February 02, 2008

THOUGHTS ON Hate Speech.

WHY DOES IT STILL TAKE SO LONG to publish a book? "Technology may be speeding up the news cycle, but in publishing, things actually seem to be slowing down." Blame the marketers. Though as many authors can attest, despite all that time and attention to marketing, the publisher often fails to have enough books at Amazon and other locations when the book actually comes out.

MO-MITT-UM? An easy win for Romney in Maine, amid high turnout. "Mitt Romney won 53% of the vote, followed not at all closely by John McCain, who won 21% and Ron Paul, who won 19%." Plus, he's up 9 in the polls in Missouri. I wonder: Is McCain's poor showing in the last debate actually making a difference?

LOTS OF STUFF, INCLUDING VIDEO, on the new Macbook Air. I looked at one when I was at the mall yesterday. It's very cool -- jewel-like, thin, and with a great display. I think I'd rather the screen be a bit smaller, and the computer a bit thicker, but it did look nice, and the Insta-Wife liked it.

INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY EDITORIALIZES: "Is it just us, or is there something off about ex-president Bill Clinton using his influence overseas to enrich a pal and then accepting the pal's big donation to his foundation? This looks like a bribery racket."

MICROSOFT LIVES UP TO THE STEREOTYPE: To open the Vista box you need instructions?

IS THE ANGRY LEFT DYING? Or do they just smell funny?

ANTI-AGING RESEARCH, SPACE, AND SUPERBOWL TECHNOLOGY -- all on this week's Popular Mechanics podcast. Plus, don't be a wimp -- change your own oil!

NOKIA AND German economic isolationism.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: "Three unexpected developments have given Republicans a shot this year at winning — once thought impossible, given the normal desire of the electorate for a fresh party after eight years, and worries about Iraq and the economy. All can change, but for now they have a real shot."

A REAL SOLAR INDUSTRY RISES IN CALIFORNIA. I talked to the folks at Elon Musk's (he's the founder of PayPal and SpaceX, and the Tesla Roadster financier) Solar City and they told me they'd have their turnkey solar systems in my area within the year. I just might buy one.

MORE ON THAT NAVY RAILGUN TEST: There's video here. But what's all the flame? Plasma generated by the electrical discharge?

CIVIL RIGHTS PROGRESS IN SOUTH DAKOTA:

A bill passed this week by a House committee would guarantee people the right to carry or possess firearms on the campuses of South Dakota's public universities.

HB1261 would also prevent schools from expelling students or firing employees for having a gun on campus.

I hope that more states -- including mine -- follow suit. If it saves just one life, it's worth it.

DEMOCRATS ARE LOOKING AT A SHIFT IN STRATEGY ON IRAQ. Or, to be more accurate, on the politics of Iraq.

OVER AT THE NRO PLANET GORE BLOG, they've been debating Bob Zubrin's flexfuel plan. Here's Zubrin's response to some criticisms, and here's more commentary from Anne Korin of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security.

I MENTIONED THE CANNED CHEESEBURGER the other day. Now here's a guy who was actually brave enough to eat it. With pictures.

HILLARY CLINTON: A guilty pleasure?

MORE "HELP" FOR HILLARY FROM BILL: "Once again, former President Bill Clinton seems poised to be pitchforked into the headlines right on the eve of a crucial primary vote amid a report that he’s going to 'repent' by going to some black churches."

PAUL VOLCKER ENDORSES OBAMA: After watching Obama shoot down Hillary's absurd mortgage-freeze idea, I can see why. Then there's the Austan Goolsbee factor.

UPDATE: Steve Forbes endorses McCain. McCain will need Forbes' help, as his own instincts aren't good.

FREE SPEECH IN CANADA? It's about time.

LIKE AN IPHONE, BUT WITH FANCY GPS: The Garmin Nuviphone actually sounds pretty cool. I'm looking at a cellphone upgrade sometime soon, so maybe I'll consider this. Though I kind of like it that my current cellphone is basically, you know, a phone.

PROF. ADAM WINKLER ON THE D.C. GUN-BAN CASE AND STANDARDS OF REVIEW.

As I note in this piece, though -- final version now posted, in print soon -- I think that Winkler omits the most important of the state cases on the right to bear arms.

SARKOZY AND CARLA BRUNI marry.

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: Patient in Finland gets a new jaw made from his own stem cells. More like this, please.

THE DAYS ARE LONG, but the years are short. A lovely one-minute film by Gretchen Craft Rubin. (Via David Lat).

BOB KRUMM WONDERS if any media folks will ask Hillary and Obama for an opinion on Berkeley's stance against the U.S. Marines?

UPDATE: Reader Richard Riley emails: "It would be fine to ask the Democratic candidates what they think about the Berkeley City Council's dissing the Marines, but if Bob Krumm thinks this would generate some antimilitary waffling I think he's wrong. Clinton and Obama have already stated they'll enforce the Solomon Amendment."

ANOTHER UPDATE: Related thoughts here: "This is more of an indictment of the media than it is of the Senators in question."

BREAKING SPEED RECORDS, with railguns and more.

ZOMBIES!

KARL ROVE'S AGENTS IN BERKELEY continue to do their jobs.

THOUGHTS ON JUNO and gender relations.

February 01, 2008

AFRICAN-AMERICAN CIVIL RIGHTS LEADER: Romney faces more prejudice than Obama.

HOW TO KEEP HEALTH COSTS DOWN.

"ARE YOU ONE OF THOSE 'INSIDE JOB' GUYS?" Hurrah for Bill Clinton.

THOUGHTS ON Jimmy Carter and morality.

RACHEL LUCAS ON JOHN MCCAIN:

I know some say that they’d rather 'have the country ruined' by a real liberal than by a RINO. You know what that sounds like? Something you’d read on DailyKos." . . .

Don’t get excited. I don’t like a lot of his record, particularly a long list of quotes he’s given about class warfare and taxes. I think he’s nuts to want the Gitmo population put into American prisons. YEAH RIGHT. I think he’s an asshole for things he’s said and supported about gun shows.

And I don’t even have enough curse words in my brain to communicate my opinions about McCain-Feingold. Jesus on a muffin, that is some bad, bad stuff.

BUT.

Seriously, people. Seriously. You’d rather have Hillary? You’d rather have Obama?

I don’t even know you.

Read the whole thing, which is all expressed in Rachel's own inimitable fashion. . . .

PUBLIC SAFETY AND THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS: An article by Bob Cottrol and Ray Diamond. I haven't read it yet, but given their past work I'm sure it's worth your time if you're interested in the topic.

MICHAEL YON POSTS a new dispatch from Iraq.

GREG LUKIANOFF OF F.I.R.E. ON THE HINDLEY DEBACLE AT BRANDEIS:

Does something seem oddly familiar about the case of Donald Hindley at Brandeis? As Torch readers well know, Donald Hindley is a professor who has served Brandeis for over 46 years and was found guilty of "racial harassment," apparently for criticizing and explaining use of the word "wetback" to deride Mexicans and other immigrants. I say "apparently" because, as Eugene Volokh so effectively has pointed out, Brandeis has not even been clear with Hindley what words got him in trouble. Still, all signs point to the use of the word "wetback," which a single student apparently found so offensive that he or she filed a complaint, regardless of the context in which the term was used.

If the case seems to ring a bell, it should. Such tales of PC run wild have been with us in fiction for decades. The Hindley case reminds me of Philip Roth's The Human Stain, in which a professor's career is turned upside down after he refers to two students who did not show up for class as "spooks." The professor, of course, meant "ghosts," but when the two missing students turn out to be black, the incident ignites a firestorm of identity and personal politics. (The professor, it turns out, is actually a light-skinned black man himself who has hidden his race all of his life, adding a nice Rothian touch.)

As Wendy Kaminer has pointed out, punishing someone for using an epithet in order to decry its use is right out of an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, where Larry gets in trouble for using the n-word even though his point was that the n-word should not be used. Volokh also points out another similar situation, the famous moment in Monty Python's Life of Brian when a crowd stones anyone who uses the word Jehovah even when they are trying to use the word to make the point that it shouldn't be said! Such nightmarish due process violations and abuse of language always bring to mind Kafka and Orwell, and for me, of course, Lenny Bruce and George Carlin.

Read the whole thing. And you might want to peruse the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education website, and maybe even consider making a donation. They do good work.

SLASHDOT: ANOTHER WAYWARD ANCHOR, ANOTHER CUT CABLE, and now Iran has lost Internet connectivity. Seems like an odd constellation of events.

UPDATE: In the Slashdot comments, there's some dispute as to whether Iran is really cut off. Meanwhile, Richard Fernandez at The Belmont Club has thoughts on undersea cables.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Clint Hutchison writes:

Regarding your recent post about Iran being cut off from the net, if you browse to http://router1.iust.ac.ir/, the node used for a benchmark at http://www.internettrafficreport.com/asia.htm, you get asked for a username and password to connect.

Perhaps Iran isn't cut off, but is battening down the hatches.

For what, I wonder?

ANDY MCCARTHY endorses Romney.

MORE ON PROBLEMS IN AFGHANISTAN, from Abu Muqawama. Michael Yon has been warning about this for months, but it doesn't seem to have gotten enough attention.

RAND SIMBERG: 50 years of triumph and tragedy in space.

Plus, lessons from the Columbia disaster. And here's my initial post on the disaster from five years ago.

BRATTLEBORO digs in.

MICHAEL JENNINGS HAS THOUGHTS on India's Internet outage.

AN "AIR SURGE" IN IRAQ.

I'M YALIE OF THE WEEK.

UPDATE: I'm the very first one, according to this followup email:

As I think Jackie Nelson has already told you, you are the first-ever Yalie of the Week on our website. (I do hope you view this as a blessing rather than a curse.) We've admired your work, and have had you on our copious list for the print magazine, for quite some time. We're bound to come to you for the print magazine one day soon, but meanwhile, this seemed a good way to start.

That's awfully nice. Though not nice enough to make up for the news that the Yankee Doodle Diner has closed!

ANOTHER UPDATE: Prof. Kenneth Mayer is one of many who's sad to hear about the Doodle:

Glenn: I was in grad school at Yale in the 80s, and frequented the Doodle. It was cheap, fast, and good: two eggs over easy, hash browns, a muffin, probably $3. The guy who ran it was fast, and I can still picture him scrambling a couple of eggs in a steel bowl using forks. He was old school. I’m sad to hear the news that it’s closing but it did bring up some fond memories.

Yeah, I stole his fork-scrambling technique, though I've never achieved his speed.

MORE: Lots more emails, including this from Cormac Kehoe:

In the fall of ’89 I was a broke student too proud to ask my (somewhat struggling) parents for money. At that time, Doodle regulars could occasionally “put it up,” i.e., run a tab. Lew, the owner, floated me at the Doodle for over a month, a tab that neared $200. Never once was I asked to pay up – they just trusted that I would. And I did, plus a big tip for the interest equivalent. I have never forgotten the kindness and never will. Great place, great people, great food. My favorites: ham and egg on a roll, cheeseburger with an egg on top, and the decadent fried doughnut with butter!

Nice story.

WHAT OTHER COUNTRIES CAN TEACH THE UNITED STATES about free-market reforms. "Every industrialised country in the world has launched free-market reforms during the past two to three decades. About a dozen of these countries have reformed substantially in a number of areas. The United States is one of these. But other countries have achieved more in areas where the US still has a lot do to. And the economic and social results from the reforms have often far exceeded expectations."

BOB OWENS HAS THOUGHTS on today's female suicide bombings in Baghdad:

Both bombs appear to have been remote detonated. These women probably did not know they were carrying explosives at all, and it would probably be fair to include them among the victims. . . . This tells us several things.

First, it tells us that al Qaeda in Iraq recognizes that attempts to use male suicide bombers and vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIEDs), their preferred method of suicide attacks for those seeking martyrdom, are no longer effective. These attacks fail because the combination of coalition military forces, Iraqi security forces, and neighborhood militias, known as "concerned local citizens" (CLCs) creating a security system that increasingly works, and makes it very unlikely that these preferred attacks will succeed. There is also some speculation that the influx of would-be foreign suicide bombers into Iraq is drying up.

Today's attacks also tell us that al Qaeda in Iraq is getting very desperate in seeking the high-casualty attacks that they so value. They were forced to scrape the bottom of the proverbial barrel, and use not only women (which they'd prefer to subjugate), but mentally disabled women at that, suggesting that finding willing volunteers is becoming ever more difficult.

Good suicide-bombers are hard to find, and retention is even tougher. Meanwhile, Michael Yon emails from Iraq:

All well in South Baghdad, but sounds like the suicide bombings were pretty bad. I did not hear them detonate so must have been far away. It's the al Qaeda mode, though. Sounds like the women were mentally disabled.

And Austin Bay emails that this may be the start of the "Terrorist Tet" he's been predicting. As Bob Owens notes, some people here at home are all-too-eager to help. Just like last time.

WHAT, BEER ISN'T ENOUGH? A Super Bowl drink recipe. Call me crazy, but I think that Super Bowls and Midori don't mix. . . .

INSTAPUNDIT TRAFFIC HAS BEEN really good this year. Don't know the reason for the increase, but hey --Thanks for visiting!

WHICH OF THESE MEN DID THE PHOTOGRAPHER THINK was a hero?

ANN COULTER endorses Hillary.

EXERCISE AND AGING:

Dr. Wright, a 40-year-old runner, decided to study people who kept training as they got older or began competing in middle age. She wanted to know what happens to them and at what age does performance start to decline.

Their results are surprising, even to many of the researchers themselves. The investigators find that while you will slow down as you age, you may be able to stave off more of the deterioration than you thought. Researchers also report that people can start later in life — one man took up running at 62 and ran his first marathon, a year later, in 3 hours 25 minutes.

It’s a testament to how adaptable the human body is, researchers said, that people can start serious training at an older age and become highly competitive. It also is testament to their findings that some physiological factors needed for a good performance are not much affected by age.

I don't think this is especially surprising. In my observation, the main thing that slows people down when they're older, assuming they keep exercising, is the cumulative effect of joint injury and wear. The rest of the body seems to hold up pretty well.

IN RESPONSE TO MY EARLIER POST on the Asus Eee PC, Dave Johnston emails:

What the reviewers have been missing - frustratingly, even Walt Mossberg made this mistake - is that while you CAN use the little WiFi icon and "Wireless Networks" feature to connect to hotspots, you should actually be setting up wireless using the "Network" option to create a frequent, known hotspot, such as your house or favorite coffee spots.

Click into "Network," click "Create" a connection and follow the steps to make sure that your Eee remembers that connection. You can set it to remember the security key as well as tell it to auto connect, even "On Boot" if you choose.

I have set up my three most frequent networks, and it connects EVERY time, within 30 seconds or so after the super fast boot.

I'll give it a try. Plus, in the comments over at PopMech, people say you can use the Verizon USB card without any software. I'll have to give that a try sometime too.

SYMBOLISM BACKFIRES: You could see this coming. Well, you could. They apparently didn't . . . .

MCCAIN AND ALCIBIADES? It's a stretch, but the temper point is valid. Though one of my friends, disappointed in Bush's measured approach to diplomacy, saw that as a feature, not a bug: "He just looks like he might get mad enough to nuke somebody." It could be like Nixon's crazy act!

RESISTANCE IS FUTILE: Microsoft to assimilate Yahoo!? Elsewhere, Michael Weiss calls it "a clear bid to outstrip Google of its market dominance."

THOUGHTS ON the weakness of university trustees.

SEEMS LIKE A GOOD IDEA TO ME: "West Virginia is considering a bill to teach schoolchildren how to handle a gun and hunt safely."

If it saves just one child's life, it's worth it. Who could be so cruel as to want our children to handle guns and hunt unsafely?

SHOUTING FIRE IN A CROWDED AIRPORT? "A lawyer for an MIT student held at gunpoint after she walked into Logan International Airport wearing what authorities believed was a bomb asked a judge to throw out the charges Friday, saying the device was a legitimate form of free speech." People don't seem to be buying it.

AN ARMY OF MAVERICKS?

YAY! Tennessee beats Vermont. On self-defense law, to the discomfiture of the Brady Campaign.

IN THE MAIL: Michael Sheuer's Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq. Quite a different assessment from, say, this one by Stratfor. Who's right? We'll find out, I guess.

UPDATE: Bill Quick isn't impressed with Scheuer.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Hillary Clinton and John McCain on earmarks:

In his State of the Union address Monday, reinvigorated public discussion of earmarks — lawmakers’ specific spending items inserted into appropriations bills. While fiscal conservatives in Washington are skeptical about Bush’s ability to do much on the issue, the president may be helping his party by bringing up this issue, which touched on fiscal conservatism, government transparency and political corruption.

Earmarks, and their use of tools of corruption, could play a large role in the 2008 presidential contest if the current front-runners succeed in grabbing their respective parties’ nominations. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is a leading opponent of pork and one of the only lawmakers to forswear earmarks, while Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., is Congress’ leading porker.

Clinton’s earmarking is not merely offensive to procedural purists who demand spending go through standard channels. It also is not merely a transgression against fiscal conservatism. Clinton’s earmarks often directly benefit specific corporations and businessmen, who, in turn, make large contributions to her campaign. This “pay-to-play” earmarking, as one left-leaning budget watchdog group put it, highlights the truly dirty side of earmarks.

Indeed.

HAPPY GRADUATION TO MAJOR JOHN TAMMES, who will celebrate by going to Disneyworld Iraq.

WASN'T JOHN EDWARDS SAYING THIS LAST WEEK? Huckabee: I Won't Be Driven From Race.

A GALLERY OF armed robots. Plus, this reassurance:

"We're not building Skynet" says Bart Everett, the technical director for robotics at SPAWAR.

Well, that's a relief. I'd prefer Bolos. But that would require getting the ethics right, too.

IF YOU MISSED IT ON XM SATELLITE RADIO LAST NIGHT, you can listen to PJM Political online today.

HIGHER EDUCATION gets a warning from a friend in Congress.

Plus, questions about what students are learning.

I THOUGHT HE REPRESENTED A NEW KIND OF POLITICS, but Mickey Kaus accuses Obama of outrageous pandering. "This isn't the language of a politician who wants to transcend partisan diference. This is the language of a politician who wants to wallow in partisan (and ideological) cant!" Nothing new about that . . . .

PROF. MIKE O'SHEA: "The Three Steps in D.C. v. Heller." Very interesting discussion. I'll just note that there are "penumbral" aspects to the "keeping" of arms, as recognized in some important state cases.

SNOW DESTROYS CHINESE CROPS: "The effects of China's weather crisis on its economy worsened yesterday as the devastation of winter crops added to pressures on food prices. . . . Government figures said that snow had destroyed crops on 3,000 square miles of land. Wholesalers in Beijing reported that supplies of some foodstuffs were down to a fifth of normal levels. In areas directly affected by the snow, such as the central industrial cities of Wuhan and Changsha, food prices have reportedly already doubled."

AN UNDERSEA CABLE OOPS: "Snapped undersea cables off the coast of Egypt have cut bandwidth in India to half its normal capacity. Users from Bangladesh to Egypt have been affected, and even Dubai's stock exchange experienced some problems late Wednesday." A ship's dropped anchor is blamed. Maybe this infrastructure needs to be a bit more robust? . . .

HAPPY FIFTH BIRTHDAY to Jack Balkin's Balkinization blog.

JOHN TIERNEY: Polar Bears and Seer Suckers.

January 31, 2008

PRO-MCCAIN HERESY AT THE CORNER: "McCain wouldn't be my first pick. Then again, none of the candidates were really my first pick. But I think the notion that, variously, conservatism, the country or the party are doomed if he's the nominee or the president is pretty absurd. And I find such claims odd coming from some people who've insisted for a couple years now that the war on terror is the #1 overriding issue of this campaign."

A NEW POST FROM MICHAEL YON. He emails: "Am back in Iraq, where it's cold and muddy!" Hey, at least it's not snowing any more.

ROGER SIMON IS BLOGGING TONIGHT'S Democratic debate.

UPDATE: So is TigerHawk.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Victor Davis Hanson: "If one studies carefully the Clintama answers on the war on terror, illegal immigration, and Iraq then the magnitude of Republican infighting seems surreal. The gulf between Hillary and McCain is Grand-Canyon like."

MORE ON Obama and Rezko. "An undeclared $3.5 million (£1.8 million) payment from a corrupt Iraqi-British businessman has landed Barack Obama’s former fundraiser behind bars. The payment, disclosed in court papers, is the first time that Mr Obama’s long-serving bagman Antoin 'Tony' Rezko, a Syrian immigrant to the United States, has been linked to Nadhmi Auchi, the Iraqi-born billionaire who is one of Britain’s richest men. The relationship is a potential embarrassment for Mr Obama, who has made his opposition to the Iraq war a central plank of his campaign." Kind of tough language in this report from The Times.

SEAN HANNITY endorses Mitt Romney.

So does Alice Gold.

WELL, GOOD: The apparent death of Abu Laith al-Libi shows gains by US intelligence in Waziristan.

JAMES TARANTO:

There is a school of thought that this year's election will end up turning on economic anxiety rather than national security, especially with the threat of terrorism seeming less immediate than a few years ago, and the situation in Iraq having improved considerably. If this is so, then the leading campaigns in each party are not exactly inspiring great confidence.

I noticed this bit myself last night:

The economy is not John McCain's strong suit, by his own admission. You would think this would inspire a bit of humility, but humility is not what comes across from reading the transcript of last night's CNN debate at the Reagan Library. . . . Two of McCain's comments--"I did it out of patriotism, not for profit" and "sometimes people lost their jobs"--lead us to think that McCain's problem with economics goes beyond mere indifference. He seems to view the making of money--that is to say, the production of goods and services that people want, and the act of supplying them through voluntary exchange in a free market--as a less than honorable pursuit.

Indeed. But read the whole thing.

THOUGHTS ON what's right with the world.

YOU SHOULD PROBABLY START TRAINING if you want to enter the world wife-carrying championship contest in Finland.

I POSTED MY REVIEW of the Asus Eee PC the other day, but here's a long-term review from the folks at Gizmodo. I have to say, though, that I'm not experiencing the frequent system crashes they are, nor am I having trouble finding wifi hotspots. What's annoying is that it won't automatically reconnect to a "known" hotspot -- you have to go to the "choose a connection" menu every time you start it up. But it seems to work okay, once you do that. And it's certainly not taking me anything like 5 minutes to get online -- more like 15 or 20 seconds.

"OBAMA SUPPORTERS EVERYWHERE, with nary a Hillary backer in sight." Roger Simon reports on the pre-debate festivities in Hollywood.

KARL ROVE'S AGENTS are everywhere.

SOME SUPER-BOWL RELATED FOOD NEWS -- is double-dipping the chip really that bad? -- plus advice on setting up your HDTV for the game.

WITH THE SUPREME COURT HAVING GRANTED CERTIORARI in the Crawford case, my colleague Alex Long's piece on workplace retaliation is looking especially timely.

HE DOESN'T MENTION ZUBRIN, but Rick Santorum basically endorses the Zubrin flex-fuel plan. As I mentioned below, I'm hearing rumors of interest from the U.A.W., too. That makes sense. As Zubrin notes in his book, and mentioned on our podcast, U.S. automakers are actually ahead of their competitors in this technology.

MARK LEVIN: People who don't like McCain had better get it in gear for Romney.

FRED THOMPSON: "My guess is, we'll be missing him dreadfully by spring." Some people already are. I certainly would have liked him to provide adult supervision in last night's debate. And don't miss the concluding paragraphs, which are, alas, dead-on.

SOME PEOPLE WANTED TO KNOW what kind of guitar my brother is playing in this video. It's a Liberty FA-100.

SOME VERY IMPORTANT Jet Pack News! "Strictly speaking, you could the say the business of jet packs is, indeed, taking off. The number of companies looking to sell them to private consumers has increased by as much as 33 percent in the last week alone."

BLOGGERS -- a threat to national security? "Good. We should not fear our government, our government should fear us." Heh. Indeed. Full story here.

James Joyner has some pungent thoughts. And Allah comments: "Glenn Reynolds, terrorist?"

IN THE MAIL: Real Change: From the World That Fails to the World That Works, by Newt Gingrich.

VIDEO: Islam's Advance.

QUESTIONS FOR THE DEMOCRATS ABOUT THE ZUBRIN SPACE PLAN, at tonight's debate? Meanwhile, I'm hearing rumors of interest in the Zubrin energy plan from the UAW, which would make sense. (Edited to clarify which plan is which. Zubrin's got a lot of 'em. And they're mostly good!)

UH OH: Sun's low magnetic activity may portend an ice age. I think one's already started -- it's just been our greenhouse emissions holding it at bay!

Yeah, I know, I stole that idea.

HMM: Clinton aide caught up in funding scandal. Huh. Go figure.

THE FREDHEADS haven't given up.

MARK STEYN: "I'm getting a bit tired of Senator McCain's anti-business shtick. The line about serving 'for patriotism, not for profit' is pathetic. America spends more on its military than the next 35-40 biggest military spenders on the planet combined: Where does he think the money for that comes from? . . . If greed is to be punishable, why doesn't he start with a pilot program applied to, say, the United States Senate and report back to us in five years how that's going?"

Indeed.

MAX BOOT ON IRAQ: We are winning. We haven't won.

I agree.

RALPH NADER says his candidacy is as urgent as ever. It's hard to argue with that!

AT THE MICHIGAN LAW REVIEW'S ONLINE EDITION, a look at recent proposals for electoral college reform. Does the electoral college need reforming?

Get the whole thing in one big PDF here.

MORE ON THAT BLOWN DRUG RAID in Chesapeake that got a cop killed and a homeowner who was defending his home against unidentified intruders charged -- wrongly, it seems to me -- with murder.

BERKELEY HATEWATCH UPDATE: The Marines are "unwelcome intruders."

Yeah, it's been a while since I did one of these, though not for lack of material, really.

WHY A DUCK?

OBAMA BACKER TONY REZKO'S solid gold faucets. (Via NewsAlert).

A BUSH RALLY? Well, this political season has already demonstrated that anything can happen.

THE HILLARY CAMPAIGN CAN'T BE HAPPY ABOUT THIS REPORT: "Unlike more established competitors, Mr. Giustra was a newcomer to uranium mining in Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic. But what his fledgling company lacked in experience, it made up for in connections. Accompanying Mr. Giustra on his luxuriously appointed MD-87 jet that day was a former president of the United States, Bill Clinton. . . . Within two days, corporate records show that Mr. Giustra also came up a winner when his company signed preliminary agreements giving it the right to buy into three uranium projects controlled by Kazakhstan’s state-owned uranium agency, Kazatomprom. The monster deal stunned the mining industry, turning an unknown shell company into one of the world’s largest uranium producers in a transaction ultimately worth tens of millions of dollars to Mr. Giustra, analysts said."

BRUCE SCHNEIER on the politics of security.

MORE PROBLEMS AT THE STATE DEPARTMENT.

BOB KRUMM: I don't get the McCainimosity. I get it a bit more after last night's debate, where McCain was something of a jerk. But still . . . Read the whole thing.

WHAT'S WRONG WITH STARBUCKS? "Starbucks used to seem like a luxury brand, and now it feels like a fallback when you can't get to the real thing."

January 30, 2008

TOP FOUR TIPS FOR DRIVING LIKE A PRO: I always admired Jackie Stewart. On the other hand, the braking advice, while good, is . . . well . . . you'll see.

A DEBATE WRAPUP from Stephen Green.

OBAMA CALLS CLINTON A DIVISIVE FIGURE. It's hard to argue with that.

REGARDING MY EARLIER POST, reader Don MacRae emails:

Long time daily reader, first time writer. I have noticed the Fred Thompson comments as well; file under "You Don't Know What You Got 'Til It's Gone". For the record, not only did I donate to his campaign, I went door to door to get signatures so he could be on the ballot here in Ohio and my wife was a state delegate to boot. I have been wondering who to support since Fred dropped out of the race and I am now fairly certain that I am going to vote for Fred anyway. Screw John McCain!

Fred may do surprisingly well, for a guy who's not running . . . .

BILL ROGGIO ON the Mosul offensive.

GOOD POINT BY ROMNEY about how McCain shouldn't "demean" people who start businesses. McCain has been doing that a lot, acting as if meeting a payroll is somehow less honorable than working for the government.

SCHWARZENEGGER TO back McCain?

SO I'M WATCHING MCCAIN TALK ABOUT THE SUBPRIME CRISIS, and how there may be some "greedy people on Wall Street who need to go to jail."

But I heard a typically sad-toned NPR story on subprimes tonight, and despite their best efforts to evoke the Joads it was a story of people who "used their houses like ATMs," taking out home equity loan after home equity loan when they started with a subprime mortgage, only to wind up owing far more than their houses were worth and unable to make the payments. Boo hoo. Shouldn't there be a price for being an idiot? And -- despite not being on Wall Street -- a greedy idiot? Why does McCain want to bail these people out? Why does he want to put Wall Street people in jail?

UPDATE: Reader John Mattaboni emails:

Speaking as a mortgage broker, I can assure you this is the case in the vast majority of instances. I spoke with a woman today who has a credit report that looks like a train wreck, including a bankruptcy fours years ago and numerous chargeoffs and collections since. Her gross income is less than $850 a week -- but she drives a car with a $700 payment.

She called me up because her adjustable rate mortgage payment is going up. When I told her that the only way she could qualify for a loan is to pay off the car with her mortgage, she threw a fit. Apparently me saving her $500 a month isn't good enough, she wanted to tap her ATM one last time for $30,000 to spend on "home improvements" rather than paying off the car. She then asked if anyone would really check to see if the money went into home upgrades.

He says there are a lot of "subprime deadbeats" out there and they shouldn't be bailed out.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Ben Skott emails:

I have a lot of credit card debt, and the much higher interest rates are killing me. I made a stupid mistake once years and didn't read the fine print to notice that rates on cash advances are even higher than normal CC debt, and I'm still paying for it, but you won't see me writing my newspaper talking about the greedy credit card companies and how I should get a bailout. What's the difference between me and some "poor" person with an ARM they signed on to and can't pay now?

Well, one difference is that MBNA bribed a lot of politicians to make the law tougher on people like you. . . .

MORE: A shocking solution to debt.

Meanwhile, reader Jim Bordelon emails:

This quote from Senator McCain, "greedy people on Wall Street who need to go to jail." oozes with irony and/or hypocrisy (I don't know which fits best).

Google "Charles Keating Five" and you'll see why. Maybe more people (an army, maybe?) should start asking questions about what happened in the eighties. If McCain is "swiftboated" on this issue he has little defense, in my opinion.

Yes, I'm familiar with the Keating Five story. It led directly to McCain-Feingold, to ensure that no one would ever be corrupted that way again! It's also discussed in this fascinating book.

STILL MORE: Reader Terrye Hugentober emails:

I had a real estate license for some time.{hated it} I was in the business when a lot of these loans first started coming out. Everyone knew that some of those people should not be getting loans, but the mortgage companies pushed the loans anyway. Building boomed, real estate took off and then the bottom fell out of the sub prime market. People let this go on as long as there was money to be made, it is not just about lazy people not paying their loans. And the truth is there will be a lot of innocent bystanders hurt if there is not some stability brought to that market. This could spread way beyond the people who got the loans or made the loans.

I think that just blowing it off and saying we should not bail out bad loans is over simplifying the situation.

I think it should cost everyone involved. But McCain was pandering here, with lame assaults on "greedy" Wall Streeters. And, as noted above, he's not really in a position to talk.

Meanwhile Megan McArdle notes that Europeans can't believe how easy we are on debtors who can't pay.

MORE STILL: Reader Steven DiSciullo emails:

I had one of these folks as a prospective client in my real estate business. He owed $225k on his house, which was worth about $175k. About half the debt was a second mortgage taken out long after he bought the house. The money was spent on vacations and other lifestyle support. He kept complaining about not being able to sell the house for what he owed on it. I finally said, "Look, you already got your money out of the house, and you didn't even have to sell it." A light went off in his head. He quit making payments, and stayed in the house free for another 8 months until he was evicted.

There is no reason to feel sorry for him.

Indeed. And Prof. T. Daniel Crawford writes:

I've been enjoying your blog for a number of years now, but tonight for some reason I feel compelled to write, even though I admit I don't have a dog in the mortgage crisis debate.

On the subject of sub-prime mortgages, I agree entirely that the debtors are fully responsible for their own terrible circumstances. But I don't believe the lenders aren't victims, either. Why in the world would a bank or automobile finance company give money to the woman described by your mortgage broker correspondent?

In my opinion, the feds shouldn't be bailing out either the lenders or the debtors in this sad scenario.

I agree.

EVEN MORE: "Everything's a 4." And reader Charles Rutt emails:

According to many in congress and social commentators, one of the main causes of the subprime mess was mortgage brokers doing loans for people that we knew could not repay the loan.

As a mortgage broker if I had a customer sitting in front of me who qualified for a loan (according to lender guidelines in place at the time), I was supposed to tell them that I was not going to do a loan for them because I don't think they will make their payments? Can you imagine the uproar if lenders and brokers did that to customers? Especially if the customer happened to be a minority. It comes down to a case of brokers being damned if they do, damned if they don't.

Yes, you don't want to be accused of "redlining," but on the other hand you don't want to be accused of loaning money to people who might not pay it back. It's the "Flounder Principle" rearing its ugly head again!

ALL RIGHT, ONE MORE: Some further thoughts here:

It wasn't really that hard to see this subprime mortgage mess coming. A couple years back, when we were in the process of purchasing a new home and just as the housing market was beginning to come off its peak, I noticed some of these mortgage offers. I actually thought no one would be stupid enough to actually take them up on the offers. I was wrong. . . .

Yes, people can be complete idiots. And they should take responsibility for their idiocy. On the other hand, let's be honest: many people do not really understand how these things work. And when you sit down with a mortgage broker, most times its the broker with the knowledge and power. And they can be good salesmen, particularly when a young couple (for instance) really wants that big beautiful house they saw, that's just barely out of reach financially for them. And the broker says, hey, look, here's what we can do....

Not all these people really understood what they were getting into. And brokers deserve their share of the ire. But right in the middle of an election, obviously the populists are out in full force. And it's not popular to blame (even in part) the voters for their financial screw ups. There's enough blame to go around. That most of it is being lobbed at financial institutions is more about politics than reality.

The question of a bail-out, though, has more to do with practicality than with fairness. Is it good for the economy as a whole to let these people take a bath? Probably not. Is it fair to the rest of us who weren't stupid enough to overstretch our financial means? Probably not. It seems to me that fixing the problem sooner rather than later is best. The long-term question (whether or not a bail-out will simply encourage more financial idiocy in the future) is a good one, and one which I have no answer to.

But I'm disappointed in McCain on this. Support a bail-out if you like. But be honest about the problem.

Yeah. And don't act like a government paycheck makes you morally superior to people in business. Where do you think the money for that paycheck comes from?

HE'S GOING TO NEED A NEW LIVER BEFORE THIS ELECTION IS OVER, but Stephen Green is drunkblogging the G.O.P. debate.

UPDATE: Bainbridge is liveblogging too.

I AGREE: Corker: Economic Stimulus Bill is "Nothing But a Political Stimulus".

FOR YALE LAW SCHOOL, conflicting narratives.

UPDATE: And other issues for Harvard.

A DINNER TABLE POLL: "My mother, whom I have dubbed The Swing Voter because her vote has correctly called every presidential election since I was sentient, has announced that if Hillary is the nominee, she's voting Republican--regardless of who the Republican is. Meanwhile, the gay Republican vote is apparently going for McCain, with a margin of error of 100%." Which isn't much worse than polls in general, these days . . . .

AN ARMY OF DOOFUSES: "Anti-Scientology agitators have repeatedly harassed and threatened violence against a 59-year-old PG&E worker and his wife, who were mistakenly flagged as pro-Scientology hackers." It's the Internet equivalent of a wrong-house SWAT raid, though without any actual shootings. Another difference -- immediate apologies from the responsible parties.

FEEDING YOUR PET via the Internet.

WHAT THE WORLD'S BEEN WAITING FOR: The canned cheeseburger. Yum, yum!

JENNIFER RUBIN: What will Rush, Hugh say if McCain wins? They really don't like McCain, but will they try to play spoiler? Some related thoughts here.

Meanwhile, I have to note that whenever I turn on talk radio I hear a caller lamenting Fred Thompson's absence from the race. I have to wonder, though, just how many of those people actually donated money or volunteered in his campaign.

UPDATE: Advice from The Anchoress: Chill for a bit.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Related thoughts here.

And reader Troy Hinrichs emails: "Hugh Hewitt has said, ad nauseum, on his radio show that if McCain wins the nomination he will vote for McCain and those who withhold their vote are basically dolts for doing so." I haven't heard his show lately -- it isn't on in Knoxville at the moment.

WHAT THE COUNTRY NEEDS: Ralph Nader 2008!

WHERE IS AL GORE? "A rare snowstorm swept the Middle East on Wednesday, blanketing parts of the Holy Land in white, shutting schools and sending excited children into the streets for snowball fights. . . . Men in long Arab robes pelted each other with snowballs in the Jordanian capital, Amman, and the West Bank city of Ramallah, seat of the Palestinian government, came to a standstill."

CHOIRE SICHA: Dear Hillary: Your Obama obsession is making you dull.

UPDATE: Link was wrong earlier. Fixed now. Sorry!

LOOKING AT the black plague and its victims.

THE LATEST PUTIN VICTIM? "Vladimir Putin has now not only disqualified his former prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov from running for president, he’s threatened him with prison."

IN THE MAIL: Get Rich, Stay Rich, Pass It On: The Wealth-Accumulation Secrets of America's Richest Families. And also, It's Never Too Late to Get Rich: The Nine Secrets to Building a Nest Egg at Any Age. I'll read 'em both, and get twice as rich, twice as fast!

EARMARKS AND OUTLAYS: A striking graphic from Larry Kudlow. On the program, Dick Armey called earmarks the "gateway drug for overspending."

UPDATE: Reader Tom Brosz emails: "I can't look at that chart without wondering how much of the Republican Party's problems stem from the departure of Newt Gingrich, who could almost be considered the conservative heart (or brain) of the Republican Congress. He left the House leadership after the 1998 elections, and you can see on that graph that the spending uptick started some time before Bush took office." Hmm.

TERMINATED: A look at the demise of Arnold Schwarzenegger's health-care plan, and what it means for Hillarycare 2.0. "Like collapses in Illinois, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, this one crumpled because of the costs, which are always much higher than anticipated. . . . This reveals that liberal health-care politics is increasingly the art of the impossible: You can't make coverage 'universal' while at the same time keeping costs in check -- at least without prohibitive tax increases."

AT THE SPECULIST, A SPECIAL EDITION of their Better All The Time good-news roundup, devoted just to energy news.

IT WAS ONLY A MATTER OF TIME: McCain Derangement Syndrome arrives. I understand people having issues with McCain, but people need to calm down soon. This is politics, the art of the possible, not the ideal. Some people on the right are starting to sound almost Kossack-like.

UPDATE: Bill Quick begs to differ. Hey, for everybody there's a point at which they'd rather take their marbles and go home. For me it would be Huckabee. For some Democrats it was Gore in 2000 and they voted Nader instead. For some Republicans it was GHW Bush in 1992 and they voted Perot.

What I find particularly hard to swallow, though -- and this is not Bill's problem -- are the people who say that if Romney doesn't make it they'll vote Democratic rather than support McCain because McCain's not a true conservative. Maybe not, but neither is Romney, and it seems like a strange place to draw the line. Those who hold a special grudge against McCain over immigration or McCain-Feingold are a different case. But again, everybody gets to vote how they want. Just be prepared to live with the results.

HE'LL BE GOING BACK TO ONE OF THE TWO AMERICAS -- the fancier one! John Edwards quits.

THEY TOLD ME THAT IF GEORGE W. BUSH WERE RE-ELECTED, political activists who circulated petitions critical of government policy would be tossed in jail. And they were right!

ATF CONFIRMATION FIGHT continues.

WHAT THE NEXT PRESIDENT SHOULD DO on day one.

UPDATE: Why wait? A reader emails: "I think Bush should do it NOW, or at worst before his term ends. If it works as advertised and bankrupts the Saudis, Chavez, and the rest of OPEC, it will go down as the best thing he did in office, and I include Iraq in that assessment."

Sadly, the White House opposes the Zubrin plan because it's a "mandate," notwithstanding that it would be far less intrusive -- and far more beneficial -- than the increase in C.A.F.E. standards.

TWO RELATED STORIES:

Judge Rules Rezko Will Stay Behind Bars.

Obama Cuts Rezko Ties.

STILL MORE ON THE BRANDEIS DEBACLE: I encourage conservative and libertarian -- or just mischievous -- students to flood the system with complaints about anything that offends them. In particular, any criticisms of white, straight, male military veterans. A three-fer!

UPDATE: Er, actually, that would be a four-fer, wouldn't it? Oh, well -- all the better!

VOTE FRAUD ARRESTS: "A ward superintendent handpicked by the City Council’s 80-year-old elder statesman, Ald. Bernard Stone (50th), was arrested Monday and charged--along with another man--with improperly steering primarily Indian and Pakistani voters toward absentee ballots for Stone. Anish Eapen, a 37-year-old employee of the city’s Department of Streets and Sanitation, faces two counts of official misconduct, three counts of absentee ballot fraud and one count of mutilation of election materials. He allegedly worked in tandem with 34-year-old Armando Ramos, an unemployed student. Ramos faces two counts of absentee ballot fraud and two counts of mutilation of election materials." (Via NewsAlert.)

OKAY, THIS IS SILLY: "Disposable batteries, no matter how efficient, should be considered a controlled substance and, as such, should be sold under the same restrictions as, say, prescription drugs or guns."

A BLOG-REPORT FROM THE GUANGZHOU TRAIN STATION, where half a million people are stranded. Honestly, it doesn't look as bad as I would have expected. Some of the people even look kind of cheerful.

UPDATE: A reader emails:

Am in Guangzhou now at the Holiday Inn. The west train station, which is the origin of trains heading north, is where all the action is. There are reports from the scene on TVB, the Hong Kong TV station, as well as local news. The interesting thing is the link you posted doesn't work from behind the Great Firewall!

China Daily (the Party's English newspaper distributed in the mainland) had a front page story on deicing - by hand, using hammers - power lines north of us. There workers died when a pylon collapsed. Anhui and Hunan are particularly hard-hit, with China Daily reporting food shortages in some cities and traffic jams tens of kilometers long.

We are not going north, but south to Hong Kong (after we leave the US consulate) from the east train station, which still has a large crowd, even though the trains go south and east. I am glad we got out of Chongqing with our newly-adopted baby on Tuesday, as flights were cancelled and delayed.

Good luck.

THIS IS INTERESTING: "We were captivated by the Karma plug-in hybrid when it was unveiled at the Detroit Auto Show earlier this month. Its curvaceous, aggressive design combined with its ability to go 50 miles without using any gas seems like a bargain at the projected starting price of $80,000. . . . Vic Doolan, director of retail development for Fisker, says the company is considering metro Detroit to handle production. The combination of unused capacity, close proximity of suppliers, and availability of experienced workers make Detroit an ideal location."

January 29, 2008

WISH I'D HELD ON TO THAT SKYLAB CRASH HELMET: "The U.S. military is developing contingency plans to deal with the possibility that a large spy satellite expected to fall to Earth in late February or early March could hit North America."

WHO KNEW THAT DIEBOLD'S TENDRILS REACHED SO FAR? ACLU sues to block paper ballots.

CRITICISM FOR DIGG.

STEPHEN GREEN: "Get ready to see a slew of McCain/Giuliani bumper stickers at the Republican convention, if not sooner."

HILLARY: It all depends on what the definition of "pledge" is.

AIR FORCE BLOCKS BLOG that reported on Air Force problems.

FOX CALLS IT FOR MCCAIN. Time is claiming that Giuliani will quit and endorse McCain, probably tomorrow.

UPDATE: CNN and AP have called it for McCain, too.