AUSTIN BAY: “Sometime within the next six months or so, al Qaeda or Saddamist terrorists will attempt a Tet offensive.”

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: I hope this guy is right: “I don’t think that the antiwar spin after Tet would have succeeded–even given the idiotically unrealistic expectations the Johnson administration had created–if the Web had been available.”

It’s true that the Web, and talk radio, make the “wall of sound” approach to consensus-manufacture much more difficult.

IRAQPUNDIT: Dude, where’s my story? Reader C.J. Burch emails: “It’s almost like journalists don’t want to tell about what is really happening.”

Doesn’t fit the narrative.

THE SURGE’S COLLATERAL DAMAGE: “The successes of President Bush’s troop surge in Iraq are quieting things down in another, unexpected place: the Democratic campaign trail in Iowa and New Hampshire.”

A TIME FOR CHOOSING: A Ronald Reagan blast from the past.

JOHNATHAN PEARCE on the growth of sovereign wealth funds: “The truth is, emerging economies in Asia, coupled with the petro-dollar wealth of the MidEast, parts of Asia, Russia and even Africa, is giving these funds a degree of market muscle that has taken some investment observers by surprise, but it should not do so. We are living through a major period of change in the economic clout of non-western states. We might as well learn to profit from it.”

IN THE NEW YORK TIMES, David Leonhardt argues for higher taxes on booze:

Each of the three taxes is now effectively 33 percent lower than it was in 1992. Since 1970, the federal beer tax has plummeted 63 percent. Many states taxes have also been falling.

At first blush, this sounds like good news: who likes to pay taxes, right? But taxes serve a purpose beyond merely raising general government revenue. Taxes on a given activity are also supposed to pay the costs that activity imposes on society. And for all that is wonderful about wine, beer and liquor, they clearly bring some heavy costs.

Nowhere in the discussion, though, are the — apparently quite significant — health benefits of alcohol taken into account. Shouldn’t there be some balancing? After all, the vast majority of people who drink will never kill anyone in a drunk-driving accident, yet most of them probably drink moderately enough to get the health benefits.

For that matter, people who die early of cirrhosis probably save the government money in Social Security and Medicare. I’d be interested in seeing a fuller accounting of costs and benefits. Given the questionable track record of “public health” interventions in recent decades, at any rate, I’m going to be skeptical of these proposals. When the parasite problem is solved, perhaps we can talk about further efforts in social engineering. Well, no, not even then.

MOST-ADMIRED MAN AND WOMAN? George W. Bush and Hillary Clinton.

UPDATE: Ron Coleman asks, how can this be?

THE HUCKABEE / NOVO NORDISK STEM CELL STORY doesn’t seem to be getting much media traction. It’s like they’re rooting for him. Some discussion here, though: “Over the weekend, it came out that Huckabee received $35,000 in honoraria in 2006 from a company that does stem cell research, the very same company that social conservatives blasted Mitt Romney over because his blind trust had invested in it. Huckabee’s take of $35,000 from the stem cell researchers was but a small sliver of the roughly $378,000 in outside fees that Huckabee raked in during his final year as Arkansas’ governor. Too bad he didn’t have Hillary Clinton’s facility with commodities trading–such a skill probably would have made things easier for Huckabee.”

UPDATE: Reader Jason Palk emails:

Long time reader, first time e-mail response:

I think you’re making a mountain out of a molehill here, or if there are serious issues here, then just about every candidate is taking money from a corporation with politically inconvenient sources of income.

Your characterization of Novo Nordisk as a firm that participates in embryonic stem cell research is correct, but belies the fact that millions of diabetics around the world rely on Novo Nordisk’s products. The first thing that comes to my mind is that it is a company that makes insulin, not as a company that participates in stem cell research, but you do not characterize it as such in any of your posts so far on the subject. It would be far more benign to your readers to see that Huckabee was paid by a company known for making diabetes drugs that happens to do research in embryonic stem cells.

If this remains a serious issue in your mind, I would point out that many universities that fund embryonic stem cell research in lieu of taking federal research funds are supported by their congressmen and senators, even though their primary purpose is not to support embryonic stem cell research. We should then speak out against anyone speaking on any University of California campus, for example, as those campuses receive funds and carry out embryonic stem cell research.

The same argument can hold true for any corporation that carries out as its primary purpose some service or good, but at the same time does some that is politically inconvenient, such as bribing foreign officials or God forbid, spending too much money in Congress.

Hmm. But wouldn’t these defenses apply equally to Mitt Romney, who got grief from pro-life people for investing in Novo Nordisk?

Look, I’m pro stem-cell research. Leaving aside the separate question of whether a sitting governor should earn a lot of money from people who may have interests relating to his day job, I don’t have a problem with people taking money from Novo Nordisk. But if you think embryonic stem cell research is so bad that Romney’s investment was bad, why isn’t it just as bad for Huckabee to take money from Novo Nordisk?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Bob Krumm emails:

I’ve long thought that gotcha politics about who took campaign contributions from whom is usually a silly game to play. Even a max donation of $2,300 is hardly enough to sway a US Senate candidate, much less a presidential aspirant. However, this wasn’t a simple campaign contribution. This was a payment of $35,000 along with an unspecified agreement to distribute thousands of copies of Gov. Huckabee’s book. This wasn’t a contribution; it was a relationship.

Yes, it’s more than just a contribution.

JACK LAIL has thoughts on crowdsourcing fatigue.

ROGER KIMBALL on Will Smith, Hitler, and the perils of benevolence.

MY EARLIER SUGGESTION that immigration enforcement, minimal as it is, is still making a difference seems to have been correct:

In the past year, U.S. immigration police have stepped up workplace sweeps across the country and teamed up with a growing number of local forces to train officers to enforce immigration laws. . . . Mexican consular sources in Phoenix say they are seeing a spike in the number of immigrants applying for Mexican citizenship for their U.S.-born children, which will allow them to enroll in schools in Mexico.

They are also seeing a rise in requests for papers enabling families to carry household belongings back to Mexico, free of import duties.

Members of the Brazilian community in the U.S. northeast, meanwhile, say they are starting to see an increase in the number of illegal immigrants heading back to their homes in Brazil in recent months.

Apparently there’s more sensitivity to enforcement at the margins than many people believed.

UPDATE: A reader suggests that the falling dollar is why people are leaving — since the money they send home would be worth less. That sounds plausible, but I checked the dollar/peso conversion chart and the dollar’s about where it was in May, and when you look at the five year chart things seem to have been pretty stable, so that doesn’t seem especially likely.

Several other readers noted the irony of needing Mexican citizenship to enroll in Mexican schools, when American citizenship is not required to enroll in American schools. I don’t know the Mexican law on the subject beyond this passing reference in a news story, but I suspect that a demand for strict reciprocity would produce amusing political results.

PARASITES:

Roundworms may infect close to a quarter of inner city black children, tapeworms are the leading cause of seizures among U.S. Hispanics and other parasitic diseases associated with poor countries are also affecting Americans, a U.S. expert said on Tuesday.

Sounds like it deserves more attention.

TODAY’S BLOGGERS: Descendants of Julius Caesar?

SLED POLICE — with radar guns. I agree with the commenter who says, “When cops start this kinda thing, it’s time to start laying them off. They have way too much time on their hands.”

UPDATE: Orin Kerr thinks my provocative headline is misleading. I guess he’s right, though I saw the story as evidence of creeping nanny-statism, likely to produce a slippery slope leading to mandatory helmet laws, actual speed limits, etc. Plus, who didn’t know that sleds can go 19 miles per hour, roughly as fast as a man can run? This seems to be how most of the commenters at Don Surber’s blog, linked above, saw it too. We’ve been down that slippery slope in plenty of other areas, and we didn’t need a sled to do it. But to the extent my pithiness was misleading, I apologize. Meanwhile, Meryl Yourish has thoughts that I hope are tongue-in-cheek. Er, can you do that while wearing a mouthguard?

SHIITE LEADERS attend mass in Baghdad in a show of support for Iraqi Christians.

CHRISTMAS RETAIL SALES UP, BUT BY A MODEST 3.6% — but online sales were up 22.4%. The New York Times calls those numbers “bleak,” a term that’s more accurately used in reference to its stock prices . . . .

Related post here. It’s all about the narrative.

UPDATE: Reader, and hedge-fund manager, George Zachar emails:

Investors now have to gauge not only the reality of economic data, but its predictable willful misrepresentation by the press. We therefore have to speculate not only on underlying conditions, but on the effectiveness of the effort to scupper Main Street confidence.

On another matter, tech unfriendliness is a big driver in NYC commercial real estate, and the conversion of many older buildings into residential lofts.

Yeah, the press reports have consequences besides their intended one, of swinging the elections.

UPDATE: Reader Eric West emails:

The same schmuck, Michael Barbaro, wrote a similar story in 2005. He also wrote a story back in September of his year trying to say back to school sales only looked good, but really weren’t:

Why do we care what the some schmuck at the New York Times writes anymore, anyway?

It’s like reading something Andrew Sullivan writes and instead of saying, “Sullivan thinks…..” we write, “The Blogosphere today announced that….”

Bologne. We need to get out of the habit of saying, “The New York Times…..” and giving backing to these folks. Instead, we should say, “Michael Barbaro wrote…..” and treat him just like we’d treat anyone in the blogosphere.

Good point. Why let people hide behind institutions? And, of course, Barbaro’s other retail coverage has sometimes been a bit tendentious.

MORE: Well, this makes the NYT look worse, even if it doesn’t necessarily make the economy look better — apparently the NYT was reporting good and bad spins on the same numbers in two different stories on its front page today. And Kevin Drum says that since the numbers aren’t indexed for inflation, sales actually dropped, which would be “bleak” — but that doesn’t get Barbaro or the NYT off the hook because their story didn’t do any indexing. On the other hand, are Christmas goods subject to deflation not inflation?

A LOOK AT HOW THINGS ARE GOING for the Automotive X-Prize and other high-mpg pursuits.

SO I JUST BOOKED A DIVE TRIP THE OTHER DAY, and what do I get in the mail but this. How do they know?