May 09, 2008

IN THE MAIL: Austin Dacey's The Secular Conscience: Why Belief Belongs in Public Life.

SUBURBAN WILDERNESS: This pond sits inside the southeast cloverleaf at the Pelissippi Parkway / Kingston Pike interchange. You'd never know it was surrounded by bustling roads, except for the barely-visible bit of billboard in the background at the upper center-right.

A RACIAL-HARASSMENT NIGHTMARE: "In November, I was found guilty of 'racial harassment' for reading a public-library book on a university campus." The book was an anti-Klan book, but the $106,000-a-year affirmative-action officer didn't want to hear the truth from the janitor who was reading it. Race and class on the modern university campus . . . . Excerpt:

A friend reacted to the finding with, "That's impossible!" He's right. You can't commit racial harassment by reading an anti-Klan history.

For months, I felt isolated and dejected. Yet I knew that most of the faculty, staff and students at Indiana University were good people. The campus is a growing, thriving part of Indy, where people of all colors and religions come to study.

But the $106,000-a-year affirmative-action officer who declared me guilty of "racial harassment" never spoke to me or examined the book. My own union - the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees - sent an obtuse shop steward to stifle my freedom to read. He told me, "You could be fired," that reading the book was "like bringing pornography to work."

Shame on the affirmative-action people and my union for displaying their ignorance and incompetence. Their pusillanimous actions, in trying to ban Tucker's anti-Klan history book, played into the hands of the hateful KKK.

After months of stonewalling, the university withdrew the charge, thanks to pressure from the press, the American Civil Liberties Union and a group called the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, or FIRE.

F.I.R.E. does good work. And congrats to the ACLU and the press here, too.

A LOOK AT THE STATE OF academic blogging.

DANIEL HENNINGER: Obama vs. McCain: Let's Get It On! At one time, the Wall Street Journal would have eschewed such vulgarisms, but I guess that was pre-Murdoch. Anyway, Henninger writes:

Barack Obama, the first "postracial candidate," is heading to the Democratic nomination almost entirely because of his near-universal support from black voters in the Democratic primaries. In both states Tuesday, his share of that vote was 90% or more. If one resets the black vote to the norm of earlier elections, Hillary Clinton is the nominee. . . .

Hillary Clinton, who now resembles the robot's crawling hand in the final scenes of "The Terminator," can plausibly argue to the superdelegates that much of this is electoral bunk. In Indiana, her share of the white vote to his, men and women combined, was 60-40, a huge lead. In North Carolina, 61-37.

They won't buy it. Ever. . . . The Democratic superdelegates are products of their party – nice liberals, nice people. To stiff Obama's black voters at this late hour, most of the superdelegates would have to be as hard and clinical about politics as the Clintons. They aren't.

Read the whole thing, including this conclusion: "If John McCain can't talk the American people out of re-Carterizing themselves, what has he been preparing for all these years?"

CONN CARROLL: Why are liberals actively helping terrorists?

I SAW A FEATURE BY NEIL CAVUTO last night on food stockpiling, in which one of his correspondents explained how he'd spent $1500 at Costco stocking up against shortages. You know, if you have stories like this on TV regularly, you'll get food shortages at stores even if there's no actual shortage in supply, because today's just-in-time inventory practices mean that there's no real slack for sudden increases in demand. The empty shelves will then promote panic and more stockpiling, setting the stage for the equivalent of a bank-run on grocery stores even if there's no actual reason. I'm all for people keeping a good-sized supply of food at home in case of emergencies, but press people who cover this need to do so responsibly.

On the other hand, if they create a crisis, then they can report on the crisis. Your media at work!

BAD FOR YOUR HEALTH: Too little sleep -- or too much. It's not really clear, though, whether health problems lead to sleep problems or vice versa. Also, too much or too little sleep is associated with obesity.

IPHONE 2.0: The song remains the same.

OKAY, SO I'VE GOT THE NEW HP Mini-Note 9" laptop, which I'll be reviewing for Popular Mechanics. It's pretty cool -- only slightly bigger than the Asus, but with a better keyboard and full-scale features and much handsomer -- but beyond that I'll wait for the PM piece to provide a review. So far I've been using it for less than a day.

But I wanted to put a word processor on it, and I didn't want to go digging for my USB CD drive (the HP is bigger than the Asus, but too little to have its own optical drive), so I just downloaded OpenOffice instead, since I'd been meaning to give it a try anyway. I used OpenOffice's word processor to write my review of Ron Paul's book, and I have to say I really liked it. It's easy and intuitive, and it's much, much closer to my beloved WordPerfect than to Word. Also, it's free. I'd have to try it on something really long, like a law review article with lots of footnotes, to be sure how I feel, but I really enjoyed my testdrive. Using Word always feels like work. Using OpenOffice just felt like writing. And did I mention it's free?

UPDATE: More on OpenOffice from Bill Quick, who likes it. And reader Steven Sullivan emails:

I put out a few biomedical literature reviews per year, generally with 80-90 references each, and OpenOffice handles those nicely. It was a little tricky getting it to use Arabic numerals with endnotes at first, but once I figured that out it ran very smoothly. And of course, it distills PDFs of your documents perfectly with one button. There are some things it's difficult to get OpenOffice to do (e.g. full-bleed page backgrounds, linking complex or altered pagination to TOCs) but there are workarounds.

I still deal with completely unstable Word documents all the time, generally with heavy use of Styles and with comments and edits in track changes -- they get corrupted, they crash the application, etc. I've never had an OpenOffice document behave that way.

Hopefully the feds will allow OpenDocument as a standard so small businesses like mine won't have to shell out money to Mr. Gates just to do business with our own government.

If you ever do any desktop publishing you might want to look at Scribus.

So what will Microsoft be selling in 5 years?

CAPTAIN'S JOURNAL: Ending Iran's Influence Inside Iraq.

THE HARMONIC CONVERGENCE OF IDIOCY CONTINUES: Code Pink Protesters Try Witchcraft at Anti-Marine Rallies.

MICKEY KAUS OFFERS a two-factor explanation for the Democratic primary results.

UPDATE: More thoughts from Robert Novak: "Buyer's remorse was beginning to afflict supporters of Barack Obama before Tuesday's primary election returns showed he had delivered a knockout punch against Hillary Clinton. The young orator who had seemed so fantastic, beginning with his 2007 Jefferson-Jackson dinner speech in Iowa, disappointed even his own advisers over the past two weeks, and old party hands mourned that they were stuck with a flawed candidate. . . . Clinton's failure Tuesday was a product of demographics rather than Obama's campaign skill. Consistently winning more than 90 percent of the African American vote, Obama is unbeatable in a primary where the black electorate is as large as it is in North Carolina (half the registered Democratic vote there). Indiana differed from seemingly similar Ohio and Pennsylvania, where Clinton scored big wins, because it borders Obama's state of Illinois and many of its voters live in the Chicago media market." Plus he got a lot of help from Lake County. On the other hand, Hillary got a lot of help from Rush Limbaugh, so maybe it evens out . . . .

ANOTHER UPDATE: More on Indiana from Rishawn Biddle: "The biggest mistake by Clinton was in presuming that Indiana was like just another Rust Belt state. The reality is that it is a microcosm of the entire nation, with the almost all the same socioeconomic and demographic characteristics. In some ways, its combination of rural and urban gives it more of a resemblance to nearby Illinois or New York than Ohio or Iowa. "

A MEDIA COUP IN LEBANON: HEZBOLLAH'S SUBTLE TAKEOVER: "Hezbollah's militant takeover of Beirut and its systematic destruction of the authority of the state and freedom of the press suggests a sophisticated and planned campaign to take power. There is no hiding the violence Hezbollah used to seize Beirut and cut it off from the rest of the country. But as their media campaign is already showing, Hezbollah is employing subtle and sophisticated mechanisms to take over the rest of Lebanon." And, of course, Iran and Syria are the real puppet-masters here.

GOOD NEWS: PRIVATE SPACE STATION HITS ORBITAL MILESTONE:

A prototype module for a private space station has passed an orbital milestone after completing its 10,000th trip around the Earth.

Genesis 1, an inflatable module built by the Las Vegas, Nev.-based firm Bigelow Aerospace, passed the 10,000-orbit mark as it nears the beginning of its third year of unmanned operations, its builders announced late Thursday.

Bigelow Aerospace launched Genesis 1 atop a converted intercontinental ballistic missile on July 12, 2006 to test its ability to self-inflate and operate in Earth orbit.

Now, more 660 days later, the spacecraft's exterior cameras have taken some 14,000 images that include snapshots of all seven of Earth's continents. Its solar panels have also continuously powered electrical systems for about 15,840 hours, Bigelow Aerospace officials said.

Very promising.

AND RIGHTLY SO: UN blasts Myanmar for visa policy on aid workers.

A GROWING MEASLES OUTBREAK in Toronto.

LARRY JOHNSON: The Obama Democrats' Ostrich Moment. "The full-court press to force Hillary from the presidential race ain't working. She will win the West Virginia, Kentucky, and Puerto Rico primaries."

IN CANADA, MORE PUSHBACK AGAINST THEIR KANGAROO-COURT "HUMAN RIGHTS" COMMISSIONS:

Once upon a time, it was simply a pain in the butt.

For the last two years, though, the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) has become an out-of-control juggernaut, rolling over unsuspecting bystanders in its path.

Fair enough, OHRC has always been a tad controversial -- some might say off-the-wall -- in its rulings.

But recent changes, and the way they are being implemented by Commissioner Barbara Hall, are pitting human rights protection against our fundamental rights to freedom of speech and freedom of religion. . . .

Attorney General Chris Bentley and Premier Dalton McGuinty should rein Hall in before she tramples every right we hold dear.

Indeed.

TURNING GLOOMY, WINDOWLESS PRISONS into light and airy space!

May 08, 2008

GATEWAY PUNDIT HAS MORE ON THE AL-MASRI ARREST, including this: "There are reports that al-Masri set up terrorist training camps in Iraq after he fled Afghanistan when the Taliban fell back in 2001."

Remember how Richard Clarke was worried that Osama would "boogie to Baghdad" if we invaded Afghanistan? Well, I guess he was right to worry, in general if not in specific. . . . I guess it's no big surprise -- Saddam offered bin Laden asylum back in 1999 -- but given that nowadays a lot of people pretend that any kind of cooperation between Saddam and Al Qaeda is unimaginable, it's worth pointing out.

But don't make too much of these reports until they're confirmed. As Bill Roggio notes, it's best to wait for confirmation from the U.S. military, which hasn't happened yet.

UPDATE: And that's good advice, because here's a report that it wasn't Al-Masri after all.

HAS HILLARY BECOME THE DEMOCRATS' psycho ex-girlfriend? (Via Katie Granju).

CONGRESS: Meet the New Trough, Same as the Old Trough. And they promised us change!

LOTS OF UPDATES ON THE SITUATION IN LEBANON, at Michael Totten's blog.

IN TENNESSEE 300 National Guard soldiers from Campbell County just got back from Iraq, after a year in which they suffered no casualties. Congratulations, and welcome back.

UPDATE: Related thoughts from The Mudville Gazette.

MCCAIN CAMPAIGN: "We have all become familiar with Senator Obama's new brand of politics. First, you demand civility from your opponent, then you attack him, distort his record and send out surrogates to question his integrity. It is called hypocrisy, and it is the oldest kind of politics there is. . . . We understand why Senator Obama doesn't want to engage in a debate over leadership and judgment with John McCain, but the American people demand that debate take place."

Background here. Obama wants to run a training-wheels campaign while demanding that his opponents walk a tightrope. Well, hell, who wouldn't want that?

UPDATE: In the comments, some good advice for Obama from Michael Totten:

Obama could easily make this go away: “Hamas will be VERY sorry if I am America’s president. They need to be careful what they wish for.” He doesn’t have to say anything else, but I doubt it occurs to anyone on his staff to go after Hamas instead of McCain. To me, that’s the obvious fix. What could McCain possibly say after that?

Alas, however, Obama's instinct was to strike out at McCain instead.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Scott Slater emails:

Dear Glenn,

Got the 2008 Democratic Presidential Survey in the mail today.

Question #7 - " Do you believe that John McCain's pledge to keep troops in Iraq for another 100 years will be a liability in the General Election?"

I answered "No. He didn't say that. You are smearing him."

Question #11 asks "How likely do you think it is that John McCain and his Republican allies will launch a "Swift Boat" style smear campaign against our presidential nominee?"

I checked "Not Likely, but I noticed you have (see question 7)."

It's the new politics of change and hope! And by "checked," I presume he means "wrote in," as I doubt that was one of the original options . . . .

OMAR FADHIL: Iranian-Made Rocket Discovered Near Basra Alarms Iraqis.

ABU AYYUB AL-MASRI, HEAD OF AL QAEDA IN IRAQ, has been captured. Some thoughts on what it means at The Belmont Club.

RACHEL LUCAS ON FIREFLY: "Forget C.S. Lewis - I’m pretty sure the cancellation of this show after only one season is proof there is no God. Seven years of American Idol on the same network that gave us only one year of Firefly. Do the quantum math on that one." The good news is, it's coming out on Blu-Ray soon. But that's scant consolation. How about another season?

HUMAN RIGHTS PROGRESS: "A Malaysian Islamic court allowed a Muslim convert Thursday to return to her original faith of Buddhism, setting a precedent that could ease religious minorities' worries about their legal rights. Lawyers said the Shariah High Court's verdict in the northern state of Penang was the first time in recent memory that a convert has been permitted to legally renounce Islam in this Muslim-majority nation."

RICHARD KAHLENBERG: Still Forgotten: Low Income Students At Selective Colleges.

TEN HEALTH-TECHNOLOGY BREAKTHROUGHS. And here's one that's not even newsworthy: My mother-in-law had cataract surgery, and now has implanted toric lenses. She says she sees better than she did when she was 12.

THE FIVE GREATEST MOVIE TEACHERS: Plus one honorable mention.

TENNESSEE POLITICS: A Ford family fracture. More background here.

CRAVING AMERICAN DEFEAT in Iraq. It's not an isolated phenomenon, unfortunately.

RETHINKING THE IRAQ CRITICS: Michael Barone has a column on Doug Feith's new book, War and Decision. "There's still much to be learned about our decisions, good and bad, in Iraq. But Feith's book is a step forward, as were those of Sherwood and Churchill 60 years ago." I'm surprised it's not getting more attention. Maybe if it weren't an election year. . . .

GALLUP: Obama's Support Similar to Kerry's in 2004. Now there's a headline to start champagne corks popping at DNC headquarters . . . .

HEATH SHULER endorses Hillary Clinton.

LABOUR SLUMPING IN BRITAIN. "LABOUR has slumped to its lowest point since records began in the 1930s, a devastating Sun poll reveals tonight. And the Tories are enjoying their second biggest poll lead in history."

ARE "HYPERMILERS" A MENACE ON THE ROAD? "There are hypermilers who claim to get over 100mpg from their Priuses and Insights. The problem is that techniques like pulse and glide involve significant fluctuations in speed." Don't do this where there's traffic. Interesting discussion in the comments. Plus, this: 104 eco-driving tips. And should we be rating cars based on gallonage rather than mileage?

THE PARTY OF SAM'S CLUB: "The GOP is now a working-class party (with class defined by education and culture more than income, just to be clear; there are plenty of skilled craftsmen who make more money than teachers and journalists and academics), and that it needs to start acting like one if it's going to rebuild its shattered majority."

I GET AN EMAIL NEWSLETTER from an oil trader and today it includes this tidbit: "In an interesting twist of OPEC news – in the folder titled 'Adequate Supply' – Iran has chartered an armada of supertankers to act as floating storage for as many as 28 million barrels of crude oil that is backing up on them. Analysts are blaming worldwide refineries yet to recover from maintenance programs. It’s not the first time that Iran has had trouble finding buyers; they temporarily floated 20 million barrels in 2006. No, I can’t explain this in light of record oil prices and continual cries for more release of OPEC crude oil. "

U.S. crude stocks are up, too. This is unlikely to be the case, but here's a thought: If I were, say, the United States government, and I anticipated military action in the mideast that might interrupt oil supplies, I wouldn't want to stockpile directly because that would be a tipoff. But if I manipulated markets into running up stocks, I wouldn't have to. . . . Nah. They're not that smart.

UPDATE: Hmm.

VIDEO: Still sexy at sixty.

IS HAPPINESS IMPORTANT TO DEMOCRACY? If so, does that mean that politicians who are always trying to make people un happy are bad for democracy?

"UNWANTED SEXUAL CONTACT" AT COLLEGE: "It's part of the normal scene." And men report it at a frequency not much less than women: "About 7 percent of women and 4 percent of men report unwanted intercourse."

TARGETING TUMORS with nanoworms.

JOHN MCWHORTER on Hillary Clinton and the puzzling persistence of hope-based campaign tactics.

PLUS ME, WHO DIDN'T BOTHER TO EMAIL: 20,000 people express email interest in buying a Chevy Volt.

NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME: Congress, the Bush Administration, and disaster planning.

DUDE, WHERE'S MY RECESSION? (CONT'D): "U.S. unemployment lines got shorter last week, as the number of people filing for the first time for unemployment benefits fell by 18,000 to 365,000 on a seasonally adjusted basis in the week ended May 3, the Labor Department reported Thursday." Somewhat related item here.

UPDATE: In my backyard? This is more a problem of overspending -- we were running huge surpluses a couple of years ago, and the state budgeted up to them instead of socking the money away as some suggested -- than of recession. Unemployment in Knox County, where I live, is at just over 4%. Also, I think we're starting to see the usual budgetary posturing used by second-term governors in Tennessee who want a state income tax. We had the same thing under Gov. Don Sundquist.

[LATER: "Backyard" link above was wrong before. Fixed now. Sorry!]

AN EMBARRASSMENT FOR THE STATE DEPARTMENT: "It has surfaced that the US State Department can't account for up to about 1,000 laptops, perhaps as many as 400 of which belonged to the department's Anti-Terrorism Assistance Program."

NASRALLAH SPEAKS: More on Lebanon from Noah Pollak.

SATELLITE IMAGES of devastation in Burma.

MY INITIAL GUESS WAS "NO:" Does Sarbanes-Oxley Foster the Existence of Ethical Executive Role Models in the Corporation? But read the whole thing to see if I was right.

JOHN TIERNEY: Why superstition is logical.

IN THE MAIL: Robert Kagan's The Return of History and the End of Dreams. Blurbed by John McCain and Joe Lieberman. They make a good pair. Hmm . . . .

Melhorn Automotive, near Oliver Springs, Tennessee.

GETTING READY FOR A BIG PUSH IN SADR CITY, and a media-related prediction: "This will likely take weeks to complete. Once the battle starts, expect to read and hear plenty of media reports emphasizing civilian deaths, setbacks in the battle, defections in the Iraqi Army, and statements of defiance from Sadr. What we won’t hear is progress by Maliki and the US in finishing off Sadr’s forces until it suddenly becomes impossible to ignore it — and then we will hear about how inept the Iraqi forces were in achieving victory. Call it the Basra Narrative. Just because it failed in Basra doesn’t mean the defeatist media won’t use it again, and again, and again."

The basic rule of press coverage is that if there's fighting, we must be losing. All wars produce ups and downs, bad news and good. It's interesting, though, that our press seems mostly interested in making things look bad, though they're not even very good at reporting the bad news that matters. Some related thoughts here.

UPDATE: Reader Walter Boxx emails: "The way the Japanese could tell they were losing WWII was that the great victories reported by their media were getting closer and closer to home. Our media problem is like a fun-house mirror version of this - the way we can tell we are winning is that our crushing defeats are happening less often and to different enemies."

ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader in Iraq whom I regard as reliable says to watch for some bad news from Basra in the next few days, though no specifics are included. Well, war generates good and bad news, so stay tuned. I have little doubt that the big-media crowd will be ever so swift in delivering it once it becomes public.

DEBUNKING Peak Oil catastrophism.

OBAMA IS RIGHT (CONT'D): Bread, Circuses, and Gas-Tax Holidays.

GEORGE SHULTZ ON PUTTING OUR ENTITLEMENTS IN ORDER: Something you can be sure no elected official will do unless absolutely forced. But maybe some of them will read Shultz's new book.

OBAMA THE ANSWER MAN: "As an example of Obama's leadership style it is not encouraging."

MORE ON THE NEW G.I. BILL at The Mudville Gazette. Greyhawk thinks the Democrats are setting things up to kill the G.I. Bill while blaming the GOP.

DEMOCRATIC FAMILY FIGHT? Or license to hate?

THOUGHTS ON husbands, wives, and "push presents," in the latest Ask Dr. Helen column.

JOHN MCCAIN ON The Daily Show.

MISSISSIPPI DRUG WAR BLUES: A short documentary on the Cory Maye case.

JULES CRITTENDEN: "Hate to say I told you so, but I told you so. Hillary’s in for the long haul." Ted Kennedy went to the convention in 1980 with a lot smaller share of the vote.

MORE ON HEZBOLLAH THUGGERY IN BEIRUT, including an ironic photo.

THOUGHTS ON ENERGY POLICY: "With the world's largest reserves of coal, after creating the nuclear power industry ex nihilo, and with billions of oil still under our soil and waters, it makes no sense to produce less energy while blaming and taxing those who produce what we have, rather than drilling, digging, and saving, as we find ways to transition to the alternate energies. . . . A postscript: I'm not sure that, ecologically speaking, drilling oil in about 2000 acres in the north of Alaska is all that different from dotting our mountain ridges and coasts (ask the Kennedys et al) with enormous windmills or creating vast acres of solar panels throughout our fragile deserts or covering our roofs with panels and pipes and assorted gadgetry."

SAM HARRIS ON Western wimpiness in the face of radical Islam: "It is time we recognized that those who claim the 'right not to be offended' have also announced their hatred of civil society." Exemplified, among other places, by the Washington Post, which commissioned but then refused to publish Harris's views. (Via Charles Johnson).

DUKE PROFESSORS ARE FEELING THE HEAT FOR THEIR PROMOTION OF THE DUKE RAPE HOAX. K.C. Johnson responds to their efforts at self-justification, and Jim Lindgren observes: "Why do these Duke professors bother to write about the Duke lacrosse hoax if they are not going to deal with their own actions honestly? If they can't simply face the truth, they should put down their shovels and stop digging."

RAJAN RISHYAKARAN on the Burmese cyclone response. Or lack thereof. And here are more thoughts from Megan McArdle.

XP SERVICE PACK 3: An existential threat? Maybe it's all a scam to boost Vista sales. . . .

I'VE SAID BEFORE that I'd believe that people were feeling the pinch of gas prices when they started driving more slowly. I haven't seen much evidence of that around here, but there's this report: Drivers Conserving Gas As Prices Continue To Rise. A close reading, however, suggests that the trend is less than universal: "Most drivers still appear to be winking at posted speed limits because they say their time is worth more than the gas they'd save by slowing down."

CHICAGOBOYZ: Academia's jihad against military history isn't working.

May 07, 2008

I MENTIONED DVDS EARLIER, and here's a buy two get one free Blu-Ray sale for those who are interested.

I'VE LINKED TO JERRY POURNELLE A LOT LATELY; if you enjoy his work you should at least consider subscribing. I did.

THE TELEGRAPH: Does Britain need more 'manly men'?

MICHAEL SILENCE: In ironic twist, the NYT refuses to release information.

It's not that ironic anymore. Much of "journalism" these days seems to involve deciding what we shouldn't be told.

JERRY POURNELLE:

As a product of the Korean GI Bill I can hardly denounce the concept. The problems really came when the intellectuals convinced people that "investment" in trade schools and such like wasn't as desirable as "investment" in higher education meaning universities. At the same time, the State Colleges became "State universities" and in the "upgrade" put more into graduate schools to the detriment of undergraduate education. We then poured more money into the "university" system which is quite unsuitable for education of more than about 25% of the population (I'd put that at a lower figure, but we can stay with that).

Now a lot of students who would do well at "college" level education can't get that; they have to go to "universities" and learn French Narrative Theory in Freshman Comp.

If investment is needed in "education" -- and it is -- it's in training in technical skills. Most of that could be done in high school. Of course the high school teachers don't want to work that hard and will stand in union solidarity with the college professors who want the large number of students willing to borrow money to go listen to foreign graduate students teach introductory math courses in incomprehensible dialects, but it's "world class" isn't it? Doesn't everyone deserve a "world class university education"?

So we continue to neglect the great majority of our citizens to benefit a handful of intellectuals. And they never catch wise.

Some related thoughts on debt and education here.

I'VE ALREADY MENTIONED FAREED ZAKARIA'S NEW BOOK, and comments on it by Lexington Green. Now here are some more thoughts worth reading, from Ross Douthat and Jim Manzi, who comments: "U.S. share of global economic output (on a purchasing power parity basis) has declined very slightly over the past twenty years – from about 21% to about 20%. But what has really happened over this period has been the rise of China and the rest of non-Japan Asia at the relative expense of Western Europe and Japan."

MORE ON BEIRUT: Gateway Pundit has a roundup.

DON SURBER: "Welcome to wild, Wonderful West Virginia, presidential candidates. Buy Internet ads."

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON OFFERS advice to the Republicans, and concludes with this observation: "Moving toward a lite version of the Obamian/European 'bipartisan'and socialist view of government and calling it a new conservatism is a prescription for utter disaster. No one can out-Obama Obama."

Indeed.

NOW! HAMPSHIRE is a new site by Patrick Hynes. Check it out.

UH OH: History of corruption clouds primary in northern Indiana.

IT HAS A NICE JETSONISH LOOK: VW Confirms 1L Concept Will Become Reality in 2010. "The VW 1L is so named because, in theory, it only consumes one liter of fuel per 100 kilometers traveled. For those of us in the US, this translates into about 235 MPG. Definitely far and above anything on the market currently." It is kinda low and small. But if they keep the Jetsonish look, it'll sell. If they shift to something more boring, it won't.

"PICK OBAMA: He's taller."

MEGAN MCARDLE: Is the Middle Class really doomed? "I've now seen this video at several liberal blogs, and someone has to stop it. Apparently, that someone is me, since no one else has stepped up. . . . As you can imagine, this thesis is extremely beloved of liberals, who like its endorsement of more government benefits, while ignoring the fact that this could equally well argue for having women stay home."

UPDATE: Reader J.D. Evans is unimpressed: "In response to whether the middle class is doomed: hasn't this doom been looming for decades? Perhaps this question can be a sort of test for the many similar proclamations we constantly hear from the left."

Well, it's often used as an excuse for adopting Euro-style economic policies. But those aren't helping the middle class in Europe.

GERARD VAN DER LEUN looks at Delta's latest cost-cutting move -- no more ticket-jackets! -- and observes: "I know I am far from alone when I say that after years of flying many times a year, often on a whim, I am now at the point where only the most powerful forces in life -- love and death -- can get me on a plane. It is not that the whole experience is uncomfortable, which it is, but that the process has become -- through a Satanic collusion between the airlines and government -- utterly dehumanizing. Bean-counters and bureaucrats have combined to create the one central experience of American life in which you are reduced to a hunk of meat."

MARC AMBINDER: 7 Reasons Why Clinton Should Stay in the Race.

NOAH POLLAK: Beirut is exploding.

EVIDENCE THAT EARTH MAY ONCE HAVE HAD multiple moons.

RICH SLOAN: Ten Reasons Why Everyone Should Own a Business.

LUNCH WITH Elvis Costello.

NEWS: $7 million pledged to longevity research. Faster, please.

A REVIEW OF THE Nissan GT-R. Sounds kinda cool, but I'm not likely to swap the RX-8 for one. I mean, it's cheap for a supercar, but it's not cheap, and the extra performance mostly falls in the "use it only when traversing Nevada" category. Also, the RX-8 is paid for . . . .

POPPING THE HIGHER ED. BUBBLE?

A READER EMAILS: "What happened? A few weeks ago Obama had to win Indiana to put Hillary away. She won, but now she's toast?" I guess they weren't able to gin up enough votes in Gary, despite the extra time . . . .

ANOTHER NO-KNOCK OUTRAGE: "What makes the case especially egregious is not that the police may have gotten the wrong home, that they shot a man, or that they were covering it up or going silent. We've seen all that before. What's mind-blowing about this one is that they've continued abusing the poor guy, even after it should have been clear for some time now that they made a mistake."

TALK OF HILLARY QUITTING: "The noise in the echo chamber is deafening."

THE FIRST JETTA TDIs are now in transit to American dealers. These things are excellent alternatives to hybrids like the Prius.

Plus, a Highlander Hybrid patrol car with an added bonus: "the hybrid's battery pack reportedly interferes with the operation of the speed radar." That's not a bug, it's a feature!

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IS NO LAUGHING MATTER, except when it's a man who's stabbed.

HMM: Ugly Truth: Why Hillary Won't Quit.

DIY PARADISE at the Maker Faire.

IN THE MAIL: Steven Pressfield's Killing Rommel: A Novel. I loved his earlier novel, Gates of Fire.

It's not just the original Freezo, I think it's the only one. On Central, east of Broadway.

MICHAEL TOTTEN ON the real "moderate Muslims."

THOUGHTS ON Steve Jobs, securities law, and disclosure of executive health issues. More on that subject, in depth, right here.

JEEZ: "The number of dead and missing in the Burma cyclone soared past 60,000 Tuesday amid signs the toll will rise even higher, as much of the disaster zone remained flooded by seawater, threatened by disease and out of reach of an international relief operation that is taking shape."

BEST DVDs OF THE MONTH for May. I can't believe that John Adams is already out.

Plus, a list of top new releases.

UPDATE: My mistake. John Adams isn't actually out until next month. Sorry to have gotten people excited.

ANGRY WHITE FEMALE.

UGH: "New disease outbreaks in China; 15K children infected."

JENNIFER RUBIN: Fun for Republicans is at an end. Yeah, instead of enjoying the Democratic primary, they'll have to start thinking about winning in November. And that'll be hard, not fun.

UPDATE: Related thoughts here.

JAMES KIRCHICK ON THE NEW ACCEPTABILITY OF religious extremism.

SOME COOL PHOTOS of the Great Smoky Mountains.

HILLARY: Should she stay or should she go? I don't think there's any chance she'll quit until after Kentucky and West Virginia. And probably not until the convention. Why should she? What can anyone offer her?

MAYBE THE INSTA-WIFE'S NEXT ICD WILL HAVE THIS UPGRADE: New wi-fi devices warn doctors of heart attacks. It should interface with a bluetooth-equipped GPS cellphone.

WELL, DUH:

Shellshocked House Republicans got warnings from leaders past and present Tuesday: Your party’s message isn’t good enough to prevent disaster in November, and neither is the NRCC’s money.

Some of us were warning them of these problems before November of 2006. You can see how well that worked out. They need to try doing something besides stuffing their pockets with pork for a change, but how credible will that be by now?

UPDATE: A reader emails:

I am a conservative Republican (more the former than the latter) and do not want to see either Clinton or Obama in the White House.

I have been contacted by the NRCC several times by phone since the 2006 elections, and been asked for a donation since I gave in the past.

I have refused each time, telling them they need to clean up their act first.

Every time the soliciter then brings up the spectre of Hillary as President to make me cough up the cash, and every time I tell them that boogeyman won't work anymore. I assume they'll try the same with Obama if he's the nominee.

So, I guess the Republican slogan for '08 is, "Hey, I know we're terrible, but it could always be worse."

Yeah, that'll work.

"SUCH A NICE BOY" -- for a suicide bomber. Plus, praise for Shearman & Sterling's legal work.

UPDATE: A reader emails:

I was an associate at Shearman & Sterling many years ago, when being posted to the Abu Dhabi office was almost as prestigious as being sent to London or Paris. The firm took pains to point out that its work was about money, not politics, and was diligent in providing reassurances to associates who expressed concern. I even remember one large orientation meeting in which a junior associate (maybe even a summer) asked whether Jewish lawyers were eligible for the AD office. Of course, responded the partner, a position that might have come as a surprise to consular officials in the Emirates but which was firm policy nevertheless.

To the extent that any of us speculated about the firm's involvement with the politics of the region, we were more suspicious of the oil companies than of the banks, and (IIRC) most of our work at the time was for banks. Our thinking, I believe, was that it took deeper involvement with the government to get oil concessions than to get financing deals so it was easier for a firm with financial clients to keep its distance from the icky stuff. My own experience involved briefly working on Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (anti-boycott) compliance matters, and I never saw either lawyers or clients try to push the envelope.

I was therefore somewhat surprised to learn of Shearman & Sterling's involvement with the Kuwaiti detainees, at least until I read that the firm's clients were oil companies. I'm still a little surprised, because the firm was always so discreet. Unless they just blundered from a PR perspective, I can only imagine that they view public opinion in this country as sufficiently anti-Guantanamo that they could participate in this without repercussions. If the mainstream media picks this up, we may find out.

Indeed.

OBAMA tries to change the tone.

ANOTHER FEMALE TEACHER FIRED for having an affair with a male student. I don't think this has really become more common -- I think that people just used to turn a blind eye.

May 06, 2008

THE POWER OF political staging. "The rally took up maybe a quarter of the floor space in the arena. Part of running a decent campaign is knowing how big a crowd you might have and planning accordingly so as not to embarrass yourselves with a woefully understuffed venue." Check out the photos.

NEW MATH: "The campaign of Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) has begun urging party officials and news organizations to include the disputed Florida and Michigan delegations when figuring the number of delegates needed to win the nomination."

"I WILL NEVER STOP FIGHTING FOR YOU:" Hillary's speech sounds a bit Shrummy.

UPDATE: Ouch: "What do Americans care most about this election season? The troubled housing market, and the short supply of oil. That's why HIllary is here with a plan. Specifically, a plan to discourage investment in the oil industry through a windfall profits tax, and to destroy the mortgage market by freezing foreclosures and interest rates. That way, no one has to worry about oil or houses, because there won't be any to worry about. That's just the kind of thoughtful, caring politician she is."

CBS EXPLAINS its early Indiana call. Meanwhile, what's taking so long on that Indiana vote-counting?

D.C. SNIPER UPDATE: "Convicted sniper John Allen Muhammad asks prosecutors in a letter for help to put an end to his legal appeals from death row. Muhammad says in the letter released Tuesday that he is waiving all rights to appeal his 2003 conviction and death sentence for the sniper killings in 2002 that terrorized the Washington, D.C., region."

DAVE WEIGEL: "If Rev. Jeremiah Wright had greeted the new year with a self-imposed exile to Tibet, or if—even better—he'd turned off the cameras in Trinity United Church and never recorded himself saying 'God damn America,' Barack Obama would be knocking Hillary Clinton out of the race today."

Plus this: "The Daily Kos has the only early exits that are ever any good: racial voting. Blacks went against Clinton in both states by about 85 points. That's nightmarish and much worse than in the polls that showed her closing strong--they showed her climbing back into the teens."

UPDATE: "Take that, Jeremiah Wright!" Obama blesses America, instead of damning it.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Prelude to the convention?

MORE: Megan McArdle wasn't that impressed with the Obama speech: "Gack. Now Obama is ranting about how he's going to make the corporations give us super fuel-efficient cars, find awesome new sources of oil, make renewable energy affordable, and invent a really delicious fat-free ice cream. However did we manage to get through the first 200 years without Barack Obama to beat some progress out of the corporations that have been holding us back?" And she's an Obama supporter. . . .

STILL MORE: Rapture!

CBS HAS CALLED INDIANA FOR CLINTON, but other networks are holding off.

MARKOS CALLS HAROLD ICKES a "scumbag." Hmm. Maybe Ambinder's right. (Via NewsAlert).

IT'S ALL MY FAULT. Well, not quite . . .

MARC AMBINDER: First Glance At The Exits: Democratic Party Cracking Up?

Obama supporters really don't like Clinton, and vice versa. Some of that will fade by election day, of course. But how much?

UPDATE: Dems must be worried, because Obama just addressed this question in his speech.

ANOTHER UPDATE: The CNN folks sent me a transcript from earlier this evening, and here's a choice bit:

BEGALA: We cannot win with egg heads.

Let me finish my point.

We cannot win with egg heads and African-Americans. OK, that is the Dukakis Coalition, which carried ten states and gave us four years of the first George Bush.

President Clinton -- reached across to get a whole lot of Republicans and Independents to come. I think Senator Obama and Senator Clinton both have that capacity. They both have a unique ability -- well it's not unique if they both have it. They both have a remarkable ability to reach out to those working-class white folks and Latinos.

Senator Clinton has proven it; Barack has not yet, but he can. And I certainly hope he is not shutting the door on expanding the party.

Will Obama fix this? So far I've seen a lot of talk about unity, but not much actual effort to compromise with people who aren't already in his camp.

MONEY PROBLEMS for gun-control advocates?

DUDE, WHERE'S MY RECESSION (CONT'D): Heck, this time it's Where's My Depression? "Whatever happened to the Great Depression? Not the real one from 70 years ago, the lost decade of unimagined misery and Steinbeckian angst, the worst period in the history of modern capitalism. I mean the replay we were promised this year. . . . Well, it’s early days, to be fair, but so far the Great Depression 2008 is shaping up to be a Great Disappointment. Not so much The Grapes of Wrath as Raisins of Mild Inconvenience."

STEPHEN GREEN has been drunkblogging the primaries for a while, and he's still entirely coherent. What a man! What a liver!

"CONVENIENCE VOTING CENTERS" in Indiana. And coming soon elsewhere?

CNN CALLS NORTH CAROLINA FOR OBAMA, but no margin yet.

CLASSIC SPACE FOOTAGE, restored in glorious HD. Cool.

GETTING TOUGH ON PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT in the Ninth Circuit.

A LOOK AT SADDAM AND TERROR: "The lasting value of the IDA report will be as a portrait of a certain type of Middle Eastern state, for whom terrorism is a normal instrument of policy. Although the report is about Iraq, it could just as easily describe the basic structure of statecraft in Iran, Syria, Egypt, 'Palestine' and Saudi Arabia. . . . But since terrorism was a typical tool in the region, as much in use by other countries as himself, a large measure of Saddam's efforts were devoted to using his terrorists to infiltrate other power's terrorists or to keep tabs on powerful independents. The IDA notes that nearly all the terror outfits in the region, including al-Qaeda, were essentially bidding for the same demographic pool of rootless, violent young men."

THE POLITICS OF frustration.

MORE ON TENNESSEE'S IPOD TAX, which seems to have encountered some awkwardness. "It looks like the Bredesen administration has been illegally collecting sales tax on music downloads since Jan. 1, 2008, and that Farr is now pushing 'technical correction' legislation to amend the tax code in order to make legal the tax they're already collecting." If this turns out to be the case, it's a bit of an embarrassment.

GLOATING A BIT, at E.J. Dionne's expense.

DAN COLLINS EXAMINES the general victimology premise.

UM, THAT WOULD BE "NO:" When it comes to saving the planet do celebrities practise what they preach?

Except, of course, for Ed Begley, Jr. Nobody's knocking him.

CANADIAN INVASION: "The United States and Canada share the longest unprotected border in the world, and Toronto's Globe and Mail has a story illustrating why that is so dangerous."

TOM MAGUIRE: I am trying to imagine Cohen delivering this column with "McCain" substituted for "Obama" throughout.

THIS MEGA THICKBURGER IS MEDICINAL: Treating epilepsy with a high-fat diet. It's actually an approach based, like the Atkins Diet, on ketosis.

THE TENNESSEE JUSTICE NEWSLADDER covers criminal justice and its problems in Tennessee. (Via Michael Silence, who has a few thoughts and a quote from U.S. Court of Appeals judge Gilbert S. Merritt, for whom I clerked).

REVIEWING THE REVIEWERS: A roundup of book reviews from this weekend's newspapers.

GALLUP: Most Democrats Not Eager for Either Candidate to Drop Out.

UPDATE: Reader Ron Moses emails: "Neither are most Republicans, I'd imagine." Heh. Indeed.

A REVIEW OF THE PBS SERIES, CARRIER. "I recently heard a very senior admiral discuss how the chief of naval operations was bracing other admirals for the series, and why – despite its warts and all – the documentary eventually could help recruiting efforts. How so? In the ethos of Web-life, the series offers more of a transparent view of life aboard a flattop – and future, raised-with-Internet sailors have to be recruited on those terms."

THE SPECULIST MANIFESTO. It's better than some other manifestos I could name.

WAR PROTESTERS frustrated by apathy.

Hey, they should prefer apathy to this!

A REVIEW OF THE SATURN VUE Green Line Hybrid.

JAPAN: "This is the land of disappearing children and a slow-motion demographic catastrophe that is without precedent in the developed world."

WELL, THIS IS NEWS: "Federal Bureau of Investigation agents raided the Office of Special Counsel here, seizing computers and documents belonging to the agency chief Scott Bloch and staff."

A NEW YORK TIMES WRITER SEES IMPROVEMENT, and thinks American troops should stay in Iraq. Read the whole thing, by an Iraqi employee of the NYT's Baghdad bureau.

MICHAEL SILENCE: Corker and Obama are right about the gas tax cut. "Sens. McCain and Clinton are pandering to the public."

On the other hand, Salon says they're wrong: "Think Clinton's plan to suspend the gas tax temporarily is a bad idea? A similar measure in Illinois -- which Obama backed -- seems to have helped consumers."

A LOOK AT THE top ten early contenders for the Automotive X-Prize.

PAUL CASSELL ON MCCAIN ON JUDGES: "From a conservative perspective, he says all the right things. I take him at his world. I can't imagine that, were he elected President, he would select someone who would rankle the folks who have worked so hard to reshape the contemporary legal culture. . . . . I would be interested in seeing Senator Obama's response to the speech, including a more thorough explanation of why he was one of 22 Senators to vote against Chief Justice Roberts."

EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGISTS LOOK AT ANIMALS and discover, as Jurgen did, that cleverness is not on top, and never has been.

HERE'S A CONTINUOUSLY-UPDATED roundup of primary coverage.

OBAMA HAS ALREADY WON NORTH CAROLINA, in light of record black turnout, according to this report.

IN THE MAIL: From Daniel Bell, China's New Confucianism: Politics and Everyday Life in a Changing Society.

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