Saturday, February 28, 2004
Friday, February 27, 2004
|
Ugh... |
| This morning Drudge is featuring a graphic of John Kerry picking his nose. |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 9:02 AM |
|
Hey, when you're right, you're right. Right? |
On October 31, 2003, EconoPundit quoted Paul Krugman as follows:
My purpose is not to denigrate the impressive estimated 7.2 percent growth rate for the third quarter of 2003. It is, rather, to stress the obvious: we've had our hopes dashed in the past, and it remains to be seen whether this is just another one-hit wonder.
Two posts later we reported a Yale-model-forecast 4.1% growth rate for Q4 2003.
This forecast has now been confirmed as having been accurate. The model was correct. Krugman's pessimism was unwarranted -- unless he now wishes to claim he was actually thinking of the same number we put out. |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 8:43 AM |
Thursday, February 26, 2004
|
Thomas Friedman |
on why outsourcing to India might not be all bad :
Well, he answered patiently, 'look around this office.' All the computers are from Compaq. The basic software is from Microsoft. The phones are from Lucent. The air-conditioning is by Carrier, and even the bottled water is by Coke, because when it comes to drinking water in India, people want a trusted brand. On top of all this, says Mr. Nagarajan, 90 percent of the shares in 24/7 are owned by U.S. investors. This explains why, although the U.S. has lost some service jobs to India, total exports from U.S. companies to India have grown from $2.5 billion in 1990 to $4.1 billion in 2002. What goes around comes around, and also benefits Americans. |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 11:05 AM |
|
OpinionJournal does its part... |
Regarding the new protectionism:
We called the [Edwards and Kerry] campaigns to ask which labor and environmental standards should be forced on the rest of the world, but they wouldn't be specific. Nor would they elaborate on what loopholes in the tax code they want to close. Perhaps that is a good sign; the vaguer the fulminations against free trade, the easier they would be to repudiate later on, just as Mr. Clinton flip-flopped on China trade in his first year in office.
The rhetoric is still worrying, however. Mixing morality and economics is a tricky business. As Adam Smith wrote, rather than relying on the benevolence of the baker to provide us our bread, we trust to his self-interest; the transaction benefits both parties. So it also is with trade, but the mistaken idea that selling is more virtuous than buying when the exchange is with foreigners continues to have mass appeal.
For your information and reading pleasure, here's the NAM report mentioned towards the end of the OpinionJournal article. This report's main finding:
...domestically imposed costs -- by omission or commission of federal, state, and local governments -- are damaging manufacturing more than any foreign competitor and adding at least 22.4 percent to the cost of doing business from the United States... (emphasis added) |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 9:12 AM |
Wednesday, February 25, 2004
|
Baby boom generation fails at everything... |
| I am relieved to find out I'm not the only one who sees outsourcing as evidencing a massive ongoing failure of the US education establishment. |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 10:30 AM |
|
Cut spending? Yes. Raise taxes? No. |
| Sanity from Alan Greenspan. |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 10:26 AM |
|
A Report on Genuine Cinematic Antisemitism |
Joel Rosenberg:
...Al-Shatat ("The Diaspora"), a...30-part "mini-series" produced by Syrian television...was broadcast during Ramadan last year by Al-Mansar, Hezbollah's satellite television network. The film is "a Syrian TV series recording the criminal history of Zionism," according to a November 11, 2003 report in the Syria Times.
In Episode Six...a group of rabbis and other Jews...gather to torture and kill a man found guilty of marrying a non-Jewish woman. As the man screams in agony, the head rabbi instructs his fellow Jews: 'You hold his nose shut. You, open his mouth with tongs. You pour lead into his mouth. You cut off his ears. You stab his body with a knife before the lead kills him. This is a sacred Talmudic court; if any of you fails in his mission I will try you just like this criminal.' The men follow the Rabbi's orders...
Those...attacking The Passion are...making a serious strategic error. They're crying wolf, and hurting their own cause by pointing to anti-Semitism where it doesn't exist and thus distracting attention from real and rising evils where they do. Moreover, by attacking a film in which a Jewish person is portrayed as the Savior of all mankind, they're needlessly insulting and alienating millions of Bible-believing Christians, the very people most supportive of the right of all Jews -- and the Jewish state of Israel --to exist in peace and security.
And now read this to enhance any sadness you may be feeling. |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 9:05 AM |
|
Others' response... |
Here are comments from others present at the Monday night screening I attended.
I'm not sure anyone has heard from the three people who walked out during Jesus' scourging. |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 8:42 AM |
|
New Support for the Household Survey |
Bill Hobbs has data on small business formation in Tennessee:
In 1998, at the peak of the Clinton-era economic boom, 6,934 LLCs were formed in Tennessee. That dropped to 5,710 in 1999, and then plummeted in 2000 as the Clinton-era boom ended, the Internet bubble burst, Wall Street slid, and the economy slumped toward a recession. There were just 4,629 LLCs formed in Tennessee that year. In 2001, President Bush's first year, the rate of LLC formation began to rise, reaching 4,962. In 2002, there were 6,204 LLCs formed in Tennessee. And last year, as the Bush Boom gained strength, Tennessee entrepreneurs formed 7,412 LLCs.
Tennessee is only one state - I'd love to have data from all 50 states - but it is one more bit of data indicating there may well be more validity to the household survey than its critics will admit. |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 8:31 AM |
Tuesday, February 24, 2004
|
Those who know don't say, and those who say don't know... |
I am still waiting for genuine experts (e.g. Elaine Pagels) to comment on Mel Gibson's new film. Meanwhile, don't assume everyone who's talking loud knows the subject.
Case in point: a small but annoying error in Kenneth Turan's review:
...it would be impossible for any disinterested viewer (if one could be found) to escape the fact that "The Passion" does not just mention in passing but is centered dramatically on the culpability of the Jews. This notion, sometimes called blood libel or blood guilt, has led to untold suffering and death over hundreds and hundreds of years, should have given someone, even a believer, pause. (emphasis added)
Actually, blood libel is a quite different charge from deicide. These terms shouldn't be thrown around casually without first looking them up.
UPDATE: And now this, just in from Drudge:
NEWSROOM SOURCES: NYT TO SLAM GIBSON'S 'PASSION' IN REVIEW TOMORROW: 'Gibson has constructed an unnerving and painful spectacle that is also, in the end, a depressing one... It is disheartening to see a film made with evident and abundant religious conviction that is at the same time so utterly lacking in grace.... What makes the movie so grim and ugly is Gibson's inability to think beyond the conventional logic of movie narrative'...
(And as we ponder these things, the movie review in question is being written by the very same folks Mel Gibson's dad talked about in his latest interview.) |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 3:23 PM |
|
Ralph the Gangster |
WSJ:
Mr. Nader is best understood as the inventor of today's nexus of liberal politics and trial-lawyer opportunism. His network of organizations have long been suspected of taking trial-lawyer cash, but it is impossible to tell because Mr. Nader refuses to disclose their financial backers. Yet just like Senators Kerry and Edwards he denounces the influence of sinister 'special interests.' It's a little ungrateful for Mr. Edwards to now upbraid the man who did so much to make the Senator's own fortune and political career possible. |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 8:43 AM |
Monday, February 23, 2004
|
Mel Gibson's "The Passion of Christ" -- a Brief Provisional Review |
First, on the plus side there's the language -- absolutely stunning (albeit with an occasional, odd-sounding Scandinavian ring that makes you wonder exactly whose Aramaic or Latin is being spoken here). Anyone with a smattering of prayerbook Hebrew or church Latin will find themselves actually understanding what's being said from time to time. Hearing the entire drama play out in these languages is an exciting experience.
Second, on the minus side, there's the graphic practically nonstop violence. This movie is not for everyone. But since pain and its acceptance for higher purpose is the central point of the project, a toned-down version would make little sense. Are there universals here non-Christians can relate to? The answer is definitely "yes." Just as the violence repels you, so the varying responses to this violence by Jesus' family and followers, by his enemies, by the crowd, and even by his soldier-tormentors, holds your attention in riveting fashion.
Finally, are the critics justified in their condemnation? I think the answer is "yes" -- Jews (in the form of the Temple Priesthood) are unequivocally held responsible by this screenplay for the death of Jesus. Indeed, contrary to previous portrayals the entire Temple Priesthood are present at the crucifixion, a virtual impossibility given Jewish law.
Those who want the story to justify their anti-Jewish feelings will easily find what they want here, but on those otherwise disposed can see the screenplay as portraying a kind of Jew-on-Jew sectarian mob violence that became commonplace during the Great Revolt seventy years later. Gibson and his special effects crew place flowing images of Satan and his grotesque Satanic henchmen within the mob, heightening the violence, urging the crowds on. Anyone reading Josephus' accounts of the Great Revolt might well suspect Satan had actually been there exactly as portrayed by director Gibson.
More soon.
UPDATE: Uh, hope it's not in bad taste to apologize for use of the word "riveting" in the second paragraph above. Gotta watch your metaphors here.
|
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 10:27 PM |
|
"I remain convinced that there has got to be a way to present the free-market case without advocating damage to the economy" |
Dear Econ Friend,
I don't usually send out my columns anymore. Nontheless I'm sending out this one as it relates so closely to what's on our collective mind. Happy to receive feedback, including negative feedback.
I remain convinced that there has got to be a way to present the free-market case without advocating damage to the economy.
With thanks,
Amity
Eppur si muove--Or, It's Back to the Dark Ages on Trade
Financial Times UK, Europe, US
by Amity Shlaes
It is February 23, 2005. President John Kerry and his economic team - Roger Altman and Alan Blinder from the US Treasury and US trade representative Clyde Prestowitz - are busy converting the US into a protectionist fortress. The North American Free Trade Agreement? Rewrite it to force Mexican wages upward. The World Trade Organisation? Reconsider. Japan? Ralph Nader, special envoy, is just landing in Tokyo. And oh, that meeting with Pascal Lamy, the European Union's trade commissioner? Schedule it later.
This vision of a return to the Dark Ages of protectionism seems improbable, especially considering the sunny American scenario of just a few weeks ago. No protectionist candidate cast his shadow across the election stage - Ross Perot and Pat Buchanan were nowhere to be seen. The only two serious candidates who talked about protectionism were Dick Gephardt of Missouri and Howard Dean of Vermont. Iowa voters chucked them out early, a humiliation that seemed to underscore the anachronistic nature of the protectionist message.
In short, Americans generally seemed to have internalised the principal economic lesson of the 1990s: that the sort of global commerce symbolised by Nafta is a good thing. Certainly, the US transition to an international service economy has been difficult. Many citizens have lost jobs or know people who have. It is infuriating to see Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan thinking about hiring in Mumbai when people are worrying about the death of manufacturing in Montgomery, Alabama.
Nonetheless, most voters also know that US unemployment dipped to historic lows in the decade following the signing of Nafta; they know that even now, post-recession, unemployment is lower than the average of the past quarter-century. Finally, Americans know that more jobs will materialise eventually. For while outsourcing may "kill" some jobs, it also helps companies to generate more profits, and those profits are reinvested - eventually - in jobs.
But something is changing to obscure this logic. This month Mr Kerry and John Edwards have discovered that the loss of manufacturing jobs is unnerving voters and that calling for "job protection" - precise meaning to be worked out later - has enormous appeal.
Suddenly, the basic laws of economics no longer seem to apply. Without considering much the implications of their actions, the candidates are edging towards old anti-trade positions. Thus earlier this month, Mr Edwards told an audience in Wisconsin that trade deals such as Nafta were bad as they "drive down our wages and ship our jobs around the world". He also spoke repeatedly about "fair trade not free trade".
Mr Kerry has been more circumspect; he, after all, supported Nafta in the Senate, as well as China's entry to the WTO. His economic guru, Mr Blinder, spent his career repeating the formula, "increasing productivity and trade equals growth and jobs". Nonetheless, Mr Kerry has also - as James Hoffa of the Teamsters union recently put it - "evolved" on trade. Nafta, Mr Kerry says, has to be reopened and rewritten. The Kerry campaign has also reminded voters that its agenda calls for a moratorium on new trade agreements until all old agreements are reviewed, and Mr Kerry has said he wants to "bring back" jobs. What can that mean?
The Republicans have also done their part to put back the clock. This month saw a new low for the party, when Dennis Hastert, the House speaker, made the inquisitorial demand that Greg Mankiw, chairman of the White House council of economic advisers, deny his suggestion that outsourcing can increase American well-being. Mr Hastert, a wonderful man but, after all, a former wrestling coach, was forcing Mr Mankiw, author of one of the best economic textbooks, to deny a basic law of economics. ("Recant, Galileo, admit that outsourcing always kills jobs!")
It is easy to argue that this retrograde shift doesn't matter. Bill Clinton also asked for Nafta riders during his first campaign. But by crusading so hard for American jobs, today's candidates are suggesting the problem is free markets. They thus make it virtually inevitable that they will have to deliver protectionism after the election - even in areas where they do not intend such an outcome.
This spells trouble. Democrats these days generally like to portray themselves as multilateralist. But protectionism is inherently unilateralist. If you are interested in international co-operation at all, you can see that this is exactly the wrong moment to bash international trade.
The second problem is that by "protecting" jobs, the new administration is likely to kill them. Mr Kerry's international tax plan will force companies to stay in the US at the expense of profitability. This in turn will force them to lay off workers. His scapegoating of "Benedict Arnold chief executives" certainly won't inspire new companies to list on US exchanges. As for Mr Kerry's domestic tax increases, they represent the one kind of step that ensures lost jobs will not return: they reduce US relative competitiveness.
The third problem is subtler: intellectual dishonesty. Congressmen of the 1990s saw first-hand what trade can do for growth. By ignoring that experience, Messrs Edwards and Kerry - and Mr Hastert even - force Americans to ignore it along with them. In effect, these men are erasing history. You can't get more medieval than that.
|
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 12:45 PM |
|
As we continue to re-live the 1960's... |
| For me they were the worst of times. It's really starting to feel like for everyone else they were best -- just absolutely the best -- of times. |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 9:06 AM |
|
Kerry: National Guard "campus murderers," armed attackers of minorities... |
John Podhoretz in FrontPage :
Kerry was present at [the headquarters of VVAW] when the group decided to write then-Mayor John V. Lindsay and demand that the city refuse to welcome [the 1970 convention of the National Guard Association]...The decision to stage this...protest against the National Guard -- which then comprised 409,412 Army Guard and 89,847 Air Guard personnel -- was made in John Kerry's presence and with his full knowledge. Executive-committee minutes for Vietnam Veterans Against the War note that among the six "members attending" a meeting to plan the protest was "John Kerry-NE Rep."
...Kerry and others will tell you...Vietnam Veterans Against the War was a group dedicated to advancing the interests of American servicemen -- protecting them, bringing them home, helping them. The group's protest against the National Guard Association[, however,] demonstrates...this claim is revisionist history with a vengeance. (Italics added)
Quoting mimeographed pamphlets Podhoretz has VVAW charging National Guard with campus murders and "armed attacks on minority communities." Isn't it just a matter of hours before some enterprising journalist asks Kerry whether he still fosters a bit of residual hostility to the National Guard?
UPDATE: On the other hand...
UPDATE II: And then again, Larry Jones sends us this:
John Kerry wants us to relive Vietnam. I say we revisit the 1980's - namely
John Kerry's attempts to eviscerate integral defense systems.
As shown in the [reproduced] documents from Kerry's 1984 Senate campaign,
Kerry wanted to cut or eliminate:
MX Missile (eliminate)
Tomahawk Missile (cut by 50 percent)
F-14 (eliminate)
F-15 (eliminate)
B-1 Bomber (eliminate)
Patriot Missile (eliminate)
NOTE: These supporting fragments are pieced together from scans sent by Jones. |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 8:43 AM |
|
Not looking forward to seeing this particular part of the movie... |
David Ansen in Newsweek:
March 1 issue - I have no doubt that Mel Gibson loves Jesus. From the evidence of "The Passion of the Christ," however, what he seems to love as much is the cinematic depiction of flayed, severed, swollen, scarred flesh and rivulets of spilled blood, the crack of bashed bones and the groans of someone enduring the ultimate physical agony. This peculiar, deeply personal expression of the filmmaker's faith is a far cry from the sentimental, pious depictions of Christ that popular culture has often served up. Relentlessly savage, "The Passion" plays like the Gospel according to the Marquis de Sade. The film that has been getting rapturous advance raves from evangelical Christians turns out to be an R-rated inspirational movie no child can, or should, see. To these secular eyes at least, Gibson's movie is more likely to inspire nightmares than devotion.
EconoPundit film fans: please be advised I will be seeing The Passion at 7 pm tonight with an advance review group, and will post a first draft review of the movie here at approximately 9:30 pm.
One of the more serious aspects of our last week's discussion went to the issue of pain and how we confront it. Ansen is, I think, missing an important spiritual point here, one shared by Jews and Gentiles -- and with similar difficulty.
The kind of imposed suffering portrayed in the movie is of course extreme, but pain itself -- especially that associated with the final stage of much illness -- is commonplace. At one point or another everyone's had a relative who died facing more pain than we like to imagine. More often than we'd like we turn away from this kind of suffering, and we sometimes realize (too late) we could have done more had we been more courageous.
I personally look forward -- with lots of misgivings -- to finding whether The Passion can speak to the non-Christian members of the audience on this unpleasant but none the less important issue. |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 6:16 AM |
Saturday, February 21, 2004
|
Okay, lemme see if I get it... |
Saxby Chambliss says Kerry has a "32-year history of voting to cut defense programs..."
And Kerry defends his record by saying "I don't know what it is that all these Republicans who didn't serve in Vietnam are fighting a war against those of us who did... "
Wouldn't it be easy for a casual onlooker to conclude Kerry is questioning Chambliss' patriotism? |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 8:10 PM |
|
Comments on "The Passion" from Fox Newswatch |
Jim Pinkerton: "the most audacious movie...by a director since D.W. Griffith made Intolerance in 1916."
Cal Thomas: "You'd have to be a bigot to begin with to read anti-Semitism into it...This is the first film...from Hollywood...in a very long time...that speaks to the values, the beliefs, and the culture of religious and social conservatives...who are used to having their values denigrated..."
Neal Gabler: "Mel Gibson baited his critics and they walked right into the trap...and in the process Mel Gibson brought together two traditional libels -- the libel that the Jews killed Jesus, and the libel that Jews control all the media and that we have to wrest it back from them."
UPDATE: More here, and the whole issue is available here as well. Univ. Nebraska's JRF is a great online academic journal. |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 5:50 PM |
|
Which came first? |
A little detail from the 1960's has been nagging at the back of my mind all day: by the time of Kerry's widely-reported Senate Foreign Relations Committee testimony, had Ramparts Magazine already published the "lifer" photos showing GI's with trophy Vietcong heads? My recollection is it was the same month this article and its shocking graphics first appeared the issue of war atrocities made it into network news and widespread commonplace discussion.
I'm asking this: did Kerry opportunistically join a rapidly-developing movement blaming US soldiers for atrocities ("baby killers!" became a fashionable thing to say at that point) or was he actually in the vanguard of the "baby killers" movement?
So far I'd consider this to be the place for most reliable answers to questions like these. I'll be sending David Horowitz this very question by email some time today.
UPDATE: From the just-mentioned site:
Something is fishy.
Here we have a JFK wannabe (the guy Halsey wanted to court martial for carelessly losing his boat and getting a couple people killed by running across the bow of a Japanese destroyer) who is hardly in Vietnam long enough to get good tan, collects medals faster than Audie Murphy in a job where lots of medals weren't common, gets sent home eight months early and requests separation from active duty a few months after that so he can run for Congress. In that election, he finds out war heroes don't sell well in Massachsetts in 1970, so he reinvents himself as Jane Fonda, throws his ribbons in the dirt with the cameras running to jump start his political career, gets Stillborn Pell to invite him to address Congress and has Bobby Kennedy's speechwriter to do the heavy lifting. A few years later he winds up in the Senate himself, where he votes against every major defense bill and says the CIA is irrelevant after the Berlin Wall came down. He votes against the Gulf War (a big political mistake since that turned out well), then decides not to make the same mistake twice so votes for invading Iraq -- but that didn't fare as well with the Democrats, so he now says he really didn't mean for Bush to go to war when he voted to allow him to go to war.
UPDATE II: Another post from the same site:
VVAW is still active in left-wing circles, protesting American imperialism. Two weeks after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, VVAW issued a statement declaring "The use of massive military power will only escalate the cycle of violence, spreading more death and destruction to more innocent people with no end in sight. ... We see many parallels between Vietnam and Afghanistan."
In January EconoPundit posted several links pertaining to VVAW. |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 12:57 PM |
|
Another false alarm? |
Via Drudge:
[The Sunday Express] is claiming Osama bin Laden has been found and is surrounded by US special forces in an area of land bordering north-west Pakistan and Afghanistan...
The paper claims he is in a mountainous area to the north of the Pakistani city of Quetta. The region is said to be peopled with bin Laden supporters and the terrorist leader is estimated to also have 50 of his fanatical bodyguards with him.
The claim is attributed to "a well-placed intelligence source" in Washington, who is quoted as saying: "He (bin Laden) is boxed in."
The paper says the hostile terrain makes an all-out conventional military assault impossible. The plan to capture him would depend on a "grab-him-and-go" style operation.
"US helicopters already sited on the Afghanistan border will swoop in to extricate him," the newspaper says. It claims bin Laden and his men "sleep in caves or out in the open. The area is swept by fierce snow storms howling down from the 10,000ft-high mountain peaks. Donkeys are the only transport."
The special forces are "absolutely confident" there is no escape for bin Laden, and are awaiting the order to go in and get him.
"The timing of that order will ultimately depend on President Bush," the paper says. "Capturing bin Laden will certainly be a huge help for him as he gets ready for the election."
The article says bin Laden's movements are monitored by a National Security Agency satellite.
UPDATE: More at Command Post, which sends us here. Sorry. |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 10:57 AM |
|
$400,000 advanced to Scott Ritter... |
At MEMRI.ORG, Nimrod Raphaeli has posted a thus-far definitive statement of the Saddam Oil Vouchers Affair in which you'll find the following:
United States
Shaker Al-Khaffaji (7 million barrels) advanced $400,000 to Scott Ritter, former U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq. Ritter produced a documentary purporting to tell the true story of the weapons inspections, which in his telling were corrupted by sinister U.S. manipulation...
Samir Vincent (10.5 million barrels): In 2000, Vincent, an Iraqi-born American who lived in the U.S. since 1958, organized a delegation of Iraqi religious leaders to the U.S., which met with former president Jimmy Carter. |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 8:53 AM |
|
Kafka Filmography |
I realize this is not exactly of central interest to everyone. Still, after a friend sent me this it seemed well worth posting for the few who will have little Kafkaic spasms of delight-followed-by-displeasure when they see all the films based on Kafka's work that (a) have been made and are (b) completely unavailable.
1. Am Ende des Ganges (1999) (novel Der Prozess)
2. Sickroom, The (1998) (story)
3. Schloss, Das (1997) (novel Das Schloss)
... aka Castle, The (1997/II) (Canada: English title)
4. Spivachka Zhosefina i myshachyj narod (1994) (story)
... aka Josephine, the Singer and the Mice People (1994)
5. Zamok (1994) (novel Das Schloss)
... aka Castle, The (1994)
6. Amerika (1994) (novel)
... aka America (1994)
7. Trial, The (1993) (novel)
8. Metamorphosis (1987/II) (TV) (novel)
9. Linna (1986) (novel Das Schloss)
10. Klassenverhaltnisse (1984) (novel Amerika)
... aka Amerika, rapports de classe (1984) (France)
... aka Class Relations (1984)
11. Bratrovrazda (1977) (story)
... aka Case of Fratricide, A (1977)
12. Metamorphosis of Mr. Samsa, The (1977) (story)
13. Redogorelse framlagd for en akademi (1976) (TV) (story)
14. Forvandlingen (1976/I) (novel Die Verwandlung)
... aka Metamorphosis (1976) (USA)
15. Informe para una academia, Un (1975) (play)
16. Colonia penal, La (1970) (story)
... aka Penal Colony, The (1970) (USA)
17. Schloss, Das (1968) (novel)
... aka Castle, The (1968) (USA)
18. Grafbewaker, De (1965) (story)
19. Proces, Le (1963) (novel)
... aka Processo, Il (1963) (Italy)
... aka Prozess, Der (1963) (West Germany)
... aka Trial, The (1963) (USA)
|
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 8:16 AM |
Friday, February 20, 2004
|
Terrorist kidnap victim recovered? |
Nothing on Drudge or Instapundit yet. What is this all about?
PORTLAND, Maine - Law enforcement agents were questioning two passengers who were removed from a Moroccan-bound jetliner that was diverted to Bangor, officials said Friday...The FBI identified one of the removed passengers as 27-year-old investment banker Zubiar Ali Ghias, who had been reported missing to Chicago police last Saturday...The second passenger, whose name was not released, was sitting next to Ghias, Bangor police...said...
FBI spokeswoman Gail Marcinkiewicz...declined to comment on statements from a private investigator in Chicago who said he called the FBI after Ghias called his family using a fellow passenger's cell phone to say he had been abducted by al-Qaida.
Transportation Security Administration spokesman Mark Hatfield said the plane was redirected because of a bomb threat. He said the threat was apparently made by a passenger on the plane...
The private investigator, Ernie Rizzo, told The Associated Press that Ghias called from aboard the plane. Rizzo said Ghias had last been seen by his family on Saturday. He said he was hired to track Ghias to New York through his credit cards.
Rizzo quoted Ghias as telling his wife, "I'm on flight 201 to Morocco. I've been captured by al-Qaida, they want me to do something for them. I love you, I just gotta do this."
Rizzo said Ghias had apparently used the cell phone of another passenger. Rizzo said he called back the number, and the passenger confirmed the flight number. Rizzo said he summoned the FBI to the family's apartment, and the FBI questioned the family.
Rizzo's account could not be immediately confirmed...
Here's an earlier Tribune story. Don't any Chicago news organizations know why Ghias might have been of interest to al-Qaida or whomever? Or was this a hoax?
UPDATE: Now it's at Fox. Drywall? Tape? Glue? |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 10:45 AM |
|
From the New EconoPundit Dictionary... |
Ideology: a dogmatic and incorrect set of beliefs held by one's political opponents; usually can be said to include a private plan which, if made public, would reveal the vile nature of the ideology's proponents.
See for example this commentary from Wm. Lipinski:
I believe it is appropriate to address what may be the real agenda of America's monetary authorities: preserving their trade ideologies even if it means watching American manufacturing crumble. Right after he made the point quoted above about productivity, Greenspan asked rhetorically, ''Is it important for an economy to have manufacturing? There's a big dispute on this issue.''
What better way to lay the groundwork for meekly acquiescing to America's de-industrialization.
The Chicago Federal Reserve Bank has gone even further: ''Many believe that, owing to changing terms of trade throughout the world, the Midwest can no longer compete in the production end of manufacturing.''
[The Chicago Fed seems] to share this belief, but there are thousands of Midwest businesses and workers who disagree with them and their colleagues. I believe the Chicago Fed owes the Midwest an explanation. |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 10:06 AM |
|
It was the pudgy dweeb... |
Just found this out from Don Luskin.
Remember way, way back during December 2000, towards the beginning of the Florida recount during one of the many court sessions there was this testimony from a totally lame, bumbling statistician who caused everyone on both sides to scratch their heads and remember why they don't take college professors seriously?
That was Brad DeLong! |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 9:00 AM |
|
News from the world of psychology... |
Via Milt's File, the LA Times reports Freud was wrong about everything.
How long before they discover Marx had problems too? |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 8:38 AM |
Thursday, February 19, 2004
|
Computers join the Bush conspiracy... |
After a long, ironic, witty, and complicated post involving the administration's job forecasting "Troika" (but hey, I guess it's a better term than "Dreiokonomischeverschworer") Brad DeLong says:
It is a possible scenario--it could happen that firms begin hiring like gangbusters, that the pace of work they demand from their employees falls, and that as a result productivity growth is anemic in 2004. The economy is a strange and surprising beast. But nonfarm productivity growth in the fourth quarter of 2003 has already come in, and its initial estimate is that productivity growth was twice as fast as the administration projection. Nobody I have found save the administration Troika and Yale University forecaster Ray Fair regards such a sudden collapse in productivity growth as a reasonable forecast. (Emphasis added)
Yo! Brad -- we're all economic scientists here, aren't we? If Ray Fair regards an upcoming productivity collapse as a reasonable prospect, it is not because he hopes for it or has fiddled with various numbers in such a way that it finally seems reasonably possible. Rather, it is because this is what the printout of his model says.
So, Brad, please enlighten us. Exactly which of the hundreds of equations in the MC model is wrong? Pray tell us: exactly why is this model generating an incorrect conclusion?
UPDATE: And by the way, even though the results can be beefed up if you look at public- as well as private-sector employment, the latest Yale model jobs forecast wasn't all that great for Bush enthusiasts. But that's the way models work, after all. They just spit out those numbers, whether we like the results or not, without being part of any conspiracy to elect or reelect anyone in particular.
UPDATE II: Oh yeah, and in the ongoing continuing thuggish tradition of the blog in question, there is neither a link to the Economic Report of the President nor Ray Fair's work. |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 11:59 AM |
|
What? Did I say that? |
| Latest to reluctantly admit the Bush Doctrine may be working: Thomas Friedman. |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 11:36 AM |
|
Best reason... |
On Sunday morning I led a discussion group in which we debated reason why Jews should (or should not) go to see Mel Gibson's "The Passion."
When asked if he planned to go, one of the older men said:
"Nah. It would only spoil the book." |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 8:53 AM |
Wednesday, February 18, 2004
|
Vietnam and the mystical war against Communism... |
In case you can't find it elsewhere, here's Kerry's 1971 testimony.
I have to admit I didn't trust him at the time, and I'd like to know whether he now feels World Communism's decline was mystical or real. |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 4:07 PM |
|
Teaching Day |
| For details click here. |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 7:28 AM |
Tuesday, February 17, 2004
|
Analogy and advice... |
Slightly altered quote from today's column:
It's true that the U.S. spends far more on education than any other country, but this wouldn't be a bad thing if the spending got results. The real question is why, despite all that spending, many Americans aren't assured of the education they need, and American test scores are near the bottom for advanced countries.
But I changed it a bit. The Columnist is Paul Krugman, and he talks not about education but about health care. And my question is this: why does he ask one set of questions about health and a completely different set of questions for education?
UPDATE: As I look over the column as a whole, speaking as someone who's not only waited months to see a medical specialist under the Canadian system but also dealt with workers choosing to opt out of our employer-provided health plan under the US system, my advice is simply this: skip the column. Krugman is so far removed from the actuality of the subject his opinions are worthless. Read David Brooks' column instead!
|
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 11:07 AM |
|
Who says we're not just like France (Part II)? |
Regarding Democrats' revisiting the wild youth of George Bush, Hitchens says in passing:
We don't have to take his word for it that he was "saved," but it's plain enough that he has reformed, thanks largely to his wife, and so it's mean and despicable to revisit that period in such a Pharisaic manner.
Mean and despicable to do something in a "Pharasaic" manner? Did I get that right? Am I missing something?
I'd be the first to admit I can be kinda thin-skinned, but at first glance this looks like another outbreak of the Mel Gibson "Passion" syndrome. |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 8:41 AM |
|
So who says we're not just like France? |
Are you one of the many who don't know about urban police bans on immigration enforcement? If the answer is "yes", Milt Rosenberg suggests you read this to learn more:
Such laws testify to the sheer political power of immigrant lobbies, a power so irresistible that police officials shrink from even mentioning the illegal-alien crime wave. "We can't even talk about it," says a frustrated LAPD captain. "People are afraid of a backlash from Hispanics." Another LAPD commander in a predominantly Hispanic, gang-infested district sighs: "I would get a firestorm of criticism if I talked about [enforcing the immigration law against illegals]." Neither captain would speak for attribution. |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 8:14 AM |
Monday, February 16, 2004
|
As the story develops it changes focus... |
| Drudge is developing names of and quotes from familiar media darlings showing how they view adultery investigations highly relevant when Republicans are involved, but sleazy and totally beside the point when any Democrat is on the spot. |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 7:53 AM |
|
Triumphalism by any other name smells just as sour? |
Don "EconoGonzo" Luskin has prepared a brilliant takedown of Stephen Roach's whiny "Coping with the Global Labor Arbitrage."
I have only this to add. Roach and those who feed on his arguments share a subtext they'd angrily denounce in others. Something must be basically and systemically wrong , they appear to believe, if non-Americans are as educated, competitive, or employable as Americans. |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 7:43 AM |
|
The law of diminishing monopoly... |
Safire, worrying about Comcast and Disney, has a populist moment:
But the message in this latest potential merger is not about a clash of media megalomaniacs, nor about a conspiracy driven by "special interests." The issue is this: As technology changes, how do we better protect the competition that keeps us free and different?
EconoPundit's reply: so long as property rights are protected, it is precisely because technology changes that we are assured protection of the competition that keeps us free and different!
Translation: in the very long run, property rights and technical change assure no monopoly is permanent. |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 7:10 AM |
|
From the "Great Minds Travel in the Same Rut" Department |
Martin Feldstein for the most part agrees with EconoPundit:
Although fiscal deficits impose a burden on future generations, it would be wrong to respond now with a tax increase. Raising tax rates would hurt the expansion and weaken the incentives that drive long-term growth. Rescinding the Bush tax cuts on high income individuals would not only be economically counterproductive but would also have little effect on future budget deficits. A 15% increase in the taxes of those with incomes over $200,000 (e.g., taking the 35% top rate back to 40%) would reduce future budget deficits by a mere 0.3% of GDP aside from the adverse effect on long-term growth.
The medium-term goal for U.S. fiscal policy should, at a minimum, be a constant or declining ratio of debt to GDP. Achieving that goal requires bringing the deficit down to about 2.5% of GDP or less. Recent analysis by the Congressional Budget Office indicates that there is ample time to decide whether more is needed to achieve this than tight controls on spending. The low interest rates on long-term bonds also show that the participants in financial markets have confidence that future deficits will be coming down.
Now all we have to do is get him to rethink that business about fiscal deficits and future generations.
 UPDATE: Feldstein:
Looking ahead, one reason why actual budget deficits may be smaller than those implied by the CBO analysis is that the CBO bases its calculations on a projected GDP growth rate of only 2.8%. The improved productivity after 1995 has caused average GDP growth of 3.4% since then despite the recession. Continued growth at that rate for the next decade would reduce the fiscal deficit in 2014 from the projected 2.6% of GDP to just 0.9% of GDP.
For the curious: the chart shows Yale model forecasts for GDP rates of growth through 2007. Wish we could say otherwise, but these are pretty much in line with the CBO numbers Feldstein quotes. The short term numbers are somewhat more optimistic however (5.2, 3.7, 3.2, and 3.0 percent for the four quarters of the current year).
|
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 6:32 AM |
Sunday, February 15, 2004
|
Easy Bush reelection? |
| Bruce Bartlett has found new reasons why. |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 1:30 PM |
|
Small+Ethanol+Hydrogen=Cool! |
This story seems to form a perfect link of three basic green desiderata --decentralization, sustainability, and cleanliness. Of course it may be another example of cold fusion in an old coke can, but why not get excited for a few minutes anyway?
UPDATE: A reader responds, asking:
Note that the story does not mention anything about the energy balance equation of the process. That is, how much energy is required to convert each molecule of ethanol into 6 (probably fewer) molecules of H2, and finally, the amount of energy produced by oxidizing the H2 produced by each molecule.
Are we obtaining 10% more power than we used to cleave the Hydrogen from the ethanol? Are we producing less power than we used to produce the input hydrogen?
[Could this be mere] rent(grant)-seeking obfuscation on the part of the study authors, or the usual incompetence on the part of our press[?]
EconoPundit's two cents: I keep wondering what the renewability of ethanol fuel sources adds to the calculations. It is quite true that normally you make sure you're not using more fuel in the production process than you're producing, but how do these considerations change when you've got a continent-full of unemployed farm land just waiting to grow mountains of corn and reprocess greenhouse gasses into oxygen? |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 8:56 AM |
|
From the "Well What did you Expect?" Department |
From last night's NRO Corner, Andrew Stuttaford finds this passage buried in the London Independent's review of Lars von Trier's film Dogville:
But this would be to ignore [this film's] veiled criticism of America, once the country that prided itself on being a refuge to the tired and poor but more recently the scourge of immigrants and aliens.
"Scourge" -- very interesting word choice here. Stuttaford just points this out leaving the rest to the reader's imagination, but now let poor dumb old EconoPundit spell it out literally for his fellow slow learners.
Okay, the London Independent is like Mel Gibson telling the story of the Passion. The "immigrants and aliens" are like Christ. And the party "scourging" these victims, the US is like -- well, was it the Romans who were really responsible? The Roman soldiers? How about all of us, you know, like Gibson says in the public relations interviews, shared responsibility by all of humanity?
No, actually, somehow I think the Independent, caught up in the mood of Gibson's film (rather than public relations and commentary), is imagining a single collective villain here -- the United States -- whom the Independent's readers seem encouraged to visualize as very much like the...
UPDATE AND CLARIFICATION: This clever point having been made, let me say I look forward to seeing the film and encourage all my Jewish friends to do likewise. I am eager to see whether Elaine Pagels -- who has dealt extensively with certain problematic aspects of early Christian texts -- will review the film. |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 7:35 AM |
Friday, February 13, 2004
|
Phillips Curve 2004 |
As a kind of pre-weekend exercise I've tested some previous EconoPundit conclusions using the newly-reestimated Yale model. Hypothetically increasing the personal income tax parameter by 1%, 5%, etc., all the way up to 75%, I've been able to compute what levels of deficit reduction could  be "purchased" with higher taxes, slower economic growth, and (therefore) a higher value of that politically-all-important number, the unemployment rate.
The chart summarizes the sixteen quarter forecast results by plotting average forecast 2004-2007 unemployment rates against averaged deficit.
Results are sobering but not unexpected. Cutting the deficit in half requires a return to an almost-certainly politically unacceptable 6% rate of unemployment.
The numbers suggest deficit hawks should get serious. In a political environment where Mankiw's kinda innocent lecture on trade invokes Democrat charges of job export as official policy, fiscal "responsibility" at a cost of higher unemployment purely and simply will (I repeat -- will) not (I repeat -- not) happen (oh, you get the point I'm sure).
UPDATE: Econ 101 types will recognize this immediately as the Phillips curve in drag, but I don't recall seeing anyone plotting it as this particular economic tradeoff. I know there are no original theoretical contributions here, but still, unless I hear someone else has claimed this particular diagram I'm going to reserve the right to call it the "Antler Curve." |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 11:12 AM |
|
President Kerry on Imus... |
Recorded as it happened:
1. He's ready for the race. He's a fighter, ready to fight back. Americans want Truth. Subject is 3 million jobs lost, unaffordable health care, kids with poor education, environmental decline, lots of people are sick and tired of same old politics.
2. Vietnam is the war that will never go away. I worked to get answers on POWs and MIAs and make peace with Vietnam. It's not what I'm focused on. We've got a deficit that's growing and a budget that doesn't include cost of war in Iraq. How can this be left out?
3. Lost allies, world looking for greater leadership, bla, bla...
4. I won't comment on photo of me and Jane Fonda. Time to move on. War was screwed up. Veterans weren't welcomed back. I wrote Agent Orange legislation with Tom Daschle. Bla bla..
5. On Drudge intern report: the answer is "no," there's no story there, nothing will come up to interrupt the race.
6. No comment on why Dean is still in the race.
Bla, bla, bla, drone, drone, sanctimonious drone, etc.
A nothing interview. Nothing new, nothing surprising, no real denial of Drudge story that I could recognize, but Imus took it as complete denial.
IMUS: "So now, if something comes up he's a dead man."
UPDATE: It's nice to be agreed with. James Taranto heard it like I did:
John Kerry has responded to rumors of an "intern issue"...in Clintonian fashion. "Well there is nothing to report, so there is nothing to talk about," the BBC quotes him as telling MSNBC. "There's nothing there. There's no story." If you read this carefully, you see that it's not actually a denial, and you have to wonder if Kerry didn't choose his words carefully for just that reason.
Then again, the Clinton comparison goes only so far; unlike in Clinton's case, which involved perjury and obstruction of justice in a sexual-harrassment case there has been no hint that this Kerry rumor involves anything beyond private behavior. |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 6:36 AM |
|
Whose consciousness is false? |
Paul Krugman says most of us are hypnotized cult members:
Some of his critics hope that the AWOL issue will demolish the Bush myth, all at once. They're probably too optimistic -- if it were that easy, the tale of Harken Energy would have already done the trick. The sad truth is that people who have been taken in by a cult of personality -- a group that in this case includes a good fraction of the American people, and a considerably higher fraction of the punditocracy -- are very reluctant to give up their illusions. If nothing else, that would mean admitting that they had been played for fools.
Dale Henninger says we're being invited to regress to the 60's:
The Primary Democrats danced a few rounds with Howard Dean, whose rage-at-the-machine temperament recalled their own best memories way back when. They have since settled on John Kerry, and properly so. John Kerry, in his person and career, exists today as the embodiment of Democratic Party politics from 1968 to this moment. For Primary Democrats, he is their perfect vessel.
These Democrats opposed the Vietnam War, and like Mr. Kerry, that event serves as sextant in their political journey. Primary Democrats regard their active and successful opposition to Vietnam as moral affirmation of their world view, which holds, more as a matter of belief than principle, that any American foreign policy not of their making is too aggressive, morally suspect and wholly wrong.
And there you have it. If Bush wins the election, it will prove arsenic in the water supply has lowered our collective intelligence. If Kerry wins, someone's laced the reservoir with LSD, and we've all gone back to the happyland of peace, free love, and Kumbaya. |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 6:34 AM |
|
Vietnam Revisited |
A disturbingly dogmatic Robert Reich showed up on Scarborough Country last night. His job was to defend all John Kerry Vietnam statements down to the last punctuation mark.
Vietnam was the darkest episode in American history, the Winter Soldier Investigation is gospel as proved by the William Calley trial, on and on Reich went, loud and shrill.
I understand this was all political, but the gaps in Reich's treatment were in retrospect breathtaking. Communism in its day had a world-historic mission of expansion -- this is not ideology but fact. And correctly or not, Johnson genuinely believed in the domino theory.
So to Bob Reich does it count for absolutely nothing that World Communism collapsed to great extent of its own accord -- that within the world history of ideas, the ideology of our opponents in the Vietnam War has been clearly and unequivocally discarded?
Surely all of John Kerry's Vietnam statements can't be exactly correct given this very basic fact?
UPDATE: Rich Lowry:
Dishonesty must be official policy at the Kerry campaign when it comes to his anti-Vietnam record. A Kerry spokeswoman has said that, back then, "he praised the noble service of his fellow servicemen and -women." Yeah, right. Are we to believe that Kerry thought they were "noble" beheadings? "Noble" acts of torture? Kerry was indeed an advocate for better veteran health care. But this was partly because he considered vets shattered wrecks destroyed by the immorality of their actions. He explained high alleged suicide figures among vets by the fact that "they have to face what they did in Vietnam." (Vietnam vets actually have the same suicide rates as the general population.)
Kerry wasn't just wrong about the vets, he was wrong about the big picture, too. He called Vietnam a "mystical war against communism." Given the massive aid to the North Vietnamese from the Soviets and Chinese, it was clearly a very real war against communism. "We cannot fight communism all over the world," Kerry declared. But in the 1980s, Ronald Reagan fought communism in hot spots all over the globe and won the Cold War. |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 5:40 AM |
Thursday, February 12, 2004
|
Even stranger still... |
I purchased a newly-unexpurgated edition of Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land a few years ago, to see how it had aged since I'd first read the original (expurgated, I guess?) version many years ago in high school. I was surprised to find how (ahem) sexist and uncomfortable Heinlein's future (neither desktops nor internet!) actually seems to an, uh, adult early-21st century reader.
But now, via Milt Rosenberg, we're sent to Colby Cosh in The American Spectator:
If you wish to trace the sources of the libertarian strain in 20th-century American thought, you must include the science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein in your accounting of Hayeks, Menckens, Rands, and Rothbards. He deserves no less, yet is not always found in the ledger...Called everything from fascist to pornographer in his time, Heinlein is now recognizable as a particular sort of conservative, one who would get along well with Thomas Jefferson, Mark Twain, and Barry Goldwater.
I suppose I should have thought of this, but I didn't. |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 6:50 PM |
|
Fork time for Kerry? |
Okay, so the two main stories on the news tonight are allegations of Kerry's Clintonian extramarital affair and this news from his home state:
The chants broke out spontaneously in pockets up and down the street, and included, "Hey hey, ho ho homophobia's got to go." Others chanted, "Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve," or held signs that read "Civil Unions."
State police had to separate two crowds inside the Statehouse who began pushing and shoving after one group unfurled an American flag across from the chamber and began chanting "One Man. One Woman. Let the People Vote." Moments later, a contingent of gay marriage backers arrived shouting "Equality Now."
Somehow I don't think John Edwards is quite done yet.
UPDATE: However, strong evidence against veracity of the Kerry allegations would seem to be the rumor was spread by none other than Wesley Clark.
UPDATE II: Jonah Goldberg at NRO The Corner:
It will be fascinating to see how Howard Dean and John Edwards talk about the issue. They have one obvious point to their advantage. Because Kerry's campaign is based almost entirely on the "electability" issue they can go after Kerry on those grounds while at the same time denying the underlying offense is "anybody's business." Hence they will be able to say something like "those nasty Republicans will unfairly exploit John Kerry's private mistakes. I think that's terrible, but we have to face reality and run the best candidate we can. John Kerry's damaged goods."
UPDATE III: Honestly, why bother with any of this. First, it seems all this happened back in the early 80's. Second, it was a journalist, not an intern. And finally, Wesley Clark, who put the rumor into play, is now going to endorse Kerry.
UPDATE IV: Maybe it is more recent after all. |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 11:11 AM |
|
Rising GDP and falling dollar... |
Sandy Pedersen writes:
To sharpen my debating skills and learn, I visit The Independent's forum where a lot of Brits and Euros "reside."
Some were discussing our "growth" especially 3rd quarter and argued our growth isn't what we're led to believe since the dollar has fallen so much--we're deluding ourselves and aren't as well off as we seem, too much FoxNews, the usual. One poster is married an American and works here and still doesn't think Islam is a threat.
Your thoughts??? I read a lot yesterday and won't be able to find the actual posting, sorry.
Or do we not care, because we're chugging along and they're not?
EconoPundit pontificates as follows:
The dollar, now moving wherever world markets care to send it, is proving its strength not by maintaining any particular value but by changing value in an orderly fashion. Sooner or later we may see rapid and dislocating movements in the value of our currency, but so far -- even in the face of George Soros' malevolence -- the brave little dollar is proving its mettle through its basic intertia.
French wines and cheeses are now more expensive. Too bad for them. California vineyards and Wisconsin dairy farms can and will replace anything with lower-priced and equal-quality substitutes. Virtually nothing we import has no domestically-produced substitute. Even petroleum imports can and will be augmented by domestic supplies. And to frost the cake with real buttercream, consider how the economics of Ethanol (the fuel we grow!) change when world oil prices go up.
And yes, before I forget, let's remember how the falling dollar changes the prices of the goods we export and, therefore, the level of employment in our export industries.
How far can the dollar fall? Will interest rates be affected? Orderly operation of market forces will provide the answer. |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 10:29 AM |
|
What's happening? |
All stories seem to have been pulled off of Drudge. Everything's been replaced by a single "World Exclusive Developing" story entitled "CAMPAIGN DRAMA ROCKS DEMOCRATS."
As of this post, all one finds there is the headline. Keep clicking and maybe that will change.
UPDATE: More there now. It's about marital infidelity. (I can hear it now, dozens of jokes about 57 varieties! Oy vay! Heaven save us!)
UPDATE II: Okay, there's more now. The site is jamming up, so if you can't get thru, here's what's there right now:
In an off-the-record conversation with a dozen reporters earlier this week, General Wesley Clark plainly stated: 'Kerry will implode over an intern issue'...
Kerry commotion is why Howard Dean has turned increasingly aggressive against Kerry in recent days, and is the key reason why Dean reversed his decision not to drop out of the race after Wisconsin, top campaign sources tell the DRUDGE REPORT....
A serious investigation of the woman and the nature of her relationship with Sen. John Kerry has been underway at TIME magazine, ABC NEWS, the WASHINGTON POST and the ASSOCIATED PRESS, where the woman in question once worked...
|
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 10:01 AM |
|
What? |
Thomas Friedman may finally be getting it.
UPDATE: Then there are those who would disagree. |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 9:05 AM |
|
Dubya as Hal turned Henry V |
Via Milt Rosenberg, Tony Blankley explains explains what GWB has in common with Monroe, Roosevelt, and, yes, Falstaff's best buddy Hal.
UPDATE: Mackubin Thomas Owens seems to have picked up the meme. Lots of it going around I guess. |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 4:12 AM |
|
Andrew Sullivan, urine real trouble... |
EconoPundit's impatience with Andrew Sullivan's bad economics training is shared by reader Gary Bezowsky:
I've stopped reading Andrew Sullivan. I used to be a regular reader but recent offerings are mostly unconvincing rants about the Bush budgets. He is really hopeless on economics and really takes a political view of the budget rather than put it in the context of a US downturn or compare the deficit or spending to the size of the overall economy.
Although he professes to be a conservative, he has spent a considerable amount effort to bash the president over the size of the budget. He ignores the economic turnaround with US growth rates exceeding those of much of the world, the declining unemployment rates, the great rebound in the stock market, the cuts in marginal tax rates which will insure a higher long-term rate of growth and the reductions in the dividend and capital gains rates which will lower the cost of capital. He has turned on the President and is looking for a scab to pick.
Keep up the good work in your column. I read it every day and thoroughly enjoy your musings.
EconoPundit replies:
Thanks for the kind words. Regarding Andrew Sullivan -- I sympathize thoroughly, but can't agree we should stop reading the guy. He just might be the most important popular ethicist of our time, and even when he gets it thoroughly wrong the errors are still worth thinking about.
UPDATE: Stan Brown objects:
I have to agree with [Bezowsky]. I only majored in economics in college before getting my JD, so I don't have the background of professional economists, but I find his stuff increasingly unhinged. I have read him since before the 2000 election, but find that I spend little time there anymore. Lately, it is just a quick scan to see if there might be one post worth reading out of the 4 or 5 he puts up and I'm gone.
As for his ethics, you got to be kidding. He has the strangest, most self-serving ethical and philosophical structure I have ever seen. He is a Catholic, except for the fact that he disagrees with the Church on almost everything. He is a conservative, except for the social and economic issues that he disagrees with.
I think he is the ultimate modern man per C S Lewis. Andrew puts God in the dock and judges Him. Sullivan likes drugs, so he decides they are morally acceptable. He succumbs to the temptation of unmarried sex with serial partners, so he decides it isn't sinful. He enjoys homosexual sex, so he decides that it isn't sinful. What he ends up with is a god who is nothing more than a deity who reinforces all of Andrew's rationalizations. Andrew has constructed his own god for his own reasons.
Sullivan apparently doesn't repent. He merely redefines sin to accord with his own earthly desires.
We read him for the same reason we read the papers and monitor the networks. He has influence and it is important to understand how other people are thinking. |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 3:58 AM |
|
Howard Dean, urine real trouble... |
So many gross puns based on this story, so little time:
Making the point that good scientists must "never take anything for granted," Dean observed that water from a flushed toilet actually would be cleaner for drinking than water untreated from the nearby Mississippi River.
"That's disgusting!" one girl shouted. Another student volunteered that his experiment studied dog urine.
On it goes, in much the same vein, for some paragraphs more. This is one of those for which I'd not say "read the whole thing." |
| Link posted by Steve Antler : 3:36 AM |
Wednesday, February 11, 2004 |