at anyone who wants to read rich, dense information: textbooks, scientific texts, computer manuals, etc. To make this even easier, it now supports auto-rotation. It will automatically sense whether you're holding the device in portrait mode or landscape mode and rotate the page to match.

What else do you get for your money? Well, it's pretty much the same as the small Kindle in all other respects. Same Whispernet wireless access, samme text-to-speech, same overall design. It does have enough memory for 3500 books, up from 1500 books. But the display is still 16 shades of gray (no color).

What do I think? I think this is one expensive gadget. The small Kindle, at $359, is pushing my willingness to spend. The DX, at $489, is way beyond it. Granted, it's a huge device. And I do think that size would allow me to read many books I'm unwilling to read on my small Kindle. But I'm not going to spend $500 for the privilege. Hopefully, for Amazon's sake, somebody else is.

Amazon to Launch Kindle for Textbooks - WSJ.com:

Amazon.com Inc. on Wednesday plans to unveil a new version of its Kindle e-book reader with a larger screen and other features designed to appeal to periodical and academic textbook publishers, according to people familiar with the matter.

... A larger-screen Kindle would enable textbook publishers to better display the charts and graphs that aren't particularly well suited to the current device, which has a screen that measures just six inches diagonally. But digitizing academic books could also hurt the thriving market for used textbooks on college campuses.

I think the schools consider that a feature not a bug. I also think the Kindle DRM will likely discourage a lot of students from buying digital textbooks. They'll almost surely cost more than the used books online and they can't be given away or resold at the end of the year. Sure, it'll save weight in backpacks, but it comes at the cost of a $359 device.

Of course, I reserve the right to change my mind after reading the full details of tomorrow's debut.

Update: I haven't changed my mind. The new Kindle DX is nearly $500. Several universities will be piloting them as textbooks, with the textbooks preloaded. That's a good deal for those students. But I'm not sure it's a good deal for other students who will have to buy both the Kindle and their textbooks.

This weekend, while in Minneapolis, I started reading Jerry Pournelle's 1979 book, A Step Farther Out. I was reading it on my Kindle, natch.

In the first chapter, Jerry advocates a form of energy production known as the Ocean Thermal System (OTS).

It is an Earth-based solar power system, and the concept is simple enough. All over the Earth the sun shines onto the seas, warming them. In many places--particularly in the Tropics--the warm water lies above very cold depths. The temperature difference is in the order of 50° F, which corresponds to the rather respectable water-pressure of 90 feet. Most hydro-electric systems do not have a 90 foot pressure head.

The system works simply enough. A working fluid-such as ammonia--which boils at a low temperature is heated and boiled by the warm water on the surface. The vapor goes through a turbine; on the low side the working fluid is cooled by water drawn up from the bottom. The system is a conventional one; there are engineering problems with corrosion and the like, but no breakthroughs are needed, only some developmental work

The pollutants associated with the Ocean Thermal System (OTS) are interesting: the most significant is fish. The deep oceans are deserts, because all the nutrients fall to the bottom where there is no sunlight; while at the top there's plenty of sun but no phosphorus and other vital elements. Thus most ocean life grows in shallow water or in areas of upwelling, where the cold nutrient-rich bottom water comes to the top.

More than half the fish caught in the world are caught in regions of natural upwelling, such as off the coasts of Ecuador and Peru.

The OTS system produces artificial upwelling; the result will be increased plankton blooms, more plant growth, and correspondingly large increases in fish available for man's dinner table. The other major pollutant is fresh water, which is unlikely to harm anything and may be useful.

Well, that sounded impressive enough. This book was written in 1979. Why haven't had I heard more about OTS? Then, this morning, I did hear more about OTS. The New York Times published an article about it. The Times' article offers a brief overview of the technology while also talking about how expensive it could be to use.

Skeptics say that the technology is highly inefficient because it requires large amounts of energy to pump the cold water through the system.

Patricia Tummons, who edits the newsletter Environment Hawaii, said a major question about the technology was "just how economical it can be."

Robert Varley, who is helping to lead Lockheed's efforts, estimated that just 3.5 percent of the potential energy from the warm water pumped might actually be used. "In reality that doesn't matter -- the fuel is free," he said.

This is something I'll be keeping an eye on.

Obama backs new health bill urging Americans to dress gerbils in cute, tiny lederhosen.

Heh. Related story..

This is simply unacceptable. The American President DOES NOT bow down to a king. Ever.

But that's exactly what President Obama did at the G20. President Obama bowed to the Saudi King.

Video (it's around the 53 second mark).

Red State updates an old MoveOn.org ad, questioning who will pay for the President's massive amount of deficit spending. Remember when the Democrats were against deficit spending? Boy do I miss those days.

Now, Social Security is projected to go into deficit as early as fiscal 2010. And the President's budget has increased the national debt by $6.5 trillion. That's pretty impressive for only four months of work. What will the debt look like by 2012?

Gruber, on why the iPhone is so successful:

One obvious but wrong answer would have been for Apple to start with a phone. That's what most companies in the mobile handset industry have done and it's led them to a dead end. The problem is that while successful complex systems evolve from simple systems that work, not every simple system that works can support additional complexity. It's not enough just to start simple, you have to start simple with a framework designed for future evolution and growth.

Consider that none of the major new features in the iPhone OS 3.0 software is related to the telephone. MMS comes closest, but even that doesn't pertain to phone calls. The "phone" in "iPhone" is much more about ubiquitous always-on wireless TCP/IP networking than it is about the 20th century conception of telephony.

And that's the main reason I'd like an iPhone. Always-on internet access, anytime, (almost) anywhere -- and it fits in my pocket.

As unfinished work piles up each day at the office, I could certainly stand to remember this more. The To-Do Lists Are Never Done:

Only God gets his to-do list done each day.

This simple sentence informs how I begin my day, what I expect to accomplish during the day, and how I close each day.

When I step out of my office and turn the light off at the end of my day, and the list of to-dos is incomplete, I say to my secretary, "Nora, we will try again tomorrow." This brief statement is an acknowledgment of my limitations, and is my way of saying that--once again--I didn't get everything done. It's a moment for me to cultivate humility.

No matter how much planning, scheduling, and discipline is present in my life, I will never completely redeem the time. I am a finite creature, limited in what I can accomplish, and further limited by my sin. So it should surprise nobody that I leave to-dos undone each and every day.

My joy is not derived from the flawless execution of my goals. My joy each day is derived from the person and work of Jesus Christ on the cross.

Only God gets his to-do list done each day. I need the cross of Christ each day.

(Via C.J. Mahaney's view from the cheap seats & other stuff.)

'Homesteaders' try to produce all their own food - WSJ

Jodi and Brian Bubenzer describe themselves as "homesteaders" who try to produce all their own food, even though nothing in their suburban childhoods prepared them for this existence. They knew nothing about farming until five years ago, when they bought a farm outside New Glarus. And while adapting to their new Green Acres lifestyle, they've both maintained jobs in Madison and home-schooled their four sons.

My main exposure to farming is the "Little House" series of books. Technology has a come a long way since then and farming doesn't require quite as much manual labor as it used to. But, still, isn't it a full time job?

How does one home school, farm, and work two "regular" jobs? That sounds like working four full time jobs.

Bits: The Broadband Gap: Why Is Theirs Faster?

Many countries have faster and more widely available high speed Internet service than the U.S. It has a lot to do with their urban density, not our poor technology.

In case you were wondering.

I haven't even read this article yet. But, from the description, the immediate commentary that comes to mind is "eating the seed corn".

Corporate-Cash Umbrellas: Too Big?

Many big companies are being too cautious with their cash. Meanwhile, shareholders could use some of it to make it through the recession.

I take the institution of marriage very seriously. It pains me to see people treat marriage casually, as something to be jumped in and out of. It pains me even more to see marriages where one partner takes the marriage seriously and the other treats it as a disposable commodity. It hurts me even more to see someone deliberately trying to interfere with a marriage. So wouldn't it be a good thing to make it illegal to interfere with marriage? How about letting a jilted spouse sue whomever interfered with the marriage? What's wrong with that?

Well, Eugene Volokh discussed that very topic over at The Volokh Conspiracy earlier this week.

1. The statute would literally apply to someone who urges a friend to leave an abusive -- or unfaithful or just unsuitable -- spouse, or (say) a mother who effectively badmouths her son-in-law to her daughter.

2. And of course let's not forget the obvious problems of proof and risk of perjury. Was there an act of adultery? Should the defendant have known the other person was married? Much of the time this will depend on what was said and done behind closed doors, and who seems more trustworthy and appealing to the jury. And this is even more so today than in the past, given that men and women have innocent friendships more often than decades ago; evidence of dinners together will no longer be particularly probative, and it will be all a swearing match among three people who may have all sorts of financial and emotional motives to lie. That's in fact one reason the alienation of affections tort has mostly been abolished.

As I said, you can love marriage and hate adultery without thinking that more tort liability will make things better.

In between those two examples is a host of other problems. As somewhat of a social conservative, I'm interested in using the law to protect what people hold dear. On the other hand, the law needs to be used wisely. This is a tricky area that requires very well thought out legislation.

Scott Rassmussen wrote about Obama's polling numbers in today's Wall Street Journal.

Polling data show that Mr. Obama's approval rating is dropping and is below where George W. Bush was in an analogous period in 2001. Rasmussen Reports data shows that Mr. Obama's net presidential approval rating -- which is calculated by subtracting the number who strongly disapprove from the number who strongly approve -- is just six, his lowest rating to date.

Overall, Rasmussen Reports shows a 56%-43% approval, with a third strongly disapproving of the president's performance. This is a substantial degree of polarization so early in the administration. Mr. Obama has lost virtually all of his Republican support and a good part of his Independent support, and the trend is decidedly negative.

A detailed examination of presidential popularity after 50 days on the job similarly demonstrates a substantial drop in presidential approval relative to other elected presidents in the 20th and 21st centuries. The reason for this decline most likely has to do with doubts about the administration's policies and their impact on peoples' lives.

People are realizing that the Obama they voted for may not have been the real Obama. The Presidential candidate who promised to fight earmarks and out of control spending just as hard as Senator McCain isn't the same person as the President who's proposing massive increases in spending.

But Republicans shouldn't be too encouraged by this news. They're still the most hated political party in America.

Finally, what probably accounts for a good measure of the confidence and support the Obama administration has enjoyed is the fact that they are not Republicans. Virtually all Americans, more than eight in 10, blame Republicans for the current economic woes, and the only two leaders with lower approval ratings than Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are Republican leaders Mitch McConnell and John Boehner.

Ken Bavier recently wrote about Michigan's new plan to retrain unemployed workers as nurses. He's not thrilled with the idea.

I wrote a response to his thoughts.

I'll respond as someone who works in health care IT, but not in the actual delivery of health care. I'd consider myself an educated observer of health care but not really a participant in the health care field. (And my HIT experience is on the billing side, not the clinical side.)

I'll post my economic thoughts since I don't really have any clinical thoughts. I think a lack of true financial incentives are strangling the field. I don't see any viable alternative explanation. You mention several causative factors: underpaid teachers (leading to a lack of teachers), lack of money to expand nursing training, nurses who don't have the influence to change their work environment, and a lack of nurse / physician collaboration. Those are all economic factors that show up when incentives aren't aligned properly.

In her recent State of the State speech, Governor Granholm talked about a waiting list of people who want to become nurses and a shortfall of actual nurses. That's really an amazing statement. Organizations are desperate for nurses. People are eager to become nurses. But nothing's happening. Where's the dam in the river? Why isn't the water flowing downhill here? Why are teachers underpaid even when there's a desperate need for training? Why is there a lack of money to expand training for the very workers that are desperately needed?

The only rational explanation I can see is that health care organizations either don't believe they'll profit from increasing nursing staff or don't believe their allowed to take the actions necessary to properly increase their nursing staff.

Most of the businesses that we're familiar with hire friendly, competent, well trained staff for a very good reason: a customer that feels insulted is likely to leave for a business that makes them feel welcome. Good employees are an asset to these businesses. They serve both to increase customer trafic and to retain customer traffic. This increases profitability. Good employees are good for the bottom line. Bad employees drive customers away and keep customers away. This decreases profitability. Bad employees are bad for the bottom line.

But I don't think this is true in health care. In the U.S., people have a choice of 1-3 health plans offered by their employer. These health plans provide a very limited number of options for outpatient and inpatient clinical care. (Warning: this part is from the patient perspective. It may or may not match reality as seen from the provider's perspective. And, that's kinda the point.) Do you feel insulted by your doctor? You can request another one -- if he has openings. But he's employed by the same organization that hired th first jerk. Do you feel that your nurse is slacking off? Good luck getting another one. Want to move to a different clinic or hospital? Well, you can, if you want to pay for it entirely out of your own pocket.

Patients have very limited choices. This leads to limited (non-existent?) competition and limited incentives for improvements. Sure, health plans compete for members. But they're mostly interested in getting access to premium paying healthy people. Nobody's really competing for patients to walk into their waiting rooms. Few organizations are truly competing to have the best physicians and nurses. Few organizations truly believe that the quality, friendliness, and diligence of their providers drives their bottom line profits.

So much for my view of the profit side of the problem. What about the regulatory side? Here I'll just have to throw out questions. What qualifications are necessary to open a nursing school? What qualifications are necessary to teach nursing? What prerequisites are necessary to enter nursing school? What would prohibit (or discourage) a health care organization from providing training? What would prohibit (or discourage) other organizations from providing training? What existing regulations make it difficult for graduates to find jobs? What existing regulations make it difficult for graduates to learn on the job in a controlled, manageable way? What types of jobs do nurses do that could be done by someone less credentialed and less well trained? How many of those lower skill positions are limited to nurses even when a nurse's qualifications aren't necessary to do the job well?

I don't know nursing well enough to answer those questions myself. But I've read enough about the health care field to believe that those questions have answers and that those answers would reveal a lot about the current nursing shortage. I think the only way that the shortage will truly be alleviated is if organizations clearly profit from better nursing and are free to act in a way that will maximize their profits.

There, Ken. I think I've written something that may anger people just as much as your original post.

Originally posted as a comment by jmartindf on Nod If You Can Hear Me using Disqus.

There Ain't No Such Thing as Market-Based Universal Coverage (Cato @ Liberty)

Over at The Corner, Harvard Business School professor and Manhattan Institute scholar Regina Herzlinger urges conservatives to support universal coverage -- but in a market-oriented way. That is an absurdity. Once the government adopts a policy of universal health insurance coverage, a free market is impossible and the casualties begin to mount.

I've been thinking more about the recent diplomatic debacle with Great Britain. I can only see two alternatives: malice or incompetence.

Malice looks like a possibility because the Obama administration requested the DVD box set a month before PM Brown's visit. That shows that the gift was planned ahead of time. It's also far enough out that the administration could have picked a better gift -- if they'd wanted to. A DVD box set is a pretty tacky gift after all. It takes very little thought to grab a collection of Hollywood's top movies and wrap them up. It's a cheap gift. I'm sure the President could have paid for the set with pocket cash. I'd hesitate to give that kind of a gift to a family member, let alone a head of government.

So it looks like a calculated insult to one of America's best allies. Why? What possible cause could there be for insulting our allies? Is it our new strategy for making friends with our enemies? First give your ally the back of your hand and then your enemies will be willing to trust you?

Or is it incompetence? After all, Mrs. Obama gave Mr. Brown's children a couple of plastic helicopters from the White House gift shop. That doesn't sound like a planned gift at all. It sounds like somebody asked her where the children's gifts were, the morning of the visit. It sounds like she didn't have a pre-planned gift and sent a staff member on a desparate hunt for something -- anything -- that might be suitable for two young boys. It sounds like Mrs. Obama had no idea what was traditionally expected when hosting foreign dignitaries.

Incompetence is a plausible explanation. After all, Mr. Obama was previously the junior Senator from Illinois. I doubt he attended many -- if any -- of the White House's official events. If he didn't pay close attention to the news, he may not have been aware of the protocol for official visits. (Although, that still doesn't explain why someone on his staff didn't know the proper protocol.)

So, malice or incompetence. I think I'd almost prefer malice. It may be an insult to our allies, but at least it would indicate that the President had a plan. The thought of an incompetent President directing foreign affairs is enough to chill my blood.

I will say this. After this kind of gift giving, I'm ashamed to claim President Obama as my President.

President Barack Obama won election, promising to mend our "broken" diplomatic relationships. He pledged to be more welcoming of our foreign allies. Earlier this week, President Obama met with Prime Minister Brown, of England. The two government heads exchanged gifts -- a time honored diplomatic tradition. PM Brown gave President Obama some very thoughtful gifts.

The Prime Minister gave Mr Obama an ornamental pen holder made from the timbers of the Victorian anti-slave ship HMS Gannet.

The unique present delighted Mr Obama because oak from the Gannet's sister ship, HMS Resolute, was carved to make a desk that has sat in the Oval Office in the White House since 1880.

Mr Brown also handed over a framed commission for HMS Resolute and a first edition of the seven-volume biography of Churchill by Sir Martin Gilbert.

President Obama gave PM Brown some similarly thoughtful gifts.

Barack Obama, the leader of the world's richest country, gave the Prime Minister a box set of 25 classic American films - a gift about as exciting as a pair of socks.

Mr Brown is not thought to be a film buff, and his reaction to the box set is unknown.

The DVD collection included Citizen Kane, The Godfather, Star Wars: Episode IV, It's a Wonderful Life, ET, The Wizard of Oz, and Vertigo. Those are great movies, but I'm sure that England has a least one video rental store. The article says that the set "was produced by the American Film Institute as a 'special request' for the White House last month." I'm not sure why that was even necessary. Most discount chains would be happy to sell you a box set of those same movies.

Not only that, but PM Brown probably won't get much usage out of the DVDs:

Going back to the topic of is he just that stupid or is he doing it on purpose, consider the fact that Gordon Brown is blind in one eye and has some visual deterioration in the other (how much is unclear). A calculated insult could not have been more on-target.

And what about the children?

In addition, Mr Brown and his wife showered gifts on the Obama children giving Sasha and Malia an outfit each from Topshop and six children's books by British authors which are shortly to be published in America.

In return, the Obamas gave the Browns two models of the presidential helicopter, Marine One, to take home to sons Fraser and John.

I'm pretty sure you can get those same models at the White House gift shop.

How embarrassing. This is the way that America strengthens our diplomatic alliances? By giving cheap and insulting gifts to the head of government of our oldest and most reliable ally?

Let's move on the new State Department. How are they doing with the outreach to Russia?

With a media gaggle looking on, Clinton handed [Russian Foreign Minister Sergey] Lavrov a green box tied with a green bow. He opened it to reveal a "reset button," a reminder of Vice President Joe Biden's recent remark that the Obama administration hopes to reset U.S. relations with Moscow.

Trouble was, the Russian-language label the Americans put on the button had the wrong word. Before she realized the mistake, Clinton assured Lavrov, "We worked hard to get it right."

"You got it wrong," Lavrov responded with a smile. He said the word the Americans chose -- "peregruzka" -- meant "overloaded" or "overcharged" rather than "reset."

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you our new foreign policy team. Aren't they great?