Can You Pick One Please?

I had a little media frustration the other day.

As some will recall, Congress decided to get the U.S. Federal government out of the helium business back in the late 1990s.  We got into the helium business during WWI when helium filled dirigibles were considered pivotal to our national defenses.

We stayed in the helium business after the rise of the aircraft carrier and other airborne platforms because national defense policy has a lot of inertia.  Also businesses liked having cheap helium.

During the early 1990s, most media outlets were complaining that our national strategic helium reserve was no longer required for military preparedness.  They claimed that the program was nothing more than a grand subsidy to private businesses.  There were lots of stories about places that sold helium filled balloons with the context of "why should the taxpayer subsidize this?"

A couple days ago, I heard a report on NPR about the imminent closure of the reserve.  Here we are over 15 years later and the market has yet to spool up the production capacity to meet current demand.

So businesses are running out of helium.  The story began with the ubiquitous balloon store owner talking about how she cannot get enough helium to run her business.  It moved on from there to detail how helium is used in a lot of different industrial processes.  It included a report from an electronics manufacturer in the U.S. that had opted to use other inert gasses where it could, and to turn off the helium when it was not in use for production.

The context of the story was to promote a bill currently before Congress that would extend the federal government's involvement in helium production until the free market can catch up.

The frustration isn't so much about the media pushing for the end to this program and then pushing to extend it when the logical results of that policy come to fruition.

The frustration is with a media, in this specific instance NPR, that simply has no real understanding of free market economics.  Our existing helium supply is quite large.  Even though the market price for helium is increasing, it hasn't gotten to the point where private business owners can justify the expense of building new production facilities to compete with the helium that still is in the reserve.

The price of helium will eventually increase to that point as the volume in the reserve is slowly depleted.  There will be some volatility in the price of helium as production, storage, and use reach new balance points.  There will be some short term economic pain.  But eventually, production will increase to meet demand, albeit with less storage capacity.

And if Congress acts to keep the feds in the helium business, that painful period will last for years and perhaps decades as private businesses discover that they cannot compete with a government subsidized product.

Could someone assign these folks to read a little more Thomas Sowell and a little less Paul Krugman?

Disclose What?

Former journalist and current commentator Campbell Brown recently offered some thoughts regarding the need to fully disclose any potential conflicts of interest for things that she writes these days.  Her bit of honesty was revealing, refreshing, and pretty damn funny.  I think she is inimitable.

So in the interest of full disclosure, let me share a few more potential conflicts (that are mostly with my husband). Hopefully this will satisfy those who believe I am his ideological twin. For the deeply offended, contact info below.

Dan likes the Jets. But we all know that Eli Manning is inimitable. (Jets fans can reach me at @campbell_brown via Twitter. Tom Brady fans, you can look up inimitable on dictionary.com).

Dan works in finance. I think the financial industry is EVIL, with the exception of my husband. (Goldman Sachs—see above Twitter handle.)

I support Simpson-Bowles. Dan is opposed to tax increases during an economic downturn. But we are working on this one in couples counseling. (Grover Norquist, please call Dan directly. He has some influence with me except when he doesn’t.)

Dan wants to try for a girl. I think two boys are enough. (See couples counseling.)

Dan is obviously voting for Romney. I supported Obama in 2008. This year I am voting for…

Some things we should be able to keep to ourselves.

In Which Offense Is Taken

The inter-tubes are all abuzz over the news that some leftish entertainment network had the audacity to include an image of former President George W. Bush's likeness poised atop a pike.  I am sure that Vlad the Impaler is having a modest chuckle over this episode.

I must admit to having twin responses to this story.  One response was "oh no" expressed with modest bit of appreciation for this mischievousness involved.  The other was "oh no" with a more serious and negative emotion attached.  Is it possible to have such divergent responses simultaneously?  I did.

Observations about the lack of outrage emanating from the media over this incident when compared to the (thus far theoretic) notion of an entertainment company doing the same thing to the likeness of Barack Obama, or Bill Clinton, or John Kennedy are accurate, cogent, and appropriate.  Our leftish dominated media reserves such moments of outrage solely for those occasions when their oxen are being gored.

The discovery of this singular act of poor taste and crass partisan ship was revealed on the audio commentary portion of the DVD.  A screen shot of the frame where Mr. Bush's likeness appears does not overtly suggest that his countenance, although the resemblance is obvious once it is pointed out.

Despite reports from some theoretically professional quarters, [coughCNNcough] this was not discovered by an astute viewer, but instead was more closely examined upon hearing the aforementioned comments.  A small lesson here...folks, sometimes it is better not to tell all you know!

From the audio commentary:

“The last head on the left is George Bush,” the producers say in the audio commentary. “George Bush’s head appears in a couple beheading scenes. It’s not a choice, it’s not a political statement. It’s just, we had to use what heads we had around.”

After a modest amount of complaining, the producers offered:

“We use a lot of prosthetic body parts on the show: heads, arms, etc. We can’t afford to have these all made from scratch, especially in scenes where we need a lot of them, so we rent them in bulk. After the scene was already shot, someone pointed out that one of the heads looked like George W. Bush.”

And this is where I get offended.  Precisely how stupid do they think I am?

Given that their program has precisely nothing to do with U.S. national politics, how did they come to be in possession of Mr. Bush's likeness?  What other visages do they have in inventory?  Is their inventory of faux heads an assortment of known faces, or is it a collection of the nondescript with a Presidential profile added just to spice things up?

I'm willing to bet that the real story is that Mr. Bush's likeness was needed for some other production; for good or for ill.  When that show ended, someone saw the head and thought "I've got to save that for something special", and not in a good way.  When this program came along, they saw an opportunity to exercise a bit of codology and went for it.

Understanding that this is an entertainment oriented [and therefore more skewed politically to the left] environment, they saw no harm in letting others in on the gag.  One reasonably suspects that this modest bit of tomfoolery actually enhanced their reputation at the time.  Not so much now.

They were acting from within an environment that is known to accept that sort of behavior.  They were safe.

Was it a choice?  Hell yes.

Was it a political statement?  Hell yes.

The producers and anyone else responsible need to man-up and accept responsibility for their actions that further coarsen our political discourse.  Of course, making a couple of heads roll would probably help as well.

Disgusting

I'm not sure which bothers me more.  Having the media follow the President's pre-teen daughter on vacation, or having someone black hole the media reports about the vacation.

Both represent trends that are not in the best interests of our nation.