Rephrasing Ben Franklin's old aphorism

Benjamin Franklin is often quoted as having said "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety". Here's a modern rephrasing, "The more you cede your own well-being to an 800-pound gorilla, the more that 800-pound gorilla is going to act like a thin-skinned asshole.".

Was Palin really the "It Girl" of the GOP?

Unlike some (like my virtual landlord), I've not been all that impressed by Sarah Palin as a potential presidential candidate. Maybe I'm missing the blindingly obvious:

"This unusual move might be the right move for her to become president of the United States," insisted William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard. Columnist Jonah Goldberg assured the governor that no matter what, "You are the 'It Girl' of the GOP." National Review editor Jay Nordlinger confessed, "I am an admirer and defender of Palin's. Oh, what the heck: I love the woman."

Why on earth are they infatuated with her? Palin has hardly helped to revive the conservative cause. For all her alleged star power, she did nothing to improve the GOP ticket's fortunes on Election Day. She showed no gift for articulating conservative themes, beyond ridiculing liberals as overeducated, big-city elitists — a description that applies equally well to most conservative commentators.

[. . .]

But it's really not hard to see why Palin inspires such devotion. And I do mean "see." She has one obvious thing going for her that Miers didn't: She's a babe, and she doesn't try to hide it.

Bingo.

Update: Bonus quote from Katherine Mangu-Ward in the Los Angeles Times:

When Sarah Palin complains that people are spreading lies about her — shocking untruths that cast aspersions on her intelligence, integrity and fecundity — she is right, but it's like a stripper complaining about catcalls. There's a reason lifelong politicians are often self-important blowhards (cf. Joe Biden) — a Kevlar ego is an asset come election season. This is how we choose our candidates: It's the folks who remain standing after everyone digs dirt, turns it into mud and slings it.

If Palin is resigning now because she's trying to get ahead of a scandal, then the system — as painful as it may be for those inside it — worked. The useful, brutal mechanism of bitter partisanship ferreted out another corrupt or inept pol, discovering failings that would have remained hidden in a gentler, kinder world.

Update, the second: Jon (my virtual landlord) offers this as a commentary.

Update, the third: Over lunch, Jon suggested that it would be amusing to see someone mash the famous bunker scene from Downfall with the resignation of Sarah Palin as Alaska governor. Of course, this scene is getting over-used:

Return to the (political) days of yore

USA Today is reporting an odd discrepancy in the distribution of stimulus spending:

Counties that supported Obama last year have reaped twice as much money per person from the administration's $787 billion economic stimulus package as those that voted for his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain, a USA TODAY analysis of government disclosure and accounting records shows. That money includes aid to repair military bases, improve public housing and help students pay for college.

The reports show the 872 counties that supported Obama received about $69 per person, on average. The 2,234 that supported McCain received about $34.

Investigators who track the stimulus are skeptical that political considerations could be at work. The imbalance is so pronounced — and the aid so far from complete — that it would be almost inconceivable for it to be the result of political tinkering, says Adam Hughes, the director of federal fiscal policy for the non-profit OMB Watch. "Even if they wanted to, I don't think the administration has enough people in place yet to actually do that," he says.

Although the pattern certainly implies intent, I think the view of OMB Watch is probably correct: the current administration hasn't yet developed the kind of competence that this sort of huge scam would require . . .

Even with the vast sums of money being spent, it'll take some time for the differences to show up in actual infrastructure.

Give it long enough, and it may start to resemble rural Nova Scotia in the 1970s, where you could accurately predict whether the local MPP was government or opposition by the state of the roads. I mean, literally the high quality tarmac, signage, and other amenities would stop dead at riding boundaries, then resume when you crossed over into the next riding. My local guides were eager to point this out to me as we travelled through the province.

QotD: The Palin resignation

It is possible that Sarah Palin was both unfairly mistreated and personally attacked by the media and many on the left, and that her family was rather ruthlessly and mercilessly run through the ringer . . . and that she’s a not particularly bright, not particularly curious, once libertarian-leaning governor who sadly devolved into a predictable, buzzword spouting culture warrior when she was prematurely picked for national office by John McCain.

These two scenarios can coexist.

As for quitting her position as governor 18 months early, her rambling press conference statement was bizarre. If she’s quitting because she’s tired of politics and is ready to return to private life for good, good on her. If she’s quitting the job she ran for and committed to because she thinks she’s now too big for the office and wants a higher profile to position herself for national office, then she deserves all the scorn and derision coming her way.

Radley Balko, "Dear God, Please Let This Be the Last Time I Feel Compelled To Post About Sarah Palin . . .", The Agitator, 2009-07-06

Business confidence, defined

Robert Higgs includes a lengthy excerpt from a 1939 book by Raymond Moley called After Seven Years. Moley was a close adviser to President Roosevelt, but became disillusioned during the early part of Roosevelt's first term. This excerpt is an excellent summary of how destructive to normal business uncertainty can be, specifically the kind of uncertainty inflicted by politicians.

Confidence consists, on the one side, of belief in the prospect of profits and, on the other, in the willingness to take risks, to venture money. In Harry Scherman’s brilliant essay on economic life, The Promises Men Live By, the term is, by implication, defined much as Gladstone defined credit. "Credit," Gladstone said, "is suspicion asleep." In that sense, confidence is the existence of that mutual faith and good will which encourage enterprises to expand and take risks, which encourage individual savings to flow into investments. And in an age of increasing governmental interposition in industrial operations and in the processes of capital accumulation and investment, the maintenance of confidence presupposes both a general understanding of the direction in which legislative and administrative changes tend and a general belief in government’s sympathetic desire to encourage the development of those investment opportunities whose successful exploitation is a sine qua non for a rising standard of living.

This, Roosevelt refused to recognize. In fact, the term "confidence" became, as time went on, the most irritating of all symbols to him. He had the habit of repelling the suggestion that he was impairing confidence by answering that he was restoring the confidence the public had lost in business leadership. No one could deny that, to a degree, this was true, The shortsightedness, selfishness, and downright dishonesty of some business leaders had seriously damaged confidence. Roosevelt's assurances that he intended to cleanse and rehabilitate our economic system did act as a restorative.

But beyond that, what had been done? For one thing, the confusion of the administration's utility, shipping, railroad, and housing policies had discouraged the small individual investor. For another, the administration's taxes on corporate surpluses and capital gains, suggesting, as they did, the belief that a recovery based upon capital investment is unsound, discouraged the expansion of producers' capital equipment. For another, the administration's occasional suggestions that perhaps there was no hope for the reemployment of people except by a share-the-work program struck at a basic assumption in the enterpriser’s philosophy. For another, the administration's failure to see the narrow margin of profit on which business success rests — a failure expressed in an emphasis upon prices while the effects of increases in operating costs were overlooked — laid a heavy hand upon business prospects. For another, the calling of names in political speeches and the vague, veiled threats of punitive action all tore the fragile texture of credit and confidence upon which the very existence of business depends.

The eternal problem of language obtruded itself at this point. To the businessman words have fairly exact descriptive meanings. The blithe announcement by a New Deal subordinate that perhaps we have a productive capacity in excess of our capacity to consume and that perhaps new fields for the employment of capital and labor no longer exist will terrify the businessman. To the politician, such an extravagant use of language is important only in terms of its appeal to the prejudices and preconceptions of a swirling, changeable, indeterminate audience. To the businessman two and two make four; to the politician two and two make four only if the public can be made to believe it. If the public decides to add it up to three, the politician adjusts his adding machine. In the businessman's literal cosmos, green results from mixing yellow and blue. The politician is concerned with the light in which the mixture is to be seen, the condition of the eyes of those who look.

Mutual misunderstanding and mutual ill will were, of course, unavoidable in the circumstances, and the ultimate result was a wholly needless contraction of business [in 1937-38] — a contraction whose essential nature was so little understood that it was denounced in high governmental quarters as a "strike of capital" and explained as a deliberate attempt by business to "sabotage" recovery.

I've argued in the recent past that the worst thing governments can do at this point in a period of economic upheaval is to introduce additional political uncertainty.

Political mashup cartoon

"You keep using that word . . ."

Paul Marks has his Inigo Montoya moment . . . "Capitalism. Newsweek keeps using that word. I do not think it means what they think it means."

The front cover of the edition has the headline 'Capitalist Manifesto' and this article is odd enough - page after page of standard statist stuff (supporting the bank bailouts and so on) written by one Newsweek's high ups. Why the high up is being given about half the magazine for his statist musings (rather than doing his job of editing the articles of real writers) is not explained - and the title of 'Capitalist Manifesto', for standard statism that one could hear and see on the BBC or American 'mainstream' broadcasters any day of the week, is also not explained.

However, this is by no means the most odd article.

There is also an article about a group of 'rebels' who are out to "save capitalism" from President Barack Obama. I was astonished to see such an article in the 'mainstream media' (especially in Newsweek) and read it. That is when the utter insanity of this edition of Newsweek hit me.

* Obligatory Princess Bride reference.

QotD: Sex lives of the powerful

Why do we care about the sex lives of the powerful? Mostly, we don't, because it's bad enough looking at these guys (and with the rare exception of someone like former Sen. Helen Chenoweth, it always seems to be guys) with their clothes on, much less imagining forming the beast with two, three, or more backs. But in the cases of folks such as Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) and New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, the rampant hypocrisy brings home the point that most of these people can't run their own lives, much less yours and mine. So there's a lesson to be learned here: Don't do this at home, kids. Or, if you do, then don't run for office. And if you do run for office and manage to get elected, don't moralize in a way that is grossly at odds with your lifestyle.

Nick Gillespie, "DC Pols Have Forgotten More Sex Than You'll Ever Have in Your Whole Lifetime!", Hit and Run, 2009-06-18

Stimulus, dissected

If you'd like to find out how the American government is "stimulating" various parts of the economy, you'll want to bookmark Reason's Taxpayer's Guide to the Stimulus:

Reason Foundation's Taxpayer’s Guide to the Stimulus breaks down each section of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to explain just how all that money is being spent, who is spending it, and what the whole stimulus means in layman's terms.

QotD: The Iranian "elections"

Iran and its citizens are considered by the Shiite theocracy to be the private property of the anointed mullahs. This totalitarian idea was originally based on a piece of religious quackery promulgated by the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and known as velayat-e faqui. Under the terms of this edict — which originally placed the clerics in charge of the lives and property of orphans, the indigent, and the insane — the entire population is now declared to be a childlike ward of the black-robed state. Thus any voting exercise is, by definition, over before it has begun, because the all-powerful Islamic Guardian Council determines well in advance who may or may not "run." Any newspaper referring to the subsequent proceedings as an election, sometimes complete with rallies, polls, counts, and all the rest of it, is the cause of helpless laughter among the ayatollahs. ("They fell for it? But it's too easy!") Shame on all those media outlets that have been complicit in this dirty lie all last week. And shame also on our pathetic secretary of state, who said that she hoped that "the genuine will and desire" of the people of Iran would be reflected in the outcome. Surely she knows that any such contingency was deliberately forestalled to begin with.

Christopher Hitchins, "Don't Call What Happened in Iran Last Week an Election: It was a crudely stage-managed insult to everyone involved", Slate, 2009-06-14

QotD: The GM bailout again

We know what Obama is getting with this money — an empowered union that will back him when he runs in 2012 — but what are we getting? The Globe and Mail in Canada estimates that it will cost taxpayers $1.4 million per job saved. Had the free-market been left to be free, it would have cost us nothing to "save" these jobs. In fact one of the most compelling things for tax payers about a "free-market" is that it is free.

In absence of government intervention, GM would have gone into bankruptcy, like Delta Airlines and others did when they filed, keeping employees and operating. The reason Obama did not want this to happen is that in bankruptcy, the company can reject contracts and leases. The sweet UAW contract, which is the main cause of GM's demise, would be adjusted to fair market value. And "fair market" is nothing the liberals want any part of anymore. If only we had had a wise Latina woman on the board who could have used the richness of her experiences to make better decisions than the white males.

With the Democrats now running the car companies, look for quite a fall lineup of cars. My guess is that you will like the GM two-cylinder Geithner Midget. It veers hard to the left for no good reason, pays no taxes, blocks Rush Limbaugh on the radio and shows no remorse for past bad driving.

Ron Hart, "Government motors", The Destinlog.com, 2009-06-10

QotD: Government Motors on dealership closings

The Edsel was one of the biggest flops in the history of car making. Introduced with great fanfare by Ford in 1958, it had terrible sales and was junked after only three years. But if Congress had been running Ford, the Edsel would still be on the market.

That became clear last week, when Democrats as well as Republicans expressed horror at the notion that bankrupt companies with plummeting sales would need fewer retail sales outlets. At a Senate Commerce Committee hearing, Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va)., led the way, asserting, "I honestly don't believe that companies should be allowed to take taxpayer funds for a bailout and then leave it to local dealers and their customers to fend for themselves."

Supporters of free markets can be grateful to Rockefeller for showing one more reason government shouldn't rescue unsuccessful companies. As it happens, taxpayers are less likely to get their money back if the automakers are barred from paring dealerships. Protecting those dealers merely means putting someone else at risk, and that someone has been sleeping in your bed.

Steve Chapman, "Government Motors: The trouble with Washington running a car company", Reason Online, 2009-06-08

QotD: Fix Medicare First

Think about this for a moment. Medicare is a huge, single-payer, government-run program. It ought to provide the perfect environment for experimentation. If more-efficient government management can slash health-care costs by addressing all these problems, why not start with Medicare? Let's see what "better management" looks like applied to Medicare before we roll it out to the rest of the country.

This is not a completely cynical suggestion. Medicare is, for instance, a logical place to start to design better electronic records systems and the incentives to use them. But you do have to wonder why a report that claims that Medicare is wasting 30 percent of its spending thinks it's making a case for making the rest of the health care system more like Medicare.

Virginia Postrel, "Medicare First!", The Dynamist, 2009-06-04

Act Now! Free Government Money!

QotD: California today is America tomorrow

California is famously considered a bellwether state for social and political trends, from the positive (hot rod and surf culture, the human potential movement, tax revolts, digital culture) to the regrettable (murderous cults, carbon reduction mandates). With that in mind, a simple — yet terribly difficult for our political class — contemplation of the state's current cash crisis is both instructive and scary for the future of our nation as a whole.

California now confronts a roughly $24 billion deficit. Recent attempts to get voters to approve various fiscal shenanigans and cost-shifts got smacked down at the polls. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is now making a big show of proposing heavy spending cuts that will, we are told by the state's journalistic and political mavens, destroy the state, beggar its sick and young, and leave just enough cash to forcibly keep people out of various state parks, though not to "operate" them.

Of course, nowhere among the "serious options" under consideration is legalizing pot and other controlled substances, which would likely give the state an extra billion dollars a year in tax revenue. That simple act of political sanity would also save the state the $43,000 a year per inmate now spent incarcerating drug criminals, of whom a fresh nearly 19,000 were added in 2008 alone.

Brian Doherty, "California: Harbinger of Fiscal Doom", Reason Online, 2009-06-03

Baloo's "Great American Show"

I think it'd be safe to say Radley isn't a Michael Savage fan

I don't listen to much radio at all (unless I'm caught in traffic and need to find out how bad the situation is), so I hadn't heard of Michael Savage until quite recently when he was banned from entering Britain. I disagree with this sort of thing, as it provides the banned person or group with a free shot of publicity and a brief frisson of victimization (which is catnip to certain parts of the media).

Radley Balko has concerns that certain Libertarians are lending credibility to Savage and this this is a terrible idea.

I'm not a member of the Libertarian Party, so perhaps my advice doesn't mean much to them. But I'm going to give it, anyway:

Stop this, now. Either persuade [former LP vice-presidential candidate Wayne Allen] Root to stop going on Savage's show, or show Root the door. I'm all about building coalitions where appropriate. But there's nothing remotely appropriate about Michael Savage.

Michael Savage is a raving bigot. He regularly uses phrases like "turd-world countries" and "ghetto slime." He once wished rape on a group of high school girls who make trips into San Francisco to feed the homeless. He's a blood-thirsty warmonger, and a feverish culture warrior. He once said on the air that, "When I hear someone’s in the civil rights business, I oil up my AR-15!" On social issues, he's far to the right of just about every elected Republican official I can think of. He has wished AIDS and death on homosexuals. He regularly denigrates drug users. He is virulently anti-immigration. In short, there's nothing remotely libertarian about him.

If Root's aim is to take the LP in the direction of Michael Savage, the LP should distance themselves from Root right now.

Fate of the G.O.P.

Shikha Dalmia, of Reason, is now doing a biweekly column for Forbes. In this initial entry, she outlines what is wrong with the Republican Party and what might be their best bet to re-attaining relevance:

If Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter's defection to the Democratic side of the aisle affected only the fortunes of the Republican Party, it would be no cause for concern for non-Republicans like me. But America's democratic scheme depends on a robust opposition to check the government's tendency to grow — especially now that the White House is occupied by Barack Lyndon Roosevelt. Yet Republicans are as far from serving that role as the Detroit Lions are from winning the Super Bowl.

So what should the Grand Old Party do to resurrect itself enough to mount some semblance of resistance to the advancing Democratic juggernaut? The answer is that it needs intellectual coherence around a powerful idea, and that idea should be liberty. This is a principle that is both strong enough to intellectually moor the party in the way that those who want a "purer" GOP desire — and grand enough to appeal to a broad swath of the population, as those who advocate a more Big Tent approach recommend.

This would be the exact opposite of what Bush did. He, remarkably enough, managed to combine every anti-individual liberty idea from the right with every pro-big government policy from the left. From the right, Bush acquired: a super-hawkish foreign policy; contempt for civil liberties; and religiously informed positions on gay marriage, abortion and end-of-life issues. And from the left he got: high-spending ways, including the massive drug entitlement for seniors; expansive ideas about the federal government's role in education policy; and the chutzpah, just before leaving, to engineer a massive government bailout of banks and auto companies.

Update, 22 May: Tom Kelly asks if I've considered awarding a "Quote of the Year" accolade, and offers these two quotations from Shikha's article as nominees:

1 - "especially now that the White House is occupied by Barack Lyndon Roosevelt"
2 - "Yet Republicans are as far from serving that role as the Detroit Lions are from winning the Super Bowl."

I hadn't considered such a thing (and I'm perhaps not well-enough organized to do it properly), but I have to agree that these two selections are worthy contenders.

News bulletin from a universe just next door

Damian Penny (who still seems to be managing to stay away from blogging) sent along this link from a dimension where Sarah Palin was elected President last November:

The first 100 days of the Palin presidency, according to a consensus of media commentators, have proven a near disaster. Perhaps it was Palin's scant two years' experience in a major government position that has eroded her gravitas, or maybe it was her flirty reliance on looks and informal chit-chat. In any case, the press has had a field day, and it is hard to see how President Palin can ever recover from the Quayle/potatoe syndrome. Here is a roundup of this week's pundit mockery.

LET THEM EAT MOOSE
"Ted Stevens may have gotten off," wrote Bob Herbert in the New York Times, "but he taught our Sarah something first — like using $100-a-pound beef for her state dinners. And what’s this $50 mil for her inauguration gala? Since when do you fly in your favorite pizza-maker from across the country on our dime? Or send the presidential 747 for a spin over the Big Apple for a third-of-a-million-dollar joyride? Does Palin think she's still in Alaska and has to have everything flown in from the South 48 by jumbo jet?"

WASILLA CHIC
Also in the Times, Gail Collins weighed in on the already-tired yokelism of the new commander in chief. "What we're getting is Wasilla chic. That's what we're getting. She arrives in the Oval Office, and first thing sends back Blair's gift of the Churchill bust as if it's a once-worn Penney's outfit. Then she gives the Brits some unwatchable DVDs as a booby prize — as if she idled the old Yukon and ran into Target's sale aisle. Did Sarah send Bristol into Wal-Mart back in Anchorage for that 'engraved' iPod for the queen? And what's this don't-bow-to-the-queen stuff, but curtsy for a Saudi sheik? Maybe that explains why she brags to Stephanopoulos about her 'Muslim faith.' So far, the best things going for her are Todd's biceps.”

As Damian says, "Americans sure dodged a bullet by not electing that Palin idiot, didn't they?"

The Chrysler bankruptcy: destroying more than it saves

Richard Epstein makes some excellent points against letting the government's vastly distorting "deal" for Chrysler's bankruptcy go through:

The proposed bankruptcy reorganization of the now defunct Chrysler Corp. is the culmination of serious policy missteps by the Bush and Obama administrations. To be sure, the long overdue Chrysler bankruptcy is a welcomed turn of events. But the heavy-handed meddling of the Obama administration that forced secured creditors to the brink is not.

A sound bankruptcy proceeding should do two things: productively redeploy the assets of the bankrupt firm and correctly prioritize various claims against the bankrupt entity. The Chrysler bankruptcy fails on both counts.

As I've said in several other posts, business risks are priced into the business model. Government sticking its nose into existing contractual arrangements distorts the risks in ways that none of the contracting parties could have foreseen. Had they been able to foresee the intervention, they would almost certainly not have entered into the contract or would have negotiated radically different terms to compensate for the greater risks.

The US government, by throwing aside the normal hierarchy of creditors, has damaged all future bankruptcies, by introducing greater uncertainty into what had been (by most accounts) a very successful and risk-contained process.

On claim priority, unsecured creditors come at the bottom of the bankruptcy totem pole. The basic rule of credit transactions distributes the net assets first to secured creditors in the order of their priority. First mortgages are normally paid in full before second, and lower mortgagees receive anything, in order, on their loans. Unsecured creditors of all types have an equal claim regardless of the time they perfected their claims. But they receive their first dime only after secured creditors have been paid in full.

It is absolutely critical to follow these priority rules inside bankruptcy in order to allow creditors to price risk outside of bankruptcy. Upsetting this fixed hierarchy among creditors is just an illegal taking of property from one group of creditors for the benefit of another, which should be struck down on both statutory and constitutional grounds.

In trying to pander to a politically favoured group, the US government has made every other potential bankruptcy that much more risky . . . and containing risk is critical to a properly functioning economy. Nice work, guys. Bomb-throwing anarchists nod in respect for the damage you've inflicted.

Gordon Brown loses The Times

You'd have to think that someone would have warned British PM Gordon Brown about dangerous photo ops:

First big scandal of the Obama administration: DIJONGATE!

Jon, my virtual landlord, sent a link to this Hot Air post on the distressing revelation that President Obama ordered a burger . . . with Dijon mustard:

Maybe it’s a slow news week, but it’s not that slow. After NBC broke the big news about Barack Obama’s burger run, some people apparently discovered a media conspiracy to cover up a scandal that occurs at the lunch counter. Did Obama get a freebie? No, he insists on paying for his lunch. Did he cut in line? That’s inconclusive. [. . .]

NBC’s regular news reported Obama’s order as follows: “”I’m going to have a basic cheddar cheese burger, medium well, with mustard,” Obama said. “Do you have spicy mustard? I’ll take that.”
Actually, the quote was “you got a spicy mustard or something like that, or a Dijon mustard, something like that” (at 0.55 of the unedited video below without Mitchell’s talkover).
Obama ordered his burger with DIJON MUSTARD! Bet he had to seek John Kerry’s counsel on that.

I have to agree with Obama here . . . I always prefer Dijon mustard on my hamburger. That violently yellow wallpaper paste that most Americans refer to as "mustard" is repulsive.

QotD: American Government

We live in democracies. Rule by the majority. Rule by the people. Fifty per cent of people are below average in intelligence. This explains everything about politics.

Not that we'd want to live in a country ruled only by the best and brightest. That would be too much like being married to Cherie Blair.

So we have to keep supporting democracy. Even when democracy acts up the way it's done in Russia, Pakistan and the American presidential election.

Long term there's only one thing that gives me hope as a right-winger - the left-wing.

It's going to be hard to do a worse job running America than the Republicans did, but the Democrats can do it if anyone can.

P.J. O'Rourke, "The ditch carp of democracy", The Canberra Times, 2009-04-22

The magic of big numbers

H/T to Radley Balko.

QotD: "America is kooky"!

Here's a stone truth: Every political protest, and indeed just about every political gathering, is filled with kooks, on account of America is kooky! A commentator's protest kook-detector works great when he disagrees with the protest, then gets turned off when the kooks on his side get busy. It has ever been thus, and it will always be.

Matt Welch, "Army of Dicks Goes After Dick Armey", Hit and Run, 2009-04-16

QotD: Problems with public service

This whole they're-denigrating-public-servants complaint, a longtime favorite of Bill Maher's, has always struck me as willfully missing at least one important point. A core problem of government ineffectiveness has to do with incentives, and unintended consequences, not necessarily venality and incompetence. The do something mentality of elected officials inevitably leads to crude applications of blunt power, and just as inevitably that power has a tendency to get all mission-creepy, into areas of human existence that no government should really be messing with. And believe it or not, this can happen under Democrats, too.

Matt Welch, "Washington: Crackling With Brainy Sacrifice", Hit and Run, 2009-04-07

QotD: Lessons from the Great Depression

The relevance for today is simple. The famous "multiplier effect" of public spending may exist. U.S. cities do indeed need new highways, new buildings, and new roads, maybe even from the government. There may also be a spillover effect, as historian Alexander Field has noted. When the government builds a road, it is easier for the trucker to get from one point to another, and the trucker makes higher profits. These merits should be weighed against damage that comes when officials create projects and jobs for political reasons.

An emergency such as a Great Depression can serve as a catalyst for job creation. But the dire moral quality of that emergency does not guarantee that a project undertaken in its name will be more efficient than your standard earmark. In fact, infrastructure spending is often just a nicer name for what we used to call pork. Given the depth of modern capital markets, the New Deal's old argument that "only the government can afford this" looks particularly weak. The New Deal edifice is solid enough, but it doesn't form the best basis for the national future.

Amity Shlaes, "Afterword to the paperback edition", The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression, 2007, 2008

Fake charities

Johnathan Pearce looks at a useful new site for monitoring charitable organizations:

The blogger at Devil's Kitchen has been doing fine work, as have others, in exposing "fake charities" — those organisations that while claiming to be autonomous, voluntary organisations, receive a substantial amount of funding from the taxpayer via grants and as a result, frequently take positions in terms of public policy that, unsurprisingly, fit in with the fashionable bromides of transnational progressivism, health fascism and environmentalism. The Fake Charities website does sterling work in listing those organisations that should be closely watched. The site is a great resource and well worth bookmarking.

Charities are a valuable part of our social fabric, but those which operate like the ones identified in that post are not really charities at all . . . they're actually not-quite-arms-length creatures of the state. They enable more intrusion of bureaucrats into areas best served by genuine charities, bringing along with them the coercive powers of the state by slow degrees.

I object to these fake charities for exactly the same reason I object to mandatory so-called volunteer work by students: they pervert the underlying good intentions of real volunteers and taint the whole notion of voluntary effort.

Update: A comment on Johnathan's post by "Kevin B." is worth quoting also:

The trouble is that 'charities' are such useful tools for the state that cutting them off from the statists is nigh on impossible.

For a start, many of them are there to do 'research' or 'studies' that they then use to 'pressure' the government to do what the government wanted to do in the first place.

So when the elite want to do something 'for the children' for instance, you will find one 'charity' producing the research to justify it, another to applaud the government for accepting it, and a third bemoaning the fact that the government hasn't gone far enough.

Economic uncertainty

The recent forced resignation of GM's CEO may be good politically — although that's questionable — but it's terrible economically. The economic picture is unsettled, which sharply reduces the dependability of long-term and even short-term forecasting. Businesses depend on forecasting to make investments, create jobs, increase or decrease production, and pretty much every other part of their operations. Uncertainty is normal, but high levels of uncertainty act to depress all economic activity . . . and the US government playing kingmaker with the heads of major corporations is a hell of way to create more uncertainty.

The specific merits of the Richard Wagoner dismissal are unimportant compared to the extra measure of uncertainty injected into the economy as a whole. If President Obama and his team can dismiss Wagoner, why not the heads of any bank accepting government funding? Why not other corporate officers (corporate directors have already been ousted at government whim)? At what level does the government's self-created new power stop?

The direction the US federal government has set will do nothing to settle economic worries, and much to increase them. The clear belief on the part of the administration is that they are better able to pick the winners and losers of economic activity of which most of them have no practical experience. That is a modern definition of hubris.

On the specifics of GM's (and Chrysler's) plight, I've been saying that they should have gone into formal bankruptcy last year. It would have been bad, for many people (suppliers, employees, and shareholders most directly), but it would have had the merit of being the best way to legally¹ and quickly² sort out the businesses, determining whether they are still viable or whether they are best broken up and sold off to the highest bidder. This life-in-death state under close government supervision is becoming the worst of all possible worlds. Nothing can be settled, everything is subject to radical change at the drop of a political hat, and nobody can see an end to the turmoil.

¹ Legally, in the sense that the laws are already on the books, tested, and workable. Not requiring additional legislation passed in the wee small hours of the morning by sleepy congressmen and senators who haven't read any of the bill being passed.

² Quickly, of course, is a relative term. Even a best-case fast resolution of a bankruptcy this size would be years, not months in length.

It must be true about all politics being local

I was amused to see this brief Canadian Press item, featuring both my local MPP and my federal MP in direct conflict. They're husband and wife, yet find themselves opposed on a current hot issue:

Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty may have some animated conversations at his dinner table over the Ontario government's plan to merge the provincial sales tax with the GST.

Flaherty says he fully supports merging Ontario's provincial sales tax with its federal counterpart. But his wife Christine Elliott, a Progressive Conservative member of Ontario's legislature, says her party opposes the tax harmonization.

In a speech in Montreal Thursday night, Flaherty said Elliott was asked by a reporter if this will create awkward moments on the homefront.

He said Elliott replied, "I think we'll stay married, but I respectively disagree with him about this."

Flaherty, a former Ontario finance minister, joked, "I was glad to hear we're going to remain married."

Full disclosure: I've not only met both of them, but I coached two of their sons in soccer several years back.

"You sound like a Breznhev-era apparatchik, giving the party line"

I'm guessing that Daniel Hannan isn't going to be on the next list of civil honours forwarded to the Queen . . .

A.I.G.: Less passion, more fact

Megan McArdle sums up recent discussions on AIG, then adds some uncomfortable facts:

Of course the AIG bonuses should go back! They were paid to people in the very group that lost money! They were paid to people who have already left the firm, putting the lie to the idea of retention bonuses! Also, they couldn't get jobs anywhere else anyway, so retention bonuses are unnecessary! And it's all just unmitigated greed! They're lucky to have jobs at all! They should be volunteering to work for free, wearing sackcloth and ashes, and grovelling on the ground in front of every taxpayer they can find, begging for forgiveness!

The information now emerging from AIG tells a different story.

Of course, it's much easier for politicians and media pundits to whip up a frenzy against evil "capitalist exploiters" than it is to point out that they're actively scapegoating the innocent.

Incomplete headline of the day

This headline at the BBC News website is incomplete:

Top AIG bosses 'to repay bonuses'

It should continue with the much more informative ". . . to avoid Bill of Attainder". More information (and an explanation) here. Other recent posts here and here.

A.I.G. bonuses taxed

Steve Chapman points out that the spasm of anger in which congress passed a retroactive 90% tax on the A.I.G. bonuses is being directed at the wrong people:

Congress is outraged. Really, really outraged. Unbelievably, incredibly outraged. And there are certainly grounds for anger.

Not at the insurance company AIG, which paid bonuses that are seen as intolerable, but at Congress, which blithely declined to prohibit them but is now shocked to find AIG doing what it was allowed to do. The Democrats who control Capitol Hill want revenge, as do many Republicans. So the House voted by a 328-93 margin to impose a 90 percent tax on the payments.

In doing so, members resolutely avoided a couple of inconvenient realities. The first is that the fault, if any, lies with the same people who are now angry. The second is that the tax conflicts with the clear intent of the Constitution.

The whole bonus scheme is intended to retain key personnel, and it makes perfect sense. In good times, high-performing executives can always try to move on to other firms who (in theory) offer more money, more opportunities for advancement, or both. The bonus payment is to try to keep those executives where they can do the most good for the corporation paying the bonus.

In these trying economic times, the bonuses actually make even more sense for the rest of the economy. They function to keep those same executives who made a total balls-up of A.I.G. from moving to other companies to do the same pillage-and-burn-and-sow-the-fields-with-salt to them. It's cheap, from the larger economy's point of view, to pay relative peanuts to keep all these folks from moving on and infecting other companies.

Update: Mark Steyn speaks for the outraged:

Are you outraged by these AIG bonuses?

No, no. For Pete's sake, you're an A-list congressional big shot. Try to get a bit of feeling into "outraged." The president's teleprompter puts it in italics, bold, capitalized and underlined: OUTRAGED !

That's better. Don't forget to furrow your brow and fume. No, not like a camp waiter when you send back the arugula salad drizzled in an aubergine coulis. We're looking for primal, righteous anger: You're outraged, OUTRAGED that bonuses are being handed out at companies the American taxpayer is bailing out. Yes, to be sure, the bonuses were specifically provided for in the legislation, but, like all busy senators and congressmen, you don't have time to read every footling trillion-dollar bill before you vote in favor of it. And yes, true, the specific passage addressing these particular bonuses was, in fact, added to the bill in your name, but that was nothing to do with you — you just did that because the White House asked you to, and just because their people called your people and some intern in your office drafted some boilerplate with your name on it is no reason for you to be denied 10 minutes of grandstanding on MSNBC. It's an outrage to suggest you're anything other than outrageously outraged!

QotD: The Jimmy Carter legacy

The current depression was born when the administration of Jimmy Carter, and a Democratic Congress, irrationally demanded that lenders approve mortgages for individuals who really couldn't afford them and would almost certainly never be able to pay them back. The political strategy of giving goodies away like this, in exchange for votes and other kinds of popular support, was probably old hat by the time the Romans got around to plying urban tenement dwellers with bread and circuses.

At the same time, housing for the poor appears to be some kind of bizarre obsessive-compulsive fetish for President Peanut. He's spent decades since his deeply flawed and humiliatingly failed presidency, hammering nails into future residences under the Habitat for Humanity program. How ironic it is that, just as the economy begins collapsing, so are the former president's shoddily-constructed houses across the country.

L. Neil Smith, "Cambodian Road Trip", Libertarian Enterprise, 2009-03-15

A.I.G.: a lightning rod for discontent?

It's apparently not just the top executives who're feeling the backlash over AIG putting some of its government rescue money toward bonuses for executives:

Now these executives are toxic, and those communities are rattled and divided. Private security guards have been stationed outside their houses, and sometimes the local police drive by. A.I.G. employees at the company’s office tower in Lower Manhattan were told to avoid leaving the building while a demonstration was going on outside. The memo also advised them to avoid displaying company-issued ID cards when they left the office and to abandon tote bags or other items with the A.I.G. logo.

One A.I.G. executive, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he feared the consequences of identifying himself, said many workers felt demonized and betrayed. “It is as bad if not worse than McCarthyism,” he said. Everyone has sacrificed the employees of A.I.G.’s financial products division, he said, “for their own political agenda.”

Update: The Economist suggests a new pain indicator:

This crisis has brought a burst of creativity in the development of indicators of pain, from the subprime implode-o-meter to the downgrade-o-meter for structured securities. Perhaps it is time for the outrage-o-meter. Its needle would have jumped off the scale this week as America’s public, politicians and media huffed and puffed over the $165m in bonuses paid to members of the financial-products division that brought down American International Group (AIG). Troubles in that unit have forced the government to bail out the giant insurer, so far to the tune of $173 billion.

AIG’s wayward eggheads are not the only ones squirming. The affair is a test of the Obama administration’s handling of financial excess — and so far it has been ham-fisted. After flip-flopping over whether it had the authority to meddle with employment contracts, the Treasury eventually seized on a clause in the recently passed stimulus bill that may allow it to retrieve payments deemed contrary to the public interest. Tim Geithner, the treasury secretary, promised to recoup the money by deducting some of it from the next $30 billion tranche of aid for the company.

QotD: Partisan view of the presidency

When a Democratic president goes from being wrong to being damn wrong is always an interesting moment: Bay of Pigs, Great Society, Jimmy Carter waking up on the morning after his inauguration, HillaryCare.

P.J. O'Rourke, "Stem Cell Sham: The president as sophist", Weekly Standard, 2009-03-23

QotD: Inherited debt

Just between you, me, and the old, the late middle-aged and the early middle-aged: Isn't it terrific to be able to stick it to the young? I mean, imagine how bad all this economic-type stuff would be if our kids and grandkids hadn't offered to pick up the tab.

Well, OK, they didn't exactly "offer" but they did stand around behind Barack Obama at all those campaign rallies helping him look dynamic and telegenic and earnestly chanting hopey-hopey-changey-changey. And "Yes, we can!"

Which is a pretty open-ended commitment.

Are you sure you young folks will be able to pay off this massive Mount Spendmore of multitrillion-dollar debts we've piled up on you?

"Yes, we can!"

We thought you'd say that! God bless the youth of America! We of the Greatest Generation, the Boomers and Generation X salute you, the plucky members of the Brokest Generation, the Gloomers and Generation Y, as in "Why the hell did you old coots do this to us?"

Mark Steyn, "Welcome, kids, to the Brokest Generation: The young aren't to blame for this mess, but they'll be paying for it", Orange County Register, 2009-03-13

One quick link

James Lileks gets all screedy:

This was sent to me by Amitai Etzioni, for reasons I cannot imagine. A big broadcast of a paradigm-altering manifesto, perhaps. For some reason the opening line caught my eye:

President Obama has a unique talent: He is able to inspire people all over the world to deliberate and dialogue about burning issues.

As well as consider the impact on the environment caused by reckless issue-burning, as well as the clear-cutting of old growth issue-thickets. But is it true? As far as I can tell we're not having a debate at all. He won; spending is good; Debt will save us from the terrible secret of space, which is Debt. We have concluded our debate about Federal funding of stem-cell research, and now the magic Government dollars, imbued with a power no private sector dollars contain, will help us cure all those diseases that are very important despite the lack of support from prominent actors.

At the top of the agenda for such a global give and take is what makes for a good life.

The moment the "good life" is put in global terms, I know I'm going to have to give up something. It's just a question of what, to whom, and in which quantities.

QotD: Motivation

It is a deformity in some 'radicals' to imagine that, once they have found the lowest or meanest motive for an action or for a person, they have correctly identified the 'authentic' or 'real' one. Many a purge or show trial has got merrily under way in this manner.

Christopher Hitchens, Thomas Paine's Rights of Man, 2006

Fearmongering

Anthony Randazzo points out that most of the government's intervention in the market has served to prolong the misery, yet not to actually improve the situation:

At this point, the depth of the recession has largely been created by the panic started by former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and President George W. Bush. "If money isn't loosened up, this sucker could go down," President Bush said about the economy as he urged for bailouts last September.

Dire warnings of "catastrophe" or "before its too late" without any clear definition of what those concepts really mean are similar to, and no less troubling than, Mafioso scare tactics. It is this fear that has been driving the government to quick, impulsive action that is only worsening the problem.

Clearly fear and panic didn't start the recession. There were system-wide failures due to a toxic combination of excessive growth optimism, a belief the boom would go on forever, a lack of healthy fear of losses, incompetency, and coercive regulations. But as Fidelity Investments executive Edward Johnson said this week, "We can only hope that the government's cure doesn't further sicken the patient."

Looking back, most legislators regret passing their first cure — the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) bill — as fast as they did. There wasn't a clear and present danger at the time — just Secretary Paulson saying if we didn't give him unlimited powers the sky would fall in and economy would collapse. No one understood what Paulson's forecasts of catastrophe would result in, but they didn't want to find out. Terrified, 'doing nothing' was not presented as an option and $700 billion was approved to buy up toxic debt.

Ironically, after a month of discussion the Treasury decided that buying troubled assets wouldn't work after all and decided to go with capital injections instead. But this all took place many weeks after TARP was passed, and the world hadn't ended. So much for the need for speed that was used to push the bailout through.

It's gotten so bad lately that it seems as though every time the markets finish a day in the black, someone from the government has to get up on his hind legs and proclaim another impending disaster (or worse, further government intervention) . . . and the market goes down again the following day.

The economy won't recover until all the malinvestment has been worked out of the system; much of that mistaken spending was as a result of governments trying to prolong "the good times". Stability is essential to long-term planning for any business . . . and in today's climate only a fool would assume that the current situation will stabilize in a hurry. No stability means that no sensible business is going to take any risks they don't absolutely have to take — and building new facilities and hiring new staff count as risks in this market.

Of course, the cycle isn't complete without mention of the news media: they're geared to report bad news, and there's a plethora of bad news to report at the moment. In an ironic twist, this is the first time that economic turmoil has seriously threatened the jobs of newsmedia workers in all areas: at least in the living memory of most current reporters and editors. This only encourages further negative connotations to every piece of economic news they report.

It's like a reworked version of the old joke about a recession is where your neighbours lose their jobs and a depression is when economists lose their jobs. From the media point of view, this is an economic apocalypse because it's directly affecting them and their fellow media types.

QotD: Inherently unpatriotic thoughts

Is it inherently unpatriotic or immoral to want to see a president fail? After chewing over the larger implications of that vital question, I've come to a conclusion: I am a twisted human being. Thankfully, I'm not alone.

You see, when I'm not wasting time greedily praying to be rich, I plead with some higher power to sentence my middling local representatives to painful obscurity and professional failure. My congresswoman, for instance, carries an intellectual confidence so severely out of step with her skill set that the promise of disappointment, I trust, one day will bring me great joy.

If we can't look to our politicians to fulfill our yearly schadenfreude quota, whom can we trust?

David Harsanyi, "Nothing Personal, But I Hope You All Fail: What's wrong with rooting against our elected officials?", Reason Online, 2009-03-04

Sending the Veep some lovin'

"Here's to you, Mr. Plagiarizing, Gaffe-Prone, Hair-Plug-Wearing Vice President."

QotD: Stop the spending

Last night, President Barack Obama underscored that, despite being in the Senate for the past few years and his party being in charge of Congress since 2006, he's just mopping up for the bungler in chief who preceded him. I yield to no ink-stained wretch in my vast and bottomless dislike of George W. Bush but let's hold Obama's feet to the fire here: He has consistently pledged to, you know, stop spending right after well, you know, he and Congress stop spending.

Seriously, we're really going to knuckle down and cut some "eliminate wasteful and ineffective programs" costing $2 trillion over the next decade. Spoiler alert: That comes to a whopping 5 percent or so of baseline projected spending over the next decade. Break out the champagne, 'cause happy days are here again!

If Obama is serious about restoring trust and confidence in the government's ability to live within its gargantuan means (and he should be), he should start by rewriting the $410 billion Omnibus Spending Bill that the Democrats have just dropped like a big, wet, steaming, stinking pile of...pork barbecue.

Nick Gillespie, "The Deficit That Obama Didn't Quite Inherit But Will Almost Certainly Vastly Expand", Hit and Run, 2009-02-25

Rick Santelli: new revolutionary

H/T to Cjunk, guest-blogging at Small Dead Animals.

Penn on "Is Dissent Still Patriotic?"

David Harsanyi's article, which is what Penn is addressing, is here.

Ask your economist if Stimulis is right for you

Baloo's view of the stimulus

QotD: The cost of bad policies

Politicians and their disgusting, fawning, sycophantic pilot fish — the media — want us all to believe that economic ups and downs are a natural phenomenon, similar to earthquakes, meteor strikes, or the weather.

The simple fact that nobody ever mentions is that the economy itself is an artifact, a human invention, and while natural events do affect it in various ways — floods, drought, storms, and so on — most of whatever happens within it is as man-made as the computer I'm using to write this. Human beings shape the economy through all of their acivities. They find, make, buy, and sell innumerable goods and services. Unfortunately if they have political power, along with the evil will to use it, they can distort an economy in ways that conceal, destroy, steal, and force other folks to accept their products and practices, that have changed little since the walls of Babylon were erected.

That's what happened with the price of gasoline.

We've already discussed the way that the administration of Jimmy Carter (who worked in inflation the way artists work in watercolors) forced lenders — businesses that, like everything else in a truly free country, would have been immune to such an abuse of power — to offer mortgages to individuals who, by any reasonable market test were unable to pay them off. This, in effect, created money out of thin air — call it "fiat credit" — in a process only differing from actual counterfeiting because no printing press was involved. Clinton's administration piled this fraud higher and deeper until the "housing bubble" — an enormous market based solely on imaginary wealth — was created.

All that's required for a bubble to burst is a number of lenders who can't get their money back and can't sell the houses they've had to repossess. Companies the lenders owe money to don't get paid, and have to lay people off or go bankrupt. More disasters follow in a horrifying cascade of unpaid bills, fired workers, and rapidly dying businesses.

Who says there's no such thing as "trickle down"?

L. Neil Smith, "The Unnecessary Depression", Libertarian Enterprise, 2009-02-01

P.J O'Rourke on what to expect from the Obama administration

P.J. O'Rourke may be recovering from the malaise of the Bush years (where he seemed to have difficulty being as funny as he was in the Clinton era), as evidenced by his introduction to the Obama years:

The killjoys are back in charge — the mopes, the fusstails, the glum pots. Their wet blanket has been thrown over the White House and Congress. They're worrying up a storm. (Good thing that George W. Bush is no longer in charge of the weather and FEMA the way he was during Hurricane Katrina.) America is experiencing a polar ice cap and financial meltdown, causing sea levels to rise and sending cold water flooding into Wall Street where the rapidly acidifying ocean is corroding our 401(k)s and releasing mortgage securities full of hot air into the atmosphere until our every breath is full of CO2 especially when we exhale, which should be banned when children are present lest their uninsured health care be harmed by second-hand greenhouse gases that are causing endangerment of plant and animal species (Republicans are extinct already), leading to a shortage of green, leafy vegetables vital to the fight against America's growing epidemics of obese hunger and housing foreclosures on the homeless.

You remember the killjoys. They've been all over liberal Democratic politics like ugly on an ape since the Carter administration. They are the people who conceived the late, little-mourned, double-nickel speed limit, which is doubtless now rising undead from its grave to turn us all into road zombies dragging ourselves down I-70 numbed to a state of murderous catatonia by our 55-mile-per-hour rate of travel.

You'd almost think he's been holding back on criticizing his own team during the last eight years, wouldn't you? Perhaps the muted criticism also muted the humour?

He's clearly on happier terms slashing away at Democrats than Republicans:

Being a poke-nose, a nanny-pants, and a wowser satisfies the pathetic need of the political class to feel self-important and powerful. Banning paper and plastic and making shoppers carry their groceries home in their mouths like dogs is just the thing to make a little tin humanist in the Obama West Wing think he's admiral of the Uzbek Navy.

Not that Pecksniff Buttinskiism is a strictly partisan matter. Long-lipped howler Republican Drys teamed up with spigot-bigot William Jennings Bryan to enact Prohibition. The GOP is home to blue noses of a size as if room had been made on Mt. Rushmore for a bust of Andrew Volstead. Meanwhile Democrats do have their pleasures — drinking bong water at gay weddings and so forth. Plus there is the Kennedy family to be considered, with their penchant for exciting risk — skiing into trees, sleeping with the babysitter, and claiming entitlement to New York Senate seats.

See! It is possible to poke fun at the Kennedy family without making jokes about bridges!

Republicans stick their schnozollas into other people's underpants and stashes (but not gun cabinets). In the matter of scolding foreigners and muscling in on the governance of lesser breeds without the law, Republicans are a regular pain in the atlas. But it is the Democrats who've learned to make political honey out of minding other people's beeswax. Not satisfied with mere bossy irritation of the public, Democrats have created whole branches of government — the Department of Labor, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Education, the Department of Tofu and Sprouts. Democrats have opened barrels of (USDA inspected!) pork sufficient to feed all of their high-binding and wire-pulling friends, relatives, cronies, and the state government of Illinois. Democratic wisenheimers have managed to get themselves elected Big Chief Itch-and-Rub of every worry and to be appointed Pharaoh of Fret for every concern. They are the Party of Eliot Spitzer. And we the citizenry are Eliot Spitzer's wife.

Welcome back, Mr. O'Rourke.

QotD: The end of Canadian Conservatism

Say what you like about the Tories: they don't do things by halves. When they spend, they spend. When they go into debt, they do it $100-billion at a time. And when they decide to put an end to conservatism in Canada — as a philosophy, as a movement — they go out with a bang.

We can safely say that the strategy of incrementalism, at least, has been put to bed. With this historic budget, the Conservatives' already headlong retreat from principle has become a rout: a great final leap into the void. For there will be no going back from this, for the party or for the country. Whatever the budget's soothing talk of "temporary" this and "extraordinary" that, and for all its well-mannered charts showing spending obediently returning to its pen, deficits meekly subsiding, "investments" repaid in full, we are in fact headed somewhere we have never been before. We are on course towards a massive and permanent increase in the size and scope of government: record spending, sky-high borrowing, and — ultimately, inevitably — higher taxes. And all this before the first of the Baby Boomers have had a chance to retire, and cough up a lung.

Andrew Coyne, "Budget ‘09: Tories take a final leap into the void" Macleans, 2009-01-27

QotD: "The real scandal is what's legal"

I still can't understand how AIG, beneficiary of $152 billion in federal subsidies and loan guarantees, could get away with giving management $400 million in year-end bonuses for a year in which management did one of the worst jobs in financial history. That money was forcibly removed from your pocket and placed into the pockets of incompetent scoundrels — yet Congress does nothing! Now it turns out federally subsidized Merrill Lynch, the Bank of America subsidiary given $20 billion of your money two weeks ago, lost $15.3 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008, and yet handed its senior managers $4 billion in bonuses. Four billion, not million, forcibly removed from your pocket — or borrowed, with the bill handed to your children — and put into the pockets of scoundrels who did a terrible, horrible, awful job. Merrill Lynch managers must be laughing out loud: They screwed up in a major way, and for screwing up were lavishly rewarded, while blameless federal taxpayers were punished. Why isn't our Democratic-led, supposedly populist Congress incensed about such abuses?

Unfortunately, I do understand — because Congress is to blame for the abuses. Congress enacted October's $700 billion bailout of banks and Wall Street without including fraud provisions. At the moment of maximum leverage with banks and Wall Street, Congress simply handed over vast sums of your money without getting any accountability concessions in return. If a Pentagon contractor abuses federal money, if the vendor who supplies staplers and paper clips to the National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center abuses federal money, federal prosecutors move in, because contracts issued by federal agencies have fraud clauses. The October deal by which Congress handed over hundreds of billions of dollars to banks and Wall Street doesn't contain fraud clauses!

The AIG and Merrill Lynch top dogs may be despicable, but it's legal for them to stuff your money into their pockets as bonuses. As Michael Kinsley once said, "The real scandal is what's legal." That billions of the $700 billion bailout fund are being looted directly in front of our eyes is legal, owing to the carelessness of Congress.

Gregg Easterbrook, "Super Bowl Pick and Unwanted All-Pros", ESPN Page 2: TMQ, 2009-01-27

QotD: The Bush Legacy

In a way that was inconceivable when he took office, Mr. Bush — the advance man for the "ownership society," smaller and more trustworthy government, and a humble foreign policy — increased the size and scope of the federal government to unprecedented levels. At the same time, he constantly flashed signs of secrecy, duplicity, ineffectiveness and outright incompetence.

Think for a moment about the thousands of Transportation Security Administration screeners — newly minted government employees all — who continue to confiscate contact-lens solution and nail clippers while, according to nearly every field test, somehow failing to notice simulated bombs in passenger luggage.

Or schoolchildren struggling under No Child Left Behind, which federalized K-12 education to an unprecedented degree with nothing to show for it other than greater spending tabs. Or the bizarrely structured Medicare prescription-drug benefit, the largest entitlement program created since LBJ. Or the simple reality that taxpayers now guarantee some $8 trillion in inscrutable loans to a financial sector that collapsed from inscrutable loans.

Such programs were not in any way foisted on Mr. Bush, the way that welfare reform had been on Bill Clinton; they were signature projects, designed to create a legacy every bit as monumental and inspiring as Laura Bush's global literacy campaign.

The most basic Bush numbers are damning. If increases in government spending matter, then Mr. Bush is worse than any president in recent history. During his first four years in office — a period during which his party controlled Congress — he added a whopping $345 billion (in constant dollars) to the federal budget. The only other presidential term that comes close? Mr. Bush's second term. As of November 2008, he had added at least an additional $287 billion on top of that (and the months since then will add significantly to the bill). To put that in perspective, consider that the spendthrift LBJ added a mere $223 billion in total additional outlays in his one full term.

Nick Gillespie, "Bush Was a Big-Government Disaster: He expanded the state, and the sense that the state is incompetent.", Wall Street Journal, 2009-01-24

A Fisking! A Fisking!

It's been a while since anyone has done a proper Fisking, so up steps bold Nick Gillespie to fill the void:

Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman doesn't just accuse people who disagree with him of bad economics but of bad faith: "Any time you hear someone reciting one of these arguments" against various stimulus proposals coming out of the Obama admin, writes Krugman, "write him or her off as a dishonest flack."

Among the lies masquerading as arguments? "That the Obama plan will cost $275,000 per job created." In fact, says Krugman (without bothering to explain why his supposedly more accurate figure is so damn great):

The true cost per job of the Obama plan will probably be closer to $100,000 than $275,000 — and the net cost will be as little as $60,000 once you take into account the fact that a stronger economy means higher tax receipts.

That is incredible savings ($215,000 per job!), even before the first Obama stimulus dollar has been spent! Another bad argument, says Krugman, is the idea that

It's always better to cut taxes than to increase government spending because taxpayers, not bureaucrats, are the best judges of how to spend their money.

Here's how to think about this argument: it implies that we should shut down the air traffic control system. After all, that system is paid for with fees on air tickets — and surely it would be better to let the flying public keep its money rather than hand it over to government bureaucrats.

I do not follow the implication above (or is it an inference?). Beyond the weirdness of talking about air travel in this instance, wouldn't people stop flying if there were no air traffic control system? Hence the airlines would have some incentive to provide an ATC system even if the government weren't doing so (and in fact, that's effectively what other nations such as Canada do, where the ATC system has been corporatized). I think the argument that taxpayers are better at spending their money implies that people are not complete fucktards, while the long list of shovel-ready, job-creating pork projects compiled by the U.S. Conference of Mayors drives home what most of us know from daily experience: That other people spend your money less carefully than you usually do.

Krugman concludes, "It's clear that when it comes to economic stimulus, public spending provides much more bang for the buck than tax cuts...because a large fraction of any tax cut will simply be saved." I'm not sure what that means, exactly, either, especially if taxpayers saved the cut in, like, you know, a bank, which might make it available to people with businesses or mortgages or what have you. An odd side note to all this: If massive government spending grows the economy, then we should all be millionaires after eight years of Bush rule, shouldn't we?

Reason.TV's hopes and fears for the Obama administration

Hmmm. No embedding this time, apparently. Click here instead.

Adding to the "fears" category, Matt Welch has been listening to National Public Radio so you don't have to. Among the bad ideas on parade:

* A new Ministry of Culture? There was a long piece about Barack Obama will "revive American culture," boosting our allegedly beleauguered arts, taking us out of the dark days of, uh, Mapplethorpe-bashing or something.

* A European model for U.S. newspapers? I learned on Sunday that European newspapers are in "a better financial situation" than U.S. dailies (even though American newspapers are vastly more profitable, vastly more staffed, and filled with lots more and generally better journalism), and that we should be taking our newspaper-financing cues from Sweden. Where dailies are subsidized.

* A Cult of the Presidency? Where to begin? I heard a long news report on just how much of a historically post-partisan uniter Barack Obama really is. The moment after the groan-inducing Concert for Hope wrapped up at the Lincoln Memorial Sunday, the station hosts kicked it back to an analyst in Southern California for his measured take on the proceedings, and the first thing out of his mouth was "Wow, I just really wish I was back there to see such a thrilling event!" (Note: quote is approximate.) There was also an analysis of Barack Obama, the deep thinker/writer.

QotD: Marketing Obama

On that historic evening in November, as Barack Obama definitively made passé the notion that we cannot, the president-elect’s acceptance speech signified a triumph not just for his campaign but for motivational wall décor. Like a Successories catalog made flesh, Obama invoked burning beacons, long roads, steep climbs, and new dawns. He was lofty, he was declamatory, he was as aesthetically challenging as a majestic golf course on a crisp autumn morning. And yet his well-worn rhetoric managed to move multitudes. Could it be that all those corny corporate psalms to Character and Service, the ones hanging in regional sales offices and telemarketing call centers across the nation, have touched us more deeply than we realized?

Greg Beato, "The Successories President: The posterized secret of Obama's success?", Reason, 2009-01-13

Belated 2008 retrospective, in song

H/T to "IllCentral".

It's funny because it's true

QotD: Alberto Gonzales, self-described victim

Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales actually made John Ashcroft look like the Bush administration's resident civil libertarian. By the time he left office, his zeal for executive power coupled with political ineptitude and general incompetence managed to win him contempt from both the left and the right.

Now Gonzales can't find a publisher for his book, and no one has yet offered him the cushy, high-paying job at a D.C. law firm that high-ranking public officials seem to think they're entitled to upon stepping down.

According to Gonzales, Gonzales is a victim.

Radley Balko, "Sure, Al. A Couple Hundred Tortured Detainees, 100,000+ Iraqi Citizens, the U.S. Constitution, and You", Hit and Run, 2009-01-02

Public support for bailouts? Still negative

Matt Welch rounds up the latest poll numbers for and against bailing out struggling businesses "after two months of relentless scaremongering by the nation's elite politicians and journalists":

Like Dick Cheney, I don't believe in governing by poll. But that won't prevent me from taking heart in the fact that, once again, Americans seem to have more instinctive faith in capitalism and less enthusiasm for government blank checks than their elected representatives.

In the comments to that post, "Ed" suggests the obvious solution:

I still think we should sell the rust-belt states to Canada. They must be worth something.

Bjorn Lomborg on the trade-offs involved in addressing climate change

Rae bows out

Michael Ignatieff's gambit (linked here) appears to have paid off:

Bob Rae told his supporters in a conference call Tuesday that he will end his bid for the Liberal leadership, CTV News has learned.

CTV's Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife confirmed Tuesday that Rae will not challenge frontrunner Michael Ignatieff — virtually ensuring that Ignatieff will become Liberal leader.

"I put my support behind Michael Ignatieff," Rae told the small group of close supporters, according to notes obtained by Fife.

"I know many will be disappointed but our interests must be put aside."

Rae also said his "goal has been and will be democracy and not division."

It's been a real whirlwind tour of Canadian politics for the last two weeks, hasn't it? We're running out of shoes to drop . . . I hope.

Traditionally, it's been the Conservatives who've indulged in public squabbles, open rebellion, and active sabotage of party for personal gain. The Liberals, in contrast, have historically done a much better job of leashing, collaring, and herding their supporters. Now we wait to see how long the Conservatives can stick together without someone deciding it's time to seek promotion the fast way (by knifing the current leader).

Iggy makes his move

Michael Ignatieff took the gloves off on Sunday, according to this Globe and Mail report:

Toronto MP Michael Ignatieff launched a bulldozer charge at the federal Liberal leadership on Sunday, campaigning for the party's parliamentary caucus to elect him immediately as an interim replacement for Stéphane Dion.

Mr. Ignatieff's organizers said Sunday night they had the support of at least 55 of the party's 77 MPs, including Mr. Dion's most vocal supporter, suburban Toronto MP Bryon Wilfert, and MP Maurizio Bevilacqua, who chaired the 2006 leadership campaign of Mr. Ignatieff's major opponent, Bob Rae.

In addition, leadership contender Dominic LeBlanc flew to Toronto Sunday night to meet with Mr. Ignatieff. He is widely expected to drop his leadership bid and pledge support to Mr. Ignatieff on Monday, along with a group of Atlantic MPs and senators.

Of course, sometimes even the most stubborn man can read the writing on the wall.

The comments on the original article got quite interesting, as this example (of 750) shows:

Introverts Unite from Toronto, Canada writes: Here's the scenario the way I see it. The election ended. Dion doesn't believe he's lost and goes into seclusion. Seclusion means sitting on the phone hatching a plot with Jack and Gilles who also conveniently disappear or at least Jack does. They can't come to an agreement. Bob Rae finds out about it. Decides it's a quick ticket to jump past Iggy in the leadership race and unite the left. He calls papa Chretien and brother John, both officers in Power Corp to facilitate and Jack calls in Ed Broadbent. As Dion is Chretien's protege, he is quickly persuaded to agree to a power sharing with Layton with the understanding that Bobby will take over once the coalition has overthrown Harper. Bobby will become spokesperson for the coalition and it's ultimate success will knock Iggy out of the race. That way Power Corp retains the reins of the government and the Liberal Party, and Bob gets to be leader. Paul Desmarais (owner of Power Corp) puts the finger on Duceppe to not throw a wrench into the agreement. Harper meanwhile finds out about all of this and throws a fit in the form of the economic 'Plan' taking all their money away. The coalition can't back down now and does the formal signing and tries to throw mud at Harper to cover their backsides. Iggy is enraged but appears to try being a team player while not divulging his hand. Harper knows that his coalition is toast but still has to treat it as dangerous. Dion, meanwhile is not being the patsy and is trying to take control of the coalition. Dion bombs out. Rae is livid, so is Layton. Their dream of uniting the left is in tatters. Rae goes on a rampage vowing to bring down the Conservative government regardless of whether a good budget is presented or not. Iggy realizes that things are getting out of control with Bob about to launch into a trans Canada speaking tour to sell the coalition. The middle of the road Liberals decide to pull the plug on Bob and anoint Iggy.

Bailing out Detroit

Jon sent me a link to Iowahawk's latest car ad:

All new for 2012, the Pelosi GTxi SS/Rt Sport Edition is the mandatory American car so advanced it took $100 billion and an entire Congress to design it. We started with same reliable 7-way hybrid ethanol-biodeisel-electric-clean coal-wind-solar-pedal power plant behind the base model Pelosi, but packed it with extra oomph and the sassy styling pizazz that tells the world that 1974 Detroit is back again — with a vengeance.

We've subsidized the features you want and taxed away the rest. With its advanced Al Gore-designed V-3 under the hood pumping out 22.5 thumping, carbon-neutral ponies of Detroit muscle, you'll never be late for the Disco or the Day Labor Shelter. Engage the pedal drive or strap on the optional jumbo mizzenmast, and the GTxi SS/Rt Sport Edition easily exceeds 2016 CAFE mileage standards. At an estimated 268 MPG, that's a savings of nearly $1800 per week in fuel cost over the 2011 Pelosi.

Even with increased performance we didn't skimp on safety. With 11-point passenger racing harnesses, 15-way airbags, and mandatory hockey helmet, you'll have the security knowing that you could survive a 45 MPH collision even if the GTxi SS/Rt were capable of that kind of illegal speed.

Which reminded me of Chip Bok's comic from last week:

Radley Balko's advice to Obama

Radley Balko knows there's no chance of being heard, but offers some key ideas to the new Obama administration anyway:

• Increase government transparency.
• Open up the White House.
• Swear off executive privilege.
• Revamp the Transportation Security Administration.
• Investigate the Bush administration.
• Make fighting public corruption a top priority of your justice department.
• Use the pardon.

Chance of these ideas being taken up and implemented? Slim, unfortunately.

Opinion polling, explained

QotD: Of course they know what they're doing . . . we hope

Remember when Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson warned us that the economy was about to collapse unless Congress immediately authorized him to spend $700 billion on "troubled assets" held by banks? Remember when he said banks would never lend again as long as they remained saddled with these bad investments?

You do remember? So it's not just me. I was beginning to think I had dreamed the whole thing, because a month and a half later the Treasury Department has yet to buy any troubled assets, and last week Paulson said it had no plans to do so. Instead the department is using its $700 billion to buy the banks themselves, which I could almost swear Paulson said was a bad idea a couple of months ago. Evidently the Bush administration is still calling the effort the Troubled Asset Relief Program for the sake of the acronym, which suggests a cover for something unsightly or embarrassing.

Jacob Sullum, "Everything bad is good again", Reason Online, 2008-11-19

Alaska wins a squeaker

The worst part was the waiting:

It's official: Felonious Sen. Ted "Wounded Bull" Stevens [. . .] has lost his seat in the U.S. Senate, the world's greatest (and possibly fattest) deliberative body. From the AP:

Stevens' pursuit of a seventh term was damaged by his conviction in federal court — just days before the election — for lying on Senate disclosure forms to conceal more than $250,000 in gifts and home renovations from an oil field services company.

He was trying to become the first convicted felon to win election to the Senate. A survey of people leaving polling places conducted for The Associated Press and television networks found that two of three voters considered Stevens' trial a factor in their decision. Begich voters cited it as an issue more often.

Stevens was certainly one of the least inspiring examples of what a US senator could be. In fact, he could be a poster boy for the political pork brigade.

Decoding Palin Derangement Syndrome

L. Neil Smith examines the root causes of Palin Derangement Syndrome:

Never mind all of that. If you couldn't stand Hillary Clinton, her ideas, or her socialist politics, you were merely another misogynist, a male chauvinist pig who "just can't handle the idea of a woman with power."

But that was then, and this is now. Apparently liberals can't handle the idea of a woman with power if that woman isn't another liberal.

Enter Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. When Mad Jack McCain announced the choice he'd made of Palin as a running mate late last summer, I was delighted and surprised. It wasn't simply the only smart move the Hanoi Senator had made during his campaign, it was probably the only smart move any Republican had made since Eisenhower ended the Korean War.

I have to agree with Neil: the most unexpected move of McCain's entire campaign was the selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate. It caused incredible amounts of anguish to many on the left who'd clearly believed all along that they had the womens' vote locked up (John Scalzi did a good job of summarizing it all here). And in spite of the painful media stumbles and (reputed) in-fighting between McCain's staff and Palin's staff, the mere fact of her nomination exposed some ugly seams on the left:

What I saw and heard during the next three months exceeded even my wildest imaginings — and remember, I'm an imaginer by profession — a vitriolic spew of blind, visceral, dogmatic hatred that the nation's "progressives" hadn't lavished even on Randy Weaver, back when Ruby Ridge was in the headlines, nor on Timothy McVeigh after the explosion in Oklahoma City. Some feminists even claimed that, somehow, Palin wasn't a woman. Meaning, of course, that she dared to cherish values differing from those a woman, in their demented view, is supposed to cherish.

One so-called female so-called comedian referred to Palin as a ". . . little freaked out, intimidated, frightened, right-wing Republican, thin-lipped bitch", unintentionally describing herself by temperament, if not by political persuasion. She also warned the vice presidential candidate that she (Palin) would be gang-raped by her (the comedian's) "big black brothers" if she (Palin) visited Manhattan.

This to a real woman who, at least by implication, knows how to deal with a rapist the way a rapist ought to be dealt with, not with a little plastic whistle or a sisterly candlelight vigil, but with . . . well, let's just put it this way: there are places in Alaska where you're not allowed to venture unless you're carrying at least a .357 Magnum.

It was entertaining in a hide-your-eyes kind of way, observing just how unhinged some people got over Palin (in the same way it was fascinating watching the right lose their minds over Bill Clinton's doings ten years ago).

QotD: Bailing out the Big 3

It is all a reminder that the biggest threat to a healthy economy is not the socialists of campaign lore. It's C.E.O.'s. It's politically powerful crony capitalists who use their influence to create a stagnant corporate welfare state.

If ever the market has rendered a just verdict, it is the one rendered on G.M. and Chrysler. These companies are not innocent victims of this crisis. To read the expert literature on these companies is to read a long litany of miscalculation. Some experts mention the management blunders, some the union contracts and the legacy costs, some the years of poor car design and some the entrenched corporate cultures.

There seems to be no one who believes the companies are viable without radical change. A federal cash infusion will not infuse wisdom into management. It will not reduce labor costs. It will not attract talented new employees. As Megan McArdle of The Atlantic wittily put it, "Working for the Big Three magically combines vast corporate bureaucracy and job insecurity in one completely unattractive package."

In short, a bailout will not solve anything — just postpone things. If this goes through, Big Three executives will make decisions knowing that whatever happens, Uncle Sam will bail them out — just like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In the meantime, capital that could have gone to successful companies and programs will be directed toward companies with a history of using it badly.

David Brooks, "Bailout to Nowhere", New York Times, 2008-11-14

QotD: The Presidential power-grab

If there’s one thing defenders of civil liberties know, it's that assaults on constitutional freedoms are bipartisan. Just as constitutional darkness didn't first fall with the arrival in the Oval Office of George W. Bush, the shroud will not lift with his departure and the entry of President Barack Obama.

As atrocious as the Bush record on civil liberties has been, there's no more eager and self-righteous hand reaching out to the Bill of Rights to drop it into the shredder than that of a liberal intent on legislating freedom. Witness the great liberal drive to criminalize expressions of hate and impose fierce punitive enhancements if the criminal has been imprudent enough to perpetrate verbal breaches of sexual or ethnic etiquette while bludgeoning his victim to death.

No doubt the conservatives who cheered Bush on as he abrogated ancient rights and stretched the powers of his office to unseen limits would have shrieked if a Democrat had taken such liberties. But now Obama will be entitled to the lordly prerogatives Bush established.

Alexander Cockburn, "A Long Train of Abuses", The American Conservative, 2008-11-17

QotD: The wasted Conservative opportunity

Let us bend over and kiss our ass goodbye. Our 28-year conservative opportunity to fix the moral and practical boundaries of government is gone — gone with the bear market and the Bear Stearns and the bear that's headed off to do you-know-what in the woods on our philosophy.

An entire generation has been born, grown up, and had families of its own since Ronald Reagan was elected. And where is the world we promised these children of the Conservative Age? Where is this land of freedom and responsibility, knowledge, opportunity, accomplishment, honor, truth, trust, and one boring hour each week spent in itchy clothes at church, synagogue, or mosque? It lies in ruins at our feet, as well it might, since we ourselves kicked the shining city upon a hill into dust and rubble.

[. . .]

In how many ways did we fail conservatism? And who can count that high? Take just one example of our unconserved tendency to poke our noses into other people's business: abortion. Democracy — be it howsoever conservative — is a manifestation of the will of the people. We may argue with the people as a man may argue with his wife, but in the end we must submit to the fact of being married. Get a pro-life friend drunk to the truth-telling stage and ask him what happens if his 14-year-old gets knocked up. What if it's rape? Some people truly have the courage of their convictions. I don't know if I'm one of them. I might kill the baby. I will kill the boy.

[. . .]

Our impeachment of President Clinton was another example of placing the wrong political emphasis on personal matters. We impeached Clinton for lying to the government. To our surprise the electorate gave us cold comfort. Lying to the government: It's called April 15th. And we accused Clinton of lying about sex, which all men spend their lives doing, starting at 15 bragging about things we haven't done yet, then on to fibbing about things we are doing, and winding up with prevarications about things we no longer can do.

P.J. O'Rourke, "We Blew It", The Weekly Standard, 2008-11-17

QotD: Hyper-inflated expectations

Being a libertarian, I naturally think that people are too optimistic about the government. But there were people on CNN declaring that Obama was going to lower the price of gasoline and pay their mortgage if they couldn't afford it, lower their tax bill and raise their wages, and presumably, make them taller, smarter, and get the chickweed out of their hair. I'm not exaggerating: there were voters who seemed to think that about three weeks after Obama took office, all their budget problems would be solved. Not that Obama would eventually make things better, or help them get past the rough spots; they were expecting an immediate influx of really quite a lot of money, as well as a rapid and permanent increase in base wages and housing prices.

I don't recall Republicans engaging in this kind of magical thinking in 2000. They, too, seemed to have an unreasonable belief that George Bush was going to improve America a great deal (unreasonable even before 9/11), but as I recall, this was concentrated on intangibles like restoring honor to the white house, not putting an extra $3,000 in everyone's pockets.

I was eighteen when Clinton was elected, and I don't remember if this sort of thing is simply typical of Democratic victories. But the expectations I saw in those "man on the street interviews" were not fulfillable by any president--at least, not until Santa agrees to stand for election.

Megan McArdle, "Things can only get better . . .", Asymmetrical Information, 2008-11-07

Refuting the drug warriors

Radley Balko looks at the latest lame attempt to dissuade people from using drugs ("Hey, not trying to be your mom, but there aren't many jobs out there for potheads.").

In a five-minute perusal of the Google search results, he found the following individuals who could (but probably won't) argue against it:

Barack Obama, president-elect. Bill Clinton, 42nd president of the U.S. John Kerry, U.S. Senator and 2004 Democratic nominee for president. John Edwards, multi-millionaire, former U.S. Senator, and 2004 Democratic nominee for vice president. Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska, 2008 Republican nominee for vice president. British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly, and and Chancellor Alistair Darling. Josh Howard, NBA all-star. New York Governor David Paterson. Former Vice President, Nobel Peace Prize winner, and Oscar winner Al Gore. Former Sen. Bill Bradley, who smoked while playing professional basketball. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, and former New York Governor George Pataki. Billionaire and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Rather interesting, no? "The presence of so many high-ranking politicians so early in the search results puts the lie to the ONDCP’s ridiculous ad campaign, and shows that to the extent that marijuana is harmful, the harm lies mostly in what the government will do to you to you if it catches you. "

Gillespie's predictions

Nick Gillespie turns prognosticator for the coming Obama administration, but only after venting some spleen over the neologism "game-changer":

Arguably the most nauseating development during Election 2008 (which, thankfully and so unlike Election 2000, actually ended when it was supposed to, on Election Day) was the rise to ubiquity of the term game-changer, a phrase that, as far as I can tell (and I admittedly haven't really called my secret contacts at the Oxford English Dictionary on this one), hit the big time only when applied to the creation of even more types of toothpaste coming out of consumer-products giant Procter & Gamble.

Was Sarah Palin a game-changer (yes, definitely, maybe even a double game-changer, first by putting McCain back in the race and then by dragging him down like a sorefooted sled dog in a Jack London short story turned real-life tragedy)? Was the final presidential debate a game-changer (no, though nobody can remember a damn thing about it)? Was something CNN yapped about at some point or another a game-changer (no)? Was the economic crisis a game-changer? The bailout package? The initial failure to pass the bailout? The unanticipated but thoroughly convincing equation of John McCain with the Penquin from the old Batman TV show? Game-changer, game-changer, game-changer, not a game-changer (but should have been one). At times, it seemed as if Election 2008 was, I don't know, nothing less than a perfect storm of game-changers. Or not.

But now that's all over with and we must ask the question: Will President Obama be a, coff-coff, game-changer?

Plenty of links in the original post.

A tough act to follow

Dissing "smart" growth

Frequent commenter (from back when I could allow comments) "Da Wife" sent along an interesting link on so-called smart growth:

Simply put, smart growth means an end to sprawling, car-oriented suburbia. In its place should rise transit-friendly communities where you can live, play and work.

The province's Places to Grow legislation has made it the new normal in the GTA and communities like Markham Centre are developing in response. But Mr. O'Toole is not impressed.

Q: Has the smart growth idea been around long enough to evaluate it?

A: Yes. California has been doing various versions since the 1970s, Hawaii since the 1960s . . . Are more people riding transit, riding rail because of higher densities? The answer is, no. One per cent of travel is by transit. Maybe 98 per cent is by car.

Has it has any effect on preservation of open space? Well, their urban growth boundaries are preserving marginal pasture land, but it's forcing people to drive 100 miles to build their homes on prime farmland.

It's also making housing very expensive. In Canada, the city that has done the most planning for smart growth is Vancouver, and it has the least affordable housing.

Q: But when you talk about housing prices in a city such as Vancouver, there's also geography and the economy; how high on the list does planning rank?

A: Number one. Seventy per cent of the Vancouver metropolitan area has been ruled off-limits to developers. There's plenty of room for growth if they allowed people to live in those areas. So people are having to accept housing they don't really want.

Most Canadians and Americans agree their preferred form of housing is a single-family home on a lot, where they can have a garden or place for their kids or pets to play.

Q: Is the model we've been living with, with a downtown, suburbs and bedroom communities, outdated?

A: It's definitely outdated. The part that's outdated is the downtown part.

In many metropolitan areas, more than two-thirds of the jobs are not in any kind of centre and that's because we have such good personal transportation, namely automobiles.

We have much a better distribution of jobs and that’s a remedy for congestion.

When we draw an urban boundary, we're saying we're going to deny people access to low cost land. I don't think government knows where people ought to live. I don't think government knows where jobs ought to be.

One of the attractions of "smart growth" policies is that it puts a lot of power in the hands of appointed planners, and keeps it out of the hands of those irresponsible property owners and developers. Bureaucrats almost always believe that they know better than individuals what is best for those individuals. This is the same thing on a larger scale: the government explicitly dictates what kind of land use is going to be allowed (to a finer degree of granularity than existing zoning rules), and there's little or no recourse for the people directly affected by the rules.

Preconceived notions

James Lileks fails the "grumpy Republican" test:

I'm approaching the new administration with a blank slate. I have no desire to walk around frowning in perpetual grumptitude, and it would be intellectually dishonest to prejudge everything that happens before it happens, or see the smallest act in terms of some broad preconceived idea. I thought that was an impressive victory speech, and if someone offers to earn your support, well, take him up on it.

I wasn't fond of Bill Clinton personally — never quite charmed me the way he charmed others, and he seemed to a man of substantial appetites, the most obvious of one was an appetite for attention and approval. In the 80s I HATED Reagan, of course, because he was an IDIOT who wanted to KILL US in a nuclear war for JESUS or whatever we believed so deeply back then. In both cases a personal aversion shaped my reaction to the message. You can make fun of the adulation that has been showered on Obama, and most of it seems silly if you don't have the leg-tingle, but he doesn't give me the Slick Willies. So this will be interesting.

Update: Steve Chapman asks the same question I was asking myself:

The notable aspect of John McCain's concession speech Tuesday night was how different it was from everything coming from his campaign in the months before. It was temperate, generous, and noble in spirit, and it made you wonder: Where has this guy been hiding, and why?

McCain's concession speech was — by far — the best public speaking I've ever heard from him. It was, oddly enough, very reminiscent of Paul Martin's concession speech after the 2006 Canadian election . . . certainly Martin's best speech of the campaign (if he'd spoken as well during the election, he might still be prime minister today). I don't think anything McCain could have done would have seriously changed the outcome of the US elections: the millstone of the Bush administration would have sunk any Republican candidate.

The Brits' wrap-up of their 24 hours of election coverage

The tired, tired crew at 24 hours in America offer their final thoughts on the day:

But before we sign off there's just time for a final look at what we've learnt during this most momentous of days. Things like . . .

- If your state has a girl's name, it's going to stay red.

- Even with fewer than 0.5% of votes counted, it's never too early to tell.

- CNN doesn't have a single attractive contributor. Fox has several but they're all lunatics.

- CNN also trumps the Beeb for breathless rhetoric. 'Breaking history', anyone?

- The Black Panthers still exist.

- But above all we've learned that, given the right candidate, America is still capable of making the right decision and inspiring the world.

Now, can we all get along again?

Yes we can.

Also, if you're not one of the McCain fans sobbing quietly in the corner, check their international reactions post.

Your best choice for live election coverage

Rather than watching ABCNNBCBC, you'll probably find your time better spent obsessively reloading http://2008.24hoursinamerica.com/, where a bunch of snooty Brits pass windy judgement on the whole shebang:

Americans are voting. We are ensconsed in our super-secret day base in London. The election is on.

Across the next 24 hours, we will bring you coverage from the worlds of television, newspaper journalism, twitter, blogging, exclusive Election Night parties from London to Los Angeles, and Jerry Bruckheimer.

Between now and midnight GMT (7pm EST, 4pm PST) when the first polls close, we will be looking back at the campaigns that brought us here, and forward to possible presidencies, potential careers, and trying to figure out what kind of a world Baby Trig will grow up in. From that point onwards we’ll be covering the results as they come in, not only in the Presidential race, but in close, interesting or amusing Senate and Congressional races, and state-wide ballots.

Update: Jesse Walker offers his predictions on finishing positions from third place down:

Third Place: Ralph Nader's name recognition surpasses Bob Barr's, and he's currently outpolling the LP's man by about 2 percentage points. And no one ever went broke underestimating the electoral performance of the Libertarian Party. Nonetheless, if Barr draws mostly from the right and Nader draws mostly from the left — which seems like a reasonable outcome to expect, though there are surveys showing Nader making inroads among right-wing populists — then the Libertarian could come out on top. This time around, there are simply more disaffected conservatives than disaffected liberals out there.

Fifth Place: Chuck Baldwin should top Cynthia McKinney easily. You might at least expect her to do well in Georgia, the state that used to send her to Congress, but the Greens aren't on the ballot there.

Seventh Place: A month ago this would have been an easy call for Alan Keyes. But with Ron Paul's non-campaign polling 4 percent in Montana, he has a shot at it. If McKinney flops badly, he might even make it to sixth.

Last Place: Write-ins aside, I'm expecting Gene Amondson of the Prohibition Party to bring up the rear, despite his catchy campaign slogan: "Vote tradition, vote prohibition!"

Update, the second: Should you care to see results that include Barr, McKinney, and Nader, check C-SPAN.org.

The Ron Paul write-in surge begins

As the votes are still being cast in the rest of the United States, they've already closed the poll in Dixville Notch, New Hampshire.

Barack Obama came up a big winner in the presidential race in Dixville Notch and Hart's Location, N.H., where tradition of having the first Election Day ballots tallied lives on.

Democrat Obama defeated Republican John McCain by a count of 15 to 6 in Dixville Notch, where a loud whoop accompanied the announcement in Tuesday's first minutes. The town of Hart's Location reported 17 votes for Obama, 10 for McCain and two for write-in Ron Paul. Independent Ralph Nader was on both towns' ballots but got no votes.

"I'm not going to say I wasn't surprised," said Obama supporter Tanner Nelson Tillotson, whose name was drawn from a bowl to make him Dixville Notch's first voter.

With 115 residents between them, Dixville Notch and Hart's Location get every eligible voter to the polls beginning at midnight on Election Day. Between them, the towns have been enjoying their first-vote status since 1948.

I don't know if Bob Barr was on the ballot in New Hampshire, but the Ron Paul vote is encouraging.

QotD: Voting and retribution

Listening to my complaints about Obama, a friend of mine in New York asked what alternative I had to recommend her. Since in New York the split for Obama-Biden is roughly 65-29 I told her it didn't matter. She could write in the straight Wiccan ticket if she felt so inclined. (Not a bad platform either, as she duly reminded me: "Do as you will, as long as it harms none.") It wouldn't make any difference, any more than it would in California, where you can vote for Nader or Barr or McKinney and Obama is going to win regardless. In most states in the Union you can write in the Bertie Wooster/Jeeves ticket, and even without your vote Obama-Biden will canter home. So get out there and have fun and don’t feel excessively burdened by responsibility to History — always a left-wing failing.

And wouldn't Barr be the first mustachioed occupant of the White House since Teddy Roosevelt? Even if you don’t like the man, vote the mustache! This would be change we can see. Does that phrase have a vaguely familiar ring? It was what LBJ used to advise his staff during the Great Society build-up: "You've gotta give them change they can see." Meaning bridges, roads, new parks. Apparently the Obama pre-transition team is studying the early days of the New Deal and Great Society programs as thematic precursors for their initial two years — before they lose one house of Congress, I suppose. I like freshman Montana Senator John Tester’s notion of change we’d like to see. Tester said people "want to see the executives that drove Wall Street into the ground in orange suits picking up cans along the side of the road." He's got a hugely popular reception for that thought.

If the new Obama administration has got any sense at all, it'll start planning a series of show trials of the ci-devant Masters of the Universe, now delightedly fingering the billions handed them by Hank Paulson and the US Congress. If they get a veto proof majority the ground work could start in the Senate, in a committee armed with subpoena power. If not, in some Partisan Commission, taking testimony around the country. Or both. This is the moment to fix in the popular mind for the next couple of generations exactly who are the malefactors of great wealth along with their intellectual courtiers. Stake out the battlefield, otherwise the enemy will stake it out for you. For sure, it would be divisive. Division and unity go arm in arm.

Alexander Cockburn, "Change You Can See", Counterpunch, 2008-10-31

The good part of tomorrow's vote

Although the choices offered up by the major parties are dire, there's still one good thing about tomorrow's election: it'll be the end of George Bush's political career. Steve Chapman enumerates the reasons why it'll be good to say goodbye:

Regardless of what the polls say, it's not clear who is going to win the presidential race. But it is clear who is going to lose: George W. Bush. If this contest proves anything, it's that the electorate is sick of him and eager for someone very different.

They might even prefer the candidate they elected in 2000. The one who promised to be "a uniter, not a divider." Who said he would "call for responsibility and try to live it as well." Who said the United States should be "a humble nation." Who faulted Al Gore for plotting to enlarge the government.

That candidate soon became famous for exploiting divisions, refusing to hold himself or his subordinates accountable, letting expenditures soar, and making America synonymous with arrogance in much of the world. Whatever Americans hoped Bush would provide, it's safe to say that an open-ended war, an assault on the Constitution, and an economic panic were not among them.

Election lists, Scalzi style

John Scalzi is busy posting election lists. Here's number 3: Things Sarah Palin Has Shot Or Would Shoot From a Helicopter:

1. Wolves
2. Coyotes
3. Arctic foxes
4. Deer
5. Giraffes
6. Tortoises
7. Dolphins
8. Salmon
9. Katie Couric
10. That son of a bitch that divorced her sister
11. Kittens
12. Whoever made that Photoshopped picture of her in a bikini, holding a rifle
. . .

And don't miss People/Things I Would Vote For President Before I Would Vote For John McCain. Bob Barr made number 2!

Worst economy since . . . 1991?

Matt Welch examines some of the hyperventilation over the current economic crisis:

Finally, a number that could be the worst on record since the Great Dustbowlia, though it's a number of direction, not position, and (just like GDP) when combined with the prior quarter it shows net growth.

I don't mean to minimize the pain here. But as Nick Gillespie pointed out a couple weeks back, "Any comparison with the Depression, which featured an unemployment rate of 25 percent and a contraction in GDP of over 33 percent at its worst moments, strains credulity."

Both the outgoing administration and the incoming one (whichever wins) have been using such inaccurate, scaremongering analogies to justify massive, ill-conceived federal interventions all over the private economy that will likely have profoundly negative long-term consquences in the forms of renewed inflation, managerial inefficiency from central planners, offshoring of capital markets, and what I fear will be the biggest Bubble of them all: Having the federal government guarantee damned near every large financial risk anybody takes. In a world of ever-increasing guarantees, why shouldn't every investor pour maximum money into whatever federally backstopped financial institution is offering the highest rates? And how do you suppose said institution will be able to afford paying out those high winnings? It won't be through sound investments, boyo.

As a confirmed apocalyptic, I continue to expect the sky to fall; but as a stat dweeb I'm just not seeing the elephant tracks. Right now, during our Worst Economic Crisis Since the Great Depression, unemployment is at 6.1 percent, inflation is at 4.9 percent, and GDP shrank 0.3 percent this quarter, though it's still up for the year. I don't see how that even begins to compete with the late-Carter, early-Reagan era, when GDP shrank in both 1980 and 1982, unemployment never dipped below 8 percent from November 1981 to January 1984, and inflation never dipped below 8 percent between September 1978 and January 1982.

Libertarians (both large "L" and small) discuss Barack Obama

In a piece from the November issue of Reason magazine, several libertarians look at what an Obama administration might encounter:

[Virginia Postrel] "The president's power has a face, and Obama's most fervent supporters believe he can repair the world with his face alone. Perhaps they're right, at least for the first month or two. We can only hope that he will respect the multiplicity of American dreams and the unpredictable ways in which their pursuit provides the basis for a better future."

[. . .]

[Brink Lindsay] "Obama, to his great credit, resisted the urge to panic all along. After eight years of George W. Bush and all the damage he has done to American interests and influence in the world, it is vitally important for the next occupant of the White House to be able to face a messy and dangerous world with a clear head. Only Barack Obama is equipped to do that."

[. . .]

[Richard A. Epstein] "Unfortunately, on the full range of economic issues, both large and small, I fear that [Obama's] policies, earnestly advanced, are a throwback to the worst of the Depression-era, big-government policies. Libertarians in general favor flat and low taxes, free trade, and unregulated labor markets. Obama is on the wrong side of all these issues. He adopts a warmed-over vision of the New Deal corporatist state with high taxation, major trade barriers, and massive interference in labor markets. He is also unrepentant in his support of farm subsidies and a vast expansion of the government role in health care. Each of these reforms, taken separately, expands the power of government over our lives. Their cumulative impact could be devastating."

[. . .]

[Jonathan Rauch] "Barack Obama? Not a chance," I said last year, when he announced his candidacy. "Too inexperienced." The last time I was so wrong about a politician was in 1980, when I had the excuse of being 20 years old. "Ronald Reagan? No way. A simpleton."

What I misjudged about Reagan was that he was a deeply substantive man. His ideas were the most important aspect of him. With my record on Obama predictions, I hesitate to try again, but the editors of this fine publication have offered me the price of lunch chez Denny's, so here goes: Obama is the un-Reagan, inasmuch as his ideas are the least important aspect of him.

QotD: Rationalizing your vote

I'm probably going to vote for Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) this year, and my reason is particularly indefensible. It's a straightforward case of reverse racism. For most of my life (beginning, I think, with a broadcast of that paean to racial harmony Brian's Song), I have figured that America should have a black president, and that if such a candidate ever came along who wasn't a complete disaster, I'd vote for him. That moment has arrived, yet it's full of irony: Usually I throw away my vote by betting on some third-party forlorn hope, but this year Obama's lock on California makes my vote especially superfluous and irrelevant.

And the candidate himself comes quite close to being a complete disaster. Obama has taken positions and even — with the slight peevishness of a man who knows he's been singled out by destiny and doesn't see much point in going through the usual channels — documented and supported them. To the extent we can piece together a portrait of the candidate, it's awful. He's a strident anti-trader and industrial-era dead-ender, persuaded that protecting decades-gone jobs in the Midwest is a national responsibility. He will try to enact some version of universal health care. On most issues where he's not worse than Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) — foreign policy, wiretapping, finance — he's just as bad. He may or may not be friendly with too many anti-American jackholes, but he's definitely too friendly with jackholes in general. His budget projections are fanciful. Worst of all, for at least the next two years he will almost certainly have the support of the majority party in Congress.

And yet in a dream, in a Nixon-era fog of progressive uplift, I'm ready to vote for him. And I'm pretty sure my reasons for voting for Obama are no dumber than your reasons for voting for whomever you're voting for.

Tim Cavanaugh, "Don't Vote As I Vote: Everybody's got a reason for voting, and they all stink", Reason Online, 2008-10-28

When the lesser of two evils is still too evil

Jacob Sullum tries to determine which of the two major party candidates qualifies as the "lesser evil":

As we saw during the first six years of the Bush administration, which featured profligate spending and unchecked executive power, the White House and Congress tend to enable each other's excesses when they are controlled by the same party. Since the Democrats are expected not only to retain but to strengthen their grip on the legislative branch, this consideration counts in favor of the Republican nominee.

Another important advantage of a McCain presidency is that he would be more likely than Barack Obama to appoint judges who see their job as interpreting and applying the Constitution, rather than rewriting it to fit their policy preferences. Since the two oldest members of the Supreme Court tend toward the latter approach, McCain could have a chance to make the Court more faithful to the original understanding of the Constitution.

While McCain would be better than Obama in this respect, it's not because he cares much about legal philosophy but because the people advising him would. Likewise on economic issues, where the people McCain consults seem less interventionist and more market-oriented than Obama's advisers. Then again, McCain has cast doubt on the superiority of his economic instincts by condemning "reckless conduct" and "unbridled greed" on Wall Street while backing taxpayer-funded bailouts of reckless and greedy lenders, investors, and borrowers.

So, hold your nose and vote Republican? Maybe not:

With the glaring exception of the Second Amendment, which Obama supports in theory but not in practice, he has a substantially stronger record on civil liberties than McCain does.

Obama is also superior on the related issue of executive power, rejecting Bush's contention that the president may do as he pleases in matters related to terrorism or national security. McCain initially sounded better than Bush on this question, agreeing that the president is obligated to obey the law and renouncing the use of signing statements to evade that obligation. More recently, however, his campaign has indicated that McCain's view of the president's authority is broad enough to permit violation of statutes governing surveillance of people in the United States.

The extent of the president's powers, although hardly mentioned during the general election campaign, is probably the most important consideration in choosing between McCain and Obama.

Either way, it's still an unpalatable choice for limited government fans.

John McCain . . . Karl Rove's instrument?

Ryan Sager examines the hard-to-imagine transition of John McCain from Rove victim to intellectual heir:

Back in 2000, Texas Gov. George W. Bush's political savior, Karl Rove, was performing nothing short of an electoral resurrection, running around South Carolina calling Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) an unpatriotic, illegitimate-black-baby-fathering Manchurian Candidate.

Who could have guessed that eight years later, the senator from Arizona would be dedicating the remainder of his political life to finishing Karl Rove's good works on Earth?

And yet, as McCain runs around the country this fall, calling Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) an unpatriotic, socialistic terrorist-paller-around-with, it seems he's taken it upon himself to complete what should be called the Rove Realignment.

No, not the once-envisioned "rolling realignment," under which the Republican Party would add to its base of white Evangelical Protestants, bringing in Hispanics, culturally conservative African Americans, and economically vulnerable whites — those who supported Medicare Part D and opposed gay marriage in equal measure — to create a "permanent" Republican majority that would last at least a generation.

McCain's working on the other realignment: The one where eight years of fiscal recklessness and cultural warfare alienates swing voters and withers the Republican Party until the very base of the conservative movement cracks in half — splitting a coalition that has endured since the Barry Goldwater campaign of 1964.

Of course, the libertarian wing of the Republican Pary has grown smaller and less influential . . . to the point that most Republicans see them as gadflies or worse. Kicking them out of the GOP must seem like a good idea to those currently running the party.

QotD: Political meddling

[. . .] a worrying trend about the direction America is poised to go during the coming Obamaverse. You might think that the Fannie/Freddie debacle would forever sear the eyeballs of those dreamers who aim to improve society by forcing private or semi-private companies to redirect their activities away from the bottom line and toward the desires of various interest groups, but then you'd be hopelessly naive. Mortgages and endowments ain't the half of it Everywhere you see government contracting you see a fantastical variety of social engineering projects. There are any number of colossal pension funds being tweaked as we speak to fit the political goals of people whose track record with managing money has been, shall we say, suboptimal. In the ongoing financial-market crisis, such politically correct investing may contribute to an awful lot of carnage.

Matt Welch, "You Will Be Mine You Will Be Mine, All Mine", Hit and Run, 2008-10-27

Alexander Cockburn on the Obama candidacy

In a recent column in The Independent, Alexander Cockburn explains his unease with the Barack Obama candidacy:

Obama invokes change. Yet never has the dead hand of the past had a "reform" candidate so firmly by the windpipe. Is it possible to confront America's problems without talking about the arms budget? The Pentagon is spending more than at any point since the end of the Second World War. In "real dollars" — an optimistic concept these days — the $635bn (£400bn) appropriated in fiscal 2007 is 5 per cent above the previous all-time high, reached in 1952. Obama wants to enlarge the armed services by 90,000. He pledges to escalate the US war in Afghanistan; to attack Pakistan's territory if it obstructs any unilateral US mission to kill Osama bin Laden; and to wage a war against terror in a hundred countries, creating a new international intelligence and law enforcement "infrastructure" to take down terrorist networks. A fresh start? Where does this differ from Bush's commitment on 20 September 2001, to an ongoing "war on terror" against "every terrorist group of global reach" and "any nation that continues to harbour or support terrorism"?

Obama's liberal defenders comfort themselves with the thought that "he had to say that to get elected". He didn't. After eight years of Bush, Americans are receptive to reassessing America's imperial role. Obama has shunned this opportunity. If elected, he will be a prisoner of his promise that on his watch Afghanistan will not be lost, nor the white man's burden shirked.

Whatever drawdown of troops in Iraq that does take place in the event of Obama's victory will be a brief hiccup amid the blare and thunder of fresh "resolve". In the event of Obama's victory, the most immediate consequence overseas will most likely be brusque imperial reassertion. Already, Joe Biden, the shopworn poster boy for Israeli intransigence and Cold War hysteria, is yelping stridently about the new administration's "mettle" being tested in the first six months by the Russians and their surrogates. Obama is far more hawkish than McCain on Iran.

After eight years of unrelenting assault on constitutional liberties by Bush and Cheney, public and judicial enthusiasm for tyranny has waned. Obama has preferred to stand with Bush and Cheney. In February, seeking a liberal profile in the primaries, Obama stood against warrantless wiretapping. His support for liberty did not survive for long. Five months later, he voted in favour and declared that "the ability to monitor and track individuals who want to attack the United States is a vital counter-terrorism tool".

As many people have noted, aside from the symbolic positives (first black presidential candidate, first female Republican VP candidate), this is not the American electoral system's finest moment. Neither major candidate brings much substantive difference from the outgoing George Bush administration's foreign policies, and there are more points of agreement between Obama and McCain's domestic policies than differences. In too many ways, votes for both Republican and Democratic tickets really do mean "more of the same, please".

Part four of the social security story: Broken Trust

Worried about the viability of Social Security? Unless you're already collecting it, you should be!

Follow the animated adventures of Sonny, exactly the sort of youth who is set to get screwed by a system designed during The Great Depression, when workers were plenty and retirees rare.

In Episode Four, Sonny learns the big secret of Social Security: That all payroll taxes go into the federal government's general fund and are spent on all sorts of programs and activities that have nothing to do with individuals' retirements.

Is it racist to call someone a socialist?

Michael C. Moynihan responds to an editorial in the Kansas City Star, which tried to pillory John McCain for calling Barack Obama a socialist:

Now let me, as a card-carrying member of the libertarian establishment, say from the outset that while the prospect of an Obama presidency and large Democratic majorities in the House and Senate stimulates my acid reflux, I am optimistic that our presumptive leader will govern more in the style of L.B.J. than Eugene Debs. Thank heaven for small mercies. So yes, I expect the next four years to be pretty grim, but those who foretell massive grain collectivization, the requisition of SUVs, a liquidation campaign against the kulaks, would be advised to take a deep breath.

But buried in these charges of socialism, Diuguid, the Star's in-house racial cryptographer, finds clear racist intent. He explains that "J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI from 1924 to 1972, used the term liberally to describe African Americans who spent their lives fighting for equality." Indeed, "freedom fighters" like "W.E.B. Du Bois, who in 1909 helped found the NAACP which is still the nation's oldest and largest civil rights organization [and] Paul Robeson, a famous singer, actor and political activist who in the 1930s became involved in national and international movements for better labor relations, peace and racial justice . . ."

This is a sort of reverse McCarthyism; the presumption that because an activist was denounced as a 'socialist' he was obviously no such thing. But here Diuguid is, whether out of luck or ignorance, partially correct. Du Bois and Robeson were most certainly not socialists — they were Stalinists.

QotD: The negativity race

In part, the hypocrisy stems from the sincere conviction that one's own hatred and fear are justified because the other side really is evil: Palin would usher in an American Taliban; Obama is a friend to terrorists. (By the way, it is appalling that so many mainstream liberals were willing to embrace the unrepentant Ayers — but it's hardly better for mainstream conservatives to "pal around" with Watergate conspirator G. Gordon Liddy, who once plotted to murder his fellow Americans and more recently counseled gun owners to shoot federal agents in the head.)

Many people who are tired of the mudslinging can't wait for the election to be over. But Nov. 4 is unlikely to bring much relief. The dogs of war are loose, and they won't be easy to leash. If, as seems likely, Obama is elected, a large number of people on the right will see him as a stealth radical who won thanks to media bias and rampant voter fraud. If McCain pulls off a surprise upset, at least as many people on the left will blame racism, Republican dirty tricks or both—and some will regard the results as proof that the right-wing cabal behind Bush will never let go of power. Either way, a substantial minority of Americans will see themselves as living under an illegitimate and evil regime.

And that's more frightening than the economic crisis.

Cathy Young, "The Campaign Turns Nasty: American voters deserve better than this vicious squabble", Reason Online, 2008-10-22

The toxic endorsement game

John McCain gets the nod from those noted election fans, Al Qaida:

Al-Qaida supporters suggested in a Web site message this week they would welcome a pre-election terror attack on the U.S. as a way to usher in a McCain presidency.

The message was posted Monday on the password-protected al-Hesbah Web site. It says if al-Qaida wants to exhaust the United States militarily and economically, "impetuous" Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain is the better choice.

It says that's because he's more likely to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The strange, unlamented death of libertarianism

Jacob Weisberg says the final rites over the corpse of libertarian theory, based on how badly the situation has become due to the Bush administration's total devotion to radical libertarianism:

A source of mild entertainment amid the financial carnage has been watching libertarians scurrying to explain how the global financial crisis is the result of too much government intervention rather than too little. One line of argument casts as villain the Community Reinvestment Act, which prevents banks from "redlining" minority neighborhoods as not creditworthy. Another theory blames Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for causing the trouble by subsidizing and securitizing mortgages with an implicit government guarantee. An alternative thesis is that past bailouts encouraged investors to behave recklessly in anticipation of a taxpayer rescue.

There are rebuttals to these claims and rejoinders to the rebuttals. But to summarize, the libertarian apologetics fall wildly short of providing any convincing explanation for what went wrong. The argument as a whole is reminiscent of wearying dorm-room debates that took place circa 1989 about whether the fall of the Soviet bloc demonstrated the failure of communism. Academic Marxists were never going to be convinced that anything that happened in the real world could invalidate their belief system. Utopians of the right, libertarians are just as convinced that their ideas have yet to be tried, and that they would work beautifully if we could only just have a do-over of human history. Like all true ideologues, they find a way to interpret mounting evidence of error as proof that they were right all along.

To which the rest of us can only respond, Haven't you people done enough harm already? We have narrowly avoided a global depression and are mercifully pointed toward merely the worst recession in a long while. This is thanks to a global economic meltdown made possible by libertarian ideas. I don't have much patience with the notion that trying to figure out how we got into this mess is somehow unacceptably vicious and pointless — Sarah Palin's view of global warming. As with any failure, inquest is central to improvement. And any competent forensic work has to put the libertarian theory of self-regulating financial markets at the scene of the crime.

Remember all those Bush appointees waving their copies of Murray Rothbard's For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto and Hayek's The Road to Serfdom, while abolishing vast chunks of the federal government, ordering the mass withdrawals of American troops from all foreign lands, and selling off millions and millions of federal properties? Yeah, me neither.

How did those long-standing bastions of New Deal-era socialism, Fannie and Freddie, survive the gutting of all government involvement in the economy?

The answer is, of course, that George Bush is about as far away from a libertarian true believer as you could be without requiring people to refer to you as "Der Führer" or "Dear Leader" or "Big Brother". Big government projects? Check. Massive military spending? Check. Meddling in the free markets? Check. Vast increases in all kinds of regulation? Check. Imposition of further restrictions on individual freedom? Check.

Jeffrey Miron does the heavy lifting to refute Weisberg's bizzare notion that libertarians had anything to do with the current financial mess:

Whatever one's views of libertarian policies, the incontrovertible fact is that the U.S. has not pursued such policies. Not in the past 10 years. Not in the past century. Indeed, except for a brief moment before Alexander Hamilton engineered the first U.S. bailout of financial markets, not ever. If the U.S. had truly been the "Libertarian Land" that Weisberg alleges, a huge range of policies that have helped fuel the current situation would have been radically different.

In Libertarian Land, banks would not be chartered, defined, and regulated by government, as they have been in the U.S. for over 150 years. In particular, banks would have the right to "suspend convertibility," meaning they could tell depositors, "Sorry, you can't have all your money back right now," during banks runs that threatened bank solvency. This is precisely what banks did in key financial panics during the pre-Fed period, when suspension was illegal but tolerated or encouraged by regulators. By so doing, banks reduced the spread of panics and solvent but illiquid banks did not fail in large numbers.

In Libertarian Land, the Federal Reserve would never have been created. This means the Fed could not have turned a normal recession into the Great Depression by failing to stem a huge decline in the money supply. This decline and the related bank failures occurred because the Fed's existence was taken as indication that banks could not, or should not, suspend convertibility, as they had done successfully in the past. Thus in Libertarian Land, the Great Depression would probably not have occurred.

Update: I should also have linked to Matt Welch's round-up of reactions to Weisberg's article.

Economic vain hopes

Jacob Sullum makes an excellent point in regard to the exaggerated hopes (at least on the part of Obama-favouring media pundits) for job creation if Barack Obama is elected:

[Many Americans] probably will be disappointed, because Obama seems to view job creation not only as something the government does with taxpayers' money but as an end in itself. That's a recipe for wasteful spending that will divert resources from more productive uses and ultimately result in lower employment than would otherwise occur.

Obama says he will "transform the challenge of global climate change into an opportunity to create 5 million new green jobs," which he likens to the economic activity triggered by the personal computer. This way of looking at climate change is a variation on the broken window fallacy, according to which the loss caused by a smashed window is offset by the employment it gives the glazier.

By the same logic, Obama should view war, crime, and hurricanes as opportunities to create jobs. All three generate economic activity, but we'd be better off if the resources spent on bombs, burglar alarms, and reconstruction were available for other purposes, instead of being used to inflict, prevent, or recover from losses.

Almost as a throw-away introduction to the article, Sullum also points out that the turmoil in the real estate and banking sectors has not directly impacted other sectors of the economy yet:

Despite all the facile comparisons between the current economic situation and the conditions that preceded the Great Depression, the most recent figures show GDP continuing to grow, with unemployment at a historically modest 6.1 percent.

It must be remembered that all economic data is collected after the fact, so that what we think of as the "current" numbers are only indicating the situation from one to three months earlier.

The "Tate" of the union address

An interview with meaningful impact. Brilliant delivery.

The deeper meaning of Palin's SNL appearance

Greg Beato looks beyond the surface of Sarah Palin's appearance on Saturday Night Live:

Like Patty Hearst brandishing a semi-automatic carbine during a SLA bank robbery, Sarah Palin didn't actually do much during her celebrated appearance on Saturday Night Live this weekend. But it was a shocking tableau nonetheless. After mocking Palin relentlessly for the last month, the liberal terrorists at SNL actually kidnapped the vice presidential candidate, brainwashed her, and made her complicit in their crimes against democracy.

Is it time, perhaps, to get serious about the War on Punchlines? Surely it must have been tough for conservatives to watch Palin's uncharacteristically docile performace; instead of Sarah Barracuda, she was Miss Congeniality, reduced to accepting smarmy compliments from Alec Baldwin. But she was there on her own accord, apparently without preconditions. And however much one might want to rail about the show's liberal bias and its double standard—would Barack Obama have been treated so dismissively?—it ultimately makes the most sense to simply treat late-night comedians like late-night comedians—and that means realizing they're exempt from journalistic notions of fairness and balance.

Update: Welcome, New York Times readers! Do feel free to look around, but you'll quickly figure out that this is just a quotation from a longer piece by Greg at Hit and Run. I recommend you go there for the rest of his post.

The Powell Endorsement

I'm still out on a brief wine-tasting trip (hence the lack of posts for the past couple of days), but I thought this article at Hit and Run was worth linking:

[When it comes to] Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama, sometimes I wonder if some people have any sort of memory, particularly the journalists now playing up this story as if the messiah had spoken.

That's not to say there is no story here; Powell is a stalwart of the Republican establishment and one of the few, far too few, African-Americans who until now has had a genuinely good chance of becoming president of the United States. My problem is that he is a man on whom the establishment has bestowed the title of foreign policy sage, when in fact he proved to be one of the most mediocre secretaries of state in recent memory, in a field including such nullities as Madeleine Albright, Warren Christopher, and the opportunistic but hollow Condoleezza Rice.

Why on earth do we listen to Colin Powell? When he was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff he opposed George H.W. Bush's decision to remove Iraqi forces from Kuwait militarily, even though the decision was ultimately a sound one. At the end of his term as chairman he advocated a disastrous U.S. operation in Somalia, contradicting his own near unworkable conditions for overseas intervention, the so-called "Powell Doctrine." As secretary of state under George W. Bush, the first item on his agenda was a botched effort to impose "smart sanctions" on Iraq. Powell visited Damascus to persuade President Bashar Assad to end illicit cross-border trade between Iraq and Syria, which was providing vital economic oxygen to Saddam Hussein's regime. Assad promised Powell he would, then ignored that promise, embarrassing the secretary early in his stewardship.

Episode 3: Policy Warrior

"Worried about the viability of Social Security? Unless you're already collecting it, you should be! Follow the animated adventures of Sonny, exactly the sort of youth who is set to get screwed by a system designed during The Great Depression, when workers were plenty and retirees rare. In Epsiode 3, "Policy Warrior," Sonny, John McCain, and Barack Obama compete in various game show contest and learn that a few tweaks aren't going to save anybody's retirement account."

Damian Penny resigns from the right wing

No, not really. But to many rabid McCain fans among the Canadian right, it's almost the same thing:

. . . even if you agree with many of the Bush Administration's foreign policies, you can't deny that the rest of the world will be more receptive to a Democratic President than another Republican. I'm uneasy about Obama's position on Iraq, but as Mark has noted several times on this site, the Senator from Illinois appears committed to Afghanistan. And if that conflict becomes "Obama's war," I believe you'll see America's (and Canada's) allies redouble their efforts.

I still like and respect John McCain, and I even believe Sarah Palin has much to offer once she gets more years of experience under her belt. (Memo to the Trig troofers: I'm endorsing Obama despite you creeps, not because of you.) Ideally, the GOP would control the Senate and/or the House, to keep Obama in check. There's no hope for that in 2008, but the mid-term elections are only two years away. For that long, at least, I'm willing to give him a chance.

Boy, am I going to hear it for this one . . .

Not being a paid-up member of the "right" (that is, I'm not a Conservative), it'll surprise few of you that I completely understand Damian's position. While I wouldn't vote for Obama while there was still a chance to vote for Bob Barr or Ron Paul, I'd much rather see someone other than John McCain as president. President Obama might well be the second coming of Herbert Hoover or Jimmy Carter, but President McCain would be the spiritual heir of William Henry Harrison . . .

If the blog disappears later today it will be because my virtual landlord has "evicted" me . . . he's a huge Sarah Palin fan.

QotD: That's gonna leave a mark

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez mocked George W. Bush as a "comrade" on Wednesday, saying the U.S. president was a hard-line leftist for his government's intervention of major private banks in the U.S. financial crisis.

Chavez, who calls capitalism an evil and ex-Cuban leader Fidel Castro his mentor, ridiculed Bush for his plan for the federal government to take equity in American banks despite the U.S. right-wing's criticism of Venezuelan nationalizations.

"Bush is to the left of me now," Chavez told an audience of international intellectuals debating the benefits of socialism. "Comrade Bush announced he will buy shares in private banks."

"Reporting by Patricia Rondon; Writing by Saul Hudson; Editing by Anthony Boadle", "Chavez says 'Comrade Bush' turns left in crisis", Reuters, 2008-10-15

Planning an escape to Canada?

Brilliant, just brilliant.

H/T to Diogenes Borealis (by way of SDA).

Christopher Buckley, official heretic

Christopher Buckley is no longer an employee at National Review, the conservative magazine founded by his father. It's not for corruption, drunkenness, debauchery, or even badly written columns. It's because he's endorsed Obama:

I had gone out of my way in my Beast endorsement to say that I was not doing it in the pages of National Review, where I write the back-page column, because of the experience of my colleague, the lovely Kathleen Parker. Kathleen had written in NRO that she felt Sarah Palin was an embarrassment. (Hardly an alarmist view.) This brought 12,000 livid emails, among them a real charmer suggesting that Kathleen's mother ought to have aborted her and tossed the fetus into a dumpster. I didn't want to put NR in an awkward position.

Since my Obama endorsement, Kathleen and I have become BFFs and now trade incoming hate-mails. No one has yet suggested my dear old Mum should have aborted me, but it's pretty darned angry out there in Right Wing Land. One editor at National Review — a friend of 30 years — emailed me that he thought my opinions "cretinous." One thoughtful correspondent, who feels that I have "betrayed" — the b-word has been much used in all this — my father and the conservative movement generally, said he plans to devote the rest of his life to getting people to cancel their subscriptions to National Review. But there was one bright spot: To those who wrote me to demand, "Cancel my subscription," I was able to quote the title of my father's last book, a delicious compendium of his NR "Notes and Asides": Cancel Your Own Goddam Subscription.

Within hours of my endorsement appearing in The Daily Beast it became clear that National Review had a serious problem on its hands. So the next morning, I thought the only decent thing to do would be to offer to resign my column there. This offer was accepted — rather briskly! — by Rich Lowry, NR's editor, and its publisher, the superb and able and fine Jack Fowler. I retain the fondest feelings for the magazine that my father founded, but I will admit to a certain sadness that an act of publishing a reasoned argument for the opposition should result in acrimony and disavowal.

Proving, if it needed further proof, that conservatives can lose their cool just as gracelessly as liberals . . . and at equal speed.

I can easily understand someone holding generally conservative views still being unable to endorse McCain: he's not conservative in the majority of his opinions, and he's dismayingly populist where he's not alarmingly authoritarian. Obama is no prize for the small government fan, but the differences between him and McCain may well lead wavering conservatives to stay away from the polls or even pull the lever for "the opposition" rather than the devil they know all too well (because nobody would want to "waste their votes" by voting for Bob Barr, right?).

US Healthcare: the Gillespie Plan

The keynotes of the last debate

Radley Balko watched last night's presidential debate (I had better things to do . . . like sleeping). Some of his observations:

McCain was much stronger than last time, and may well have won on points. But debates aren’t about debating skill, or even public policy. They’re about likability and not screwing up. I suspect the image most voters will take away is that of an angry, cantankerous old man with clear contempt for his opponent debating a young, articulate, good-looking guy who smiled and appeared gracious. Obama wins.

Obama’s answer on the "Obama Doctrine" sounded like it was written by Sarah Palin. He clearly didn’t have an answer about what criteria he’d use in determining which humanitarian crises are worthy of U.S. military force. He was all over the place. What we’re left is, then, is, "Iraq never posed a threat to the security of the United States. Which is why we should have sent troops to Darfur, instead."

[. . .]

The most depressing part of the night for me was watching CNN’s real-time reaction from undecided Ohio voters. When Obama promised health care for everyone, promised that you could also keep your employer-sponsored health-care, promised to do all of this and bring health care costs down (he really must be Jesus), and capped it all off with a pledge to maintain the current system of employer-sponsored health care, his ratings were off the charts. The Ohio group gave McCain his strongest marks when he promised to buy up all the troubled mortgages. Is there any way to pull off this "democracy" thing without using actual voters?

[. . .]

The choices last night on foreign policy: Four years of lots more small wars versus four years of a couple more big wars.

That last point is the nail in the coffin for any hopes of a less-interventionist US foreign policy. Not that it was a healthy, robust hope before the debate, of course.

Don't vote . . . it only encourages them

Remember, no matter who you vote for . . . the government always gets in.

The world's greatest bailout body

Michael Flynn discusses the "secret history of the bailout bill":

The Senate is overly fond of referring to itself as the "world's greatest deliberative body." Barely 48 hours after the House rejected the Treasury's bailout plan, the august body took a previously passed House bill mandating that insurance companies cover mental health benefits, added in the core $700 billion bailout, laced in money for rural school districts and disaster relief, expanded FDIC deposit insurance coverage, and topped it off with over $150 billion in old and new tax breaks for businesses, individuals in high-income states, individuals living in states without an income tax, and various interests such as wooden-arrow makers and film production crews. GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, almost choking back tears after the Chamber passed the 451-page monster, said it was the Senate "at its finest." The Age of Pericles this ain't.

I'll leave it to others to comment on this mother-of-all-Christmas tree bills. The bulk of the Senate legislation is essentially the same as that rejected by the House. It authorizes the Treasury Department to use $700 billion to buy up bad loans. Certain banks get cleaner balance sheets immediately and the feds supposedly will minimize the risk to taxpayers by selling the bad loans when the market "stabilizes" and the prices of the loans have improved.

To paraphrase Mencken, this solution is neat, plausible, and wrong. The first failing is something that is only now being openly stated: Treasury expects to pay some unknown premium above any current market price for mortgage-backed securities (MBS). We don't know what the premium will be nor how it will be determined. Well, in a sense we do. It will mostly be determined by politics, not economics. This is the foundational flaw in the Treasury plan.

QotD: Redefining "market failure"

In an interview with The Los Angeles Times editorial board last December, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson made clear that he defined "market failure" as any instance in which investors, including home owners, lost money. In discussing various grand plans to buoy the economy, Paulson said, "What we're doing is avoiding a market failure that would have forced housing values down in a way that was not in the investors' interest, and in a way that the market wasn't intended to work."

You can read more of that exchange here, where it's reprinted in a recent reason column by Tim Cavanaugh. It's a pretty stunning and open admission of how Paulson conceives his job. Basically, his job is to maintain or increase prices, period. He doesn't want to oversee a market that acts as a discovery process because, as Dr. Zaius, the patron saint of all great Platonic experts, could tell you, "You may not like what you find." Indeed, you might find that you misunderestimated what people think your crap is worth (has Paulson, one wonders, ever gone to a garage sale, that ultimate testing ground of the subjective theory of value?).

So Paulson wants to socialize losses by the investing class with his economic PATRIOT Act, a hasty, hurried, and not-clearly-warranted piece of legislation that will somehow manage to change everything without addressing basic incentives in the financial sector (other than underscoring the idea that the American economy is too big to fail, so the feds will oddly bail it out in the name of capitalism).

Nick Gillespie, "The Fearsome Fear of a Looming Recession", Hit and Run, 2008-10-01

QotD: Don't panic (yet)

No matter how many times you'll hear it said over the next several awful days in Washington, this is not a binary choice between Henry Paulson's re-regulatory bailout and Great Depression 2.0. The 1930s will never happen again, thanks to a whole host of innovations and insights over the past seven decades. And even though the current mortgage-backed securities crisis is undeniably beginning to leak out from Wall Street, I'll reserve the kind of panic Bush seems eager to foment until maybe the economy actually stops growing, unemployment actually gets within shouting distance of Reagan-era levels, and the stock market does something scarier than fluctuate a whole lot.

As the participants in our June 2008 roundtable on the economy (including Donald Boudreaux, Ron Paul, and Megan McArdle) repeatedly pointed out, the one thing that may speed and deepen a so-far-nonexistent recession into something worse is the same kind federal overreaction that put the "great" in the Great Depression in the first place. I would have thought we'd all learned our lessons since then, but tonight's speech really hit home that it's no longer safe to take for granted any market literacy whatsoever.

Matt Welch, "The Four-Paragraph White Flag", Hit and Run, 2008-09-24

Amusing "Cease and Desist" notice

John Scalzi links to this NSFW cease-and-desist notice that may or may not be actually from Ann & Nancy Wilson to John McCain:

Cease and Desist, You Old Fart

Dear John McCain,

When we first learned your campaign was using our admittedly awesome 1977 classic "Barracuda" to introduce your terrifying joke of a running mate, we tried to be civil. As we wrote in our press release, "The Republican campaign did not ask for permission, nor would they have been granted that permission. We have asked the Republican campaign publicly not to use our music."

It gets a bit, um, earthier from that point onwards.

QotD: The invisible (back)hand

The hidden hand did well this month punishing stupidity. But libertarians committed to free markets, not corporate oligarchs, must pause to consider the need for field-leveling regulation. More precisely, we should ask whether there was sufficient enforcement of reasonable restraints already in place. We need Republicans to stand against excessive tinkering in markets, of course. But my modest retirement fund may be safer with Democratic regulators in charge than rogue elephants.

Terry Michael, "The Libertarian Case for Obama: Seven potential upsides to a hope-monger presidency", Hit and Run, 2008-09-19

QotD: The state-supported wing of Feminism

Mrs. Palin's marriage actually makes her a terrific role model. One of the best choices a woman can make if she wants a career and a family is to pick a partner who will be able to take on equal or primary responsibility for child-rearing. Our culture still harbors a lingering perception that such men are less than manly — and who better to smash that stereotype than "First Dude" Todd Palin?

Nevertheless, when Sarah Palin offered a tribute to her husband in her Republican National Convention speech, New York Times columnist Judith Warner read this as a message that she is "subordinate to a great man." Perhaps the message was a brilliant reversal of the old saw that behind every man is a great woman: Here, the great woman is out in front and the great man provides the support. Isn't that real feminism?

Not to Ms. Marsh, who insists that feminism must demand support for women from the government. In this worldview, advocating more federal subsidies for institutional day care is pro-woman; advocating tax breaks or regulatory reform that would help home-based care providers — preferred by most working parents — is not. Trying to legislate away the gender gap in earnings (which no self-respecting economist today blames primarily on discrimination) is feminist. Expanding opportunities for part-time and flexible jobs is "the Republican Party line."

I disagree with Sarah Palin on a number of issues, including abortion rights. But when the feminist establishment treats not only pro-life feminism but small-government, individualist feminism as heresy, it writes off multitudes of women.

Of course, being a feminist role model is not part of the vice president's job description, and there are legitimate questions about Mrs. Palin's qualifications. And yet, like millions of American women — and men — I find her can-do feminism infinitely more liberated than the what-can-the-government-do-for-me brand espoused by the sisterhood.

Cathy Young, "Why Feminists Hate Sarah Palin", Opinion Journal, 2008-09-15

A libertarian case for McCain?

Matt Welch, author of the anti-McCain tome McCain: Myth of a Maverick (now out in paperback), tries to find the glimmerings of libertarian hopes if McCain is elected:

Lord knows, there is a libertarian case to be made against John McCain. Whether it's his hyper-interventionist foreign policy, disregard for constitutional liberties and individualism, or his up-front opposition to "the 'leave us alone' libertarian philosophy that dominated Republican debates in the 1990s," the 2008 Republican nominee has drawn fire from many free-marketeers through (as the Club for Growth has put it), his "philosophical ambivalence, if not hostility, about limited government and personal freedom."

But it would be inaccurate at best to claim that a McCain presidency offers zero potential upside for libertarians. After two years of studying the Arizona senator's habits (and coming to mostly critical conclusions), I can identify seven plausible reasons why a limited-government type might consider voting for the guy, even if I for one won't. Each reason, as you'll see, has as least one serious caveat.

Update, 20 September: Terry Michael tries to make the libertarian case for Barack Obama:

For those who recognize that "libertarian Democrat" is no more oxymoronic than "libertarian Republican," a solid case can be made for Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) as a Leader of the Free World who won't take that American Exceptionalism conceit as seriously as "Country First" Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

Sure, we'll have to endure four or even eight years of warbling by Barbra Streisand at White House dinners. And I am under no illusions: Obama has more Populist-Progressive than Madisonian inclinations. But, guys and gals, Ms. Wasilla is no less stomach-churning than Babs. And the actual Republican presidential candidate is even more authoritarian than his Progressive hero, Teddy Roosevelt. John McCain is no friend of Friedman.

Thus, seven reasons libertarians can hope for the best from Obama.

A fisking! A fisking!

James Lileks indulges in a bit of fisking:

Anything in the Sarah-Palin-is-the-fifth-horsewoman-of-the-apocalypse-and-hence-rides-sidesaddle department? Well, there's this from the New Yorker:

There are two kinds of folks: Élites and Regulars. Why people love Sarah Palin is, she is a Regular. . .

Where was I? Ah, ye: I hate Élites. Which is why, whenever I am having brain surgery, or eye surgery, which is sometimes necessary due to all my non-blinking, I always hire some random Regular guy, with shaking hands if possible, who is also a drunk, scared of the sight of blood, and harbors a secret dislike for me.

Sigh. Well, let's turn that around. I need a plumber, so naturally I call up a professor who specializes in Roman aqueducts, because what I really need when the faucet is broken is someone who can place it in the context of the ancients' understanding of fluid dynamics and potable-water storage systems.

The term "elitist" does not mean a smart person with an area of expertise. It means a person who occupies a narrow stratum of society, usually academic — although people in think-tanks who view the world through steepled fingers qualify as well — whose Olympian perspective is usually predicated on a set of assumptions about people tinged with equal parts indulgent condescension and faint amusement, as an anthropologist might bring to the study of a Cargo Cult. It also confuses proximity to the Washington Monument with access to truth.

The McCain campaign's dishonesty

Steve Chapman wonders why the McCain campaign is determined to push dishonest statements instead of addressing the facts:

Why does McCain insist on running such a mendacious campaign? There is plenty an honest conservative might say in opposition to Obama: He's wrong about Iraq. He's wrong about Iran. He's wrong about offshore oil drilling. He wants to raise taxes. He favors abortion on demand. He would appoint liberal judges. He would impede school reform.

But McCain has concluded that a fact-based case about Obama isn't enough to prevail in November. So he has chosen to smear his opponent with ridiculous claims that he thinks the American people are gullible enough to believe.

He has charged repeatedly that his opponent is willing to lose a war to win an election. What's McCain willing to lose to become president? Nothing so consequential as a war. Just his soul.

And my favourite comment from the article: "McCain may be the only candidate who has ever gotten in trouble with FactCheck.org for quoting FactCheck.org."

Update: There's also the concern expressed by Radley Balko about McCain's attempt to suppress a pertinent news story:

So here we have a U.S. senator who tried to destroy the guy who blew the whistle on his wife's crimes, who then used his political power to work out a sweetheart deal with prosecutors to get his wife a slap on the wrist for those crimes (which often send others to prison), and who has then spent his entire career fighting for longer sentences and less leniency for people who commit similar crimes. And he's now running for president.

How can Rubin argue with a straight face that this isn't a legitimate story?

McCain using Muhammed Ali's famous "rope-a-dope" tactic?

Mark Steyn seems to think that John McCain's master strategy for the media is similar to Muhammed Ali's rope-a-dope technique:

Maybe it is. A conventional launch strategy for a little-known vice-presidential nominee might have involved "manipulating" the media into running umpteen front-pagers on Sarah Palin's amazing primary challenge of a sitting governor and getting the sob-sisters to slough off a ton of heartwarming stories about her son shipping out to Iraq.

But, if you were really savvy, you'd "manipulate" the media into a stampede of lurid drivel deriding her as a Stepford wife and a dominatrix, comparing her to Islamic fundamentalists, Pontius Pilate and porn stars, and dismissing her as a dysfunctional brood mare who can't possibly be the biological mother of the kid she was too dumb to abort. Who knows? It's a long shot, but if you could pull it off, a really cunning media manipulator might succeed in manipulating Howie's buddies into spending the month after Labor Day outbidding each other in some insane Who Wants To Be An Effete Condescending Media Snob? death-match. You'd not only make the press look like bozos, but that in turn might tarnish just a little the fellow these geniuses have chosen to anoint.

The Palin interview

Nick Gillespie reviews the Sarah Palin interview with ABC:

Based on the bits I saw, and the incredibly tedious, partisan commentary on last night's yak shows, I'd say Palin easily passed the Quayle test (that is, she didn't completely bomb) but failed to rise far enough above that baseline to completely silence critics (as she did with her GOP convention speech). Shockingly, the folks in the tank for the GOP said she was great, and the Dem types thought she was stunningly bad (she clearly flubbed more than a few answers); the big fooferaw coming out this will be whether Gibson deliberately misrepresented various on-a-mission-from-God quotes, which will focus the post-interview debate on media bias (a win for the GOP).

If nothing else, this interview may signal a shift back to discussing the top of the tickets, though last night's national service-a-thon forum with McBama was a grimly awful affair whose basic premise — ask not what your country can do for you but what you can be forced to do for your country — should remind libertarians and liberty-loving folks everywhere just how few people get the whole freedom-from-serving-in-other-people's-grand-schemes point of this country.

QotD: Non-mainstream candidates

I doubt anything concrete will come out of this press conference (other than the damage to Bob Barr among what ought to be his strongest supporters). But the event reflects something interesting and valuable that's happening out there in the ideological long tail, a collection of conversations that cross the ordinary political lines. In essence, two leftists and a paleocon just held a press conference to say, "We're listening to the libertarian." They did this because actual leftists and actual paleocons are listening to libertarians. And even third-party candidates — or some of them, anyway — have sharp enough political instincts to respond to their constituencies.

Jesse Walker, "The Radical Center", Hit and Run, 2008-09-10

Scalzi gently admonishes the Democrats who are "losing it" over Palin

John Scalzi tries to calm down the folks who are doing their very best Chicken Little imitations over Sarah Palin:

Dear Democrats, liberals and the like:

I know it's a lot to ask at the moment, but could you possibly please stop publicly losing your shit all over the goddamn place? Honestly, it's embarrassing. Did you really not know that coming out of the GOP convention, the GOP candidate might have a poll bounce? Likewise, were you somehow surprised that the GOP might try very hard to make this campaign about something other than actual issues? Did you expect them to try to run on the last eight years, or even pretend that they own them? What the fuck is wrong with you?

No, seriously: What the fuck is wrong with you? The GOP picks a woman VP 24 years after you do, for the same goddamn reason you did (a contentless call to shore up a shrinking base), and you act like you've never seen this movie before? I just don't know what to say to you about that. Also: squirting yourself messy over a vice presidential candidate. Good fucking gravy, how off the fucking script can you possibly get.

QotD: Modern Feminism

But what I learned at the knee of my 1970s feminist, name-hyphenating, here-honey-why-don't-you-put-down-that-doll-and-play-with-this-truck mother was that feminism is about seeing female humans as more than just uterus-bearing beings. And that's the kind of feminist I have become. Maybe that's why I find all the feminist hysteria around the uteri of the Palin women so confusing. And that's why I don't think abortion should be the alpha and omega of female political discourse.

To me, this means that the kind of powerful woman who inspires a (hilarious) website like Sarah Palin Facts should have some claim to respect from feminists both for her joke accomplishments — "Little known fact: Jesus has a bracelet that says, 'WWSPD?' " She's a role model! "Sarah Palin can divide by zero." She's good at math! "Sarah Palin's image already appears on the newer nickels." She's on U.S. legal tender! — and for her real ones.

Truth be told, I haven't been tracking feminist hermeneutics too closely. I'm sure you'd agree, Amanda, that encouraging strong female role models is an important part of feminism. But in a world where mainstream feminists almost unanimously backed Bill Clinton during the Paula Jones scandal and now excoriate McCain for choosing Palin, I'm not totally clear on what feminism entails — if not simply support for the Democratic Party.

Katharine Mangu-Ward, "The search continues for the elusive pro-Palin feminist", LA Times, 2008-09-10

"Respect[ing] the Constitution only when it's convenient"

Jacob Sullum finds some odd juxtapositions within the Republican platform:

The Republican platform unveiled last week notes in passing that "the Constitution assigns the federal government no role in local education." Yet the same document offers opinions on all manner of local educational issues, including the virtues of phonics, the evils of sex education, the wisdom of merit pay for teachers, and the folly of social promotion.

That contradiction illustrates the hollowness of the Republican commitment to "constrain the federal government to its legitimate constitutional functions." The Republicans (like the Democrats) respect the Constitution only when it's convenient.

You might say that's old news. Yet while campaigning for president in 1980, Ronald Reagan promised to abolish the Department of Education. So did Bob Dole in 1996. After two terms of a Republican president who proudly charged in the opposite direction, the most John McCain can muster is a promise to "identify and eliminate ineffective programs" — that is, to make unconstitutional activities more efficient.

CBC's Heather Mallick considers the Republican VP candidate

Linked from Small Dead Animals, a quick summary of Heather Mallick's latest even-handed analysis of the Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin:

...Sarah Palin ... fit of pique ... the white trash vote ... sexual inadequates ... she isn't even female really ... Alaska hillbilly ... "white trash" ... trailer trash ... rural, loud, proudly unlettered ... toned-down version of the porn actress ... overtreated hair, puffy lips ... "pramface" ... roughneck fuckin' redneck ... prodding his daughter ... ratboy ... fizzing with rage and revenge ... vicious and profoundly dishonest ... good fast listing... nervous wreck with deeply strange hair ... the hick vote ... ordinary hillbilly ... racism? ... racism ... "rectal fissure" ... tense no-hoper ladies ... white female marginals ...

Original article here. Canada's tax-supported national broadcaster. Incredible/Incroyable.

Update, 10 September: James Lileks indulges in an old-fashioned Fisking on this first authenticated Canadian case of Palin Derangement Syndrome:

Hapless, confused old tool of the string yankers: check! Next, we see how it’s possible to put your head up your posterior while jerking your knee, a rather difficult maneuver they don’t teach until the fifth year of yoga class:

She added nothing to the ticket that the Republicans didn't already have sewn up, the white trash vote

Classism blended with instant clueless political analysis? Check and check. Palin added several things, including an appeal to some women and enthusiasm for a race that had come to see McCain as another Dole, right down to the war-related arm injuries. (Which are a sign of age and unfitness, of course; if a Young and Dymanic candidate had developed carpal tunnel syndrome from shaking hands or repeatedly patting himself on the back, supporters would wear slings in sympathy.) She continues to brass-band her white-trash point thus:

. . . the demographic that sullies America's name inside and outside its borders yet has such a curious appeal for the right.

Leaving aside whether Europe would like us more if we did something about those horrible people they see in "The Dukes of Hazzard" documentaries, you have to love the idea of the "white trash" demo sullying our name inside our borders — she's talking about the thin crust of coastal dwellers who regard Manhattan as some sort of precious monastery that keeps the dim flickering light of civilization alive. Why, if the hillbillies disappeared, the New Yorkers would be reduced to making disparaging remarks about people from New Jersey who take the bridges and tunnels to go clubbing in LowSoHo or MoTriVil or whatever old neighborhood has been fitted out with thudding discos and fusion-sushi joints.

Why does this demographic — the white trash, I mean, not the orange trash of the Guido Jersey interlopers — have such a "curious appeal" to the right? Because the right, perhaps, thinks of them as "voters" who cast "ballots" in "elections" for people to don't consider rhinoplasty so they can look down their noses even further than God intended.

PM tries to cozy up to the Obama campaign

There's a good reason for politicians to avoid commenting on election races in other countries . . . no matter what you say, or how you say it, it'll always come back to hurt you. This is why comedians love to get foreign politicians to make silly remarks about local politics. I can't believe that Stephen Harper let himself be quoted saying anything about the ongoing US elections:

Stephen Harper has let the world in on a little secret — he thinks Democrat Barack Obama has the edge in the race for the White House.

"I've been following it very closely," the prime minister observed Sunday as he bantered with reporters just before his own campaign plane took off for Quebec City.

Pressed for a personal prediction on the outcome of the U.S. presidential race, Harper at first demurred, suggesting anything he said would be misinterpreted.

After a pause, however, he went on to admit: "I've always said it's the Democrats' to lose."

Update: Timing may be everything after all . . . another headline on the page I linked to in this post says "Canada poll predicts strong Conservative majority":

The Segma poll taken for La Presse newspaper put support for the Conservatives at 43 percent, translating into 183 of the 308 seats in the House of Commons. It predicted the main opposition Liberals would get 25 percent of the vote, with just 62 seats.

Polls are notoriously misleading this early in a campaign, but that's the best predicted result I've seen for the Tories in quite some time . . .

QotD: Torture as a litmus test issue

Eve expresses mild surprise that I haven't tried to "sway her against" Sarah Palin yet. It remains to be seen whether Palin is merely as big a fraud as most politicians or a bigger one, but Palin herself is a distraction. And, you know, she’s not running for President. John McCain is, and as Larison says, John McCain would be everything anyone hated about the Bush years minus the occasional bouts of temperance. Eve and Nat Hentoff (whom she links) wonder if Palin would be "as flip-flopping as Mr. McCain on the Bush torture policy," which is an odd way to put it. There's no evidence that Palin has a preexisting torture policy to flip away from, let alone what it would be. What there is evidence of is: Sarah Palin is John McCain's running mate, not the other way around. Sarah Palin and John McCain are running under the aegis of the Republican Party, which has made support for torture a litmus-test issue. Think about it: John McCain would not be the GOP presidential nominee if he had not flip-flopped on torture, because the GOP is a pro-torture institution. Its elites and its mass base insist on the rightness and necessity of torture. It doesn't even matter what Sarah Palin's personal opinion is: she's not being hired to be the Party's conscience on civil liberties and the treatment of prisoners.

Jim Henley, "Strange We Can Believe In", Unqualified Offerings, 2008-09-03

Profile of Bob Barr, Onion-style

The Onion includes a "profile" of Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr:

Views:
Pretty much the same as Ron Paul's, but without the avuncular charm

Issues:
(1995–2007) Trying to control the faith, sexuality, reproduction, drug use, and national allegiance of every single American.
(2007–) Aw, Fuck it.

Looks Like:
Effeminate maître d'

Role In Clinton Impeachment:
Finger-pointer

Average Time To Summarize Libertarian Philosophy To Stranger:
4 hours, 16 minutes

As President, He Pledges To:
Use his platform to apologize for things he supported as a Republican

H/T to Radley Balko.

What about McCain's VP selection?

I'd never paid any attention to the obscure governor of Alaska (if quizzed, I certainly would not have been able to name her a week ago), but David Harsanyi thinks rather well of her:

The libertarian VP candidate

. . . or, rather, as libertarian as you can hope for on a major ticket.

For Republican nominee John McCain, there are a numerous potential political downsides and upsides to choosing a relative unknown for VP. But stepping outside the horserace aspects of 2008, Palin is the most libertarian Republican that's been on a major ticket for a long time. This ideological storyline should appeal to many Western voters.

Yes, Palin is pro-life and yes, she's made a huge mistake by supporting windfall taxes on oil companies. But she was a tireless reformer against government waste in a state that is famous for it. She, after all, shut down the Bridge to Nowhere.

Palin sued the Federal government over its outrageous listing of the polar bear as a threatened species. She is an ardent supporter of the Second Amendment. Her views on the Drug War are more reasonable than most in Washington. Her framing of cultural issues is far less divisive and strident than some of what we hear coming from the hard social right.

She was certainly a better pick for McCain than Biden was for Obama. More than that will remain to be seen.

As for McCain himself, Matt Welch (a noted critic of McCain) says that "the Sarah Palin choice epitomizes [how] John McCain has been willing to sacrifice any principle to become president."

Update: Mark Steyn posts from an undisclosed location:

First, Governor Palin is not merely, as Jay describes her, "all-American", but hyper-American. What other country in the developed world produces beauty queens who hunt caribou and serve up a terrific moose stew? As an immigrant, I'm not saying I came to the United States purely to meet chicks like that, but it was certainly high on my list of priorities. And for the gun-totin' Miss Wasilla then to go on to become Governor while having five kids makes it an even more uniquely American story. Next to her resume, a guy who's done nothing but serve in the phony-baloney job of "community organizer" and write multiple autobiographies looks like just another creepily self-absorbed lifelong member of the full-time political class that infests every advanced democracy.

The spoiler?

David Weigel looks at the number three guy in the race for the presidency:

Never in the history of the Libertarian Party has an idea been executed so smoothly as the nomination of Bob Barr, a former Republican congressman — and former drug warrior — from Georgia. True, it took six ballots at the party’s national convention in Denver to nominate the man. True, the weekend before that vote was a marathon of rumors, threats, and twisted arms, with younger, more radical party members pitted against an old guard that included party founder David Nolan. But the ruckus culminated in the nomination of the most well-known and politically astute presidential candidate in party history. Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), the only other former congressman to run for president on the Libertarian ticket (in 1988), had already made 2008 a banner year for libertarian politics by launching a limited-government revolt in the Republican primaries. The question: whether Barr is poised to continue what Paul began.

Barr's campaign — and the possibility of a revitalized national Libertarian Party — will likely have more of an immediate electoral impact than Paul's did. The Republican Party, after all, is teeming with antibodies that have been able to fight off the diminishing libertarian virus within. Unless lightning struck, the heavens opened, and he stumbled upon the Ark of the Covenant, Paul was never going to win the GOP nomination. It wouldn't take much, though, for Barr's popularity to force John McCain to campaign in states he thought he had wrapped up, or even to swing one of those states into the Democratic column. The Libertarian Party has its greatest chance to affect a presidential election in 28 years.

Of course, should that happen to McCain's detriment, the few remaining libertarian-leaning Republicans should expect show trials (at the minimum) or death threats from their less principled co-religionists.

Rudy's revival?

David Weigel pulls together the clues and makes a strong case for Rudy Giuliani being John McCain's choice for VP.

Ugh! So much for any hope of the VP candidate being any kind of balance for the ticket: Rudy is another instinctive authoritarian who — except for his unusual-for-a-Republican pro-choice stance — hasn't seen a civil rights restriction he couldn't support.

Rudy Can't Fail

Seriously, he can't. After his Wile E. Coyote-worthy faceplant in the primaries — $60 million in fundraising for half as many votes as Ron Paul and zero delegates — America's Mayor is giving the GOP convention keynote.

Giuliani was close to McCain before they faced off in the GOP primary and, after his disappointing third-place finish in Florida, the former New York mayor quickly threw his support to McCain.

Since then he’s been a frequent surrogate for McCain but has received no mention as a veep prospect. The keynote slot offers Giuliani, who is said to be considering a New York gubernatorial run in 2010, a high-profile opportunity to reestablish himself and tout McCain’s national security credentials.

Don't call it a comeback, he's been here for years. "Here" being "in the pro-choice ghetto of the GOP, trotted out for parties and then trundled back into his northeastern cave."

This news wouldn't be so interesting if it wasn't that the other people responsible for Giuliani's partial-birth abortion of a campaign were also falling upwards.

McCain has hired Giuliani's former campaign manager and communications director.

High gas prices induce lunatic "solutions"

Radley Balko observes the rancid combination of political ambition and economic ignorance in action:

Obama's opponent John McCain has smartly opposed a tax on oil company profits — and Obama has promptly attacked him for it.

But McCain isn't much better. McCain has proposed an equally ridiculous "gas tax holiday," which will also do almost nothing to provide relief at the pump. Obama has smartly opposed the idea — and McCain has promptly attacked him for it.

Economic ignorance is nothing new in politics. Neither is the idea that a candidate would perpetuate economic idiocy he knows to be false because it plays into the narrative he's pitching to the voters. But no issue seems to prompt more jaw-dropping sophistry and anti-capitalist demagoguery than gas prices.

Both candidates have promised to crack down on so-called "oil speculators," who are really only commodities traders wagering on whether the price of oil will go up or down. Speculators are an important part of the market process because they're generally knowledgeable about what they're trading, and their collective wisdom sends useful signals about supply and demand. "Cracking down" on speculators is silly. In the first place, it isn't possible. Oil futures are traded all over the world, well outside of U.S. jurisdiction. In the second place, if you own a 401(k), you're likely an indirect "speculator" yourself.

It's totally understandable why politicians are flapping their gums about high prices at the pumps: it's causing the public to feel pain, so they need to harness that for their own ends. Our best hope is that they're just tossing out the rhetorical "something must be done" notions and have no real intention of doing anything if/when elected, because almost nothing they can do will make the situation better . . . and so many of their options would make things worse.

QotD: Futility, overlaid with hypocrisy

There is something wrong with our political system, don't you think, when policy is determined by people who know that it is wrong, and know that their colleagues also know that it is wrong, but all are compelled by personal interest to rehearse the same orthodoxies? The propaganda of received wisdom has its own momentum, and no one person changing their mind will have much effect. Critchley will be ignored. His colleagues will be silent. And next autumn we will have a new moral panic about some drug-related social phenomenon, real or imaginary, justifying some extended power.

There have of course been other systems that worked this way. But the official Marxism-Lenninism of the Soviet Communist Party or the irrelevant doctrinal minutiae of theocracies had or have at least a clear purpose in maintaining the power of institutions. In our mediated ochlocracy policy is a peacock's tail in which random illusions of public opinion power political and bureaucratic machines, that then feedback more of the same, regardless of reason or utility.

Guy Herbert, "Not about drugs", Samizdata, 2008-08-15

Wallowing in conspiracies

David Weigel wanders over to conspiracy closet to discover that things are even less appealing than last time he checked:

It's been a while since I suited up and dumpster-dived in the Obama conspiracyverse. In my absence, I reckon that the average IQ there has dipped by 20-25 points. Take this latest revelation from Larry "Whitey Tape" Johnson.

Republican operatives, with help from their own island backers, have unearthed critical information on Obama and are just biding their time until after the convention to drop it on him. Such as? Having a birth certificate that lists you as Barry Soetoro.

Incredible! Ann Dunham met her second husband, Lolo Soetoro in 1966, in Hawaii. "Barry" Obama was, at this time, five years old. The only reasonable explanation is that Dunham and Soetoro built (or purchased) a Genesis Device to clone a new son, using DNA from Barack Obama Sr. that Dunham had pulled off one of his combs.

For all that Barack Obama has been involved in the — often murky — Illinois political scene, if all the conspiracy theorists have to play with is a flipping birth certificate notion, then Obama is theory-proof.

Small government as a Republican notion? Not this decade

Matt Welch clearly identifies the strawman in this argument:

In Sunday's Washington Post Outlook section, the Century Foundation's Greg Anrig published a strain of curious left-of-center analysis I'm seeing more and more this election: That the Republicans are losing because limited-government ideas don't work, and are no longer popular.

This critique requires a significant leap of logic — that George W. Bush, and his would-be GOP successor John McCain, practice and/or believe in limited government principles. Anrig glides over this problem via assertion.

[Quoting Anrig] So they advocated creating health savings accounts, handing out school vouchers, privatizing Social Security, shifting government functions to private contractors, and curtailing regulations on public health, safety, the environment and more. And, of course, they pushed to cut taxes to further weaken the public sector by "starving the beast." President Bush has followed this playbook more closely than any previous president, including Reagan[.]

Italics mine, to do violence to your morning coffee.

What's especially curious is that the intellectual left has been so busy this year congratulating itself on studying — and learning from — the modern intellectual history of the right. Because the most recent manifestation of that history has not been the triumph of limited government principles, but quite the opposite: Two Republican candidates in 2000 who, in one of the candidate's own words, "challenged libertarian orthodoxy" and the "'leave us alone' libertarian philosophy that dominated Republican debates in the 1990s." A Republican president who outspent LBJ. An ascendance of conservative intellectuals actively celebrating "the death of small-government conservatism." And a candidate in 2008 whose English translation of laissez-faire is T-e-d-d-y R-o-o-s-e-v-e-l-t.

Just calling this a "strawman" is being too generous. It's an entire football stadium packed standing-room-only with strawmen.

Read the whole heavily link-laden thing.

Update: This comment by "Episiarch", rather, um, graphically captures the sentiment:

The single theme that most animated the modern conservative movement was the conviction that government was the problem and market forces the solution.

You have to understand that to these people, what the GOP proposes is the "free" market. Showing them an actually free market is like showing anal fisting videos to someone who thinks Playboy is hardcore porn.

Another argument for media bias?

Poor old John McCain is in hot water with the media again . . . this time, it's that ultra-left bastion of socialist bile, The Wall Street Journal:

Is John McCain Stupid?

Is John McCain losing it?

On Sunday, he said on national television that to solve Social Security "everything's on the table," which of course means raising payroll taxes. On July 7 in Denver he said: "Senator Obama will raise your taxes. I won't."

This isn't a flip-flop. It's a sex-change operation.

H/T to John Scalzi.

QotD: The new voting screens

I'm tellin' ya, they're gonna change the electronic voting screens to say, "Click here to accept Barack Obama's Friend Request" so that these dim-witted youth voters can figure out how to cast their ballots for Obama. It'll be like ballots in Spanish. You will soon be able to request your ballot in electronic youth-speak (l337).

"aero", Comment at Hot Air, 2008-07-29

Barack Obama's love affair . . . with the media

Steve Chapman tries to understand the complaints coming from the McCain team about excessive worship of Barack Obama:

I came into the office the other day, wearing an "Obama 2008" cap, a "Yes We Can" button, a "Team Obama" T-shirt, carrying an "Obama for Change" tote bag filled with Obama bumper stickers, made a stop at the Obama altar in the newsroom, strewed some rose petals, chanted a few hosannas, lit a votive candle and had a sudden thought: Is the news media's love affair with Barack Obama getting out of hand?

John McCain and his campaign staffers have a sneaking suspicion it is. They put out a video with footage of journalists acting gooey about the Democratic candidate, to the strains of "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You." According to the campaign, "The media is in love with Barack Obama." McCain's people say that like it's a bad thing.

Congress to repeal law of supply and demand, film at 11!

Megan McArdle recaps some pretty basic economic facts for the benefit of congressional head-in-the-sand types who seem to have dangerous misconceptions:

Let's look at the basic economics here. I agree that there is a "speculative premium" in the market — the price changes obviously do not simply reflect change in demand conditions or other new information. They're too volatile.

That doesn't mean that this speculative premium is wrong. Speculation is not a synonym for "gambling"; it's a synonym for "guessing". The speculative premium reflects people guessing that the mismatch between supply and demand will be even greater in the future than it is now.

Sometimes speculators are wrong, of course — just ask my classmates who took out $100,000 worth of student loans for business school so that they could hold onto that valuable Webvan stock. But sometimes they're right — the Confederate speculators who made a fortune buying and holding staples in the Civil War guessed, correctly, that the South would be getting a little hungry by and by.

Of course, this makes people angry who want to consume cheaply now, which is why you hear so much talk about war profiteers. But in fact, the speculators were providing a very valuable service. Without them, the confederacy would have consumed those staples early in the war at an artificially low price, and been even hungrier later.

Nobody likes paying higher prices today than they did last week, last month, or last year. But the price reflects a huge mass of information on supply and demand, in a neat little numerical form. Prices rise when supply is lower than demand, signalling that the product is becoming harder to find/manufacture/harvest, and the rational response on the part of the consumer is to use less of the item or to look for substitutes.

Prices work better than anything else we've ever invented for regulating supply and demand . . . far, far better than installing philosopher kings, commisars, or regulatory bodies to determine "fair" or "equitable" value for any given item. Trying to impose conscious human control over a process will only make the situation worse both in the short term and over the long haul.

But politicians aren't elected because of their economical insight . . . and they are always impelled to be seen to be doing something. This is never a good thing.

QotD: Is Barack Obama "black enough"?

The issue of Mr. Obama's blackness has come up. The Reverend Jackson has made it clear he doesn't feel Mr. Obama is black enough, apparently he seems to be disregarding "black issues." While I do not support Mr. Obama I have to call the good Reverend on this one. Barack Obama is not running for President of Black America. He is running for President of all America. If he intends to push the interest of one ethnic group over any others than he has no business running for President of a nation that is about eighty eight percent white, Asian, Dine, and other races.

Sooner or later a Latino will run for President and I damn well expect him to run as an American who happens to have Latino roots, not a Latino who happens to be an American.

Back in the Fifties segregationists didn't get it, their way of doing business violated both the written Constitution and the spirit of freedom and justice it upon which it was based. Nowadays the debate is on what methodology is needed to achieve desegregation, not it's desirability [. . .] The Segregationists of old have become obsolete.

A. X. Perez, "Getting It", Libertarian Enterprise, 2008-07-20

Political musical chairs

Steve Chapman finds the world turned upside down as Barack Obama and John McCain swap stances over education:

I know, because admirers of Barack Obama tell me, that this year's election poses a choice between a candidate who represents a fresh approach to problems and one who offers a dreary continuation of the status quo. That much I understand. What I sometimes have trouble keeping straight is which candidate is which.

On the subject of elementary and secondary education, the two seem to have gotten their roles completely mixed up. Obama is the staunch defender of the existing public school monopoly, and he's allergic to anything that subverts it. John McCain, on the other hand, went before the NAACP last week to argue for something new and daring.

That something is to facilitate greater parental choice in education. McCain wants to expand a Washington, D.C. program that provides federally funded scholarships so poor students can attend private schools. More than 7,000 kids, he reported, have applied for these vouchers, but only 1,900 can be accommodated.

Obama promptly expressed disdain for McCain's proposal. The Republican, his campaign said, offered "recycled bromides" that would "undermine our public schools."

Apparently there are degrees of elitism, among the elite

John Scalzi enjoys a bit of fun-poking at the expense of an elitist who calls other people "elitist":

This article notes that Lady de Rothschild was worth $100 million in 1998 . . . which was before she married Sir Evelyn Rothschild, of the British branch of the Rothschild financial dynasty, which is worth, well, lots.

So, on one hand, I suppose Lady de Rothschild might know what an elitist looks like. On the other hand, her saying she doesn't like Obama because she thinks he is elitist is so full of rich and creamy clueless irony that I feel like every person in the country who makes less than a quarter million dollars a year ought to drop trou, face away from Lady de Rothschild, and tell her to kiss our base and common puckerguards. Anyone who lives on a 3,200 acre estate that features an entrance hall "notable for its large paintings by Thomas Gainsborough, George Romney, and Joshua Reynolds" loses the ability to criticize anyone else in the entire goddamn universe for being "elitist," particularly a dude who while growing up got to experience the joys of a food stamp dinner.

Scalzi supports Barr for President . . . a little bit

John Scalzi finds a perfect use for his less-than-stellar "stimulus" cheque:

So what do you do with a stupid, frivolous amount of stimulus money? Well, you spend it on something stupid and frivolous, of course!

Bob Barr has about as much chance of being president as I have in getting a tomato plant to spontaneously erupt out of my forehead, but he does have a teeniest bit of a chance of peeling off just enough disgruntled GOPers to be a pain in John McCain's ass come the general election, which at this point works for me as an ersatz protest vote and the GOP economic stewardship of the country (note that this statement will undoubtedly cause some delusional conservative/Republican to opine in the comments that it will be Obama whom Barr will peel voters off of, not McCain. Dear delusional conservative/Republican commenter: Just because you're apparently huffing acetone from the inside of a paper bag doesn't mean the rest of us are). That said, I don't actually want to spend real money on Bob Barr; I don't want anyone to get the idea he's actually my guy, presidentially speaking. I mean, really. Speaking of huffing acetone. For what I want to do here, six dollars and ten cents is almost exactly the right amount to send the dude. So that's what I sent . . .

QotD: That dreaded "lurch to the right"

I make a point of looking at the Economist each week, in order to see what this part of the establishment are thinking. I can not normally stand to read it for than a couple of minutes (as it makes me feel unclean), but that is enough time to find some utter absurdity with which amuse people.

However, this week I think I have come upon the worst Economist article of all time:

The title, featured on the front cover, is "McCain's lurch to the right" . . . For those who do not know British "political speak", "lurch to the right" is what the Labour party (and so on) have long said whenever a Conservative party politician gives any sign of not agreeing with everything the BBC and Guardian newspaper hold to be correct.

Paul Marks, "Latest attack on John McCain: The worst 'Economist' article of all time?", Samizdata, 2008-07-05

QotD: Swift Boat Derangement Syndrome

It is impossible to overrate the rage and anguish Democrats feel at the success of the 2004 campaign 527 called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth; it would be silly to even try. When Democratic voters and establishment sheikhs chose John Kerry over John Edwards, it was in large part because Kerry served in Vietnam and returned to campaign against the war. They completely discounted the bitterness that conservatives and many vets still harbored against Kerry. They were caught flatfooted when Kerry's military record became a months-long campaign liability after the group of angry vets caught the attention of the mainstream media and started getting cash infusions from big-time conservative donors. In November, Bush beat Kerry by 16 points among military veterans. Nominating a veteran got the Democrats nothing.

This is why, when today's Democrats talk about John McCain, they can sound incredulous. After all the crap they took, why is he able to ride his Vietnam record to the GOP nomination? How could he enjoin the culture wars by bragging that he missed Woodstock because he was "tied up at the time" and get so much praise he started running TV ads on that theme? Why is he able to follow it up with an ad named for his Navy ID number (624787) and featuring video of him lying in POW camp? It's not . . . it's not . . . it's not fair! Thus, Wesley Clark.

I don't think Clark's comments can stand up to scrutiny; no experience, not even being a Joint Chief of Staff or Defense Secretary, can directly prepare someone to become commander-in-chief. McCain's occasional argument that his command of a navy squadron was executive experience is sort of risible, but not as much as when he claimed it would qualify him to manage the economy. His POW years are as relevant to his qualifications as any presidential candidate's experiences. Eight years ago, weren't we hearing about how George W. Bush's 20-odd years of sowing his oats turned him into a great leader?

David Weigel, "Swift Boat Derangement Syndrome", Hit and Run, 2008-07-01

Feminist dilemma

Megan McArdle supports some of the aims of feminists, despite being labelled as an enemy of the movement:

For all that Feministe, in particular, is fond of labelling me "anti-feminist", I think the feminist movement is doing something important. Society treats men and women differently in ways that it shouldn't. I'm glad that there are people who focus their lives on changing that — even when I disagree with them; even when I think many of the battles they have chosen can't be won.

There are three things I really dislike about the feminist movement, all of them sadly reinforcing stereotypes about women.

1) The way that thinking women should be equal is assumed to be necessarily equated with a left economic agenda, and disagreement is treated as a betrayal.

2) The practice of labelling anyone who doesn't share their agenda as an "anti-feminist". [. . .]

3) The practice of handing around bad statistics like Grade Z Oaxaca Ditch Weed on the last night of Senior Week. It's bad enough in itself, but it also hideously supports stereotypes that women can't cope with real math. This is certainly not a practice limited to feminism — any political movement does a lot of it. But many of the worst statistics come out of women's study and feminist advocacy.

QotD: Basic economics

It's easy to shrug this kind of stuff off, especially with a (newly veto-tastic) former oilman in the White House, but all that will change six months from now, and the Democrats are rubbing their hands at the prospect of unified government. In the meantime, the air is only getting thicker — on both sides of the aisle — with Mahatir/Larouche levels of hostility toward those shadowy bankster types who make money without even manufacturing widgets or tilling the land.

Seriously, did we kick communism to the curb only to suddenly discover, centuries after the French, that a free market will attract (and benefit from!) suspiciously smart people in pinstriped suits who are using their money to — wait for it — make more money? "Speculators" provide crucial liquidity (which is marketese for "money with which to buy the stuff you want to sell"), and perform a valuable function in helping locate assets that are under- or over-valued. Even those nassty speculatorsses at the end of the real estate boom (the evil "flippers" mom told you about) did some good stuff: They allowed people to sell their houses at a tidy profit, and fixed up old properties in preparation for resales that maybe never came. Many gambled and won (as did the people who sold to them), many others gambled and lost (freeing up "winners" who will buy those properties at firesale prices). That's all kind of the point.

Matt Welch, "There Was Music in the Cafes at Night and Re-Regulation in the Air", Hit and Run, 2008-06-24

Doubling the navy: nice idea, never happen

J. L. Granatstein outlines the challenges facing the Canadian Forces at sea, and calls for a significant increase in navy shipping:

To get it right this time, the government needs to consider the future strategic environment. Trade has shifted massively from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans; already the volume in the Pacific is 3.5 times that of the Atlantic. There are rising naval powers on the Pacific — Russia, China, India, Japan — and there are rapidly growing numbers of submarines operated there by a number of nations, not all friendly.

To protect our national interests, Canada needs a bigger navy than its present 30-ship fleet and 8,000 sailors. Senators Hugh Segel and Colin Kenny, one a Conservative, the other a Liberal, have recently called for Canada to have a 60-ship navy. They are surely correct. The nation must have a strong presence in the Pacific (and an expanded base at Esquimalt, B. C.) and the Atlantic. Twelve to 15 of the planned Surface Combatant Ships on each coast would meet the need for 2025 and beyond. Then Canada needs a credible naval and Coast Guard presence in the melting Arctic where the international scramble for resources is likely to be fierce and where the Northwest Passage has the potential to alter traditional trade routes and pose huge environmental and security challenges. The Conservative government's Canada First policy is the right one, but it needs more ships and more sailors to adequately protect the homeland.

But Canada First also means protecting national interests abroad. Our sailors must be able to transport and support Canadian troops operating overseas, sometimes perhaps on a hostile shore. The presently planned three Joint Support Ships can't do this; four might be able to manage, but six would be better, along with what General Rick Hillier called "a big honking ship" that could transport four to six helicopters and a battalion-sized expeditionary force. Such ships can also do humanitarian work — in tsunami-hit Indonesia, for example — that we can scarcely tackle today.

While a strong case can be made (and, above, has), the government won't go there. Even if the current government was enjoying a majority in the house, they wouldn't spend their political capital on military equipment. For all that the Canadian Forces have much higher visibility and consequently much higher public respect, they're still considered a luxury, not a necessity. Canadians may talk about rebuilding the CF's equipment inventory, but they're not willing to forego social spending or bear higher taxes in order to do so. Nobody will cast their vote because they favour adding ships to the navy, but many might withhold their votes on the same issue.

Canadians still fondly imagine that they inhabit a world where "soft power" is capable of doing things without the implicit backing of "hard power". Where UN resolutions matter, and the bad guys back down before the concentrated glower of the UN General Assembly. It's not likely they'll willingly leave that pleasant dream world and come back to planet Earth.

Canadian military penury is exactly like the weather . . . people can talk about it all day, but nobody will (or can) do anything about it.

An excellent example of Republican thought

I've often said that I couldn't be a Republican (assuming that I lived in the United States, of course). Senator Kit Bond (R-Missouri) explains exactly why:

I'm not here to say that the government is always right, but when the government tells you to do something, I'm sure you would all agree that I think you all recognize that is something you need to do.

From a brief squib by David Weigel.

QotD: EUrocrash imminent?

Is the European Union heading for a Yugoslavian-style denouement? It sometimes looks as if its political class, oblivious to the wishes or concerns of the EU’s various populations, is determined to bring one about. The French and the Dutch voted against the proposed European Constitution, but that did not deter the intrepid political class from pressing ahead with its plans for a superstate that no one else wants. To bypass the wishes of the people, the politicos reintroduced the constitution as a treaty, to be ratified by parliaments alone. Only the Irish had the guts — or was it the foolhardiness? — to hold a referendum on the issue. Unfortunately, the Irish people got the answer wrong. They voted no, despite their political leaders’ urging that they vote yes. No doubt the people will be given an opportunity in the future — or several opportunities, if necessary — to correct their mistake and get the answer right, after which there will be no more referenda.

The European political class was briefly taken aback. What could explain the Irish obduracy? Several explanations came forth, among them Irish xenophobia and intellectual backwardness and the malign influence of the Murdoch-owned press. The narrowest economic self-interest was also said to have played a part. Having been huge beneficiaries of European largesse over the last 30 years, the Irish — who have the second-highest per capita GDP in Europe after Luxembourg — are now being asked to pay some of it back in the form of subsidies to the new union members from Eastern Europe. Ingrates that they are, they don’t want to pay up, especially now that their own economic growth rate has slowed dramatically in the wake of the financial crisis and the economic future looks uncertain.

Another explanation for the Irish “no” vote was that Irish citizens had been frightened by the proposal of the French finance minister to equalize tax rates throughout Europe, thus destroying unfair competition (all competition is unfair, unless the French win). No prizes for guessing whether the high tax rates of France or the low rates of Ireland would become the new standard. Ireland’s golden goose would find itself well and truly slaughtered in the process.

Theodore Dalrymple, "Europe's Unhappy Union", City Journal, 2008-06-18

QotD: Richard Nixon

Nixon had no friends except George Will and J. Edgar Hoover (and they both deserted him.) It was Hoover's shameless death in 1972 that led directly to Nixon's downfall. He felt helpless and alone with Hoover gone. He no longer had access to either the Director or the Director's ghastly bank of Personal Files on almost everybody in Washington.

Hoover was Nixon's right flank, and when he croaked, Nixon knew how Lee felt when Stonewall Jackson got killed at Chancellorsville. It permanently exposed Lee's flank and led to the disaster at Gettysburg.

For Nixon, the loss of Hoover led inevitably to the disaster of Watergate. It meant hiring a New Director — who turned out to be an unfortunate toady named L. Patrick Gray, who squealed like a pig in hot oil the first time Nixon leaned on him. Gray panicked and fingered White House Counsel John Dean, who refused to take the rap and rolled over, instead, on Nixon, who was trapped like a rat by Dean's relentless, vengeful testimony and went all to pieces right in front of our eyes on TV.

That is Watergate, in a nut, for people with seriously diminished attention spans. The real story is a lot longer and reads like a textbook on human treachery. They were all scum, but only Nixon walked free and lived to clear his name. Or at least that's what Bill Clinton says — and he is, after all, the President of the United States.

Hunter S. Thompson, "He Was a Crook", Counterpunch, 1994-05-01

QotD: Democratic nomination race

But none of this "sexism" could be counteracted by organized, activist feminist groups, says writer Linda Hirshman. In Sunday's Washington Post, Hirshman mapped the fractious women's movement that failed to coalesce around Clinton's campaign. The absurdities and esoterica of the "millennial feminists" produced internecine warfare and factional fighting not seen since the Spanish Civil War. In the trenches of the gender war, the slights cited by Penn are deemed inconsequential, as is the candidate on the receiving end of them. Hirshman quotes one activist: "I . . . don't believe that simply putting a womyn's face where a man's face once was is going to solve our problems...by Real Womyn I am talking about womyn of color, incarcerated womyn, migrant womyn, womyn at the border, womyn gripped in violence, rape, and war.'" (For those whose university experience predated the ubiquity of Woman's Studies departments, the misspelling of 'women' is deliberate, a semantic kick in the patriarchy's groin.)

The Democratic primary was a lose-lose proposition for the image of American tolerance: If Senator Obama lost, ours was an irredeemably racist country. Senator Clinton lost, and we are infected by sexism. But whether viewed through the prism of radical gender feminism or a boy's club media conspiracy, the truth is considerably less complicated. The vaunted Clinton machine — devoid of fresh ideas and facing a dynamic, inspirational opponent — simply couldn't compete. Blame the media, blame the patriarchy if you so desire, but the truth is that Americans wouldn't mind a woman as president. Just not that woman.

Michael C. Moynihan, "The Feminist Mistake", Reason Online, 2008-06-13

Why so gloomy, America? Because of the media

Gregg Easterbrook points out that while Americans think that the country as a whole is doing badly, they as individuals are doing well. The media's "if it bleeds, it leads" emphasis on doom and gloom has much to do with this:

The Democratic National Committee recently ran an ad blasting John McCain for saying the country is "better off" than in 2000. Yet, arguably, except as regards the Iraq war, Mr. McCain's statement is true. In turn, Mr. McCain is blasting Barack Obama for suggesting that international tensions are not as bad as they've been made to seem. Yet, arguably, Mr. Obama is right.

Democratic attacks on Mr. McCain and Republican attacks on Mr. Obama both seek to punish impermissibly positive thoughts. At a time when there exists a sense of crisis over the economy, fuel prices and many other issues, this reinforces the odd, two realities of life in the United States today: The way we are, and the way we think we are. The way we are could use some work, but overall, is pretty good. The way we think we are is terrible, horrible, awful. Possibly worse.

The case that things are basically pretty good? Unemployment is 5.5%, low by historical standards; income is rising slightly ahead of inflation; housing prices are down, but the typical house is still worth a third more than in 2000; 94% of Americans do not have threatened mortgages, and of those who do, most will keep their homes.

Inflation was up in 2007, but this stands out because the 16 previous years were close to inflation-free; living standards are the highest they have ever been, including living standards for the middle class and for the poor.

All forms of pollution other than greenhouse gases are in decline; cancer, heart disease and stroke incidence are declining; crime is in a long-term cycle of significant decline; education levels are at all-time highs.

People are subject to so many negative images from TV coverage, and so many hard-luck stories in newspaper reports, that it's no wonder that they believe that the rest of the country — the rest of the world, actually — is spiralling down the toilet.

It's a truism that bad news sells, and that good news isn't as popular. The individual media outlets probably have less overall influence than they did 20 or 30 years ago, but the overall tone still emphasizes bad news . . . and we're all much more likely to pay attention to doom and disaster than to positive or neutral reports. It even makes sense: good news won't generally make much immediate difference in our day-to-day lives, but the local car plant shutting down or a major bridge collapsing in the city will loom large in our short-term view. We're attuned to bad news, and the media serve up to us what we pay the most attention to . . . it's a vicious circle.

How bad is the FCC?

Jesse Walker illustrates some of the worst problems with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) :

The commission is corrupt. I don't just mean the sort of corruption where the chairman loosens his tie, puts his feet up on his desk, and doles out favors to the companies that scratched the right backs —p though you'll find plenty of that in the commission's history. Even when the body is being relatively transparent and above-board, it is beholden to politically connected lobbies. The FCC controls an important economic resource. Naturally, important economic interests try their best to influence its decisions.

The most flagrant example of this might be the welcome the commission gave to FM radio. The technology was an enormous leap forward: It allowed stations to broadcast without static, and it allowed more signals to coexist on the spectrum. It also worried RCA, which was investing heavily in the development of television; the company fretted that consumers might not pay for both a new FM radio and a new TV set. RCA didn't control the patent on FM, so it pressured the FCC to favor the other technology. The regulators obliged, and a series of roadblocks appeared in FM's path. The most destructive decision came in 1944, when the commissioners suddenly reassigned the FM broadcasters' portion of the ether to television, instantly rendering every FM receiver obsolete.

[. . .]

The commission is sanctimonious. For seven decades, the nation's scolds and censors have used the FCC as a tool to shape the sounds and images allowed on the airwaves. In 1952, for example, then-commissioner Paul Walker announced with satisfaction that his agency had "surveyed the programming of some of the television stations in operation, and found that some of them had reported no time devoted to broadcasts of a religious nature. We felt in view of this fact that regular renewal of their licenses would not be in the public interest." The stations quickly revised their schedules, and the commission agreed to renew their licenses after all.

[. . .]

The commission is technocratic. The next time someone tells you central planning is dead, remind him that there is an arm of the federal government that decides in advance how different chunks of the electromagnetic spectrum will be used, and that it also reserves the right to determine which entities will be allowed to use it. It's true the commission has adopted several market "mechanisms" in the last few decades: FCC-approved broadcasters now have the right to sell their licenses to other FCC-approved broadcasters, and spectrum is usually distributed by auction rather than pure fiat. But even an auction can be bent to the planners' will.

Modern economic frenzies in a nutshell

James Lileks gets all screedy about the oil situation:

I've heard some people yearn for a windfall profits tax that would reinvest the money in alternative energy, or rebate it back to the consumer. Fine. Apply that to your business. Here's the acceptable profit level. You don't get to make any more than that. If you do, the state will confiscate the property and divide it among your competitors, or give it back to your customers. Have a nice day. But oil is different. It's necessary! So is food. Farmers are doing well. Let us therefore set the acceptable level for corn farmers, take away the excess profits, invest it new forms of sweeteners or biofuels farmers cannot yet produce, and give people rebates for Splenda to compensate for the price of high fructose corn syrup.

It's not that we cannot produce any more oil; you suspect that some are motivated by the belief, perverse as it sounds, that we should not. We should not drill 50 miles off shore on the chance someone in Malibu takes a hot-air balloon up 1000 feet and uses a telephoto lens to scan the horizon for oil platforms. Also, there are ecological concerns. (The ocean is a wee place, easily disturbed.) There's something else that may well be my imagination, but I can't quite shake the feeling: high gas prices and shortages of oil make some people feel good. This is the way it has to be. Oil is bad. Cars are bad. Cars make suburbs possible. Suburbs are the antithesis of the way we should live, which is stacked upon one another in dense blocks tied together by happy whirring trains. So some guy who drives to work alone has to spend more money for the privilege of being alone in his car listening to hate radio?

Good.

Yes, I know, projection and demonizaton and oversimplification. But this is true: there's a side of the domestic political structure that opposes expansion of domestic energy production, be it drilling or nukes or more refineries.

But remember, just like George Bush, James Lileks has family ties to the [dum, dum, duuuuuum!] oil industry.

Scalzi calls Fox News on their (not-so) hidden racism

John Scalzi works up a head of steam at Fox News over a particularly slimy trick:

Fox News Would Like To Take a Moment To Remind You That the Obamas Are As Black As Satan's Festering, Baby-Eating Soul

Back in the day — you know, when presidential candidates were respectably white — news organizations called potential First Ladies "wives." But now that black folks are running, we can get all funky fresh with the lingo, yo. So it's basically fine for Fox News to use "Baby Mama" for Michelle Obama, slang that implies a married 44-year-old Princeton-educated lawyer is, to use an Urban Dictionary definition of the term, "some chick you knocked up on accident during a fling who you can't stand but you have to tolerate cuz she got your baby now." Because the Obamas are black! And the blacks, they're all relaxed about that shit, yo. Word up. And anyway, as the caption clearly indicates, it's not Fox News that's calling Michelle Obama "Baby Mama," it's outraged liberals. Fox News is just telling you what those outraged liberals are saying. They didn't want to use the term "Baby Mama." But clearly they had no choice.

Meanwhile, over at her personal site, Michelle "Fox News' Ethnic Shield" Malkin defends Fox News' use of the "Baby Mama" phrase by essentially making two arguments. First, Michelle Obama once called Barack Obama her "baby's daddy," and as we all know, a married woman factually and correctly calling her husband her child's father is exactly the same as a major news organization calling a potential First Lady some chick what got knocked up on a fling. Second, the term "baby-daddy" has gone out into the common culture; heck, even Tom Cruise was called Katie Holmes' baby-daddy, you know, when he impregnated her and she subsequently gave birth while the two were not married, which is exactly like what happened between Michelle and Barack Obama, who were married in 1992 and whose first child was born six years later.

QotD: The press secretary

The release of former Bush Press Secretary Scott McClellan's tell-all memoir has Washington buzzing, though there's a certain Capt. Renault-like phoniness to all the indignation: Are we really all that surprised that this administration — or for that matter, any administration — would ask its press secretary to lie, mislead, or dissemble in front of the media?

Should we really be shocked-shocked! that the White House might also keep its press secretary out of the loop when it comes to brewing political scandals, so he can convincingly feign ignorance when the press queries him about them?

While ostensibly serving as a liaison between the press and the president, White House press secretaries serve really only one function: to boost the president's image. White House press offices are little more than public relations machines for the administration they're serving.

Radley Balko, "The Public Spinmeisters: Why do politicians get a well-oiled PR machine at taxpayer expense?", Reason Online, 2008-06-10

The end of American Identity politics?

Terry Michael is looking forward to a major change in American political dialogue:

We are nearing the end of American identity politics as we know it. Bearing that gift to those who prize the individual over the tribal is a messenger who shared a Hyde Park neighborhood with Milton Friedman, though with a public record that suggests he is more statist than classical liberal.

But Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), can't be categorized that simply. He is, rather, an intellectual and ideological work in progress. Not stuck in cable-babble caricatured time, he may be traveling the circuitous path many "liberal-tarians" — or libertarian Democrats like me — treaded as we grew and found our way back to the self-reliant values that informed our pluralistic democracy. We lost those values in the Industrial and Progressive eras, when advocates of centralized planning prized society's perfection over individual liberty. While Obama's positions don't exactly channel the Cato Institute, his departure from usual Democratic Party left-liberalism is reflected in the left's suspicion of him for not having all the 162-point plans of Sen. Hillary Clinton, or spewing the syrupy populism of trial lawyer to the underclass, Sen. John Edwards.

To me, this suggests the beginnings of a journey away from the Great Society mind-set of the Democratic Party. I was a 1960s teenage political junkie who wanted to complete the New Deal, with wealth redistribution and "social justice" managed from Washington. I morphed into a 1980s DLC centrist, embracing mushy "progressive" politics as a halfway house from statist liberalism. Now in my own sixties, I have rediscovered the founder of my party, Thomas Jefferson, in an information era in which we are desktop-empowered to seek our own way and make our own choices, much like the agrarian age inventors of our political system.

QotD: A reason to regret Hillary's departure

I personally leaned toward Obama in this contest fairly early on (I think Edwards was marginally closer to my own most perfect candidate this time around, but that was pretty much a non-starter), but as I also mentioned, as far as these leading candidates went on the Democratic side, there was no real downside for me. I would have quite happily voted for Clinton if it had gone her way, not only for her own policies and qualities, but also simply to watch conservative heads explode at the idea of the Clintons setting up shop at 1600 Pennsylvania again. There's not enough Schadenfreude Pie in the world for that sort of event.

John Scalzi, "Off Into the Sunset", Whatever, 2008-06-07

The Obama phenomenon

Steve Chapman examines the enigma wrapped in a Rorschach Test that is Barack Obama:

I was just getting used to the idea that Barack Obama is an America-hating left-winger bent on socialism and surrender. Then along comes Ralph Nader, who says the problem with Obama is that he's an obedient steward of the status quo, doing the bidding of greedy corporations. Naderites, conservatives, and many others agree he's a menace. They just can't agree on why.

Obama has said, in reference to his broad appeal, "I am like a Rorschach test"—meaning that his admirers have a knack for seeing in him exactly what they want to find. But the inkblots work the other way, too: People who dislike him have detected a multitude of reasons to justify their animus.

To Hillary Clinton's supporters, he was always a dreamy innocent who would be ground up by the Republican attack machine. To some critics, he's a sleazy Chicago pol. When he ran for Congress against a black incumbent, he lost because some voters thought he was too white. In some primary states this year, some voters thought he was, well, not too white.

The secret appears to be "don't define yourself — let others project their definitions onto you". Historically, that's been a losing pattern, but this year it seems to be working for Obama.

First Goldwater, then Paul?

David Weigel looks at the ongoing ripples in the Republican party from Ron Paul's candidacy race:

"We've seen how the politics of fear chip away at freedom at home," he declares, sounding suddenly sure of himself. "Where are the defenders of freedom today? Where are our Thomas Jeffersons? Where are our Barry Goldwaters? There are a few defenders of freedom, but they are outnumbered, and they need our help."

Singh has one particular defender of freedom in mind: Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas). It was Paul's libertarian-minded presidential campaign that got Singh into politics, first as a donor, then as a Virginia volunteer, and now as a candidate for Congress. A month after watching Paul score 4.5 percent of the vote in the Virginia primary, Singh threw his hat into the ring for the 8th District congressional seat.

By the end of the 2008 elections, as many as 40 self-proclaimed Ron Paul Republicans will have run for national office. The reception they are getting from their state parties ranges from warm embraces to Terminator-like efforts to destroy them. After a year of supporting a presidential candidate the party's gatekeepers treated like a radioactive performance artist, the Paulites are used to ridicule. They want to carve out a permanent place in Republican politics, regardless of whether the party wants them to be there.

It's difficult to predict just how much influence Ron Paul's revolutionaries can have — even if they manage to get elected — but it's a positive sign for American politics as a whole. The permanent two-party system prevents viable third parties from arising (by legal obstruction, ballot access restrictions, and just about anything else you can think of), so would-be reformers have only two choices: work within one of the existing parties or work completely outside the political sphere.

This will be a live experiment for small-L libertarians on how viable the "work within" model can be for advancing their aims.

QotD: Modern political corruption

In today's terms, you might call it the Medicare Part D problem: even when Congress starts out with a laudable policy goal, like providing prescription drugs for seniors, by the time the legislation gets through both houses it amounts to little more than a grab bag of giveaways to politically connected business interests. Case in point: the recent Senate-passed Foreclosure Prevention Act, which contains $25 billion in tax breaks for home-builders and other businesses while doing very little to justify its name. The reason for this is straightforward: the amount of money spent on lobbying in the last Congressional session was $2.8 billion, nearly two times more than was spent in 2000. Overall, industry has contributed $14 million to Congressional candidates in this session.

This money, Lessig says, insidiously distorts Congressional outcomes and priorities because Congress members don't experience it as corruption. "Let's say you go to Congress," says Lessig, "and you believe there are two problems to deal with: piracy of copyrighted materials and welfare mothers who are really getting screwed by the system. You open up shop, and a million [lobbyists] come in and say we've got a thousand things to tell you about piracy, and nobody comes into your office and says we're going to help you with the welfare moms. So you shift your focus, but you never feel it. You think: maybe I could've spent more time on welfare moms, but I'm having a real effect on stopping piracy! That's the dynamic that is so critical here."

Of course, good-government reformers have been decrying the influence of money since at least the late nineteenth century. For all of Lessig's status as a visionary (he literally wrote the book on cyberspace law), what's most striking is that, as he admits, Change Congress doesn't embody any "new ideas." He envisions it as a movement tool kit that connects citizens to the work of the reform groups that already exist, a kind of "Google Maps mashup," as he puts it.

Christopher Hayes, "Mr. Lessig Goes to Washington", The Nation, 2008-05-29

A forensic evaulation of the Ron Paul campaign

A scathing summary of what went wrong for the Ron Paul presidential campaign. In short: just about everything:

No organization: the campaign he ran was a completely disorganized mess, a shambolic fuck-up of such monumental proportions I'm frankly astounded you Libertarians haven't lynched his campaign staff for treason. I've seen better efforts by my city councilmen. The only real traction ever made in the campaign was by the grass-roots element. Fundraising? Grassroots. Internet viral message? Grassroots. Precinct level organization? Grassroots. Certainly, the grassroots deserves a commendation for one of the best efforts in history . . . but the grassroots cannot get your canidate ACCESS. That's the campaign's job, and they failed, leading to . . .

Locked out of the Media: As a result of the campaign's ignorance of how to handle the media, Ron Paul started out crippled. When the money bombs brought in millions, the campaign did not take out nationwide ads, it didn't take out a flood of interviews, it didn't agitate to get him on as many places as possible. Even some writers on this website tried to get him on radioshows and the like and were ignored. And that you cannot do. If you ignore the MSM, it locks you out. Dennis Kunich felt that people should judge him on how he spoke, not the media spin, and he was locked out even more totally than Ron Paul.

There's more. Much, much more.

QotD: Trade is THE solution to poverty

Trade is THE solution to poverty. Throw in international labor mobility, and we're well on the way to remedying any of the problems that money can fix — like controlling infectious diseases, providing electricity, clean water and sanitation, feeding people, educating women, and so forth. Or at least that's what Kym Anderson, an economics professor at the University of Adelaide in Australia more or less asserted in his presentation on trade and migration on the third day of the Copenhagen Consensus 2008 Conference.

Anderson looked at a number of econometric modeling scenarios and calculated the cost and benefits that would obtain from full trade liberalization under realistic assumptions derived from the current World Trade Organization's Doha Development Agenda negotiations. Anderson estimated that liberalization of global merchandise trade would mean an annual increase of $287 billion per year in global GDP, of which $86 billion would go to developing countries. This compares very nicely with the $104 billion in development assistance that the governments of industrialized countries gave to developing countries in 2006.

In other calculations, Anderson found that the long term effects of trade liberalization would be that global income in 2098 would be up to 10% greater than it otherwise would have been. The associated net present values from freer trade range from $50 trillion to $424 trillion. Consider that in 2007, total gross world product was $53 trillion. In other words, both the immediate and long-term benefits from free trade are enormous. Anderson reports benefit cost ratios ranging from 269:1 to 1121:1.

Ronald Bailey, "And the World's Top Priority Is . . . Free Trade?: The fourth dispatch from the 2008 Copenhagen Consensus Conference", Reason Online, 2008-05-29

Arnie's legacy

Matt Welch finds little to be impressed with in Arnold Schwarzeneggar's time in office:

Arnold Schwarzenegger, a big disappointment as Golden State governor (to me, anyway), has at least enriched the lives of one class of Californians: state employees.

The state of California's payroll is skyrocketing, even as its budget deficit has grown to billions of dollars in recent months.

In Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's first four years, the total bill for state workers' salaries jumped by 37 percent, compared with a 5 percent increase in the preceding four years under then-Gov. Gray Davis, a Chronicle analysis of state payroll records shows.

One month before Schwarzenegger took office in November 2003, just eight state employees earned more than $200,000 a year working in the core state government, which excludes universities and the Legislature. In April of this year, there were nearly a thousand, according to records.

Okay, remind me again . . . weren't Republicans supposed to believe in smaller government once upon a time?

The Presidency

George Will reviews a new book by Gene Healy:

Healy's dissection of the delusions of "redemption through presidential politics" comes at a moment when liberals, for reasons of liberalism, and conservatives, because they have forgotten their raison d'être, "agree on the boundless nature of presidential responsibility." Liberals think boundless government is beneficent. Conservatives practice situational constitutionalism, favoring what Healy calls "Caesaropapism" as long as the Caesar-cum-Pope wields his anti constitutional powers in the service of things these faux conservatives favor.

War is, as Randolph Bourne said, "the health of the state." And as James Madison said, war is the "true nurse of executive aggrandizement." Today's president has claimed the power to be the "decider," deciding on his own to start preventive wars, order torture prohibited by treaty and statute, and arrest American terrorist suspects on American soil and hold them indefinitely without legal process. But Healy's critique of the heroic presidency ranges far beyond national-security matters.

"Tell me your troubles," said FDR, Consoler in Chief, in a fireside chat with a radio audience. In 1960, the year the nation elected a charismatic (a term drawn from religion) president who regarded the office as "the center of moral leadership," an eminent political scientist called the presidency "the incarnation of the American people in a sacrament resembling that in which the wafer and the wine are seen to be the body and blood of Christ." In 1992, Gov. Bill Clinton promised a "New Covenant" between government and the governed. That, Healy dryly notes, was "a metaphor that had the state stepping in for Yahweh."

From merely the head of the executive branch of government to combined lightning-brandishing demi-god and wish-granting genie . . . it's a hell of an evolution for a mundane political job.

Opposition to Barr/Root in the Libertarian Party

David Weigel reports on some of the remaining nay-sayers within the Libertarian Party after the Bob Barr nomination over the weekend:

On the way out of the Denver convention, defeated candidate and Massachusetts party chair George Phillies pulled me aside to express how worried he was about the Barr/Root ticket. "This is a train wreck," he said. "My delegation is majority pagan. Nominating this man is the equivalent of nominating an Imperial Wizard of the KKK to lead a party of African Americans." Phillies raised the possibility of a Massachusetts LP convention that would nominate a new candidate at the top of the ticket, like author L. Neil Smith. And as I left, I heard a rumor that Arizona might do the same thing.

I think this would amount to local party suicide. The only thing all LPers agree on right now is that Barr, by dint of his fame and national media pull, could get more votes than any previous candidate. In most states, a certain vote total will get a party guaranteed ballot access. Nominating an unkown, especially when low-information voters will head to the polls expecting to see Barr, would drive down vote totals.

This really gets to the heart of the matter: why is the Libertarian Party running candidates for the presidency? Is it with any serious intent to win (mathematically unlikely as that may be) or is it to try to raise the public profile of small-L libertarian philosophy and free market economics? In either case, a better-known candidate is going to perform the task more easily than an unknown one.

It could be argued that any principled libertarian could do the job, but the media are the gatekeepers for access to that proportion of the voting public who still pay any attention to TV, and they're not going to provide J. Random Libertarian with any notice at all, unless JRL happens to be "famous" (for some values of "famous). Even a loose-cannon candidate — the more off-the-wall, the better — will get more media exposure than a highly competent, philosophically "pure" JRL.

Does raising the profile of libertarianism make any difference to the philosophy's acceptability to the general public . . . well, that's a completely different question.

QotD: Testifying before congress

I was watching the Big Oil execs testifying before Congress. That was my first mistake. If memory serves, there was lesbian mud wrestling over on Channel 137, and on the whole that's less rigged. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz knew the routine: "I can't say that there is evidence that you are manipulating the price, but I believe that you probably are. So prove to me that you are not."

Had I been in the hapless oil man's expensive shoes, I'd have answered, "Hey, you first. I can't say that there is evidence that you're sleeping with barnyard animals, but I believe that you probably are. So prove to me that you are not. Whatever happened to the presumption of innocence and prima facie evidence, lady? Do I have to file a U.N. complaint in Geneva that the House of Representatives is in breach of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?"

But that's why I don't get asked to testify before Congress.

Mark Steyn, "Your car can't run on Congress' hot air", Orange County Register, 2008-05-24

The Barr nomination

Bob Barr, former Republican congressman, has taken the Libertarian Party nomination for 2008, with his running mate Wayne Allyn Root. David Weigel was there:

The timing was perfect. Presidential candidate Mary Ruwart, a favorite among the Libertarian Party's Radical Caucus, was 15 minutes into a hard-hitting speech and Q&A with delegates at the contested LP convention in Denver, and she'd just finished enumerating what it is she couldn't stomach in a prospective running mate. In short, she couldn't stomach Bob Barr. As if on cue, Barr's twang exploded over a next-door soundsystem.

"All right!" he said, whooping up dozens of his cowboy-hatted delegates. "Are we ready to go?"

Ruwart's face froze into a devious, oh please kind of smile as Barr briefly addressed his throng. Fired up and ready to go, he marched them past the exhibit area and over into the main convention hall to deliver delegate tokens guaranteeing Barr a place in the Saturday night debate and a nominating speech at the Sunday presidential contest. As the procession went past, Neal Stephenson, a supporter of longshot candidate Christine Smith, loudly sang John Williams' "Imperial March," the song playing when Darth Vader enters the room in Star Wars.

Jim Peron, working the Laissez Faire Books table, opted for less subtlety. "Fuckin' traitors!" Peron yelled. "Go back to the GOP!" As Barr's crowd entered the hall, Peron joined in a burst of sarcastic applause and cheers. "Hooray!" yelled a phalanx of delegates. "They're leaving the convention!"

Who'll be the veep?

Steve Chapman looks at the possible choices for Barack Obama and John McCain when it comes to who else'll be on their respective tickets:

People who are under the influence of alcohol often are seized with impulses that seem brilliant at the time but end up looking like horrible mistakes the next day. We are now at the stage of the presidential election when intoxication at the prospect of the fall campaign produces ideas that, if adopted, will lead only to regret.

One came in an article on the influential op-ed page of The Washington Post, proposing a simple way to reconcile Hillary Clinton and her supporters to Barack Obama's looming victory. "It's likely that the next president will face at least one Supreme Court vacancy," wrote James Andrew Miller, formerly an aide to Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker. "Obama should promise Hillary Clinton, now, that if he wins in November, the vacancy will be hers, making her first on a list of one."

In Miller's view, it would guarantee a quick Senate confirmation, gratify her supporters by assuring her life tenure in a job more consequential than vice president and add a solid liberal vote to a conservative-leaning court.

No doubt. But it would brand Obama as an unsavory deal-maker willing to bribe a rival for her blessing, badly tarnishing the rationale of his candidacy. It would also give Republicans a matchless opportunity in the fall campaign — trumpeting the specter of an Obama presidency and a Clinton court.

There'd be no escape from the Spanish Inquisition judicial activism under those circumstances. That would be perhaps the best way for the Democrats to rally wavering Republican supporters behind McCain.

QotD: The Presidency

It's a curious thing in America that each July we celebrate how the founding fathers threw off the shackles of an oppressive monarchy, that we favorably compare our republican system of governance with the world's tyrants, dictatorships and monarchies (and rightly so) — and yet we then celebrate those American presidents who most behaved like tyrants, monarchs and dictators.

Presidents like Woodrow Wilson, Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman are regularly put at the top of lists of America's greatest presidents. This is true when both historians and the American public at large are polled. Yet these are presidents who did everything they could to expand the power of their offices, to extend the sphere of influence of the federal government and to bully through policies that met inconvenient hurdles otherwise known as checks and balances.

[. . .]

These are odd men to call heroes.

Inexplicably, the presidents who knew and understood their constitutional limits, who respected those limits and who generally took a more laissez-faire approach to government get short shrift — even derision — from historians.

Men like Calvin Coolidge, Warren Harding, Rutherford B. Hayes and Grover Cleveland merely exhibited what Healy calls "stolid, boring competence." Historians loathe them, Healy writes, because they had the audacity to "content themselves simply with presiding over peace and prosperity" and not seek to remake the world in their own image. The nerve of them.

Radley Balko, "Presidential Power-Tripping", FoxNews.com, 2008-05-19

The world needs more Orwell

Jon sent me a link to this post by Nick Packwood, which serves to remind me that I still need to get caught up on my Orwell readings. (And to think that I wouldn't go near the man's work when I was in school . . . ah, the idiocies of youth.)

Decades later, George Orwell's "The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius" includes a little something to annoy everyone [. . .] So much to consider — including a precursor to that famous boot "stamping in a human face — forever" — and I am tempted to put quotation marks around the whole book. I will limit myself to one quote. This passage was written in 1941 but could have been written yesterday.

The mentality of the English left-wing intelligentsia can be studied in half a dozen weekly and monthly papers. The immediately striking thing about all these papers is their generally negative, querulous attitude, their complete lack at all times of any constructive suggestion. There is little in them except the irresponsible carping of people who have never been and never expect to be in a position of power. Another marked characteristic is the emotional shallowness of people who live in a world of ideas and have little contact with physical reality. Many intellectuals of the Left were flabbily pacifist up to 1935, shrieked for war against Germany in the years 1935-9, and then promptly cooled off when the war started. It is broadly though not precisely true that the people who were most 'anti-Fascist' during the Spanish Civil War are most defeatist now. And underlying this is the really important fact about so many of the English intelligentsia — their severance from the common culture of the country.

Update: When I originally posted this, a couple of minutes ago, I omitted a link that Nick included in the original. Now that I've read the article, I'd have to say that this sounds like a must-read book:

The first in a projected multivolume chronicle of the years from 1945 to 1979 called Tales of a New Jerusalem, this sparkling book — deeply and imaginatively researched, written with bounce, and informed by the wryest sensibility — charts the evolution of British society during the depleted and dingy years 1945–1951. As Britain shifted from desperate war to bankrupt peace, its Labour government set about building the first welfare state and attempting in myriad ways to uplift the country and its people, a project fraught with the painful collisions between political idealism and people’s daily lives and aspirations.

"Austerity" — a condition and set of policies dictated by the government’s need, owing to a gigantic balance-of-payments deficit with the United States, to limit consumption to wartime levels and divert labor and material to the export trade — meant a home front without a war. Food, clothing, and coal would now in some cases be even more sparingly apportioned than they had been when the war was on; the British would not go completely "off ration" until 1954. With wit and ingenuity, Kynaston mines opinion surveys, radio shows, advertising slogans, parliamentary reports, and above all letters, diaries, and memoirs to evoke the gray tinge that permeated postwar life — the shabby frocks, the sallow faces, the grubby train compartments, the dreary meals ("all winter greens and root vegetables and hamburgers made of grated potato and oatmeal and just a little meat," the food writer Marguerite Patten recalled).

Vote McCain to continue paramilitary raids

If your one-issue hot button is the continuing militarization of police work, Radley Balko tells you how you should vote:

As Jacob Sullum pointed out yesterday, Barack Obama hasn't exactly made crystal clear his position on medical marijuana.

Fortunately, the Republican National Committee has stepped forward to clear up any confusion. If you support ending the federal SWAT raids on cannabis stores and taking a federalist approach to medical marijuana, the RNC says Obama's your man.

If you think the president must continue paramilitary raids on convalescent centers in states that have approved medical marijuana, and that anything less wouldn't be keeping with his oath to uphold and protect the Constitution, well, then you should vote Republican.

In praise of gridlock

By way of Samizdata, some political wisdom from a man who calls himself "not just stupid", but a "student of stupidity": P.J. O'Rourke:

It occurs to me that America could wind up with a Democratic president. This scares me. Not because I hate Democrats — although I do, come to think of it — but because a strong Democratic president and a strong Democratic Congress could put an end to partisan bickering in Washington and result in politicians from both parties working together to solve America's problems. And then we're really screwed.

I have been covering politics for 38 years. Trust me: we don't want politics to quit. That's why we need a Republican president — not because Republicans are good but because we need gridlock. I love gridlock. Gridlock means government can't do things.

The two most frightening words in Washington are "bipartisan consensus." Bipartisan consensus is when my doctor and my lawyer agree with my wife that I need help.

Bipartisan consensus — like the stimulus package that has been delivered to us courtesy of Congress and the president. A $168 billion stimulus package that is supposed to change the trajectory of a $13 trillion economy.

Now, even somebody who flunked high school physics — and I did — can tell you that the energy of $168 billion is not sufficient to budge $13 trillion worth of inertia. It's like trying to use Dennis Kucinich to push Hillary Clinton off the Democratic campaign platform.

Much more here (PDF document).

Drug frenzy

Jacob Sullum pens the headline of the week:

How Hysterical Do You Have to Be for Newsweek to Suggest That You're Overreacting to a Drug Menace?

This doesn't quite make up for Newsweek's anti-crack hysteria circa 1986 or its anti-meth hysteria circa 2005, but the magazine's latest issue includes a careful, balanced story about Salvia divinorum that could serve as a model for how the press should handle controversies involving psychoactive substances. Noting salvia's longstanding use as a Mazatec folk remedy, its modern use as an aid to introspection, and its medical potential, author Brian Braiker says media attention attracted by YouTube videos of teenagers smoking salvia "is spooking legislators and law enforcement" into banning the plant and arresting people for possession.

"Tepidly gung ho" about education reform

In perhaps the least emphatic possible way, Megan McArdle picks a favourite among the various contending educational reform notions:

But while taking away much of the teacher's union's power is definitely not sufficient, it does seem to be necessary. They resist changes to their work practices that the best evidence [. . .] seems to show works with disadvantaged kids: rote memorization, and phonics. These replace the tools that upper middle class give their kids earlier — even if you went to a whole language school, if you're reading this blog it's a safe bet you had phonics, too, when your parents taught you to "sound it out".

Instead, they agitate for things like smaller class sizes. It is true that schools with smaller class sizes tend to do better — but this is not surprising, since they tend to be more affluent. Pilot programs with disadvantaged kids also seem to show a benefit, but these suffer from the same problem that I discussed in a previous post about the Perry Pre-School: who's staffing your smaller class sizes? If smaller class sizes means employing more marginal teachers, it's far from obvious that this is a net boon. To the kids, I mean. It's an obvious win for the union.

This is why almost all educational ideas fail: they don't scale when you take the highly motivated grad students and gifted teachers out of the equation. That's why I'm tepidly gung ho about Direct Instruction: it has been proven to work with ordinary teachers using ordinary resources.

I don't care if the teachers have unions to negotiate over salary and benefits. But I think the power to block terminations and set work rules should be entirely stripped from them.

Hurrah for Jindal!

Until his name came up as a potential running-mate for John McCain, I don't remember ever hearing about Bobby Jindal. I think this will change regardless of whether he joins McCain or not. Megan McArdle is a fan:

With a river of federal money flowing in, Louisiana, which used to be stuck at the bottom of state corruption indices, could have gone back to business as usual while the politicians and the powers that be diverted a few rivulets to their own use. Instead, Jindal and the legislature passed anti-corruption laws that in a surprising turn of events actually seem to have done something about corruption — suddenly the state is getting the best scores in the country. They pushed through disclosure rules for all government officials — state and local, appointed and elected. He got a law passed that forbid legislators from doing business with the state. And he took on a tax and regulatory structure that had been built around the notion that companies couldn't go anywhere, and could hence be bled dry.

Huey Long deliberately built a bridge lower than standard so that boat traffic couldn't go upriver. The days when New Orleans could enforce that kind of dominance are long gone, but the old institutional structures remained. For example, Louisiana had special taxes on utilities, on new equipment purchases, on businesses that borrowed money. The unsurprising result was that companies deferred maintenance and refused to buy new equipment, making them uncompetitive unless they paid low wages. It's classic rent seeking behavior by the legislature, and Jindal actually got rid of it; new businesses are now locating there, and others are upgrading.

Staving off disaster in Massachusetts

Katherine Mangu-Ward realizes that she missed some key elements after her move to Massachusetts:

Massachusetts must have been a terrifying place in 1995. A relatively recent arrival in the commonwealth myself, I had no idea that the mid-90s was a time when health care was unobtainable. I didn't know about the washed out bridges and unplowed roads. Nor do I recall seeing bands of feral children roaming the streets from 8:00 am to 3:00 pm due to the lack of public schools.

But a popular ballot initiative to eliminate Massachusetts's income tax — thus bringing the state budget back to 1995 levels — is being greeted with howls of protest and predictions that the state will degenerate into underfunded chaos.

QotD: Title IX and the candidates

USA Today asked the three remaining major-party candidates how they feel about Title IX and about performance enhancing drugs.

Refreshingly, all three said neither steroids nor gender participation are any of the government's business, and that, being private entities, sports organizations should be free to set their own rules free of meddling from the federal government or grandstanding congressmen.

Just kidding. All three favor using the federal government to bend pro and amateur sports to their liking.

Radley Balko, "Sports and Election '08", The Agitator, 2008-05-11

For purposes of political balance . . .

. . . if it seems like I'm deliberately poking fun at the Democrats for their current imbroglio with Obama and Clinton, I don't want to appear to be partisan. So, here's a cry from New Jersey: "Is it too late for the GOP to dump McCain?"

They can't say I didn't warn them. But do they listen to me? No, they don't. If they had, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in today.

I'm talking about the leaders of the national Republican Party. Way back in 1999, I warned them they should find someone other than a certain George W. Bush to run for president.

And now I fear I must resurrect that warning as regards John McCain. As bad as Bush has been in undermining virtually every traditional Republican principle of good governance, I fear McCain would be worse. If he wins, that is. I fear the Straight Talk Express is going to run off the road if the driver doesn't get his foot out of his mouth and onto the brake pedal.

Since winning the nomination, McCain has uttered a nonstop string of gaffes. His many statements on Iraq, for example, amount to an admission that he has no idea who the enemy is there and why we're fighting there.

Having proved himself incompetent on foreign policy, McCain has moved on to economics. The man who has confessed on several occasions that he doesn't know much about economics went on to prove it by proposing a summer gas-tax holiday that was ridiculed by every economist who heard of it — and then laughed at some more after Hillary Clinton picked it up and tried to sell it to the Democrats.

H/T to Nick Gillespie for the link.

Wil Wheaton also offers some advice

After yesterday's John Scalzi link, today's writer-offering-kindly-advice link goes to Wil Wheaton:

hillary clinton: the psycho ex-girlfriend of the democratic party

[. . .] It's over. She knows it's over. It's been over for almost three months, but she's been moving the goalposts and cynically and cravenly pandering to voters in a way that's not only insulting, but is embarrassing. John Cole frequently says that he can't believe he ever supported Bush, and I can now join him in saying that I can't believe I ever supported, defended and believed in the Clintons.

The thing about all of this is that, with a Clinton victory in the primary about as likely as jumping off the roof of your house and landing on the moon, it's become clear that this whole thing isn't about Democrats or beating McCain (who is inexplicably running for Bush's third term) or saving our country from the catastrophic failure of the Bush years. No, it's all about her. It's about her ego. It's about refusing to admit that she did her best, but voters (except those encouraged by Rush Limbaugh to cross party lines and fuck with our primary) have pretty clearly said "No thanks. You're a good senator, but we want something different now."

It's been crystal clear for weeks, yet she refuses to put party and country over personal ambition and drop out of the race, forcing Barack Obama to not only run against McCain and the Media, but also against her. It's particularly galling, because she can only win if her campaign can force Democratic superdelegates (one of the worst creations in the history of politics) to tell millions of Democratic voters — many of them first time voters who, like me, finally feel truly inspired by someone — to go fuck themselves.

Political advice from John Scalzi

John Scalzi thinks there is a way out:

You know, today would be an excellent day for the mandarins of the Democratic Party to pay a call to Hillary Clinton, sit her down and then, kindly and gently, and with full appreciation of everything she's done for party and country, stick a goddamn fork in her.

Meet the USLP candidates

David Weigel has a look at "wildest Libertarian Party nomination fight in decades". After the big names, he presents the usual list of names nobody should expect to see on the final ballot:

9. The others. There is absolutely zero chance that John Finan, Barry Hess, Dave Hollist, Daniel Imperato, Alden Link, or Robert Milnes will get the Libertarian Party’s nomination. They are occasionally entertaining, and they are harmless. Imperato, in particular, has run a campaign worthy of Max Headroom, bidding (with no success) for the Constitution and Green Party nominations, claiming to run a multi-billion-dollar international organization, to speak seven languages, and to be descended from Emperor Nero. (If that actually was true, why would anyone admit it?) "He is the most ridiculous candidate I have ever seen," says Starchild.

QotD; [INSERT NAME OF MESSIANIC LEADER HERE]

Mrs Obama is most famous for declaring, a propos her husband's candidacy, that "for the first time in my adult lifetime I'm really proud of my country". Just a throwaway line reflecting no more than the narcissism and self-absorption required to mount a presidential campaign in the 21st century? Well, possibly — were it not for the fact that almost every time the candidate's wife speaks extemporaneously she seems to offer some bon mot consistent with that bleak assessment.

And when she stops looking back across the final grim despairing decades of the 20th century ("Life for regular folks has gotten worse over the course of my lifetime") and contemplates the sunlit uplands of the new utopia, it doesn't, tonally, get any cheerier. Pretend for a moment that the name of the candidate had been excised from the following remarks. Would it seem part of the natural discourse of a constitutional republic of citizen legislators? Or does it sound more appropriate to the leadership cult of Basketkhazia or some other one-man stan?

"[INSERT NAME OF MESSIANIC LEADER HERE] will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed."

Barack, eh? Barack Jong-Il? Unlikely. Not too many "comfort zones" in Pyongyang. Barack Turkmenbashi, the late dictator of Turkmenistan? Possibly. But he would have exhorted his people to push themselves to grow more melons (a particular source of national pride). No, the above words were his wife's vision of life under the Administration of Barack Obama, the transformative Presidential candidate offering change you can believe in — or else. I hate to sound like I'm walled up in the Shed of Cynicism, but the constitutional right to be "uninvolved" and "uninformed" is one of the most precious, at least if the alternative is being "required" to work at coming out of your isolation and engaging with fellow members of the uninvolved, uninformed masses as we push ourselves to move out of our comfort zone.

Mark Steyn, "Mrs. Grievance", National Review, 2008-04-29

QotD: Paranoia in politics

On Tuesday the lesbian assassin of Vince Foster won Pennsylvania's presidential primary. In the larger contest for the Democratic nomination, though, she still lags behind a jihadist sleeper agent who is simultaneously a secret Muslim, a secret Communist, and a secret Republican. Whoever wins their race will go on to face a brainwashed puppet of the Viet Cong, and whoever wins that race will then get on with the modern president's central task: serving the interests of Mexico. It must be true, I read it in my email.

There's a persistant political myth that paranoia is only a feature of the fringe, something common among alienated radicals and reactionaries but rare in the great American center. In fact, paranoia has been ubiquitous across the political spectrum. You can find it in nearly every faction and movement at every point in American history, not least among those establishment figures who think they're immune to conspiracy theories. (The most lurid and destructive tales of Waco were not told by militiamen after the raid was over. They were told by the media and the government while the siege was underway.)

Jesse Walker, "The Paranoid Style Is American Politics: Fear and loathing on every campaign trail", Hit and Run, 2008-04-24

There's regrets, and then there are "regrets"

Tom Tomorrow captures the nature of the regrets being offered after five years:

QotD: The Ron Paul Campaign

To be sure, by every conventional measure Paul’s presidential bid has been an abject failure — not a single primary win and only 14 delegates as of press time. Yet Paul managed to raise more than $20 million, virtually all of it online, and inspire an army of hyper-devoted and mostly youthful followers using a pitch — and a style — that will have much more to do with 21st century politics than whatever models of Buick and Oldsmobile the Democrats and Republicans eventually crank out this year. That’s how Paul pulled together over 67,000 people at the social networking site MeetUp (a total that was more than 20 times the number who signed up for the next most popular candidate, Barack Obama). That’s why he won raves from quarters as disparate as conservative commentator George Will (who called Paul "my man" on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos"), punk icon Johnny Rotten (who gave Congress' "Dr. No" a celebratory shout-out during a "Tonight Show with Jay Leno" episode), plus a self-explanatory group called "Strippers for Paul."

What explained the ability of this odd politician, with his inept campaign management team, to attract gobs of money, if not actual votes? Because it was only Ron Paul who said something truly distinct this campaign about the very nature of power. Namely, that government should have less of it on all levels and in every instance. "I don't want to run your life," Paul says. "I don't want to run the economy. ... I don't want to run the world." Such sentiment is simultaneously radical and fully in the Jeffersonian tradition of governing best while governing least. The right to be left alone, as Justice Louis Brandeis once put it, is at the very center of the American experiment because it allows individuals and the communities they form to pursue happiness in competing, peaceful ways. This is especially true in Long Tail America, where people are not only increasingly tolerant of alternative lifestyles but are constantly on the hunt for ways to individualize and personalize their own lives.

Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch, "Tuned Out (PDF download)", Politics, March 2008

A (fiscal) plague on both their houses!

Steve Chapman casts a jaundiced eye over the last three presidential candidates still standing:

For some time now, the three presidential candidates have been striving to outdo each other on what Hillary Clinton calls "the commander-in-chief" test. She says that she and John McCain have passed it. McCain's response has been on the order of, "What do you mean, 'we'?" Recently, Barack Obama assembled a passel of retired generals and admirals to publicly salute him.

It's good to know they are preparing themselves for that 3 a.m. phone call. But I'm not convinced any of them is ready for the 8 a.m. call from the budget director reporting that the deficit is raging out of control. When it comes to combating the fiscal menaces we face, these three are all absent without leave.

The budget situation is already dire. In the last six years, the federal government has spent some $1.8 trillion more than it has taken in. This year, the deficit will hit an estimated $410 billion. If the economy falls into a recession, the gap will grow.

Believe it or not, these are the good old days. In the next few years, the budget will begin to show the effects of a mammoth event that has long been dreaded: the retirement of the baby boomers. Social Security and Medicare already account for one-third of federal spending, and over the next 30 years, they are expected to nearly double in cost as a share of the total economy.

"I love the smell of schadenfreude in the morning"

Samizdata Illuminatus takes a good deep breath:

If I was a believer, I would be pouring a thankful libation right about now. Eliot Spitzer, one of the most nasty power crazed politicos in US politics today, perhaps second only to Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson in authoritarian thuggishness, has just shown that he who lives by the judicial sword, can oh so easily die by the judicial sword. To see a man who thought nothing of using the power of the state to intimidate those who dared cross him get caught in a Federal wiretap is . . . well . . . sweet. I love the smell of schadenfreude in the morning.

Propaganda re-purposed

There are some very amusing (and effective) re-touched WW1/WW2 propaganda posters at this Cafe Press page:

H/T to Katherine Mangu-Ward.

QotD: Inside the mind of a Drug Warrior

In any case, [new versions of the drug naloxone] certainly seem like a good idea for private groups and non-profits. It's a cost-effective way of saving lives.

But not everyone is happy. Dr. Bertha Madras, deputy director of the White House Office on National Drug Control Policy, recently told National Public Radio she opposes the distribution programs because — and hold on to your hat for this one — she believes life-threatening overdoses are an important deterrent to drug use.

"Sometimes having an overdose, being in an emergency room, having that contact with a health care professional is enough to make a person snap into the reality of the situation and snap into having someone give them services," Madras said.

Madras' reaction offers a telling glimpse into the mind of a drug warrior.

We're told that certain drugs have to be prohibited because they're too dangerous. But we should also resist efforts to make them less dangerous because doing so might encourage drug use.

It's a bizarre argument until you consider the real motivation behind it: In truth, it's not so much about the harm some drugs do; it's about an absolute moral opposition to the use of some drugs.

Even if they were completely harmless, some people simply don't like the idea that we can ingest chemicals that make us feel good.

Radley Balko, "Better Dead than High", Reason Online, 2008-03-03

Obama-mania explained to Guardian readers

A brief introduction to the wave of Obama-worship currently engulfing Democratic primary voters by David Weigel:

Maybe it started with the fainting. After a while you couldn't ignore video and reports of Barack Obama supporters, sardine-tin-packed into his monster rallies, blacking out and dropping to the floor as the candidate hit his applause lines. Or maybe it started with the music video Yes We Can, a black-and-white, celebrity-studded mash-up of Obama's soaring South Carolina primary victory speech.

Somewhere on the Illinois senator's improbable march toward the Democratic nomination — and his remarkable steamrolling of the heretofore invincible Clinton family — the American commentariat tried to shake it off. Los Angeles Times columnist Joel Stein fretted about a "cult of Obama." New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, whose anti-Obama tirades have been reprinted in Hillary Clinton campaign mail, saw the campaign becoming "a cult of personality". Neoconservative Washington Post scold Charles Krauthammer, whose ideology has the most to lose from an Obama triumph, warned Americans that history was repeating: "As a teenager growing up in Canada, I witnessed a charismatic law professor go from obscurity to justice minister to prime minister, carried on a wave of what was called Trudeaumania." (Not as spine-chilling as Krauthammer's usual warning of this or that third-worlder becoming the next Hitler, but scary enough.)

The whole Trudeaumania thing would certainly be enough to scare the pants off me!

The best part of the article is this:

The problem for Clinton isn't just that 79% of her fellow Americans actually believe in celestial choirs. The problem for both of Obama's opponents is that being a "cult leader" is not a demerit in the quest for the presidency. Americans don't want a down-to-earth executive. They want Jesus Christ. They'll settle for Sun Myung Moon.

QotD: The Boomers' Fate?

There seems to be much consternation over Ron Paul failing to win over the mainstream of the Republican Party. The answer is really quite simple, the majority of Republicans are within a few years of getting Social Security. A fiscally sound and Constitutionally honest government would have to tell those Boomers and their still living parents "Terribly sorry but you don't have a contract saying the next generations owe you a damn thing" and they bloody well know it. They may talk a good game about balanced budgets but when push comes to shove they will enslave their kids to provide for their old age.

I just wonder how long it will take for Gen X to start smothering their greedy selfish parents with pillows while they sleep. Especially when "saving" Social Security will mean our contribution will be 25% or more of our paychecks. Until the Boomers start kicking the bucket we wont get that "gimme gimme gimme" monkey off our backs.

Scott Graves, letter to the editor, Libertarian Enterprise, 2008-02-24

QotD: Primary Motivation

There is a reason the urban jihadis of Amsterdam and elsewhere specifically target gay men. Islam as a memeplex and as an adaptive strategy is about access to and ownership of women and by extension the control of sexual behaviour. Any number of cults function as a means for a small, core group of men — usually around a single charismatic leader — to mate with as many women as possible while relegating the majority of men to non-breeding status. David Koresh, Mormon fundamentalists, Raelians, the SeaOrg core of Scientology, and, yes, Islam at its earliest foundations down to its most determined exponents today; the list goes on and on. We see this structure over and over again because it works, at least so long as their are neighbouring populations which can be conquered by the otherwise non-breeding males of the cult and mined as a source of slaves, concubines and the spoils these cults cannot produce for themselves. The jihadis target gay men because of the unacceptable truth their overt ideology denies in themselves. And, quite possibly, out of an unconscious recognition of the most dangerous among their enemy if Europe undergoes another phase change, enters a swarm state and carries out another apocalyptic genocide.

Nick Packwood, "Where they make a desert, they call it peace", Ghost of a Flea, 2008-02-22

QotD: The primaries

This year's primary season has been so full of healthy developments that you could package it with oat bran and hawk it at Whole Foods. The country can thank its lucky stars that the process has pushed forward — in McCain and in Democratic Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama — the three most formidable figures in American politics. If Obama wins the Democratic nomination, the result will pit the two most widely admired political figures of their generations against each other in a presidential race. The last time the country saw anything remotely like that was when Dwight Eisenhower faced Adlai Stevenson in 1952 and 1956.

Democrats can be grateful they have two tough races on their hands, first for the nomination and then, as now seems virtually certain, against McCain in the general election. Remember LBJ and Jimmy Carter? When Democrats win against weak opponents or crippled parties, they overreach, underperform, and lose touch with the country.

Jonathan Rauch, "Saved by McCain: The presumptive nominee is a tonic for the party", Reason Online, 2008-02-21

QotD: Castro and Cuba

Earlier this year, Castro had said that there would be no change in the Cuba-U.S. relationship until that man in the White House had vamoosed. And George W. Bush, along with most Dems and Reps, haven't shown much interest in changing the ongoing, and idiotic, U.S. embargo of Cuba. (Two pols who dare speak logic on this issue are Reps. Jeff Flake and Charles Rangel).

U.S. policy toward Cuba has been generally misguided for well over a century. Here's hoping the Congress and the president will do something right to accelerate a shift to freedom there. And here's hoping that Cuba becomes a better place as Castro puts one foot into the grave. I don't believe in hell, but I sort of hope there is a place like it for a guy like Castro.

Nick Gillespie, "Castro Resigns as President for Life of Cuba; Wants to Spend More Time with Families", Hit and Run, 2008-02-19

"Unwitting racism" and other Green follies

A guest writer at Samizdata goes through the (UK) Green Party's Manifesto for a Sustainable Society, to sort out the likely effects from the implementation of the proposed policies:

Rob Johnston has produced a very interesting essay on the true soulmates of Green Politics in Britain

   * Forbid the purchase of corner shops by migrants
   * Stop people from inner cities moving to the countryside to protect traditional lifestyles
   * Grant British citizenship only to children born here
   * Boycott food grown by black farmers and subsidise crops grown by whites
   * Restrict tourism and immigration from outside Europe
   * Prohibit embryo research
   * Stop lorry movements on the Lord's Day
   * Require State approval for national sports teams to compete overseas
   * Disconnect Britain from the European electricity grid
   * Establish a "new order" between nations to resolve the world economic crisis

These are the policies of one of Britain’s most influential political parties: a party that has steadily increased its vote over the last decade; a party that appeals overwhelmingly to whites; and a party that shares significant objectives with neo-fascists and religious fundamentalists.

Perhaps — the BNP? Despite its attempts to appear modern and inclusive and the soothing talk in its 2005 General Election Manifesto, of "genuine ethnic and cultural diversity" [1].

Or UKIP? It harbours some pretty backward-looking individuals — but would they stop Britain buying electricity from France if necessary?

Or, maybe, the Conservatives? Could that be a list of recommendations from one of Dave’s lesser-known policy groups — chaired by the ghost of Enoch Powell — quietly shredded to avoid "re-contaminating the Brand"?

Actually, affiliates of the progressive consensus may be surprised to learn that all the reactionary policies in the first paragraph are from the Green Party’s Manifesto for a Sustainable Society (MfSS) or were adopted at the party’s Autumn Conference in Liverpool over the weekend of September 13-16, 2007 [2].

It's a lengthy post, but well worth reading the whole thing.

Government subsidies distort the market

In a post about shilling for environmentally friendly energy subsidies, Radley Balko touches on one of the biggest boondoggles of the 19th century, the building of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads:

In 1862, Congress justified passing the Pacific Railroad Act as a way to forestall a secessionist movement in California during the Civil War. The government subsidized the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads at $16,000 per mile over an easy grade and up to $48,000 in the mountains. In addition, the government offered substantial land grants along the right-of-way. Despite these government subsidies, both companies were bankrupt in the early 1870s.

As an example of how government subsidies distort incentives, both railroad construction crews worked past each other building an extra 200 miles of parallel rail lines grades (and some parallel tracks) instead of linking up so their companies could earn more subsidy payments and land grants. The fact that government subsidies were not necessary for building a transcontinental railroad was proved when James J. Hill built the highly profitable Great Northern Railway from Minnesota to Seattle completely without them or land grants.

The UP/CP are an excellent example of how injecting government money into what should be a private endeavour will seriously distort the market, creating a huge incentive to "game the system" to maximize the unearned profits from the government, rather than by serving the public by actually running a business.

If you've read any of the histories of the Union Pacific¹, you'll very quickly discover that the company spent far more time and effort lobbying for subsidy, manoevering against potential competitors (by legislation, bribery, and political obstruction, not by actually serving their customers), and hiding the mind-boggling levels of waste, corruption, and incompetence of their day-to-day operations.

That's not to minimize the difficulties of actually building and running the railroad, which cost the lives of many men (disproportionally immigrant Irish and Chinese labourers), but the fact is that the railroad itself was a very distant second to the government largess to be diverted for private profit by the executives of the two corporations. The excesses and criminality of the various officers of the company had an even more important legacy: after the scandal broke, leaving both companies bankrupt, successive governments felt totally justified in heavily regulating all railroads, introducing economic burdens which would cripple most of them for nearly a hundred years (some of the worst regulatory burdens weren't lifted until the 1980's²).

^1. Except for the sanitized versions produced for children, which only cover the engineering achievements, not the grubby reality of the UP & CP in their early years.

^2. See the Staggers Act for information on the deregulation which belatedly allowed the revitalization of the American railroad industry.

Studies of the rail industry showed dramatic benefits for both railroads and their users from this alteration in the regulatory system. According to the Department of Transportation's Freight Management and Operations section's studies, railroad industry costs and prices were halved over a ten year period, the railroads reversed their historic loss of traffic (as measured by ton-miles) to the trucking industry, and railroad industry profits began to recover after decades of low profits and widespread railroad insolvencies.

Is there a "moderate" version of 9/11 conspiracy theorizing?

Jennifer Abel, writing for the Hartford Advocate, tries to find out:

According to a 2006 Scripps-Howard poll, over a third of Americans believe high-ranking officials either helped commit the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, or at least allowed them to happen. Other polls report even greater levels of cynicism.

Where do you draw the line separating "fringe conspiracy theory" from "mainstream phenomenon"? We're not sure, but if one-third of the populace isn't the mainstream it's at least a significant tributary of it.

So last November, when we learned that the Connecticut Citizens for a New 9/11 Investigation were hosting a symposium at St. Joseph's College in West Hartford, we paid it more attention than the usual "UFOs killed JFK" conspiracy e-mails that flood our in-box: rather than delete the message, we called the contact number within.

Distrusting the government is like drinking wine: if you never do it, you're probably too uptight. If you do it in moderation, it's very good for your health. But if you do it too much you make yourself ridiculous. Where on this spectrum do the 9/11 deniers fall? Not in the "uptight" zone, that much we knew. The question was, did they have a healthy anti-government buzz or a sloppy-drunk one?

This is a tough area: I know there are lots of otherwise intelligent folks who are absolutely convinced that George Bush himself was at the controls of one of the planes, and Dick Cheney was at the controls of the other one. Except they weren't really planes . . . except that they were planes, but not the hijacked planes . . . except they fired missiles just before impact . . . and so on, and so on. The libertarian movement has more than their fair share of conspiracy theorists, including some well-known authors and public speakers.

Of course, there have always been conspiracy theorists, and there's always just enough plausibility to persuade some people that something is fishy about assassinations, terrorist attacks, and other major disruptions to everyday life. Here's Penn & Teller's take on conspiracy theories:

There, that should keep you busy for the next 30 minutes . . .

QotD: Mitt Romney

The problem with Mitt Romney is that he isn't Mormon enough. His unusual, unpopular religion is the one part of his public image that doesn’t feel like it came out of a focus group. Naturally, he does everything he can to minimize, marginalize, and neuter it. Most voters, he said at one point, "want a person of faith as their leader. But they don't care what brand of faith that is." He thus reduced his purportedly heartfelt beliefs to a brand name, just another toothpaste in the great big CVS in the sky. It might not be Colgate, but the important thing is that he brushes daily.

Jesse Walker, "Make Mine Mormon: If only Mitt Romney were as colorful as his faith", Reason Online, 2008-02-04

QotD: John McCain

As a direct result of his long media honeymoon, much of what we think we know about McCain is wrong. Exit-poll numbers out of the early states showed that McCain was doing especially well among primary voters who were antiwar. The numbers say something disturbing about our capacity to believe that independent antiwar voters are seriously considering a man who championed pre-emptive war three years before it ever occurred to George W. Bush, who personally told me that the U.S. share of defense spending — more than one-half of the world's total — was much too small, and who has demonstrated repeatedly these past weeks that he doesn't understand why any American would question the deployment of U.S. troops in Iraq 100 years from now. After more than seven years of increasingly unpopular war, Americans look poised to nominate the most explicitly pro-interventionist presidential candidate since Teddy Roosevelt. Don't say you weren't warned.

Matt Welch, "The Unlikely Comeback of John McCain, Maverick Warmonger", LA Weekly, 2008-01-30

The climate debate, all in one handy portal

Whether you're a Global Warming True Believer or an evil Climate Change Denier, you'll find lots of stuff to keep your blood pressure up at Climate Debate Daily, an aggregator of posts on both sides of the Climate Change holy war. It's run by New Zealand philosophy professor Denis Dutton (who also created the Arts & Letters Daily aggregator site).

For the record, I incline to the heretical side of that particular Jihad/Crusade/Inquisition.

If only he actually meant it

Republican front-runner John McCain:

We believe government should do only those things we cannot do individually, to tax us no more than necessary, and spend no more than necessary, and then get out of the way of the most industrious, ingenious and optimistic people in the history of the world so that they can build an even greater country than the one they inherited.

If that was a good summary of his views and intentions, I'd be much more favourable towards a McCain White House. The reality, however, doesn't quite measure up to the rhetoric:

It was a fine sentiment, similar to what he was saying after winning South Carolina . . . and it has absolutely nothing to do with McCain's voluminous track record as a congressman, senator and public figure.

The road begins to fork at the definition of what "we cannot do invidually." For instance, individually we — and by "we" I mean "John McCain," his Senate office, and even his own campaign website — can enjoy making or facilitating bets on, say, college basketball games. But it's only through the government can we — and by "we" I mean "John McCain" — make betting on college athletics illegal.

The same goes for the most sacred style of expression guaranteed by the First Amendment (or should I say, "quote First Amendment"): political speech. Sure, individuals such as John McCain can pay for advertisements attacking his political opponents within 90 days of an election. But thanks to John McCain, if two individuals join forces to pay for an ad attacking an elected official 90 days before an election, they are either forced to register as a political committee (and therefore comply with Byzantine federal laws regarding donation limits and disclosure), or do battle in the courts long after the election in question fades away.

QotD: How bad could it get?

While sharing cocktails with some delightful Reasonoids at the Happy Hour at The Big Hunt earlier this month, I initiated a little game of ranking presidential candidates. I began by saying that I would have to vote for Hillary Clinton if Mike Huckabee were the Republican presidential candidate. On further reflection, I added that I would have to vote for Mike Huckabee if John Edwards were the Democratic candidate. So my short ranking is that Edwards is worse than Huckabee who is worse than Clinton. On further consideration (and some cocktails later), I began to wonder if reason needs a foreign correspondent for the next four years or so.

Ronald Bailey, "The Presidential Candidate Ranking Game — Who is Worse?", Hit and Run, 2008-01-23

Government-provided services

I've often made the case that the government is generally bad at providing services, even in the case of soi disant "natural" monopoly situations. About the only thing that governments do well is kill people . . . and even the most incompetent government can do a crackerjack job of that. This story is an example of why government-provided goods and services are a waste of time, energy and resources, compared to letting individuals and companies provide them:

A new bus-stop has been built in Lashikar Gah as part of the 'reconstruction' effort.

The report does not say whether it is a replacement for a pre-war bus-stop. Somehow I doubt it. It is very well-equipped, having its own mosque and a pharmacy, as waiting times "can be rather long".

An odd approach. In most of the world a bus-stop is a place where buses happen to stop. Of course bus-stops, like ports and railway stations all round the world provide opportunities for traders, places of worship, bars and cafes and so forth, but they seldom have them built in. Bus companies and their passengers are primarily interested in selling and buying travel. The pause at the roadside to move from foot to wheel, wheel to foot, refuel, refresh, is just procedural necessity.

Okay, you ask, what's the problem? It's a big, over-built bus station, so what is your point? This is my point:

[. . .] a government bus-stop is built to different, higher, standards. A throwaway line at the end of the report reveals just how long those waiting times are: "There are no buses yet."

Jeremy Clarkson puts the boots to eco-weenies

Jeremy Clarkson goes to town on the anti-nuclear power agitators:

The fact of the matter is this. The decision to go nuclear has exposed the whole environmental cause for what it is: not a well intentioned drive for clean power but a spiteful, mean-spirited drive for less power. Because less power hits richer countries and richer people the hardest.

I've argued time and again that the old trade unionists and CND lesbians didn't go away. They just morphed into environmentalists. The reds become green but the goals remain the same. And there's no better way of achieving those goals than turning the lights out and therefore winding the clock back to the Stone Age. Only when we're all eating leaves under a hammer and sickle will they be happy.

I'm serious. All the harebrained schemes for renewable energy are popular among Britain's beardies only because they don't work. I heard one of them on the radio last week explaining that if he were allowed to build 58,000 islands in the Caribbean he could use steam coming off the sea to make enough power for everyone.

Yeah, right. And then you have their constant claims that the tide can be used to make electricity. Really? If that's so, why am I not writing this on a computer powered by the Severn Bore?

Sure, this summer work will begin on a tidal plant off the coast of Wales. Eight turbines, each 78ft long and 50ft tall, will harness the moon's gravitational pull, and if all goes well it won’t even provide enough electricity to run Chipping Norton. You'd be better off burning tenners.

If you're unfamiliar with Clarkson's, er, energetic style, you might enjoy reading his "election manifesto".

It's not Bullshit, but it is more Penn

If you're a fan of Penn & Teller's Bullshit, you may want to direct your browser here, for a selection of uninhibited, unedited, unshaven Penn Jillette.

H/T to Katherine Mangu-Ward for the link.

Calfornia temperature controls

Perry de Havilland finds that California is hoping to become even more intrusive into the lives of private individuals:

According to American Thinker, there is a move afoot to nationalise the ability of people to control the temperatures of their own homes (yes, really!) in, where else, the People's Republic of California:

What should be controversial in the proposed revisions to Title 24 is the requirement for what is called a "programmable communicating thermostat" or PCT. Every new home and every change to existing homes' central heating and air conditioning systems will required to be fitted with a PCT beginning next year following the issuance of the revision. Each PCT will be fitted with a "non-removable " FM receiver that will allow the power authorities to increase your air conditioning temperature setpoint or decrease your heater temperature setpoint to any value they chose. During "price events" those changes are limited to +/- four degrees F and you would be able to manually override the changes. During "emergency events" the new setpoints can be whatever the power authority desires and you would not be able to alter them.

In other words, the temperature of your home will no longer be yours to control. Your desires and needs can and will be overridden by the state of California through its public and private utility organizations. All this is for the common good, of course.

Just remember . . . once you've accepted that government has a role in setting energy prices, they've got a foothold into controlling energy usage, too. And in this proposal, they're creating an even greater incentive for folks to go "off the grid". Wait and see how they choose to address that leak, should enough people attempt to take advantage of it.

QotD: Bipartisanship

Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) said bipartisanship tends to produce the worst that Washington has to offer — transactional politics where lawmakers scratch one other's backs without regard to the bigger picture. Pork-barrel spending goes unchallenged because members of both political parties know that by objecting to one project, they jeopardize their own, Flake said.

"Partisanship is underrated. There is a time and place for it, and more time and place than we realize," he said.

Jonathan Weisman, "GOP Doubts, Fears 'Post-Partisan' Obama", Washington Post, 2008-01-07

QotD: Libertarian turncoats

One career strategy I considered during my happy time at Reason magazine was to become just enough of a bright boy of the libertarian movement to allow me to stage a very public falling out, write a tell-all book with a title like Ex-Friends or Movement Man or Up From Libertarianism or Whose Freedom?, then build a career as a David Horowitz/Michael Lind-style intellectual turncoat, getting paid to warn the masses about the dangers posed by my erstwhile allies. The strategy was unworkable for many reasons: It was a little too dishonest even for me; libertarianism doesn't generate enough public interest to support a longterm market in defection; and as it happens, defectors from and within libertarianism are a dime a dozen.

But the tactic I was planning to use would have been very effective: Simply collect story after story of the moonlight-and-magnolias Confederate nostalgists, stop-the-war-on-men misogynists, traditionalist homophobes, scientific racists and similar fringe characters who seemed to gravitate toward libertarianism, in numbers that I and others found remarkable.

Actually, I probably wouldn't have been very good at this tactic either: I don't do well with policing unacceptable commentary, "kicking" people "to the curb," writing colleagues out of polite society, defining away extremists and all those other things movement types (in all movements) love to do.

Tim Cavanaugh, "Paul vault opens can of worms", L.A. Times Blogs, 2008-01-09

Everyone weighs in with comments on the "Ron Paul" newsletters

Matt Welch rounds up the first batch of responses to the "Ron Paul" newsletter revelations:

David Harsanyi:

The end of Ron Paul? For me, it is. Not the principles, but the man. Sure, Paul has experienced tremendous grassroots support and I've been very sympathetic to a lot of his strong Constitution-based rhetoric. But if even a slither of the quotes in this New Republic article by James Kirchick are accurate, I'm not sure how mainstream libertarians can absolve him.

David Bernstein:

I give Paul the benefit of the doubt on this one, and assume that some right-wing cranks paid him to use him name on their newsletters, and he didn't actually read the newsletters carefully if at all, much less write them. That shows very poor judgment, but is a lot less damning than if he did read, write, or edit these newsletters.

[. . .]

Ryan Sager:

I truly don't understand the Paulites defense that Ron Paul bears no responsibility for any of this . . . just because. (Read the comments to the article — as usual for the Paul brigades, they're unhinged.)

At least Andrew Sullivan may be waking up to the fact that the Ron Paul "revolution" is a front for something much uglier than opposition to the Iraq war and defense of the Constitution.

[. . .]

Ann Althouse:

Look, I said it on Bloggingheads: The things Ron Paul has been saying made me suspect that his libertarianism was a cover for racism.

Much, much more in the original article, with links a-plenty. No matter how it turns out, this is an ugly development for the Paul campaign, and even more so for libertarians and classic liberals.

QotD: The Ron Paul newsletter

I'm disappointed in Paul and in his campaign.

First, a few caveats. I think Paul's prone to nutty conspiracy theories, but I don't think he's a racist, at least not today. Perhaps there was a time when he held views that I and many people reading this site would find repugnant. But I certainly don't think that's the case now. Paul's temperament and demeanor in public does not suggest he's the kind of person capable of writing the bile Kirchick quotes in his article. Paul's position on the drug war alone — which he has acknowledged disproportionately affects minorities — would do more for blacks in America than any proposal any of the other candidates currently has on the table. Paul has also recently rescinded his support for the federal death penalty, also due to its disproportionate impact on blacks. Those two positions alone certainly don't indicate a candidate who fears "animal" blacks from the urban jungle are coming to kill all the white people.

I also think the Paul phenomenon ought to be separated from any personal baggage Paul may have. Yes, there are some losers who support Paul's candidacy. Any time you're a fringe candidate cobbling together support from those who feel disaffected and left behind by the two-party system, you're going to end up bumping elbows with a few weirdos. But there's nothing bigoted about the thousands of college kids, mainstream libertarians, war opponents, drug war opponents, and hundreds-long threads on sites like Digg and Reddit where enthusiasm for Paul's candidacy is strong. This movement is about ideas. There's a vocal, enthusiastic minority of people out there, skewing young, that is excited about "the Constitution," limited government, and personal freedom. That's significant and heartening, and shouldn't be tainted by the fallout from Kirchick's article (though I fear it will [. . .]

Radley Balko, "Ron Paul", Hit and Run, 2008-01-08

QotD: Fascists will heart Huckabee

After a year of wringing their hands over their choices in the presidential race — a pro-choice mayor with an authoritarian streak, a serial flip-flopper, and a senator who is a dedicated opponent of free speech — the Republicans finally have a new front-runner.

Mike Huckabee won the Iowa caucuses Thursday night with 34 percent (with 95 percent of precincts reporting) of the vote, handily defeating Mitt Romney, who came in second with 25 percent in spite of heavy stumping in the key Midwestern state.

Just what Republicans longing for a new Ronald Reagan needed: a religious-right candidate who is also a big-spending nanny statist.

Reporters have been quick to jump on Huckabee's comments in a 1992 Associated Press questionnaire that seemed to confirm their suspicions about a Baptist minister for Arkansas. Huckabee told the AP that "homosexuality is an aberrant, unnatural and sinful lifestyle," and called for isolating people with AIDS. That was a position, by the way, that the venerable Reagan had firmly rejected five years earlier. In 1997, then-Arkansas Gov. Huckabee pushed for a reaffirmation of the state's sodomy law, and in 1998 he compared homosexuality to necrophilia.

Huckabee says his rise in the polls can only be attributed to God's will. He endorsed the Southern Baptist Convention's declaration that "A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband." He says he entered politics to "take this nation back for Christ."

David Boaz, "Shakeup in Iowa changes the outlook for both parties:What fresh Hell is this?", San Francisco Chronicle, 2008-01-07

Why mandating higher MPG sooner won't work

Shikha Dalmia explains why mandating higher miles-per-gallon on car makers isn't the panacea everyone seems to assume:

This is an impossible task. The federal standards will be tough enough for automakers to deliver without compromising on space, safety, power and (above all) low prices — all things that consumers value more than gas mileage. There is simply no technology now available that can combine everything that consumers want with the stipulated gas mileage. If there was, automakers wouldn't need a mandate — they'd run, not walk, to put it on the market.

But why are California's goals so much tougher, even though the federal rules allow just four more years to another 1.2 mpg? Because cars have a long production cycle — models now in the planning stage won't be available until 2014.

So there's simply no time to come up with new designs that will do the job. That means the only way automakers could comply with California's deadline is by withholding from consumers the higher-emission vehicles they want in states that insist on it.

In other words, they'd have to pull the vast majority of their vehicles from those markets, not only SUVs and light trucks, but even most sedans.

Consider Toyota, the darling of the greens: It now makes maybe two vehicles — manual-transmission Yaris and hybrid Prius — that meet California's standards. Toyota's Camry, the top-selling car in America, gets only 25 mpg in combined city and highway driving.

Indeed, the net effect of the California standard would be to impose either small compacts or hybrids on all new-car buyers — even though hybrids costs $3,000 to $5,000 more than their non-hybridized versions and have a much shorter lifespan.

QotD: The tone of the campaign

It strikes me as a little-remarked phenomenon in this election that, for the first time since maybe 1988, the Democrats are running a serious candidate with an essentially Naderite worldview on the evils of Corporate Greed. I haven't paid much attention to the Blue Team so far — the Red crack-up being so much more entertaining — but whenever I do I hear some Democrat espousing economic-policy ideas (hatin' on corporations, hi-fivin' Lou Dobbs on trade) much further to the left of Howard Dean in 2004, Bill Bradley in 2000, and Bill Clinton in the 1990s.

With the one-day Hucka-BOO-yah on the GOP side, the big winner in Iowa tonight seems to be illiberal economic populism.

Matt Welch, "Million-Dollar Haircut; Ten-Cent Head", Hit and Run, 2008-01-03

New reader comments on an old post

A new reader contacted me yesterday about adding a comment to a post from over a year ago. As I've had to close down the comments for anything over a couple of days old, I thought I'd add it here instead. This is from the original posting:

The search for easy labels and obvious scapegoats is as old as the news business. People don't want to think more than they have to: providing them with an easy, obvious person or group to blame for misfortune or bad news is, I hate to say it, a deeply rooted part of the human psyche. If it's not the Gypsies, it's the Jews. If it's not the Jews, it's the Mexicans, or the Masons, or whatever group will most easily satisfy the need to assign blame to among your listeners.

Perhaps the most reprehensible reaction seems to be the most common . . . something bad is happening? Who can we blame? It's sick. It's twisted. It often prevents logical thought. And it's absolutely human.

And the would-have-been-a-comment is:

Dunno about Canada . . . but the more whoever is in power can pit us against one another dividing us by race, looks, preferences and such, the more they can make us think it's the other one, and the more we fight, the more distracted we are from what they can do above our heads.

Sometimes it even gets other people fired up to fight wars against another. But a part is also in the mind naturally, too no doubt. It is sick. Ignorant, and horrible to imagine.

You've just gained a new reader.

Natilya

Mother Jones on the Ron Paul campaign

Another view of the insurgent Ron Paul presidential campaign:

Their candidate, a 72-year-old obstetrician from Lake Jackson, Texas — land of duck hunters, ranchers, and oilmen — has improbably become an Internet sensation. He counts more Facebook and MySpace supporters than any Republican; more Google searches, YouTube subscribers, and website hits than any presidential candidate; and more Meetup members than the front-runners of both parties combined. In recent months he was sought out on the blog search engine Technorati more often than anyone except a Puerto Rican singer with a sex tape on the loose; his November 5 Internet "Money Bomb" event pulled in $4 million from more than 35,000 individual donors, a single-day online-fundraising record in a primary. (The previous best was $3 million, by John Kerry.) "The campaign calls itself the Ron Paul Revolution," notes Republican Internet consultant David All. "And I don't think that's a far stretch."

Indeed, Paul's literature is dominated by the word "revolution," though with the middle letters inverted to make "love" — a hippie touch that would be countenanced by few Republicans other than the congressman, who has been elected 10 times on the GOP ticket (and who also ran as a Libertarian in the 1988 presidential election). The truth is, Paul's revolution is a conservative one, by his own account — and thus all the more noteworthy for Democrats, who until now comfortably assumed that progressive bloggers, YouTubers, and ex-Deaniacs would give them, and only them, an edge online. As it turns out, nobody has more Internet buzz than a pro-gun, pro-life, antitax, and antiwar Republican.

QotD: Presidential Propaganda

Here's a history test no one should fail: Name a president whose "only reading materials were government documents and Bible scriptures" and whose tenure was linked to an increasingly unpopular war started under morally murky — if not clearly phony — circumstances.

That would be James K. Polk, who pushed for war with Mexico in 1846 after the Mexican army killed American soldiers in disputed territory along the Rio Grande River. As recounted in You Said What? (Harper Paperbacks), Polk "began to prepare his declaration of war, at no time recognizing that . . . the attack had occurred in disputed land. By not addressing the point, he was able to make the strongest case possible to a skeptical Congress."

Polk lied through omission, a disturbingly common characteristic of many of the "lies and propaganda" campaigns gathered in this volume. One hundred and 20 years later, another president, Lyndon Johnson, took advantage of the fog surrounding the Gulf of Tonkin incident to ratchet up the American military presence in Vietnam. What's more, Johnson systematically pursued a "policy of minimum candor" when discussing U.S. aims and troop commitments: "He left office branded a liar because he could not tell the whole truth about the war."

Nick Gillespie, "You Said What? A happy history of lies and propaganda", New York Post, 2007-12-09

Clinton vs Giuliani? Yikes!

David Boaz explains why it may not matter (as far as civil liberties are concerned) who wins next November. If Hillary Clinton wins the Democratic nomination, we can expect further expansion in the role of government in everyday life:

Clinton, always eager to wield power on behalf of her vision of the public good, has just endorsed new government mandates on health care and energy along with a $50 billion spending program for global AIDS. Meanwhile, revelations about Giuliani's secretive use of New York City police and his refusal to allow the city comptroller to audit his security spending reflect his lifelong affinity for using and abusing power.

Clinton calls herself a "government junkie." She says, "There is no such thing as other people's children" and promises to work on "redefining who we are as human beings in the post-modern age."

Running for President, she's full of ideas about how to use the power of the federal government. Indeed, she says, "I have a million ideas. The country can't afford them all." That's good to hear. But the ones she apparently thinks we can afford still include a national health care plan, a $50 billion program of energy subsidies, more money for local schools and local roads and bridges, a bailout fund for mortgage borrowers, $25 billion for "American Retirement Accounts," and more. She still has the government junkie's love for a nurturing and nannying government.

On the other hand, if Rudy Giuliani wins the Republican nomination, we can expect even more authoritarian measures, more government secrecy, and more intrusions into the lives of ordinary people:

Giuliani seems much less committed to any particular vision of government's role. Rather, throughout his career Giuliani has displayed an authoritarian streak that is deeply troubling in a potential President who would assume executive powers vastly expanded by President Bush. As U.S. attorney, he pioneered the use of the midday, televised "perp walk" for white-collar defendants who posed no threat to the community. It was a brutal way to treat people who were, after all, innocent until proven guilty.

As mayor he was so keen to "clean up the city" and crack down on dissent that he lost 35 First Amendment lawsuits. He fought against any oversight of his activities; he resisted investigations and audits by the Independent Budget Office and the New York State Comptroller. As Rachel Morris reported in the Washington Monthly, "Over the past 40 years, only two commissions had been held to revise New York's governing document. During his time in office, Giuliani convened three." And he stacked the commissions with close allies and pressed them to eliminate the IBO and the city ombudsman.

He released details from the sealed criminal records of police critics, in clear defiance of state law. But he did manage to seal the records of his own administration by transferring them to a private foundation, even though mayoral records are legally city property.

Not much to be said for either candidate as far as limiting the scope of government, or rolling back some of the powers that Bush has claimed during his administration. Both candidates are clearly inclined to be even more likely to attempt to centralize power in their own hands.

QotD: Huckabee's Energy Policy

I think we ought to be out there talking about ways to reduce energy consumption and waste. And we ought to declare that we will be free of energy consumption in this country within a decade, bold as that is.

Mike Huckabee, as quoted by Jesse Walker in "Energy-Free by 2017!", Hit and Run, 2007-12-12

How not to fix a banking crisis

Jeff Taylor introduces some cold water reality to a fantasy castle-in-the-sky "fix" to the sub-prime mortgage crisis:

"It is probably in their best interest to walk away. They have no equity," Whalen says of the hapless borrowers.

The possibility of their underwater borrowers actually taking a walk terrifies the banks, however. Banks would have no choice but to write down and make real phantom losses lurking just off their books. What to do? How about pretending that the loans aren't actually bad. How do you do that? Pretend that the borrowers can pay them back. How do you do that? Pretend the teaser rate is the real rate. Presto, problem solved.

At this point, some adult would ideally step in and say, "no, that's fraud." But clearly Treasury is not that mature. And it appears the Fed has resigned itself to some form of greater idiocy coming out of Congress on the subprime front that maybe, just maybe, the teaser freezer can head off.

However, the stubborn fact remains that banks will lose money on teaser rates. Regulators and investors both know this. Who exactly are we trying to fool? Besides inattentive voters.

Of course, nobody in the highly educated, fast-paced, exciting world of banking ever noticed that lending large sums of money to people with little or no real ability to repay the principal might be a risk. Bailing them out with public funds is exactly the wrong thing to do . . . which makes it the odds-on favourite of both stricken bankers and politicians needing to be seen to be "doing something".

QotD: The economics of bioethanol

Promoters of the ethanol mandate assert that it would help the United States achieve energy independence and slow the accumulation of greenhouse gases that are driving climate change. Evaluating the scientific and economic claims being made for bioethanol can be vexing, but a few urgent questions come to mind: if bioethanol is such a good energy deal, why must refiners and consumers be forced to use it? Again, if it's such a great idea economically, why does the federal government offer a tax credit of 51 cents per gallon for blending ethanol into gasoline?

In fact, the subsidies are probably higher than that. For example, a 2006 report by the International Institute for Sustainable Development estimated that if one took into account state renewable fuel tax breaks and direct agricultural subsidies that reduce other costs, the total amount of the ethanol subsidy rises from $1.05 to $1.38 per gallon of ethanol

Ronald Bailey, "Bioethanol Boondoggle: Political viability is more important than commercial viability", Reason Online, 2007-12-04

QotD: Hillary Clinton

[. . .] I was happy to find in my stack a new copy of Hillary Clinton's famous bestseller, It Takes a Village, revised, updated, and reissued in a special anniversary edition to coincide with her presidential campaign, by which she seeks to take over the whole village.

Like Castro, like Ceausescu, like many other politicians, Mrs. Clinton prefers to be photographed surrounded by schoolchildren, an image that suggests either a kid's birthday party or a hostage situation, depending on your point of view.

Andrew Ferguson, "Read, Weep, and Vote", The Weekly Standard, 2007-12-03

Go, Royson, Go!

Toronto Star columnist Royson James got a public dressing-down from the mayor for his brilliant column on Friday. The mayor's letter was published on Saturday. James responds, with more restraint than I'd have expected:

[. . .] Mayor David Miller inserted his hectoring presence into the debate — and before you know it, a rhetorical hanging became a "public lynching," the memory of his "Uncle Jim" is exhumed and he has concluded that the very foundation of democracy is being threatened by one columnist raging against city hall spending.

As they say in basketball, no harm no foul. At issue is not whether Toronto councillors deserve to be hanged (I'm against capital punishment, banned in Canada), subjected to public flogging (opposed wherever it's practised), or run out of office (we've just elected them, they're in until 2010). At issue is how do we register our disgust — sorry, our displeasure — at their fiscal indiscretions.

A number of readers have emailed concern about the mayor's "over the top" rhetoric. Some, mine. Others fear I'll be beaten (metaphorically?) into submission, afraid to utter a single contrarian view in future. My bosses, far from moving to censure me, are more concerned that I might be "chilled" into overlooking wasteful habits as council embarks on this crucial 2008 budget cycle.

No worries. Let's just use the mayor's letter to the editor Saturday as the template for all further analysis and critique of city hall. Surely, an ink-stained wretch is allowed to borrow the mayor's own carefully crafted words.

A cursory glance at the mayor's letter, dripping with bile and bluster, reveals no cause for concern that one's criticism must now be facile, gracious or temperate. The mayor provides a list of choice adjectives and phrases that might now be at a columnist's disposal.

Appropriating the title of ombudsman, editor and publisher — in addition to chief magistrate and monarch — in an attempt to control all propaganda, er, communications in Hogtown, the official list of approved words and phrases include: "Beneath contempt," "Shows absolutely no respect for democracy," "stoop so low," "outrageous thoughts," "beyond belief," "hateful ruminations," "absolutely offensive," "loathsome advocacy."

The win goes to James, by knockout, in the second round.

Toronto council wastes money . . . in other news, water is wet

I was amazed to find this column in the Toronto Daily Worker Toronto Star today:

Toronto city councillors do seem tragically hooked on spending needlessly and foolishly — despite constantly crying poor.

The mismanagement of the Union Station file being a recent example.

The private sector wanted to fix up the place, pay the city an annual fee and make some money off the venture. That deal fell apart. GO Transit wants to buy it, but the city isn't willing to deal. So now a city-inspired fix-up plan has hit $388 million and counting — and hopelessly dependent on cash from the federal government.

Another example. Budget committee voted Wednesday to borrow $700,000 to purchase food carts so the city can then rent them out to food vendors. Why not let the vendors get their own carts? Because the city wants to control the trade, keep entrepreneurs (conglomerates, John Filion says) from cornering the market.

Why the city has created this business to compete against restaurants is another question. But let's say it's good to be selling a variety of food from the sidewalks. Why must city hall get involved in the purchase, maintenance and distribution of the carts?

If Royson James isn't careful, he'll find himself the "token right-winger" in the TorStar newsroom! He may never do lunch in this town again!

All joking aside, this is the kind of thing you very rarely find in the local media: an article that isn't demanding yet more government spending and more government control over businesses and the lives of private citizens. Huzzah, Mr. James.

It's tough to disagree with the sentiments here:

Councillors should be hanged, one a day, at noon, in Nathan Phillips Square. Charge admission. We'll net enough money to pay off most of our civic bills.

To the tumbrils with them!

The real reason Ron Paul's message is becoming popular

Brian Doherty puts his finger on the real reason for Ron Paul's rising stock in the polls:

The real lesson of the Ron Paul phenomenon might be not, as standard right wingers now seem to think as they rise to attack him, that the country is unexpectedly full of dangerous freaks who are being arbitrarily ordered by the voices they hear in their fillings to venerate this out-of-nowhere madman Ron Paul, but rather that the "smaller government" stuff isn't as unpopular as Goldberg thinks, especially when it is surgically detached from the endless international policing and adventurism that, alas, Goldberg's institutional home of National Review has tried to link with small government rhetoric for the past half century.

It must have been tough to be a genuine Republican over the last few years . . . while the talk has still been vaguely market-friendly and constitution-observant, the practice has been corporatist and constitutional-abusive. And let's face it, even the talk hasn't been particularly inspiring. And the Democratic party certainly wouldn't welcome small-government fans, so more and more of them have become alienated from both major parties. Ron Paul is talking to a group of voters who clearly feel that neither party represents them at all. It's going to be interesting to see how many of them go back to the Republican party due to Paul's campaign . . . and whether they stay if Paul falls by the wayside.

You could say that he's providing (temporary) shelter for the politically homeless.

The Nation's take on Ron Paul

Friendly words from an unlikely source:

It's Romney at 33 percent, McCain at 18 percent, Giuliani at 16 percent, Paul at 8 percent, former Arkansas Governor Huckabee at 5 percent, former Tennessee Senator Thompson at 4 percent — with Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo taking one percent and California Congressman Duncan Hunter at his usual zero.

Paul doubled his support from September to November.

During the same period, Paul's sparring partner on foreign affairs issues, Giuliani, lost fully one-third of his support. And Thompson lost a remarkable two thirds of his support.

So here's a question: When is the Washington press corps going to start treating Ron Paul as seriously as it does Fred Thompson?

The likely answer is "not soon." And that's the most frustrating thing about the way in which the GOP race is being covered by major media. After all, Ron Paul has more to say — and says it better — than any of the other Republicans. With a fair shake from the media, he'd be rising even faster in New Hampshire and elsewhere.

Of course, one of the reasons Paul's on the rise now is the fact that he is not the kind of contender who tailors his message or his campaign to meet media expectations. And in this volatile year, that may yet prove to be a smart strategy. At the very least, it is starting to pay off in the "Live Free or Die" state of New Hampshire.

Of course, the obvious rejoinder to "Paul doubled his support from September to November" is that he started from such a low base of support to start with that doubling still doesn't make much of a dent in the other candidates.

How big government influences big business

Radley Balko shows why telephone companies doing the federal government's bidding isn't necessarily the fault of big business:

You can inveigh all you like against corporate power. But corporations by themselves can't force us to do anything we don't want to do. Only the government has the power to do that — or corporations with power on loan from the government.

The federal government is enormous. It has a massive and growing influence over what happens in the private sector. Witness (as I've pointed out many times before) the fact that the richest counties in America today aren't near the country's entrepreneurial epicenters, but in the D.C. suburbs, home to most of the country's federal employees and government contractors. Now as lefties, you may find all of this to be sweet potato pie. But know that a federal government of today's size and scope also gives whoever is controlling it enormous leverage to bend the private sector to his liking. That's great when your party is holding the reins. Not so good when it isn't.

Sure, in an ideal world, all the telecos would've consulted their lawyers, realized that what the Bush administration was asking was illegal, and boldly told the White House where to stick its nosy information requests. But come on. Incentives matter. Such a move may have been principled, but it would have been foolish. Corporations are obligated to their shareholders to protect their bottom lines. Pissing off the people in power who with a swipe of the pen can swing hundreds of millions of dollars, either to you or to your competitor — well, that's just not good for the bottom line.

In a truly free economy, this obligation to shareholders is a good thing. Because in a free market, shareholder interests are generally in line with customers' interests. Piss off your customers, they take their business elsewhere, and you're shareholders are angry.

Unfortunately, in a market where the government is likely to be one of a particular industy's biggest customers, shareholder and (non-government) customer interests start to clash. You see, the telecos made a calculated decision. Billions of dollars in federal contracts over the long-term, combined with the other value they saw in in winning favor with the Bush administration and the Republicans in Congress (a favorable turn of phrase in the Federal Register, for example, can mean millions) was in their estimation more lucrative than protecting the privacy of their non-government customers in the short-term.

Shouldn't that tell you something about just how frighteningly large and influential the federal government has become? The telecos concluded it's better for their collective bottom lines to risk pissing off all of their other customers than to risk pissing off this one.

No surprise here . . .

Frequent commenter "Da Wife" sent in this link to yet another "who's the best candidate for you" quiz. My top result was no huge surprise:

Those other two guys? Hmmm.

QotD: "the autumnal aroma of a burning straw man"

Are you still afraid terrorists will attack the Mall of America?

I was never afraid. I was always concerned. I still am; who wouldn't be? It's a big red target with great symbolic value. It never keeps me from going there, though. Somehow I've avoided the FEAR and PARANOIA and PERMANENT WAR HYSTERIA that we're supposedly fed 24/7. You know how it goes; if you believe there's actually a credible threat from Islamofascists — well, no, that's not the right word, because it's inflammatory, inaccurate, racist, and is used as a code-word for an exterminationist agenda founded in a desire to control all the oil in the Middle East and convert it to Christianity. So call it the Small but Legally Containable Conservative Religion threat, since that reminds us that all religions are equally dangerous when taken to extremes. I mean, Fred Phelps, Catholic priests, Timothy McVeigh, and that little thing called the Crusades. Also the Inquisition and the persecution of Galileo. No one has clean hands here, except for me, because I washed them before I put that clever COEXIST bumpersticker on my car. No, I'm more afraid of the Mall of America itself. You go there in December — not that I do — and see people walking around eating meat and shopping for things they don't need and shouldn't really have because they don't need them, and you can almost hear the planet shriek like the music in that scary movie about the psycho, whatever its name is. I didn't watch it. I don't support movies that promote violence against women. Wasn't she in a shower? Those are so wasteful. I clean myself with a pumice stone and the sharpened edge of a clam shell.

(Sorry; I just enjoy the autumnal aroma of a burning straw man.)

James Lileks, The Bleat, 2007-11-02

QotD: Political Experiment goes wrong

Political scientists at the Cato Institute announced Monday that they have inadvertently synthesized a previously theoretical form of government known as megalocracy.

"We were attempting to recreate a military junta in a controlled diplomatic setting, and we applied too much external pressure," said head researcher Dr. Adam Stogsdill, a leading expert in highly reactionary ruling systems. "The resultant government has the ruthless qualities of a dictatorship combined with the class solidarity of a plutocracy — it's quite a remarkable find."

Stogsdill explained that megalocracy is extremely unstable and can only exist in idealistic conditions for a few minutes before collapsing into anarchy.

"Political Scientists Discover New Form Of Government", The Onion, 2007-10-30

QotD: The Farm Question

Here's how the American free enterprise system works. You have an idea for a business. You find the money to start it up. You try to give customers something they want at a price low enough to keep them happy but high enough to earn a profit. Either your plan works, allowing you to make a living, or it doesn't, indicating you should find a different line of work.

Unless, of course, you are a farmer, in which case all this may sound unfamiliar. A lot of American agriculture operates in an environment where none of the usual rules apply — where the important thing is not catering to the consumer, but tapping the Treasury. It's a sector that, ever since the Great Depression, has been a ward of the government, both coddled and controlled.

By any reasonable standard, federal agriculture policy is past due for a major overhaul. But judging from the latest farm legislation moving through Congress, not much is going to change.

Back in the 1930s, when the economy was a wreck, the survival of capitalism was in doubt and Oklahoma was blowing away, you could understand the impulse for Washington to intervene on behalf of farmers. But the days when agriculture meant a lifetime of toil for a meager living are just a memory. Today, farmers monitor soil conditions by computer, drive air-conditioned tractors and have a higher average income than nonfarmers.

Yet many of them continue to enjoy treatment other industries can only dream about. Imagine the government rigging the market to assure high prices to people selling concrete or cameras. Dairy farmers and sugar growers get exactly that, courtesy of the Department of Agriculture. Farmers who plant a host of other crops receive compensation anytime their prices fall below a fixed minimum.

Steve Chapman, "Take the Federal Out of Farming", Reason Online, 2007-10-25

QotD: "Le p'tit gar"

Reading this book you detect an undercurrent of hostility toward "Bay Street" and "Wall Street," but no great sense of what Chrétien's for — other than "tolerance" and the other hollow cobwebbed buzzwords that boil down to little more than a passionate belief in not believing passionately in anything. The Iraq chapter is headlined "No To War," as if M. Chrétien is an elderly student on the march with Naomi Klein and Maude Barlow. In fact, under the cover of various "liaison" programs, Canada had more men in Iraq than many full-throated paid-up members of the "coalition of the willing." It was happy to be a unilateral coalition of the unwilling as long as it didn't have to march in the victory parade. But the author strains credibility when he claims to have told Bush, six months before the invasion, "I've been reading all my briefings about the weapons of mass destruction, and I'm not convinced. I think the evidence is very shaky." My Beltway pals scoffed when I relayed this snippet to them, and I'm inclined to agree. Even Chrétien's chum Chirac, who opposed the war, never disputed the fact that Saddam had WMDs, if only because he had a big bunch of the relevant receipts.

Mark Steyn, "He's still da boss", Macleans, 2007-10-23

QotD: The campaign for the presidency

I have, as of yet, no real opinion about the race, except, as stated before, that I think Giuliani is crazier than a funhouse full of drunk chimps. But what I wonder about Hillary is: do Democrats really like her? Or do they just think that other people like her?

That, after all, was the main problem with John Kerry: he was a Democrat's notion of what a Republican wanted to vote for. After all, he served in 'Nam! I know of exactly one person who was really enthused about Kerry before he won the nomination — and that person worked for the Kerry campaign. Yet somehow, my friends were actually surprised when it turned out that no one else liked John Kerry any more than they did.

I get a similar lukewarm vibe about Hillary from many of the people I know. They themselves will vote for her in the general election because she's a Democrat. But the reasons that they offer that other people will vote for her are kind of lame. Like, she's female. Or she's a Clinton. Or . . . hey, have you noticed, she's a woman? Women love that. And they're half the population!

No one ever argues that they'll vote for her because she's got sound policy ideas and a winning personality, which kind of seem like the criteria Democrats ought to be using.

Megan McArdle, "Hail, Hillary!", Asymmetrical Information, 2007-10-11

QotD: Fred Thompson

I'm not sure what kind of reviews zombie candidate Fred Thompson is getting for his performance, but I'll tell you the one thing I like about him: He always has an expression on his face like he just walked out of the most-godawful state fair porta-potty on the hottest day of summer. If Dick Cheney's sneer is a smug, cowardly, Draco Malfoy turn of the lip, Thompson's is full-blown, immersive revulsion and barely constrained contempt for all that he can see, hear, taste, and smell.

So I like that about him. Everything else, not so much.

Nick Gillespie, "The President's Name Is Missing...", Hit and Run, 2007-10-11

MMP proposal defeated

Well, the election result was pretty much what I expected, no real surprise there. The referendum result was much more pleasant: resounding rejection of MMP:

At 8:15 a.m. ET Thursday, with more than 98 per cent of polls counted, the proposal had the support of 36.8 per cent of the vote. Meanwhile, 63.2 per cent of voters cast their ballots in favour of the existing first-past-the-post (FPTP) system.

Only five ridings, all of them in Toronto, showed a majority supporting MMP.

The MMP proposal required 60 per cent support to become the new electoral system. As well it had to win a majority in 64 ridings.

A citizens assembly was appointed by the previous Liberal government to study the issue. It recommended MMP to replace FPTP, which has been in place in Ontario for 215 years.

Huzzah!

Why Ron Paul's campaign bothers Republicans

David Weigel tries to explain to Guardian readers in the UK why Ron Paul's campaign upsets mainstream Republicans:

And all of this is happening in the context of a larger crisis in the Republican Party. The party of Gingrich and Reagan is arguably weaker than it has been at any time since the 1970s. Four years ago, when campaigns were tallying up their July through September fundraising totals, George Bush's campaign had raised almost $50m. This year the top four Republicans — Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, and John McCain — raised a combined $35m. Giuliani led the pack with $11m, only a little more than twice as much as Paul. All of this while the top four Democrats — Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, and Bill Richardson — raised $59m.

Put in that perspective, Paul's graduation from the fringes to a serious presidential campaign says as much about his party as it does about him. The old party of "small government" now supports enhancing the state's power to spy or detain prisoners indefinitely. A party with a long-running isolationist streak is becoming inhospitable for war doves — every Republican who votes against funding the Iraq war, Paul included, has a pro-war candidate challenging him for re-election in 2008. In this climate, with the party so fraught and fractured, a colorful libertarian is starting to gain some steam. Why is Washington so surprised?

Christian right announces tentative plans to elect Hillary Clinton

At least, that's what this proposal would really result in:

Alarmed at the chance that the Republican party might pick Rudolph Giuliani as its presidential nominee despite his support for abortion rights, a coalition of influential Christian conservatives is threatening to back a third-party candidate in an attempt to stop him.

The group making the threat, which came together Saturday in Salt Lake City during a break-away gathering during a meeting of the secretive Council for National Policy, includes Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family, who is perhaps the most influential of the group, as well as Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, the direct mail pioneer Richard Viguerie and dozens of other politically-oriented conservative Christians, participants said. Almost everyone present expressed support for a written resolution that “if the Republican Party nominates a pro-abortion candidate we will consider running a third party candidate.”

H/T to Brian Doherty.

QotD: Shibboleths of the 60's

I'm not unsympathetic to those who favor a constitutional amendment prohibiting all baby boomers from public office. It's amazing to me how many institutions remain entirely in thrall to the received wisdom of 40 years ago — scarcity of "resources", world "overpopulation", the growing "inequality" between the rich countries and the "Third World".

None of these things exist. The UN now says the planet's population will peak in mid-century, and in many parts of the developed world it's already in decline: the problem Germany faces, for example, is not "sustainable growth" but sustainable lack of growth. Meanwhile, the last three decades have seen the emergence of what Professor Xavier Sala-i-Martin calls "a new world middle class" made up of over 2.5 billion people in developing lands who now have a standard of living near enough that of the west. So about half the folks in the so-called "poor countries" are, in fact, doing pretty nicely. As Virginia Postrel put it, if you take the planet as a whole, in 1998 "the largest number of people earned about $8,000 — a standard of living equivalent to Portugal's."

Mark Steyn, "Thinking Globally", National Review, 2007-09-21

QotD: Private stupidities versus public ones

Personally, I'm on the record as believing that companies quite often do stupid things. The difference between companies and the government is that thanks to market discipline, companies that do stupid things eventually have to stop, because they run out of money. Government programs that don't work, on the other hand, have a seemingly indefinite shelf life. The US government seems to be doing almost every stupid thing it has ever done, and to be planning to continue doing those stupid things forever. In the past sixty years we've had three serious attempts that I can think of that even partially grappled with the problem of programs that weren't working: the Carter/Reagan deregulations; the Reagan tax simplification; and the Clinton welfare reform. Of those, the first is intact, the second has been gutted, and the third is slowly eroding. This is not a promising track record for people arguing that the government should do more stuff.

Megan McArdle, "Success is in the eye of the beholder", Asymmetrical Information, 2007-09-12

It's a good thing the rest of the world can't vote

An amusing little site, Who Would the World Elect? has Barack Obama leading among Canadian "voters" on the Democratic side, and (of course) Ron Paul leading on the Republican side:

Feel free to cast your vote . . . it's only marginally less effective than a real one. It certainly looks like every active Libertarian in Canada already has voted.

The New Orleans question

Steve Chapman listens to the politicians bloviate and asks the hard questions:

New Orleans, like Valmeyer, had long been a natural disaster waiting to happen. Most of the city lies below sea level, surrounded by water on three sides, and it's sinking. On top of that, it's steadily grown more exposed to hurricanes, thanks to the loss of coastal wetlands that once served as a buffer. It's a bathtub waiting to be filled.

As one scientist said after Katrina, "A city should never have been built there in the first place." Now that we have a chance to correct the mistake, why repeat it?

Theoretically, it's possible to keep New Orleans dry. All you have to do is surround it with levees designed to withstand a Category 5 hurricane. That's what Hillary Clinton urges.

[. . .]

The cost of the levee system envisioned by Sen. Clinton is tabbed at $40 billion. Restoring other infrastructure would increase the cost. The question is whether that's the best use of our resources. For $40 billion, you could give more than $61,000 to every Louisianan displaced by Katrina — nearly a quarter of a million dollars for a family of four.

I have to say that this makes more sense than trying to use the Dutch model and hold back the seas: but I don't live there . . . it's easy for me to take an Olympian viewpoint. I've visited New Orleans, and I was horrified by the damage and loss after the hurricane hit, but I don't have the same stake in the question as those who live there, and those who'll actually foot the bill for reconstruction or relocation

Update: Daniel Rothschild talks about the myths of Katrina:

Myth Number One: The main impediment to rebuilding the Gulf Coast is a lack of federal money.

Talk with people on the Gulf Coast area and you'll soon learn the primary problem they face is not a lack of funding, but the mass confusion created by federal, state, and local governments about the rules of the game when it comes to rebuilding. Confusing and contradictory regulations, showboating by politicians, and stunningly complex bureaucracy have only exacerbated the problems of people who've already been through hell and have kept people from making the decisions they need to make to get on with their lives. This creates what economist Emily Chamlee-Wright calls "signal noise" — the persistent uncertainty created by uncoordinated government at every step of the recovery process.

All levels of government deserve blame for this. On the federal level, Congress and the US Army Corps of Engineers have failed to articulate a clear, credible plan for what types of flood protections will be built and when they'll be completed. And of course, based on the Corps' recent track record, no one could fault Gulf Coast residents for questioning whether those protections will perform as advertised once (and if) they are completed.

Because they do think they're better than us

Radley Balko has a linkulacious post up at Hit and Run, detailing just a few of the many ways that politicians not only think they're better than their constituents . . . they make it legal:

So I guess once you're elected to Congress, you're immune from drunk driving laws; you can stash the evidence that you've committed a crime in your office, because investigators aren't allowed to search it; if you kill someone because you've got a lead foot and blew a stop sign, the taxpayers will cover your financial liability; and, we learn today, you can commit whatever Internet-related crimes you please, because the police aren't allowed to search your computer.

Meanwhile, the same Congress that has immunized itself from much of the law is also responsible for the ever-expanding federal criminal code, which we can thank for our shamefully enormous and still-soaring prison population, which is by far and away the largest in the world.

Links galore in the quoted section . . . go follow 'em and get depressed. Or, better, get mad.

QotD: Primary Follies

This is aneurism-inducingly stupid. No, Arizonans, the candidates are not going to think about Arizona as much as they would have if you held your primary when baby Jesus wanted you to, three weeks later. By the first week of February the two parties' candidates will be recovering from the Florida primary on Jan. 29. They will have exactly one week to campaign in twenty states, most of which they've never really campaigned in because they were concentrating on the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries. So the candidates will be in triage mode, giving up one state here or there (Hillary ceding Illinois to Obama, Romney ceding New Jersey to Rudy) and stumping in, probably, California, because no one will be able to continue on without winning there. The rest of the states will become irrelevant, handing their votes to the frontrunners... who might not look so strong after California, but by then it'll be too late.

And all of that assumes that someone talks Michigan out of its tantrum and gets that state not to hold a primary on Jan. 15 like Sen. Carl Levin wants to.

This whole process has been a joke, an Otis-the-Drunk-worthy bender of stupidity by the country's most craven political minds. We could put L. Paul Bremer in charge and still come out with a better system.

David Weigel, "Stop. Please. Just Stop.", Hit and Run, 2007-08-22

All politics are local, they say

Megan McArdle (formerly "Jane Galt") talks about the oddity of heavily Democratic New York City electing a string of Republican mayors:

For most offices, like city council, the Democratic primaries decide the election. That means that there are a lot of extremely powerful interest groups with very powerful electoral machines invested in the primaries. And they are far to the left of both America, and most of New York, which is why City Council meetings tend to sound like the forlorn remnants of a Socialist Worker's Reading Group.

Of course, that last quip applies equally well to a lot of cities . . . Toronto, for example.

QotD: New York City politicians

Spitzer's abrasive personality has usually been excused with a comparison to Rudy, or Ed Koch, or Nelson Rockefeller, or one of the other family of meglomaniacs who rise up through New York politics like rancid meat chunks up a defective garbage disposal.

David Weigel, "Phone Home, Eliot", Hit and Run, 2007-08-20

QotD: Do clothes make the (wo)man?

"Rage Over Cleavage!" was the headline that turned me into a Clinton booster. Other than that typically understated summation from the Times of India, last month's spat over the state of Clinton's décolletage saw wave after peristaltic wave of pious vapidity, followed by the occasional spasm of outright misogyny. In response to Washington Post columnist Robin Givhan's controversial piece on Clinton's decision to bare some breast, almost no one saw fit to recognize the immense challenges Clinton faces as a woman dressing to project authority.

Least of all her supporters. "Frankly, focusing on women's bodies instead of their ideas is insulting," wrote campaign official Ann Lewis in a fundraising letter. Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman excoriated "those media monitors who seek deep meaning in every shoe, sexual clues in every hemline, and psychological insights in every shirt collar." Appearances shouldn't matter, so why acknowledge that they do?

Forget the mountains of studies on cognition, perception, affective priming, the importance of signaling in social interactions, and the disadvantages women are known face due to implicit bias. The radical idea that clothes convey meaning is apparently something Givhan concocted in the corner of the newsroom and sold to credulous readers, every bit as cooked up as little Jimmy's heroin in the embarrassing annals of Post history.

Kerry Howley, "The Pantsuit Paradox: How do women signal power at the boys' club?", Reason, 2007-08-14

The Politics of Data Manipulation

Ken Holder points us to this little gem of a discovery:

Years of bad data corrected; 1998 no longer the warmest year on record

An example of the Y2K discontinuity in action [. . .] this week detailed the work of a volunteer team to assess problems with US temperature data used for climate modeling. [. . .] While inspecting historical temperature graphs, he noticed a strange discontinuity, or "jump" in many locations, all occurring around the time of January, 2000.

These graphs were created by NASA's Reto Ruedy and James Hansen (who shot to fame when he accused the administration of trying to censor his views on climate change). Hansen refused to provide McKintyre with the algorithm used to generate graph data, so McKintyre reverse-engineered it. The result appeared to be a Y2K bug in the handling of the raw data.

McKintyre notified the pair of the bug; Ruedy replied and acknowledged the problem as an "oversight" that would be fixed in the next data refresh.

NASA has now silently released corrected figures, and the changes are truly astounding. The warmest year on record is now 1934. 1998 (long trumpeted by the media as record-breaking) moves to second place. 1921 takes third. In fact, 5 of the 10 warmest years on record now all occur before World War II.

Links in the original article. Emphasis mine.

Cross-posted from the backup site.

Public transit boondoggles

There's a post up at Hit and Run, talking about the problems with high-profile, low-return-on-investment projects like light rail:

A front-page story in yesterday's New York Times noted that politicians' transportation vanity projects drain money away from the sort of maintenance work that apparently was needed on the Interstate 35W bridge that collapsed in Minneapolis last week. I was pleasantly surprised to see the Times put light rail lines in the same category as boondoggles like Alaska's Bridge to Nowhere [. . .]

The scenario is very common — just about every city larger than 500,000 has probably built, planned to build, or been wined-and-dined by potential bidders for such projects. The projects are almost always economically ludicrous (but not as far-out as publicly funded sports venues for professional teams), basing their revenue projections on literally unattainable levels of use and minimizing or ignoring the crowding-out of other activities.

Light rail projects are very popular with politicians, because every politician wants to leave "a legacy" of their time in office. That means they want to spend as much of your money as possible to ensure their own "immortality". Light rail projects are popular with the public because they appear to offer a way to reduce congestion and speed up transit times . . . for other people . . . in other words, get some of those slowcoach commuters the heck out of my way by making them give up their cars and use a new light rail system instead.

QotD: Ethanol is not the answer

Ethanol doesn't burn cleaner than gasoline, nor is it cheaper. Our current ethanol production represents only 3.5 percent of our gasoline consumption — yet it consumes twenty percent of the entire U.S. corn crop, causing the price of corn to double in the last two years and raising the threat of hunger in the Third World. And the increasing acreage devoted to corn for ethanol means less land for other staple crops, giving farmers in South America an incentive to carve fields out of tropical forests that help to cool the planet and stave off global warming.

So why bother? Because the whole point of corn ethanol is not to solve America's energy crisis, but to generate one of the great political boondoggles of our time. Corn is already the most subsidized crop in America, raking in a total of $51 billion in federal handouts between 1995 and 2005 — twice as much as wheat subsidies and four times as much as soybeans. Ethanol itself is propped up by hefty subsidies, including a fifty-one-cent-per-gallon tax allowance for refiners. And a study by the International Institute for Sustainable Development found that ethanol subsidies amount to as much as $1.38 per gallon — about half of ethanol's wholesale market price.

Jeff Goodell, "Ethanol Scam: Ethanol Hurts the Environment And Is One of America's Biggest Political Boondoggles", Rolling Stone, 2007-07-24

Health care and the UAW

There's an excellent — and eye-popping — article on the upcoming negotiations between the UAW and the big three US automakers. I didn't realize just how much is at stake just on the healthcare issue:

Before the 2005 "givebacks," the Detroit Three companies picked up the entire health-care tab for all their hourly workers — active, retired, dependents and, incredibly, even laid-off workers till they found other jobs. Workers were not required to pay any premiums, deductibles or co-pays-except for routine physical exams and prescription drugs. The 2005 deal left these benefits virtually untouched for retirees with pension incomes below $8,000. But for the first time ever it began requiring more well-off retirees to cough up $252 in annual premiums for family coverage and another $500 in total annual deductibles. In short, for a grand total of $752 in out-of-pocket annual costs, UAW retirees and their spouses get full medical coverage for life. Given the huge retiree population that the Big Three support — GM has three times more retirees than active workers — this has saddled them with a combined unfunded health-care liability exceeding $100 billion.

By contrast, 90% of retirees in other American companies don't get any employer-provided coverage after 65, when they become Medicare-eligible. Such couples, according to an analysis by Fidelity Investments last year, are typically on the hook for $10,000 in out-of-pocket annual costs for Medicare co-pays and other expenses not covered by the program, or 10 times more than UAW couples.

QotD: Political unpopularity contests

Congressional Democrats are spinning their wheels trying to "get" George Bush. Democrats promised not to waste their time impeaching Bush. That is what they are doing. The public disdain for Democrats is overwhelming.

It took 12 years for Republicans to drop to 23%. Dems already are down to 14%. That means even Mom is starting to wonder about you.

14% job approval. Nixon did better. On the day he left office!

Don Surber, "Worst. Congress. Ever", blogs.dailymail.com, 2007-07-19

Now filming: "Ron Paul on a Plane"

Jesse Walker has some fun with a meme:

Among the other firsts of his campaign, Ron Paul is probably the only presidential contender to be compared to a Samuel L. Jackson movie. The Texas congressman, a dark horse candidate for the Republican nomination, was being lightly grilled by Kevin Pereira, a host on the videogame-oriented cable channel G4. "Young people online, they were really psyched about Snakes on a Plane, but that didn't translate into big ticket sales for Sam Jackson," Pereira said. "Are you worried that page views on a MySpace page might not translate to primary votes?"

The reference was to the Internet sensation of 2006, an action movie whose cheesy title and premise had sparked a burst of online creativity: mash-ups, mock trailers, parody films, blogger in-jokes. Hollywood interpreted this activity as "buzz," and New Line Cinema inflated its hopes for the movie's box office take. When the film instead did about as well as you'd expect from a picture called Snakes on a Plane, the keepers of the conventional wisdom declared that this was proof of the great gulf between what's popular on the Internet and what sells in the material world.

More on framing the war on terror

Yesterday's link to the Radley Balko article got a thoughtful response from Chris Taylor (pulled from the comments to that post):

Balko is in error, though — he makes the assumption that today's jihadis are motivated to seek political change via terror. This is only true in a very limited sense. If the United States were to void its collective security arrangements with the Arab world, Israel, and formerly-Muslim parts of Europe, I am sure there would be a temporary downtick in terror attempts within the United States.

Eventually, though, we would be right back at the status quo because the primary animating force is religious and not political. No amount of political change would ever bring about the adoption of sharia and the absorption of the United States into the ummah. Even in nominally radical-dominated Muslim lands there is plenty of disagreement about what are and are not legitimate interpretations of the Qur'an, sunnah and hadith. Those disputes can never be resolved by political means. The only way to truly insulate a society is to become one of Islamic radicals, and even then we would be fighting with other radicals, whose interpretations our sect would find heretical. It simply does not end.

I responded in a flippant manner in that comment thread, but I thought Chris made some good points and that they should see the light of day (I know not everyone follows the comment threads). The instinct in the western media seems to be to attribute every terrorist act to the issues of the day in the west, not to the actual causes the terrorists themselves say are the reasons for their attacks. This bombing, despite the claims of the group that made the attack, is "really" because the Senate failed to pass that bill. Or this beheading is "really" caused by the US government failing to sign the Kyoto treaty.

Related thoughts from Steve Chapman:

By framing the fight as a global war, we have helped Osama bin Laden and hurt ourselves. Had we treated him and his confederates as the moral equivalent of international drug lords or sex traffickers, the organization might not have the romantic image it has acquired. By exaggerating the potential impact, we also magnified the disruptive effect of any plots, which is just what the terrorists seek.

We do further harm to ourselves by accepting government actions we would never tolerate except in the context of war.

The cack-handed "security" measures western governments have implemented in response to terror threats have done far more to further terrorist goals than the actual murders, bombings, and general mayhem actually committed by terrorist organizations. This should come as no surprise: in any period of stress, it is the deepest urge of any government to attempt to take greater control of anything within their grasp. It's one of the few things governments do well. (Grabbing control, that is, not actually exercising that control in an intelligent manner.)

Daycare and the public interest

Nicholas Rosen has some interesting things to say, in partial response to a discussion on the Bujold mailing list:

Then there was a case I read about some years ago in Reason magazine. It seems someone wanted to open a childcare center, and some kooky neighbor objected to her getting a license. The neighbor didn't want another child-molestation horror in her neighborhood, and a city councilman went along with her, so the would-be childcare provider couldn't get a license. (It later emerged that many of the cases of alleged child molestation at daycare centers were utterly bogus, and even if some were not, the immense majority of daycare centers are not fronts for gangs of child molesters.) Here was a city government preventing a willing provider from offering child care to parents who wanted to hire her, all for no good reason, while politicians and others were complaining about the lack of affordable child care, and the Need for Government to Do Something.

There may be a case to be made for having government provide welfare, especially to children, who are not at fault for their parents' laziness or incompetence or bad luck. The trouble is that when government undertakes to do too much for people, people often lose their sense of responsibility and determination to provide for themselves and their families, leading to increased levels of social pathology and family breakdown. You can, for example, try reading Theodore Dalrymple's Life at the Bottom for an account of this.

Daycare is one of those discussions that can't help but move into politically dangerous ground: there's never enough quality care available to meet the need, and what there is is often too expensive for those in greatest need of it. It regularly becomes an issue in Canadian elections, although the proposed changes or new programs would far too often make the situation worse (the good news is that they are rarely implemented once the election is over: costs and complexity trump the "we must do something" urge very quickly).

Many children are cared for during the working day (and often well beyond the usual working hours) in informal daycare with friends and neighbours. At least three families on my street provide this kind of service on a full or part-time basis, for example. It may not be perfect, but it meets the needs of the parents, and clearly is beneficial to the providers (or they wouldn't do it). Yet these unlicensed operations are the ones most likely to be shut down by regulation or government mandates.

Some people — both in and out of government — pretty clearly feel that parents are the worst people to be put in charge of any one else's children, and many of the proposed reforms would put additional barriers in the way of this kind of service. It may sound great to a ministerial committee to mandate that only adults holding a post-secondary certification in child care should be allowed to take care of children they are not related to, but there are not (and will not be) enough holders of ECE certificates or equivalents to cope with the children who would need to be taken in if such a rule was put into place.

Similar things would happen if rules which are designed for commercial daycare facilities were also mandated for home daycares. The cost to retrofit would be far in excess of the perceived benefit, and in many cases would not be allowed under municipal building codes. (Of course, under some municipal rules, informal daycare is already wandering into regulatory gray areas.)

Ontario under siege

The Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) pre-emptively closed Highway 401 near Napanee last night, before a planned blockade was placed:

Ontario Provincial Police, who shut down Canada's busiest highway early Friday morning west of Kingston due to native protesters in the area, have decided to reopen Highway 401.

The OPP had closed it earlier in the day after the protesters blockaded a section of secondary highway and a stretch of nearby railway track on the eve of the National Day of Action.

The OPP closed Highway 401 both ways between Napanee and Belleville and were diverting traffic north onto Hwy 7 due to native protesters "being in the direct area, for safety reasons," said Sergeant Kristine Rae of the Smith Falls detachment.

Hours later the OPP issued an arrest warrant for protest leader Shawn Brant on a charge of mischief.

It's unlikely that the warrant for Shawn Brant will actually be used . . . the OPP have been very cautious in dealing with native protesters (many people feel they've been far more than just cautious). VIA Rail also cancelled all passenger service from Toronto to Ottawa and Montreal, as the protest would also block the railway line, which is in close proximity to Highway 2 and Highway 401.

It's unlikely that the police and the provincial government would be quite as careful to avoid confrontation if it were any other group blocking highways and other transportation corridors.

Phil Fontaine, the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, stressed at a news conference Thursday in Ottawa that his organization is calling only for peaceful events.

Of course, in this sort of situation, things are peaceful only as long as the police don't actually try to enforce the law, which (in the morally inverted universe of political protest) puts the onus on the police to avoid any contact with the protesters for fear of being the "aggressors".

Tens of thousands of people are being forced to either avoid travel or take lengthy detours (all at their own expense) so that the police can't be accused of "escalating the situation". And there is little or no chance of the courts acting to punish or even censure the protest organizers.

Terence Corcoran tried to dig up some background on the underlying land claims:

If Indian Affairs has clear answers to these and other questions, it will not say. All documents are sealed under legal privilege and cannot be viewed by anyone. Even after settlement is reached, no Canadian, and no resident of Deseronto, will ever know what the facts are behind the Culbertson Tract claim.

Claims like this exist all over Canada. Since 1973, 1,279 claims have been filed by native bands. So far, only a few — maybe 75 — have been rejected as having no