Milton Friedman vs. Phil Donahue

The doyen of daytime TV is left speechless by the master:



Hat-tip: Club for Growth

Clinton Stumbles at Debate

I thought of posting this earlier, but I guessed that the good folks at Dow Jones might post the Political Diary free today, in lieu of Best Of The Web.

It's very good from cover-to-cover today, but I have heard from several sources that Senator Clinton was not at the top of her game last night. John Fund gives a blow-by-blow that makes her sound a little less inevitable.

Happy Halloween!

Or not!

Kevin Hassett of the American Enterprise Institute is not happy. He says the economics of all holidays are suspect, but that Halloween is just plain wrong:

Now if you know someone well, perhaps you can anticipate the type of gift they might like. But Halloween is no time for thoughtful, targeted gift-giving. At Halloween, each house on a typical American block picks out one type of candy, and they give that exact same candy willy-nilly to everyone who shows up at the door. It's an economic nightmare.

This is no laughing matter. The scale of the problem is immense. The National Confectioners Association estimates that 2005 Halloween sales were $2.1 billion, easily making Halloween the biggest candy season. This year, sales will certainly be higher.

What percentage of those sales end up providing candy that individuals don't really like? If my own careful scientific study of Halloween bags is any guide, perhaps about 75 percent.

It's not the dead that concern me about Halloween. And it is not the impact of all that sugar on the weight of our kids. No, it's the dead-weight loss, or pointless lost utility of the entire enterprise. That likely has a dollar value that exceeds $1.5 billion annually. American citizens squander more than a billion and a half dollars a year on an economically inefficient holiday.

It's socialism kids -- enjoy your early perception, then come to expect its grim realities. Now if the Democratic presidential candidates would only learn.

Hat-tip: Greg Mankiw

Innovation II

Everyday Economist links to an outstanding column by Alvero Vargas Llosa. The column is well worth a read -- and I have to agree with Josh's commentary, namely "the fact that we still need to have this debate is somewhat silly."

It is a shame that more people do not read Schumpeter. If they did, they would understand why capitalism and economic growth actually benefit those at the bottom by providing them with goods and services that previously only the rich could afford. And perhaps more importantly, it does this without coercion, force, or central authority to direct it.

On Innovation

When Larry Kudlow asked Mayor Giuliani how he was going to get health insurance to the uninsured, Hizzoner gave my favorite political answer of all time: "How did we make cell phones cheap?"

That may be a non-sequitor to the collectivists, but I'm sure the ThreeSources faithful get it. Free Market competition and innovation brought what was once the archetypal luxury item to commodity pricing. We don't ask how we're going to get people cell phones -- every 12 year old has one or two.

That spirit of innovation may take a big step up. The Wall Street Journal (paid link) reports on a Google push into the wireless marketplace.

Within the next two weeks, Google is expected to announce advanced software and services that would allow handset makers to bring Google-powered phones to market by the middle of next year, people familiar with the situation say. In recent months Google has approached several U.S. and foreign handset manufacturers about the idea of building phones tailored to Google software, with Taiwan's HTC Corp. and South Korea's LG Electronics Inc. mentioned in the industry as potential contenders. Google is also seeking partnerships with wireless operators. In the U.S., it has the most traction with Deutsche Telekom AG's T-Mobile USA, while in Europe it is pursuing relationships with France Télécom's Orange SA and Hutchison Whampoa Ltd.'s 3 U.K., people familiar with the matter say. A Google spokeswoman declined to comment.

The Google-powered phones are expected to wrap together several Google applications -- among them, its search engine, Google Maps, YouTube and Gmail email -- that have already made their way onto some mobile devices. The most radical element of the plan, though, is Google's push to make the phones' software "open" right down to the operating system, the layer that controls applications and interacts with the hardware. That means independent software developers would get access to the tools they need to build additional phone features.

I'm thinking that when Google joins Wal*Mart in focusing on profit potential in health care, the problems we stew about will all be solved.

UPDATE: A WSJ email alert alerts:

After opposing Google Inc.'s moves to dramatically reshape the wireless industry, Verizon Wireless is now in serious discussions with the Internet company over carrying phones tailored to a new Google operating system, a person familiar with the discussions said.

A Contrarian View of the Housing Slump

John E. Tamny provides a look at the housing slowdown that I had not considered. At first glance, it makes a lot of sense to me. One of the market's most important functions (you could call it the most important) is to direct capital to its best use. Tamny suggests that real estate is not the best use of capital and that a downturn might direct it to more productive purposes:

For one, it has to be remembered that one man's mortgage loan is another man's savings. There's no net consumption gain to speak of given the certainty that someone has to be foregoing consumption so that the borrower can borrow. Also forgotten is that heavy consumption at the expense of savings diminishes the capital base such that productive businesses of all stripes go wanting in their search for investment, or are forced to pay a higher rate of interest while competing for funds with prodigal homeowners.

If the owner of appreciated property sells the asset to a wiling buyer, the former is surely enriched by the sale, while the latter is that much poorer. Furthermore, as Adam Smith taught us, investments in property are "sinks of wealth" in that while a house may yield revenue to its owner, it cannot yield any to the public.

Superb.

For The Children

Hat-tip: Insty

Rudy! or Mitt!

Fred Barnes floated this idea on the Beltway Boys TV show this weekend. Now, he has a Weekly Standard column on it. Barnes claims it is a Two-Man Race

There are three things to keep in mind when evaluating the presidential race in 2008. First, national polls don't matter at all. Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and John Kerry polled at 13 percent or less nationally before the primaries, then locked up the Democratic nomination a few weeks later. State polls provide a better clue of what may happen. Second, the primaries are a dynamic process. Win in the early states and you have a far greater chance of capturing the later primaries--and the nomination. Third, money is more important than ever in 2008. If a long shot like McCain or Thompson or even Mike Huckabee wins in Iowa (January 3) or New Hampshire (January 8) or South Carolina (January 19), there won't be enough time for him to raise the funds needed to compete effectively in Florida on January 29 and the 20-plus primaries on February 5. Television ads are expensive, but necessary.

This won't cheer up a lot of Thompson supporters in ThreeSources Land. And, to be honest, it doesn't thrill me. Watching the national polls, I had lulled myself into believing in a Giuliani or Thompson outcome. I could easily support either of those candidates fulsomely. Barnes does establish a credible scenario for Governor Romney to prevail. This would not drive me to the Clinton Camp, but he is way down on my list.

Give Me a D!

The D in DAWG stands, of course, for deleterious. Even if global warming is real and caused my man, are we certain it is so bad?

The Pollyannaish folks at the NYTimes Europe bureau have a piece on Greenland:

But now that the climate is warming, it is not just old trees that are growing. A Greenlandic supermarket is stocking locally grown cauliflower, broccoli and cabbage this year for the first time. Eight sheep farmers are growing potatoes commercially. Five more are experimenting with vegetables. And Kenneth Hoeg, the region’s chief agriculture adviser, says he does not see why southern Greenland cannot eventually be full of vegetable farms and viable forests.

“If it gets warmer, a large part of southern Greenland could be like this,” Mr. Hoeg said, walking through Qanasiassat, a boat ride from Narsarsuaq, a tiny southern community notable mostly for having an international airport. Two and a half acres near here of imported pines, spruces, larches and firs are plunked in the midst of the scrubby, rocky hillside next to the fjord, as startling as a mirage. “If it gets a little warmer, you could talk about a productive forest with enough wood for logs,” Mr. Hoeg said.

Hat-tip: Instapundit

Rep. Tancredo to Quit House

I suppose he'd have to give up his seat when he's inaugurated.

I know that other ThreeSourcers are closer to Tancredo's views on immigration than I am, but I think we might all maybe sorta agree that his extremist positions do not do the GOP any good. (I still remember when he wanted to deport the class valedictorian). John Fund, in the Political Diary, hammers him for blocking comprehensive immigration reform:

The 61-year-old Congressman certainly had a rabble-rousing impact on his fellow Republicans. While the comprehensive immigration bill proposed by a bipartisan group of Senators earlier this year turned out to be hastily written and deeply flawed, Mr. Tancredo had no effective alternative in mind. He simply wanted to kill the bill, pouring cold water on efforts by members such as Rep. Mike Pence to craft a compromise that would deal in a practical way with aliens already in the country and businesses that desperately need a reliable guest-worker program.

But while Mr. Tancredo is leaving Congress, don't think you've heard the last of him on his pet subject. He plans to continue speaking and writing and (for now) pursuing his presidential bid. Then there's the 2010 U.S. Senate race in Colorado, when Democratic Senator Ken Salazar, whom Mr. Tancredo sees as 180 degrees opposite him on immigration matters, will be running for re-election. The problem is, Mr. Tancredo thought long and hard about running for the same seat in 2004, only to discover that polls showed he would have trouble winning even the GOP nomination statewide.

Well Done, Sox

Seriously, they've assembled a great team. Like a lot of Rockies fans, I feel that they never had to face the team that swept the Phillies and Diamondbacks, but you could call it great pitching.

Before my magnanimity gets out of hand, let me make fun of the Boston fans one more time: AP/Yahoo:

BOSTON - Police in riot gear cleared several large crowds gathered around Fenway Park early Monday after the Red Sox won their second World Series title in four years.

Police spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll said 37 arrests were made in the city, mostly for disorderly conduct. No serious injuries were reported.

An unruly crowd flipped a pickup truck to its side near Fenway Park and at least one car fire was reported. Young people sprayed each other with beer and some climbed street signs or utility poles.

"Two World Series in four years is pure heaven," said Andrew Dumas, a Boston University student from West Boylston.

Imagine...

"Imagine if a two hundred and fifty year supply of energy were right here at home."

"Black hydrogen" never looked so good.

Hat tip: Blog brother Cyrano.

Global Warming Doomsday Called Off

An uncommon referral (my brother's been researching the latest objective criticism of Al Gore's Nobel Prize winning eco-thriller since the science teacher at his children's elite (expensive) private Boulder County school screened it in her classes) and an uncommon source (CBC is the state-sponsored television outlet in socialist Canada) "explodes the doom and gloom of global warming."

As the Nobel Peace Prize begins collecting dust on Al and Tipper's mantelpiece it is fair to reprise these "deniers" contradictions, originally aired in November 2005, of the IPCC orthodoxy upon which this granting of the once illustrious award was largely based.

Humans stand accused of having set off a global climate catastrophe by increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

The prophecy of doom is clear and media pass on the message uncritically.

Now serious criticism has arisen from a number of heavyweight independent scientists. They argue that most of the climatic change we have seen is due to natural variations.

They also state that if CO 2 is to play a role at all -it will be minuscule and not catastrophic!

This story presents a series of unbiased scientists as our witnesses.
We will hear their eloquent criticism of the IPCC conclusions illustrated by coverage of their research work.

The documentary is posted on YouTube here. It's 43 minutes long but I suggest the following excerpts:

5:30 to 8:30 - Ice core samples in Greenland show average temperature 1 degree higher now than 100 years ago, but 1 degree lower than 1000 years ago and 2 degrees below previous millenia. Corroborated by measurements elsewhere in North America, China and North Africa. "In 1875 we have the lowest temperatures in the last 8000 years and that matches exactly the time when meteorological observations started."

8:30 to 11:00 - Computer models, using probability theory, replace the "old" Little Ice-Age Theory with the infamous "hockey stick" graph of global temperatures over the last 10,000 years. Hockey stick theory developed by Dr. Michael Mann of U of Virginia, adopted by IPCC, of which Mann is a committee member. Hmmm. "It makes you believe, that in particular, the [IPCC] climate view is held by many. In fact it's really held by few."

I haven't watched the rest yet. Feel free to post your own highlights below.

Senator Edwards Doesn't Want You to See This

Which is, sadly, good enough for me:





James Edward Dillard (the young man with only slightly less hair than the Senator) describes the contretemps on his blog:

Apparently, once Carla and Carolina Week put the piece up on YouTube, the Edwards camp asked them not so nicely to take it down. Like any good bright-eyed journalists, they refused. The Edwards camp then "intimated" (whatever that means) that this would jeopardize the campaigns' relationship with the University. Keep in mind that Edwards is both an alumni and a former employee of our nation's leading public university. Bizarre.

Subprime Mortgages Explained

Hat-tip: Don Luskin

Bastiat Weeps

The Everyday Economist instructs (I guess that’s what he does naturally) on Bastiat's Broken Window Fallacy in the context of the California Wildfires

Nordlinger on Bush

Jay Nordlinger makes a good point on one of our President's virtues:

Conservatives are down on President Bush, often unreasonably, I believe. I also think they’re a little ungrateful — ungrateful, spoiled, and smug. They will miss him sorely when he’s gone, I feel sure. This is true whether a Republican or a Democrat succeeds him.

One thing they will miss, I predict, is his truth-telling. I don’t believe they realize how rare it is to have a man in the highest office who over and over again tells the truth — boldly and unapologetically. I thought of this, not for the first time, when reading the speech Bush gave about Cuba yesterday. I hope you will want to read it all (here). But let me offer a couple of snippets:

Cuba’s rulers promised individual liberty. Instead they denied their citizens basic rights that the free world takes for granted. In Cuba it is illegal to change jobs, to change houses, to travel abroad, and to read books or magazines without the express approval of the state. It is against the law for more than three Cubans to meet without permission. Neighborhood Watch programs do not look out for criminals. Instead, they monitor their fellow citizens — keeping track of neighbors’ comings and goings, who visits them, and what radio stations they listen to. The sense of community and the simple trust between human beings is gone.

[...]
To say once more: The president has told the truth. He has said things about Cuba that you will never hear from the major university faculties, or the major newspapers, or the major movie studios. And I, for one, will not forget it.

Yes, he spent too much in his first term; yes, he had steel tariffs in place for about two seconds; yes, the prescription-drug benefit is sketchy; yes, there have been mistakes on the war; yes, Harriet Miers — etc., etc. But do you realize how rare this president is? If you don’t now — I have a feeling you will later.

The President does indeed deserve more points for this than he gets. From Conservatives or Libertarians..

Worth 1,000,000 words

Too funny:



Hat-tip: Althouse via Insty

Beauchamp Rapprochement?

I will still spew a few angry words at the cowardice of Franklin Foer and the mendacity of the once proud "The New Republic."

But this Michael Yon piece on Private Beauchamp has silenced me forever on his score. Read the whole thing -- and send him $50 -- but the short version is that his commander gave him the chance to go or stay. And he chose, another time, to stay in Iraq and continue a difficult mission in our nation's uniform:

Lapses of judgment are bound to happen, and accountability is critical, but that’s not the same thing as pulling out the hanging rope every time a soldier makes a mistake.

Beauchamp is young; under pressure he made a dumb mistake. In fact, he has not always been an ideal soldier. But to his credit, the young soldier decided to stay, and he is serving tonight in a dangerous part of Baghdad. He might well be seriously injured or killed here, and he knows it. He could have quit, but he did not. He faced his peers. I can only imagine the cold shoulders, and worse, he must have gotten. He could have left the unit, but LTC Glaze told me that Beauchamp wanted to stay and make it right. Whatever price he has to pay, he is paying it.

Hat-tip: Instapundit

An Annoyed Nobel Laureate

WSJ's Notable and Quotable shares a snippet of an interview between John Christy of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and CNN anchor Miles O'Brien:

O'BRIEN: I assume you're not happy about sharing this award with Al Gore. You going to renounce it in some way?

CHRISTY: Well, as a scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, I always thought that -- I may sound like the Grinch who stole Christmas here -- that prizes were given for performance, and not for promotional activities.

And, when I look at the world, I see that the carbon dioxide rate is increasing, and energy demand, of course, is increasing. And that's because, without energy, life is brutal and short. So, I don't see very much effect in trying to scare people into not using energy, when it is the very basis of how we can live in our society.

O'BRIEN: So, what about the movie ["An Inconvenient Truth"]; do you take issue with, then, Dr. Christy?

CHRISTY: Well, there's any number of things.

I suppose, fundamentally, it's the fact that someone is speaking about a science that I have been very heavily involved with and have labored so hard in, and been humiliated by, in the sense that the climate is so difficult to understand, Mother Nature is so complex, and so the uncertainties are great, and then to hear someone speak with such certainty and such confidence about what the climate is going to do is -- well, I suppose I could be kind and say, it's annoying to me.

O'BRIEN: But you just got through saying that the carbon dioxide levels are up. Temperatures are going up. There is a certain degree of certainty that goes along with that, right?

CHRISTY: Well, the carbon dioxide is going up. And remember that carbon dioxide is plant food in the fundamental sense. All of life depends on the fact carbon dioxide is in the atmosphere. So, we're fortunate it's not a toxic gas. But, on the other hand, what is the climate doing. And when we build -- and I'm one of the few people in the world that actually builds these climate data sets -- we don't see the catastrophic changes that are being promoted all over the place.

For example, I suppose CNN did not announce two weeks ago when the Antarctic sea ice extent reached its all-time maximum, even though, in the Arctic in the North Pole, it reached its all-time minimum.

Senator Santorum Gets a Life

Not mentioning whether he misses the World's Most Deliberative Body, Opinion Journal Political Diary turns to John Fund to answer "Whatever happened to Rick Santorum?"

The former two-term senator from Pennsylvania is proving that defeated officials can mine a wealth of opportunities beyond politics. Yesterday, the Philadelphia Inquirer announced that he will become a columnist for the largest newspaper in the Keystone State. His column will be called "The Elephant in the Room" and focus on cultural and foreign policy issues rather than politics.

Mr. Santorum is busy in other areas. He is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a Washington think tank. When I caught up with him at a recent Becket Society dinner, he told me most of his work there revolved around warning about the threat of Islamic terrorism. He may even go to Hollywood to get his message out. He has talked with Steve McEveety, who produced the Mel Gibson megahits "Braveheart" and "The Passion of the Christ," about a movie idea.

His film would center around three Iranian brothers who pursue different life paths. One eventually comes to the U.S. as a terrorist. While the film would be an action-packed thriller, Mr. Santorum told me he thought it could also be used to carry an educational message.

UPDATE: DB Light from PA Water Cooler links to Don Surber's advice for the Senator.

First, don’t tell anyone but this is the easiest gig in the world. You get paid to piss people off. Not much, but it beats pissing people off for free.

GO ROCKIES!

Galley Slave Jonathan V. Last links to Kissing Suzy Kolber blog, with this video and many other rude, mean-spirited, personal attacks on Boston Red Sox fans.


(Not safe for work or really anywhere)

It's True! I Read It In TNR!

Drudge says he's got the goods on TNR's latest fabulist.

I love this story. I'll never tire of it.

Hat-tip: Instapundit

How About That First Amendment Thingy?

Senator Clinton is racking in the donations from Chinatown dishwashers, Senator Obama and Governor Romney are drawing four-digit checks from "the children." The Washington Post notes the trend:

Elrick Williams's toddler niece Carlyn may be one of the youngest contributors to this year's presidential campaign. The 2-year-old gave $2,300 to Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

So did her sister and brother, Imara, 13, and Ishmael, 9, and her cousins Chan and Alexis, both 13. Altogether, according to newly released campaign finance reports, the extended family of Williams, a wealthy Chicago financier, handed over nearly a dozen checks in March for the maximum allowed under federal law to Obama.
[...]
A supporter of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney (R), Susan Henken of Dover, Mass., wrote her own $2,300 check, and her 13-year-old son, Samuel, and 15-year-old daughter, Julia, each wrote $2,300 checks, for example. Samuel used money from his bar mitzvah and money he earned "dog sitting," and Julia used babysitting money to make the contributions, their mother said. "My children like to donate to a lot of causes. That's just how it is in my house," Henken said.

Here's my campaign finance laws: Everybody can give all they want to anybody they want. Candidates who do not provide a good public accounting of the support they receive should not be voted for. Understandable, enforceable, and Constitutional.

Mr. Luskin

Nice clip from Kudlow & Company. Don Luskin and Jeremy Siegal hold class on index investing:

Unhappy Anniversary

The markets have recovered spectacularly from their losses twenty years ago. But the Supreme Court of the United States has not been so fortunate. Gary McDowell recaps this historical outrage and puts it into perspective. (free link)

Twenty years ago today the United States Senate voted to reject President Reagan's nomination of Judge Robert H. Bork to the Supreme Court. The senators may have had every reason to believe that was the end of the story. However ugly it had been, however much time it had taken, Mr. Bork's defeat was only one more routine sacrifice to partisan politics. But time would prove wrong anyone who actually thought that. The battle over Mr. Bork was politically transformative, its constitutional lessons enduring.

Post Bork (think about the world if Bork had been confirmed instead of Anthony Kennedy) we have inured to these confirmation battles and adapted: Bush's picks of Alito and Roberts are stellar. But the pain and trials documented in Thomas's memoir are gut-wrenching.

Chief Justice Taney was not conformed because of his work as President Jackson's AG in opposition to National Banking. Advice and consent is not new. Nor I suspect is bitter partisan rancor. But the intrusion of direct politics seems new and unwelcome:

The price paid has proved high, indeed. The defeat heralded a fundamental transformation in the process surrounding judicial appointments and thereby radically politicized the public's view of the nature and extent of judicial power under the Constitution. Confirmation battles from Mr. Bork to Clarence Thomas to Samuel Alito have taken on the trappings of ordinary political campaigns, from instant polling to rallies and protests and attack ads. Sadly, the courts are no longer above the fray.

UPDATE: I guess it is a good day to bring this up. I have had a copy of this paper on my hard drive for some time. "Sex, Lies and Jurisprudence: Robert Bork, Griswold, and the Philosophy of Original Understanding" by none other than blogging deity Glenn Reynolds (moment of silence as the prophet's name is invoked...).

Professor Reynolds links to it again today as he links to McDowell's piece and says "I also think that Bork was an unsuitable nominee who deserved to be rejected. And I say this as someone who is, in fact, more of an originalist than Bork, whose originalism was of a rather dubious and frequently uninformed nature."

I'm a big Bork fan. While there's every possibility I am just not bright enough to grab the subtleties, a couple readings of this (lengthy but very accessible) paper leave me wondering if Reynolds and I read the same book. I do not see the points in "Tempting" that Reynolds refutes.

If the Perfesser is "more originalist" than Bork, that's swell. I see Bork as more originalist than any of the current members save Thomas and possibly Roberts and Alito. The "Borking" gave us Justice Kennedy and likely frightened off several originalist nominees and the Presidents who would choose them. I cannot see how anybody who seeks original intent or text would not agree that the cause was not served when Bork was defeated.

Careful With Your Brand

An interesting piece in TCSDaily today looks at company employees who might have an incentive to alienate customers and clients. One of his examples is one that has bitten me:

My new Amazon card wasn't really with Amazon. Rather it was a Chase Bank "affinity card" sponsored by Amazon. Apparently, Amazon has an arrangement with Chase to offer this card. In return it receives some small percentage of each charge.

The bank has many such affinity cards. The person receiving complaints about charges has incentives to collect all payments, late charges, penalties, etc. He has no interest in customers' feelings toward Amazon or any other company. It is likely his performance is measured by the charges he collects.

In this case, Amazon's CFO no doubt saw an opportunity to add a small percentage to each sale by establishing an affinity card operated by Chase Bank. There is no system to note and correct sorry treatment to customers.

I got an Amazon Card as well and set it up as my default for Amazon purchases. I didn't pay an $8.00 bill one month (there's that number again. Eight dollars...clearly Bush caused 9/11) Anyway, the $8 was late, so I got a twenty-something dollar charge, and all my Amazon purchases bounced. That was when I figured out that Amazon does not know or care anything about this card. When that and my good family name were cleared up, that card expired. Amazon didn't know and it was difficult to add the new card.

I didn't swear off Amazon, but it seems a real missed opportunity. Their customers buy things with a credit card, Amazon is in a unique position to integrate its signature card into its process. The firm is so well integrated with Target as a partner, you use your Amazon account to buy from Target.com. Yet no effort was put into facilitating the Amazon Card and the Amazon store.

I have now switched my account to use another card. I'm living happily ever after but Amazon and Chase are missing out.

I Was Right

On immigration, the FDA, every choice of candidate -- it's a long list.

But today, I want to ask if everybody is still enthused about Coach Shanahan’s trick of calling time a half second before the snap of a field goal. Last night we got a close up of the (opposing) Coach standing with the referee, and the announcers speculating on whether he would call time out or not.

I was misconstrued -- I do not want to outlaw icing the kicker with a timeout to "think about it." But I think that the team should be allowed to make the play on the field. I'll let the rules committee draft the legislation, but this is rapidly spinning outer-of-hand.

Mark Steyn on SCHIP

Terri @ I Think ^(Link) Therefore I Err links to a great Mark Steyn column. It's about SCHIP, like Buffy is about vampires. Steyn (and Kim Strassel, and I) see the expansion of SCHIP as a step into further socialism. Steyn says if you want to do something for the children, then "try not to make the same mistake as most of the rest of the Western world and avoid bequeathing the next generation a system of unsustainable entitlements that turns the entire nation into a giant Ponzi scheme."

He then, in a short column, compares "Live Free or Die" General Stark to "get your head blown off for the President's amusement" Rep. Pete Stark, Speaker Pelosi's children's Congress, Greece's 25% pension outlays, and an incredibly comprehensive recap of the Frosts:

A couple of weeks ago, the Democrats put up a 12-year-old SCHIP beneficiary from Baltimore, Graeme Frost, to deliver their official response to the President's Saturday-morning radio address. And immediately afterwards Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin and I jumped the sick kid in a dark alley and beat him to a pulp. Or so you'd have thought from the press coverage: The Washington Post called us "meanies." Well, no doubt it's true we hard-hearted conservatives can't muster the civilized level of discourse of Pete Stark. But we were trying to make a point – not about the kid, but about the family, and their relevance as a poster child for expanded government health care. Mr. and Mrs. Frost say their income's about $45,000 a year – she works "part-time" as a medical receptionist, and he works "intermittently" as a self-employed woodworker. They have a 3,000-square-foot home plus a second commercial property with a combined value of over $400,000, and three vehicles – a new Chevy Suburban, a Volvo SUV, and a Ford F-250 pickup.

How they make that arithmetic add up is between them and their accountant. But here's the point: The Frosts are not emblematic of the health care needs of America so much as they are of the delusion of the broader Western world. They expect to be able to work "part-time" and "intermittently" but own two properties and three premium vehicles and have the state pick up health care costs. Who do you stick with the bill? Four-car owners? Much of France already lives that way: A healthy, wealthy, well-educated populace works a mandatory maximum 35-hour week with six weeks of paid vacation and retirement at 55 and with the government funding all the core responsibilities of adult life.

Another Day, Another Debate

Another day, another debate.

But it had this nugget, which NRO's Jim Geraghty calls "the best line of the campaign so far."

"Hillary tried to get a million dollars for the Woodstock museum. I understand it was a major cultural and pharmaceutical event. I couldn't attend. I was tied up at the time."

It gets a standing ovation.

Bobby!

I was happy to see that Bobby Jindal had won the Louisiana governorship. Patrick Ruffini captures it:

"They can either go quietly or they can go loudly, but either way, they will go." -- Governor-elect Bobby Jindal (R), on Louisiana's corrupt establishment

I don't care who your candidate for President is. Tonight, Bobby Jindal is our leader.

Jindal's 54% first-round victory is an historic mandate for change against the most corrupt political culture in America. For decades, Louisiana has lived in the shadow of the easy populism of Huey Long, its politicians feasting on revenues from the state's natural resources. If you want to get a taste of a sense of entitlement and venality normally seen in the Saudi royals, except right here in America, just visit Louisiana. From Blundering Blanco to Freezer Cash Jefferson, the political class was a parody of itself.

Review Corner

Short: Clarence Thomas's My Grandfather's Son: five stars.

Slightly longer: This book is, firstly, a distinctly American biography. Justice Thomas comes into the world with zero advantages and rises to great heights on his own intellect, integrity, and work ethic. Thomas's journey is America's. If we had an editor around here, such clichés would be stricken, but in this instance that would be a mistake.

A side interest of mine is how closely removed we are from a Willa Cather existence: both of my grandmothers were born into it, and at the end of the 20th Century two Justices sat on the Supreme Court who had grown up without indoor plumbing. Thomas's youth is about as hard as can be imagined without actual chattel slavery.

It is also a political tale. Thomas leaves the Catholic church and avoids the Republican party over tacit acceptance of racism and segregation. He and his family later look on in horror as the party of JFK becomes the bigots at his "high tech lynching." Thomas is consistently hurt by the people and polity who are there to help him, and when he speaks out, he's cast aside by white liberals for being uppity.

It is also a tale of incredible strength and courage. Hats off to this great man for his forbearance and strength. I read Bork's "Tempting of America" last year. One realizes that we are chasing out any decent people from government service. No wonder only he crazies seem to be left -- how many decent people would or could put up with this?

It's no secret that I'm a fan of Thomas. He's far and away my favorite justice (Nino blew it on Raich) but this book would appeal to anybody. Five stars -- easy!

Well spoken anti-Pragmatism

Samizdata's Quote of the day

"We all have to compromise," says Walt Chalmers (played by Robert Vaughn)

"Bullshit," replies Frank Bullitt, (Steve McQueen).

From Bullitt.

I Can Almost Smell Camden...

Blog brother AlexC is not only a superior writer and thinker, he is a gentleman of the highest order. Prompt payment of our wager arrived yesterday afternoon. What Tastykake may lack in spelling, it has in flavor and regional charm. The packaging is attractive, and the references to Philadelphia are great. I cannot think of anything like it out here. Thanks, ac -- other Colorado bloggers better hurry over to get some before we eat them all -- did I mention they are really good? Go Rockies! See ya next year, Phils!

I'm Gonna Get In Trouble For This

Attila at Pillage Idiot has Rep Ron Paul explaining The Executive to a Cocker Spaniel.

"Doctor Paul": This President reads way too much into Article II. He thinks that when it says, "The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America," it gives him all sorts of warmaking powers.

Cocker Spaniel:

"Doctor Paul": That's plain wrong. All you have to do is read the Constitution!

Cocker Spaniel:

Dirty Hippie

Knowing the cover up is always more damaging than the crime, I realize it is time I came out of the closet. As a couple readers know, I was indeed a dirty hippie in my younger days. A college buddy sent this along to me. Yipes! The location is Socorro, NM, and James Earl Carter was president -- that's all I'm saying at this time.

Dirty Hippies Lose One!

A Sen. Clinton contributor is denied in an attempt to get 1 million of federal jack to erect a Woodstock Museum. Stephen Moore has the good news in OpinionJournal's PoliticalDiary:

Well, what do you know? For the first time in modern history, the United States Senate yesterday eliminated an earmark. After scores of votes forced by Pork-buster Tom Coburn, the Oklahoma Senator finally prevailed 52-44 on a roll call vote to extinguish funding for a $1 million museum to memorialize the 1969 Woodstock Concert. Far out!

The museum came under additional scrutiny this week when it was revealed that after the earmark was inserted into a spending bill back in June, the owner of the property, Alan Gerry, almost immediately sent a maximum $4,600 contribution to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. Senator Clinton was a chief sponsor of the earmark. Gerry's wife also gave $4,600 to the Clinton campaign and Gerry wrote a $20,000 check to the Democratic Senatorial Committee. When this information surfaced and Republicans threatened an ethics investigation, it was the beginning of the end for the flower-power museum.

The Coburn amendment, co-sponored by Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, also put Senate Democrats in a tight spot because the $1 million of savings were to be directed to children's health. "I'm part of the Woodstock generation," says Mr. Coburn. "But I'm also a member of the baby boom generation that is about to leave trillions of dollars of debt for our children."

Messrs. Coburn and Kyl have won their first small battle in the war against $10 billion per year in earmark pork. There are still at least 11,000 more projects that deserve the same fate. But the normally grumpy Mr. Coburn was overjoyed by yesterday's vote and declared hopefully that "maybe this is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius for taxpayers."

Happy Anniversary

I'm not sure everyone remembers where they were 20 years ago today, when the market fell 22%, but I was doing PR for an investment banking firm. I've never been in battle, but I saw true fear that day in the eyes of the company principals and several of its top brokers.

Don Luskin says he caused it and offers a front row seat.

On Masonomics

I can't really excerpt it, though Everyday Economist did a good job.

Arnold Kling writes a good sized piece on TCSDaily about Masonomics. I have noticed how frequently that I have seen good, solid, free market thought which somehow bears the imprimatur of George Mason University's School of Economics (as if Walter Williams were not singular proof). Kling says it's ongoing.

Years from now, perhaps people will be saying that something big got started recently at the George Mason University department of economics. Maybe if you become a Masonomist now, you will be getting in early on a trend that will soon catch on much more widely

Read the whole thing. Just this once. For me.

SCHIP: Fighting Back (against poor childern)

A guest editorial (paid link) in the Wall Street Journal today offers a good, pragmatic response to the SCIHP imbroglio. This point has been made but not emphasized: we know the mean ol' Republicans hate poor kids and want to see them starved and denied health care and all that, but Grace-Marie Turner asks "Will this expansion help or hurt the poorer children the program was designed to serve?"

The answer isn't encouraging.

Already, two-thirds of children who do not have health insurance are eligible for federal help through either Schip or Medicaid. Congress's first priority should be to make sure these poorer, uninsured children are taken care of. Yet states have struggled to get these children enrolled, which means that if there is a stampede to add higher-income kids to Schip, the poorer kids will likely continue to get left behind.

This is why the administration wants states to first enroll 95% of the children now eligible (those in families living on wages that are under 200% of poverty) before they open the program to higher-income kids.

The bill Congress passed, and the president vetoed, overturns that requirement -- an implicit acknowledgment that higher-income children will be the focus of the expansion. Consider that the bill would allow New York to cover kids in families who make up to $83,000 a year, something that would pull federal dollars away from less affluent states so that New York could provide taxpayer-funded health insurance to children in middle-income families.

Yet, I think the hard-liners are going to get their ideological asses kicked, if they are seen to deny health care to poor kids. Arguments about crowding our private insurance are compelling to me but it's a tough sell. The fact that President Bush wants to cover the poor kids before considering expansion up the income ladder is a good -- and salient -- point, when one is badly needed.

Congress vs the Nazis

Inevitably the comparisons had to be made.

Even after all the political posturing, it came as a surprise to the Democratic Congress that their approval rating of 11% is just half of the favorable rating received by Nazis in a German poll. The approval rate for Democrats was 11% - It was 25% for Nazis when asked if there was anything good to their control of Germany.

Congressional insiders are formulating plans to gain more popularity than Nazis. Said one insider, "We never figured that calling President Bush a no good Nazi really meant that he had a higher level of populariity. But there it is."

The Most Important Issue

Poll: Bullshit Is Most Important Issue For 2008 Voters

Bring Back The Lobotomy!

Too funny. Everyone compares VP Gore's Nobel Prize to Arafat's, but Dr, Henry Miller has a better choice on TCSDaily:

Portuguese neurologist Egas Moniz received the 1949 Nobel Prize in medicine for "his discovery of the therapeutic value of [prefrontal lobotomy] in certain psychoses," including depression and schizophrenia. The prefrontal lobotomy operation, in which the nerve fibers connecting the frontal lobe with other parts of the brain were cut, and which often made patients zombie-like, would be repudiated by the medical community within a decade.

Al Gore, the latest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, is a similarly poor choice, one likely not to stand the test of time.

Undertakers Hardest Hit

James Taranto has a semi-regular feature on Best of the Web that goes something like "X happens, Y hardest hit."

In the vein, here is an actual headline.

"As violence falls in Iraq, cemetery workers feel the pinch"

At what's believed to be the world's largest cemetery, where Shiite Muslims aspire to be buried and millions already have been, business isn't good.

A drop in violence around Iraq has cut burials in the huge Wadi al Salam cemetery here by at least one-third in the past six months, and that's cut the pay of thousands of workers who make their living digging graves, washing corpses or selling burial shrouds.

Mike!

He spouts off the best one-liners (though Governor Romney's concern that Jennifer Granholm was going to tax the debate was up there). But Governor Huckabee drops further on my list every week. The Club for Growth and WSJ Ed Page have hammered him for tax increases during his tenure as Arkansas Governor. He waffled -- badly -- of trade in the last debate. Now John Fund tells us he's joined the cappers-and-traders:

Mike Huckabee continues to demonstrate his populist, anti-free market bent. Fresh from a debate in Michigan where he showed skepticism about free trade and President Bush's veto of a budget-busting health care bill, the former Arkansas governor has now embraced a mandatory cap on global-warming emissions.

"It goes to the moral issue,'' he told a climate-change conference over the weekend in New Hampshire. "We have a responsibility to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, to conserve energy, to find alternative forms of energy that are renewable and sustainable and environmentally friendly.''

Most disturbingly, Mr. Huckabee says he backs a discredited "cap-and-trade" approach that would apply to the entire U.S. economy. Used in Europe with completely ineffective results, the scheme would create an artificial market for buying and selling permits to emit carbon dioxide. Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan used his new book "The Age of Turbulence" to throw cold water on the idea. "I have grave doubts that international agreements imposing a globalized so-called cap-and-trade system on CO2 emissions will prove feasible," Mr. Greenspan wrote. "There is no effective way to meaningfully reduce emissions without negatively impacting a large part of an economy. Jobs will be lost and real incomes of workers constrained."

But environmentalists in Mr. Huckabee's audience swooned. "I was impressed," said Larry Schweiger, head of the National Wildlife Federation, which supports cap-and-trade. "He's only the second Republican candidate [after John McCain] to say he supports cap-and-trade, which we believe is the real critical part of any effort to stop global warming.''

Many analysts believe Mr. Huckabee has a chance to sew up the support of social conservatives given the perceived liberalism of frontrunners Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney. His admirers note that Mr. Huckabee has been moving up in polls lately in both Iowa and New Hampshire. That may be so, but he clearly is taking positions that leave economic conservatives scratching their heads and wondering just which party's nomination this new man from Hope, Arkansas thinks he's running for.

The Non-Gore Nobel Laureates

I have not paid a great deal of attention to the Nobel prizes awarded in economics. The blurbs I have seen all have the same line: Leonid Hurwicz, Eric Maskin and Roger Myerson won the Nobel Prize in Economic Science for their work showing where markets work and where they don't. It was unlikely I was going to convincingly refute the Laureates' work, but I did not like synopsis. It plays into the old mixed economy idea that you can't trust the market everywhere. It implies that you have to trust Sens. Trent Lott and Ted Kennedy on important things.

A guest editorial in the WSJ Ed page today provides a much more free market view. George Mason Professor Peter Boettke says "Strangely, some have used this occasion to disparage free-market economics. But the truth is the deserving recipients owe a direct debt to free-market thinkers who came before them."

Mechanism design theory was established to try to address the main challenge posed by Ludwig von Mises and F.A. Hayek. It all starts with Mr. Hurwicz's response to Hayek's famous paper, "The Use of Knowledge in Society." In the 1930s and '40s, Hayek was embroiled in the "socialist calculation debate." Mises, Hayek's mentor in Vienna, had raised the challenge in his book "Socialism," and before that in an article, that without having the means of production in private hands, the economic system will not create the incentives or the information to properly decide between the alternative uses of scarce resources. Without the production process of the market economy, socially desirable outcomes will be impossible to achieve.

In the mid-1930s, Hayek published Mises's essay in English in his book, "Collectivist Economic Planning." From there the discussion moved to the U.K. and the U.S. Hayek summarized the fundamental challenge that advocates of socialism needed to come to grips with. Hayek's argument, a refinement of Mises, basically stated that the economic problem society faced was not how to allocate given resources, but rather how to mobilize and utilize the knowledge dispersed throughout the economy.

Hayek argued that mathematical modeling, which relied on a set of given assumptions, had obscured the fundamental problem. These questions were not being probed since they were assumed away in the mathematical models of market socialism presented by Oskar Lange and, later, Abba Lerner. Milton Friedman, when he reviewed Lerner's "Economics of Control," stated that it was as if economic analysis of policy was being conducted in a vacuum. Lange actually argued that questions of bureaucratic incentives did not belong in economics and were best left to other disciplines such as psychology and sociology.

UPDATE: The Everyday Econmist has more links.

UPDATE II: And Mankiw links to a short overview online at Reason.

Civical Literacy

88.3%

The NEXT Nobel Prize

Reuters

Obesity could be as big a crisis as climate change unless the nation starts to lose weight soon, Health Secretary Alan Johnson warned on Sunday.

He said tackling obesity was a long-term central plank of government policy but all parts of society must play their part.

Johnson has asked the Food Standards Agency (FSA) to look at the use of trans fats and its contribution to increased cholesterol and the subsequent risk of coronary heart disease.

Wouldn't it be awesome if Richard Simmons won next year's Nobel Peace Prize?

(tip to BOTW)

Supply Side Under Siege

Greg Mankiw takes a whack at my heroes today. After I recovered from high dudgeon, I wonder if he has a point. He compares supply-siders to global warming extremists:

They both noticed something that many serious scholars had been working on (human carbon emissions are causing the planet to overheat, high tax rates are causing the economy to underperform.)

They both overstated the scientific consensus (if we do nothing, temperatures will rise so quickly that sea levels will increase twenty feet; if we cut tax rates, the economy will grow so quickly that tax revenues will rise rather than fall).

Taking the suggestions at face value however, if you divide the supply spiders by ten you still see a benefit to cutting taxes, even if it is less than promised. Cutting the global warming alarmism by ten, and you see water levels rising at 1.8"/century. It destroys the case to damage global growth. Yet I'll still take 10% of the promised benefits of tax cuts.

Rudy!

Some amateur video from a New Hampshire event:





What's not to like?

Mazel Tov!

ThreeSources friend Perry Eidlebus proposes in the Philippine sunset, and is accepted.

Obamanonics

There was a lot of enthusiasm when Austin Goolsbee was announced as a key economic advisor to Senator Barak Obama's Presidential campaign. But as I mentioned, I have been disappointed. He's always keen to talk about "fairness" and "inequality" but, like the rest of the Democratic field, "growth" is not in the vocabulary.

The WSJ Ed page today compares him (paid link) unfavorably with Democratic lion John F. Kennedy. President Kennedy said 'The tax on capital gains directly affects investment decisions, the mobility and flow of risk capital . . . the ease or difficulty experienced by new ventures in obtaining capital, and thereby the strength and potential for growth in the economy."

When it comes to taxes, Barack Obama is no Jack Kennedy. The Illinois Senator recently announced that he wants to raise the capital gains tax to restore "fairness" to the tax code.

That makes it a three-peat: All of the leading Democratic contenders for President have endorsed higher taxes on stock ownership. Hillary Clinton is the "moderate" in that so far she'd merely raise the tax to 20% from the current 15% -- a 33% increase. John Edwards and Mr. Obama want to nearly double it, to 28%.

This would repeal not only the Bush capital gains tax cut of 2003 but also the 1997 bipartisan tax cut signed by Bill Clinton, which cut the rate to 20% from 28%. In explaining his proposal, Mr. Obama ignores JFK's arguments about economic growth and instead plays the envy card: "For decades, we've seen successful strategies to ride antitax sentiment in this country toward tax cuts that favor wealth, not work."

The Numbers Aren't In...

...and we have a winner!

I really wanted to post a copy of the cartoon here too but elected not to since the linked image includes an instant online poll. When I clicked on "like it" the numbers went from 42 like - 58 don't like to 50-50. When all seven Threesources readers weigh in it should be 90-10!

Hat tip: Dad, who saw the print version in the Denver Post. He said the caricature made her look "like a witch." You mean, like this dad?

Blood For Oil, Really This Time

"Progressives" just love her.

Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton advocated talks to settle differences with Iran but said Saturday that Tehran would invite U.S. action if it were to disrupt oil supplies.

"I will make it very clear to the Iranians that there are very serious consequences attached to their actions," Clinton said. The presidential candidate spoke at a town hall meeting with 300 people at a high school in a Democratic stronghold in early voting South Carolina.

The New York senator, responding to a question, said blocking oil shipments "would be devastating to the world economy."

Tip to DRJ @ Patterico's who writes:

I’m glad Hillary said this and I hope she means it, but I expect anyone who wrongly criticized Bush about oil or unilateral action to hold Hillary to the same standard.

Some who did not win

The Wall Street Journal catalogs (free link) some of the people and the groups who were not selected for a Nobel Peace Prize.

In Olso yesterday, the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize was not awarded to the Burmese monks whose defiance against, and brutalization at the hands of, the country's military junta in recent weeks captured the attention of the Free World.

The prize was also not awarded to Morgan Tsvangirai, Arthur Mutambara and other Zimbabwe opposition leaders who were arrested and in some cases beaten by police earlier this year while protesting peacefully against dictator Robert Mugabe.

Or to Father Nguyen Van Ly, a Catholic priest in Vietnam arrested this year and sentenced to eight years in prison for helping the pro-democracy group Block 8406.

Or to Wajeha al-Huwaider and Fawzia al-Uyyouni, co-founders of the League of Demanders of Women's Right to Drive Cars in Saudi Arabia, who are waging a modest struggle with grand ambitions to secure basic rights for women in that Muslim country.

[...]

Hat-tip: Don Luskin

An MSM Moment

Kind of like a "Senior Moment," I suppose -- I had an MSM moment this morning.

My recording of the Rockies game ended with two outs and two strikes on the last batter in the bottom of the 11th. I first ensured that our incredible team prevailed and they did.

Then I saw the lead Yahoo head: Ex-general: 'No end in sight' in Iraq Wesley Clark? No, General Sanchez.

Retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who commanded coalition troops for a year beginning June 2003, cast a wide net of blame for both political and military shortcomings in Iraq that helped open the way for the insurgency — such as disbanding the Saddam-era military and failing to cement ties with tribal leaders and quickly establish civilian government after Saddam was toppled.

The Washington Post's headline was typical: "Former Iraq Commander Faults Bush."

Actually, I don't believe Sanchez ever mentioned Bush by name, although, as I say, he was critical of just about everybody. But it would be hard to tell from press accounts of Sanchez's speech that he was mostly critical of...the press.

It is still a disappointment to read this story when General Petraeus’s efforts seem to be bearing fruit. McClellan - Grant?

Two Personal Attacks

Don Luskin says "Conservatism is Doomed."

...when even reliable warhorses like columnist George Will start swallowing the Left's lies about economics. First it was Will's puff-piece adulating Austin Goolsbee, Barack Obama's economic hatchet man. Will's column was too crowded with charming lifestyle details about Goolsbee to bother to mention his 2005 "paper" claiming that any benefits of the Bush administration's Social Security reform proposal would be consumed in fees earned by the investment industry -- when, in fact, the administration's proposal specifically ruled out precisely the high-fee investment vehicles that Goolsbee used in his "study."

While I am handing out disapprobation. I fell for the early reviews on Austin Goolsbee. He was associated with the University of Chicago (moment of reverence) and was recommended by a lot of libertarian bloggers. He has been a regular guest on Kudlow and Company, and while he is no doubt a bright guy, he truly is a party hack. He doesn't attempt an academic distance from politics, he proudly parrots the Obama/Democratic line.

Let's see, who else is on my list here: the impressionist who sings "Take me out to the ball game" on TBS every 17 seconds...

Somebody's Happy

To be fair, a lot of people are happy that VP Gore has won the Nobel Peace Prize (though I have enjoyed much blog commentary today from those who do not).

But I was surprised to see Professor Gregory Mankiw celebrate. As VP Gore is a member of his beloved Pigou Club, however, Mankiw is pleased.

That is the problem with the Pigou Club. Mankiw is right that that is probably the best way to cut emissions but he glosses over the necessity (or lack thereof) for cutting emissions. He says (I paraphrase) that it is a public good to cut emissions, so irrespective of DAWG, why not do it?

French fries are bad too. Trans fats. Too much sugar. Let's raise revenue with taxes, trying to do the least damage possible to innovation and investment -- let's not use the tax code to achieve dubious "social good." That argument is far more worthy of Gore than Mankiw.

This Calls For a Pointless Gesture!

AlexC rightly ridiculed the importance of a "Sense of the Senate" resolution, and over-reaction to it from left-of-center bloggers. Our legislators must be "Animal House" fans -- they seem to always have time for pointless gestures.

Speaker Pelosi, however, gets a prize. As political payback for Armenian constituents, she will thumb her nose at an important ally to redress, for the third time, a 92 year old event. John Fund writes in the Opinion Journal Political Diary:

More Turks have died in Iraq than any other foreign nationality, because it's Turkish truck drivers and logistical workers who bring in so much of the material used by U.S. troops there. The U.S. Air Base at Incirlik in Turkey channels 70% of all air cargo going into Iraq and one-third of the fuel U.S. troops use in Iraq comes through the Turkish port of Adana.

All this makes it all the more inexplicable why the House Foreign Affairs Committee voted 27 to 21 this week for a controversial resolution condemning the 1915 Armenian genocide, in which Ottoman Turkey -- then an ally of Imperial Germany -- was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Armenians as it expelled them from the country. The measure now goes to the House floor for a vote that will take place by mid-November.

Turkey, which has the second largest army in NATO and is a key U.S. ally, can't understand why the resolution is being brought up now at a most sensitive time in Turkish politics, when the country's secular democracy is under pressure from Islamic radicalism. Many in Turkey still bitterly dispute the nature of the 1915 internal upheaval in their country, claiming many Muslim Turks died alongside Christian Armenians in inter-ethnic conflict as the Ottoman Empire collapsed.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi defended the resolution yesterday, chiding critics for presumably believing "it's never a good time" to commemorate the mass killings of Armenians. Many of the descendents of the victims now live in the U.S., where they form a potent political lobby. In what the Fresno Bee at the time called "a vivid case of targeted ethnic politicking," just before the 2006 midterm election that cleared her path to the speakership, Ms. Pelosi herself gave a prominent Armenian newspaper publisher a written statement promising her support for a genocide resolution.

But the House passed a similar resolution against the Armenian atrocities in the 1970s and another in the 1980s. Bluntly put, why is another necessary now? Congress is undermining relations with a key U.S. ally largely to satisfy domestic political concerns. It's too much to expect that politics should stop at the water's edge these days, but Congress ought to be responsible enough to set aside another vote on the resolution until a time when U.S. troops aren't so dependent on Turkey's key support for their mission in Iraq.

It's official:

The Nobel Peace Prize is officially a joke. Al Gore, U.N. Climate Panel
Win 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

Mr. Gore will have a platform to raise the profile of the issue later today, when he gives a press conference. In his own statement after the prize was announced, he said: "We face a true planetary emergency…The climate crisis is not a political issue ...''

If it is not a political issue then why was he granted a political prize for his "advocacy of the future of the earth?"

Even Yasser Arafat must consider his own prize tarnished by this.

Heh.

Larry Kudlow points us to the Hillary Clinton Spend-O-Meter

Five 200,000s or three 333,333s?

Gotta credit this Pittsburgh counterfeiter for high hopes:

The likeness of Grover Cleveland is on this fake $1 million bill. Cleveland's portrait is on the genuine $1,000 bill, which has been out of circulation since 1969.
If you're going to spend counterfeit money, it might help to use a denomination that actually exists.

An unidentified man who asked a Giant Eagle cashier to make change for his $1 million bill learned that lesson the hard way, Pittsburgh police said Monday.

Time to go Short?

I saw the heading ECONOMISTS TURNED more optimistic, seeing lower chances of a recession and stronger job growth, according the latest WSJ.com survey in the Wall Street Journal and I was going to write a tongue-in-cheek "uh-oh, time to short" post.

But as I read a little, I think a real atta-boy for Charmin Bernanke is in order. So do the surveyed economists:

The economists overwhelmingly approved of the Fed's decision on Sept. 18 to cut the target for the federal-funds rate by a larger-than-expected half percentage point. Seventy-six percent said the move was appropriate, compared with just 22% who thought it was too aggressive. Just one economist felt that the cut wasn't aggressive enough. That contrasts with a recent, but unscientific, WSJ.com reader poll in which 60% of respondents said the Fed action too aggressive.

"Some of the uncertainties have faded, partly due to the fact that the Fed moved more aggressively," said Lou Crandall, chief economist at Wrightson ICAP. "The Fed's willingness to pull out all the stops played a role in bolstering the economy."

I agreed with the suggestions in the book, and even in his suggestion that we codify inflation targeting goals in the US Fed. I have one difference. Bernanke admits that the CPI understates inflation between 0.5 and 2.0% He says the mean is "about 1%" (is that the kind of math they do at the FOMC?") and he adds a percentage point to ensure no deflation.

If you call the mean 1.25% and let 2.25% be the target, I am on board. In reality, I think the CPI underestimates closer to the top of the spectrum, but I'll take two and a quarter. With that target, core inflation is still in target and the Fed was correct to look at bond yields and follow the markets.

Atta boy, Ben!

UPDATE: The DJIA has lost 200 points since I suggested shorting. (Past performance is not an indicator, yadda, yadda)

You live long enough...

You see everything!

Mickey Kaus lectures National Review for not being tough enough on Senator McCain vis-à-vis immigration:

I think they're cheap dates. McCain obviously still believes his semi-amnesty is the essence of "real immigration reform." Is he saying it will have to wait until the