Malthus versus and/or the Singularity

Both scenarios characterize (exponential) compounding as unsustainable[1]. Malthus culminates in calamity and the Singularity in transcendence.

HT to Glen Reynolds, who links to John Tierney's "Malthus v. the Singularity".

Is the Singularity a deus ex machina that descends at the last moment to foil Malthus by snatching us into a higher plane?
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[1] Sherlock Holmes said, "Indeed, I cannot think why the whole bed of the ocean is not one solid mass of oysters, so prolific the creatures seem," but he was feigning delirium. What would he think today? Victorians were optimists and IMO Holmes would wager on the Singularity over Malthus.

In the 90s, Single Men Had Best Wear Natural Fibers. Today, It's...

Green f**king, aka environmentally conscious dating.

In fact, the whole blog is a trove of insights like that.

Supreme Court Power Grab

From the Constitution, Article III:

Section 1. The judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The judges, both of the supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good behaviour, and shall, at stated times, receive for their services, a compensation, which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office.

Section 2. The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority;--to all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls;--to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction;--to controversies to which the United States shall be a party;--to controversies between two or more states;--between a state and citizens of another state;--between citizens of different states;--between citizens of the same state claiming lands under grants of different states, and between a state, or the citizens thereof, and foreign states, citizens or subjects.

In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a state shall be party, the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.

The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be by jury; and such trial shall be held in the state where the said crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any state, the trial shall be at such place or places as the Congress may by law have directed.

Seems pretty clear to me that Congress is intended to be a check on the Court; the Supreme Court is not intended to be a law unto itself.

Yet in the Guantanamo case, Congress passed legislation denying the Court jurisdiction. The Court (blatantly, flagrantly IMO) disregarded it.

Perhaps unnecessarily since an Obama presidency is likelier than not, and McCain wants to close down Guantanamo.

Unnecessarily, that is, except to grab power for themselves.
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I'd give more credence to Scalia's dissent if he hadn't produced similar tortured logic to allow the Feds to attack medical marijuana.

"Laura Bush defends Michelle Obama"

Here:

Michelle Obama has a new defender from those who say she isn’t patriotic enough — First Lady Laura Bush. In an interview with ABC News, Bush said that Obama’s February remark that she was proud of the United States “for the first time in my adult life” was misconstrued.

“I think she probably meant ‘I’m more proud.’ That’s what she really meant,” Bush said from Afghanistan.

“You have to be really careful in what you say because everything you say is looked at and in many cases misconstrued,” she said.

Never mind the decades of attendance at Trinity Church. Or will Laura also defend Jeremiah Wright as misconstrued?

Lady, go model a burqa.

The practice could come in handy. If a Democratic administration finds a pretext to throw your husband in the slammer, the Saudis will probably offer the Bushes sanctuary.
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Thanking heaven for miserly favors. Whenever I fear that an Obama administration would be even more inept than the current one, something like the above hits the news.

Bush, Carter, and Obama

Obama's rhetoric indicates that he, like Bush and Carter, has delusions of grandeur. Obama's off-teleprompter performance suggests that he, like Bush and Carter, lacks the gifts and temperament to bring his visions to fruition. Unlike Bush and Carter, Obama has charisma. What kind of a presidency would ensue? We may be about to find out.

Afterthoughts. Obama is Bush with a baritone?

Left-of-center Americans are well inoculated against traditional revivalist rhetoric: they associate it with the religious right. Send them such rhetoric from the left, especially with an African-American flavor, and they swoon.

Also, a smoker's rasp has become so rare among public figures that it may be perceived as a glamorous novelty. It may contribute to Obama's attraction.

(Is it a good sign or a bad sign that Obama has been unable to quit smoking? Better to be a nicotine addict than a dry drunk.)

Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud

Alice Walker:

I made my first white women friends in college; they were women who loved me and were loyal to our friendship, but I understood, as they did, that they were white women and that whiteness mattered. That, for instance, at Sarah Lawrence, where I was speedily inducted into the Board of Trustees practically as soon as I graduated, I made my way to the campus for meetings by train, subway and foot, while the other trustees, women and men, all white, made their way by limo. Because, in our country, with its painful history of unspeakable inequality, this is part of what whiteness means. I loved my school for trying to make me feel I mattered to it, but because of my relative poverty I knew I could not.

There's a grievous, entrenched wrongheadedness about this. Which point is more important: that they're all trustees or that Walker alone takes public transport?

What's next, Harvard Law graduates complaining about their lot? Okay, I'm indulging in hyperbole.

Oops.

My Wake-Up Call for the Election

I've forgotten the details, but some time ago I caught an egregious error of fact by David Frum and I've ignored him since.

It didn't break my heart to read that Limbaugh is criticizing him for 'watering down conservatism'. Frum responded:

It is Rush, not me, who has repeatedly mused that he would prefer to see Republicans lose this election if McCain were nominated. So who is the advocate of "surrender" here? And since Obama has pledged early and unconditional withdrawal from Iraq, it’s not just an election that Limbaugh equably contemplates losing – it is a war.
[boldface mine--gs]

My instincts are libertarian rather than conservative. My opinion of Bush, the late Republican Congress, and the GOP is harsh, especially in view of the party's blasé reaction to the 2006 election. I believe the Republicans richly deserve to get creamed in November.

But Frum's point stopped me in my tracks and has me thinking twice.

It's not just about an election that a corrupt incompetent political party deserves to lose. It's about America losing a war.
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Addendum. Bill Quick's retort to Frum is valid too:

... the surrender of the GOP to the forces of liberalism and the marginalizing of conservatism as a political force. That is what you, and all the rest of the establishment power-brokers are all about, with your support of John McCain, who no more protects against the loss of Iraq than does your former boss George Bush, who refuses to even attempt to win the War on Islamofascism, and whose failed and feckless policies, which have given us a nuclear North Korea, an entirely untouched terrorist Saudi Arabian regime, a Syria at open war with us and our allies, and will give us a nuclear Iran, are a monumental example of pre-emptive surrender.

The Iraq operation has never made sense to me. If the enemy is Islamofascism, why attack a secular regime? Wrong war, wrong place, wrong time, wrong enemy.

But IMO losing would gravely compound the error.

The Anchoress and The Second Coming

The Anchoress riffs on the first verse of Yeats' poem. She's a worthier soul than I, and a person of faith, so I didn't want to leave her a negative comment without a clear reason. (But see wgmeisheid's remark that the appropriate image for the current situation is not a gyre but a whirlpool. brr) I'll record my reaction here.

Her post brought this to mind:

Bolt and bar the shutter,
For the foul winds blow:
Our minds are at their best this night,
And I seem to know
That everything outside us is
Mad as the mist and snow.

Horace there by Homer stands,
Plato stands below,
And here is Tully's open page.
How many years ago
Were you and I unlettered lads
Mad as the mist and snow?

You ask what makes me sigh, old friend,
What makes me shudder so?
I shudder and I sigh to think
That even Cicero
And many-minded Homer were
Mad as the mist and snow.

C*ap and Trade

Dinocrat notes the bipartisan support for the cap-and-trade greenhouse scheme scam:

We thought it could never get this bad, politicians willing to hurt the economy, and thus the average citizen, to the tune of hundreds of billions or trillions of dollars to solve a problem that may well not even exist.

As a means to benefit the nation and public, cap and trade is counterproductive. As a pretext to expand the power and prerogatives of the upper castes, it is serviceable.

When a critical mass of power is localized in a critical mass of unprincipled hypocritical opportunists who perceive a mutual interest, no explicit conspiracy need be articulated.

No populist politician has seized this obvious issue. It would be interesting to identify the obstacles that have been put in place--quite deliberately, I have little doubt--to prevent such a ball from getting rolling.

California ♥s Gay Marriage, Apparently

The latest Field poll indicates that the constitutional amendment forbidding it will not pass. (HT: Volokh.)

It's up to the voters, as it should be. The major danger if the anti-gay-marriage amendment fail is not the outcome in se, but that electoral validation of the court decision would embolden the courts to even more expansive social "leadership".

Since society has an interest in stable relationships, I'm for civil unions but, out of some vague Burkean impulse, I favor retention of the traditional usage of 'marriage'. However, I suspect that 'leaders' on both sides are trying to polarize their supporters and keep the donations coming in; IMO the last thing they want is compromise and civil disagreement[1].

Even better, per a site whose link I didn't save, is to get the state out of marriage and treat the institution as a contractual matter.

Afterthought. Maybe a good source of insight about marriage is people who have succeeded at it. I wonder if marital status correlates with opinions about same-sex marriage. In particular, is there a relationship between quality of voters' marriage experience and their views? (The duration of a marriage is an obvious, but neither the sole nor an infallible, indicator of quality.)

[1] If the amendment fails, La Raza will find Anglo 'immorality' a convenient issue when they start making their moves.

Memorial Day

Thanks to all who served. Deep gratitude to all who sacrificed.

There are times when someone who isn't a warrior has to do a warrior's job. A special tribute to draftees who died while doing their duty to the best of their ability.

America's Post-American President?

To the Huffington Post's satisfaction, Obama has been photographed holding "The Post-American World":

The book makes the point that as power, skill and capacity becomes more distributed around the globe, Washington would do better to encourage this trend and honor it as both a cooperative and motivating factor.

The author puts it as:

At a time when other commentators are warning that the U.S. is on the skids, Zakaria offers a refreshingly upbeat assessment.

``This is a book not about the decline of America but rather about the rise of everyone else,'' he writes.

Zakaria, the editor of Newsweek International, arrived in the U.S. as an 18-year-old student from India in 1982. For him, America remains a land of promise, a nation capable of leading the ``industries of the future,'' such as nanotechnology.

I'm all for improved living standards worldwide. That's tremendous news.

But if America is continuing to lead the world into the future, shouldn't our relative standard of living continue to outpace everybody else's even while the absolute standard rises globally?

Iirc Larry Kudlow made the we're-not-declining-everybody-else-is-improving argument some time ago, and I wasn't convinced then either.

I worry that our elites and special interests are spending the societal capital accumulated since 1776 instead of increasing it. I worry that some pundits on the left and right are, at best, in denial. My instincts are with the majority that believes the country is on the wrong track (which is not to say that any given change would be an improvement).

Addendum September 13, 2008. Our elites are running the country like the Sulzbergers run the New York Times.

Dear Leader Speaks

Dinocrat links the transcript:

We are also, though, going have to negotiate with other countries. China, India, in particular Brazil. They are growing so fast that they are consuming more and more energy, and pretty soon, if their carpet footprint even approaches ours, we're goners. That's part of the reason why we've got to make the investment; we've got to lead by example. If we lead by example -- if we lead by example, then we can actually export and license technology that have been invented here to help them deal with their growth pain. But keep in mind, you're right. We can't tell them, don't grow. We can't -- drive our SUVs and you know, eat as much as we want and keep our homes on you know, 72 degrees at all times, and whether we're living in the desert or we're living in the tundra, and then just expect that every other country's going say OK.

You guys go ahead and keep on using 25 percent of the world's energy. Even though you only account for 3 percent of the population, and we'll be fine. Don't worry about us. That's not -- that's not leadership. That's not going to happen. And that's, by the way, why, for example, I had this big argument with Senator Clinton and McCain about the gas tax, holiday. Which was an example. That's how Washington works. It's not thinking long term. It's thinking, how do we get through the next election?

And, you know, John McCain, for him to come to Oregon as an environmental president, but his big strategy is to do more drilling and to have a gas tax holiday for three months, that's a phony solution. You know, you can't -- John McCain has consistently been opposed to fuel efficiency standards, raising fuel efficiency standards on cars. How is he going to meet any of these targets? Maybe he's imagining it the way he did imaging getting out of the war in Iraq. You know? We -- we need somebody with a plan. And who is willing to talk to the American people about these difficulties and how we're going to get through these challenges together. All right? OK. All right. OK...

We can't tell them, don't grow, but we can and must reduce or stop our own growth.

In 1984 Mondale campaigned on a pledge to raise taxes, but afaic Obama is the first major presidential candidate to campaign on a pledge to reduce the American standard of living.

Higher taxes, lower living standards, more government intrusion into private lifestyles and the economy...that's change, all right. We can't eat as much as we want.

Has the country gotten so dumbed down that it will fall for this?

An Overlooked Fatal Mistake by Clinton

RealClearPolitics says the Clinton campaign should have dug up the Wright material early in the campaign, but they neglected the due diligence of opposition research because of "laziness brought on by overconfidence and arrogance."

Perhaps an even worse mistake was not to run in 2004. Considering how close an unlikable candidate like Kerry came to unseating Bush, Hillary would have had a very good shot IMO. I'm sure she knows that.

McCain's Vision Speech

The speech is here.

Is my patriotism suspect for noting that McCain's glorious vision doesn't include lower gas prices?

McCain may get my vote, but not my enthusiasm. IMO he doesn't bring enough to the table to persuade the electorate to overlook years of Republican misgovernment. I'm resigned to a Democratic landslide. It may not be good for the country, but the spit Republicans richly deserve it.
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If I am elected President, I will work with anyone who sincerely wants to get this country moving again.

Sincerity as determined by Himself, of course.

I will ask Congress to grant me the privilege of coming before both houses to take questions, and address criticism, much the same as the Prime Minister of Great Britain appears regularly before the House of Commons.

Whaaaat?!

The Constitution requires Presidential reports on the state of the union, but I suspect that the Framers deliberately avoided an analogy with parliamentary practice.

Afterthought to my gripe about gas prices: Given the perks of office and their personal wealth, how many energy decision makers in top-level government would personally feel any difference between gas at twenty cents, two dollars, and twenty dollars? Maybe that's part of the problem.

If the run-up in prices had happened a few months earlier, somebody like Huckabee might have made it an issue and found receptive audiences. Americans are accustomed to affordable mobility; therein lies an opportunity for a politician willing to buck the establishment.

To Laugh or Cry?

Bush, to The Politico's Mike Allen:

Popularity is fleeting, Michael. Principles are forever.

Ah, yes. The principles that underlay the grand strategy for the war. The principles that collapsed the dollar. The principles that produced runaway deficits and a metastasizing government.

Afterthought. More Bush:

I talked to Hu Jintao and if he -- I told him if he needs aid he's got it. Thus -- we'd get him some money, but thus far, he feels like he's in pretty good shape.

In other words, Bush volunteered to borrow some money from the Chinese and give it back to them as aid. Tsk. Hu overlooked an arbitrage opportunity there (unless the aid would have consisted of goods purchased from companies with links to the Republican party).

Why Doesn't Clinton Drop Out? Has She One More Card to Play?

Maybe she's got something on Obama.

It might be so noxious that the mere fact of releasing it would taint her too; accordingly, she might be reserving it for a last resort. On the other hand, if it's serious but not devastating, it would have to be released in conjunction with a strong primary showing and, perhaps, a Rezko guilty verdict.

The foregoing is all conjecture, of course. (Cf. Victor Davis Hanson.)

Afterthoughts. Also, cf. this.

Maybe the dirt on Obama will be revealed by the Chicago political establishment (probably not openly) in exchange for a Clinton promise to lift federal legal pressure. Obama has promised not to interfere with the primary federal prosecutor:

On another subject, Obama said he was impressed with the corruption-busting efforts of U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald, whose office is prosecuting Obama friend and fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko on corruption charges. If elected president, Obama said, he would keep Fitzgerald on the job.

The reliability of such promises (either Clinton's and Obama's) is a separate matter...

Another afterthought. This (pro-Hillary?) site claims that Republicans have video of Michelle Obama ranting against 'whitey' at Wright's church.

Maybe, maybe not; notwithstanding the theme of this post, I'm unconvinced that this alleged smoking gun is real. Why do the Republicans have the tape while the Clintonites do not? Maybe they do have the tape and are sending a covert--in order to minimize the damage to the party--signal to Obama and the superdelegates.

Or maybe they're running a hollow desperate bluff.

Obama and Wright

Jeremiah Wright continues to make speeches that, by traditional standards, are inflammatory. This may be red meat for the extreme left and some (many?) black voters, but presumably the net effect on parishioner Obama's election prospects is negative[1]. What gives?

Conjecture. Mixed-race preppy Ivy Leaguer Barack Obama joined Wright's church to get street cred to kick-start his political career. Obama used Wright.

So why shouldn't Wright use Obama?

Conjecture. Wright doesn't give a hoot about Obama's election prospects. He is taking advantage of the Obama connection to shoot for the big leagues where Sharpton and Jackson operate.
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[1] However, give the educational establishment another generation...

Obama Interviewed on Fox

Obama:

...I’m absolutely confident that the American people, what they’re looking for is somebody who can solve their problems.

Had Obama used a term like 'promote the general welfare', that would be fine with me.

I can't speak for the American people, especially given what's been done to the education system after my time in it, but I'm not looking for somebody who can solve my problems.

I'm looking for somebody who will secure my unalienable rights endowed by the Creator, among these being life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Mother Gaia is Overrun by Humans and She is Getting Feverish. What to Do, What to Do?

If higher food costs--a euphemism for starvation or famine in the third world--are the price for subsidizing first-world agricultural special interests fighting global warming and the greedy energy companies, political elites in the USA and Europe seem entirely willing to pay it.

These philosopher-kings dare not publicly refer to the global population-control implications, but I wonder how many of their minds the thought crosses.

April 22, 2008 Follow-Up. Instapundit links to this report of shortages, hoarding and retailer-imposed purchase ceilings for rice, flour and oil in the USA.

Presumably this particular instance is not the beginning of full-blown shortages, but it's yet another indicator of how poorly the country is being run.

At some point people will start muttering that we'd be better off with the military running things.

Afterthought. Walter Williams is unimpressed:

...If Congress and President Bush say we need less reliance on oil and greater use of renewable fuels, then why would Congress impose a stiff tariff, 54 cents a gallon, on ethanol from Brazil? Brazilian ethanol, by the way, is produced from sugar cane and is far more energy efficient, cleaner and cheaper to produce.
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The ethanol hoax is a good example of a problem economists refer to as narrow, well-defined benefits versus widely dispersed costs. It pays the ethanol lobby to organize and collect money to grease the palms of politicians willing to do their bidding because there's a large benefit for them -- higher wages and profits. The millions of gasoline consumers, who fund the benefits through higher fuel and food prices, as well as taxes, are relatively uninformed and have little clout. After all, who do you think a politician will invite into his congressional or White House office to have a heart-to-heart -- you or an Archer Daniels Midlands executive?

Here's an agricultural analysis of the ethanol subsidy's consequences.

Second afterthought. Here's a black-humorous way of expressing something that I couldn't articulate well:

No wonder the environmentalists are pushing ethanol so hard. It *can* save the planet. Ethanol = Starvation = Greener Planet

I wonder how many well-bred first-worlders who are not environmental extremists have the thought, "Distressing, but the planet is overpopulated..."

And never ever acknowledge their reaction or share it with anyone else.

Worth Knowing: Volcker Endorsed Obama

Here, for example.

Volcker recently gave a speech about the mess in the financial markets. Some reports I've seen have interpreted the speech in the most destabilizing way possible. BusinessWeek appears to strive for balance.

Addendum. Volcker's speech is here. Note the dismissal-by-omission of Bush.

Condi for Veep? Gawdhelpus

Rumor has it that she's lobbying to be picked.

The more I learn about Obama & the more I see of Hillary, the more I'm willing to hold my nose and vote for McCain.

But not if he picks Condi--another self-satisfied Bush lightweight.

Mitt is qualified on the economy. Palin and Jindal are promising but may not be ready for prime time.

Could John Engler flip Michigan, attract some Catholic votes, and add economic expertise?

John McCain: El Sid?

Just a thought...

"Pierre Elliot Obama"

The analogy seems apt. I saw it online somewhere before this column appeared in Canada's National Post.

The Quayle Bush administration followed by a Trudeau one? shudder

Obama's "Present" Votes in Illinois Senate

They're fine with Abner Mikva, who spanks Hillary:

Senator Hillary Clinton should probably be forgiven for not remembering the course on the state Constitution that she would have had to take as an eighth grader in Illinois. But had she remembered it, she would have known that Senator Barack Obama was not ducking his responsibility in the Illinois Senate when he voted ''present'' on many issues.

Unlike Congress and the legislatures of most other states, each chamber of the Illinois Legislature requires a ''constitutional majority'' to pass a bill. The state Senate has 59 members, so it takes 30 affirmative votes. This makes a ''present'' vote the same as a no...
...
In the Illinois Senate, there can be strategic reasons for voting ''present'' rather than simply no. A member might approve the intent of legislation, but not its scope or the way it has been drafted. A ''present'' vote can send a signal to a bill's sponsors that the legislator might support an amended version. Voting ''present'' can also be a way to exercise fiscal restraint, without opposing the subject of the bill.

It's noteworthy that Mikva spent a year as White House Counsel in the Clinton administration.

This doesn't change my view of Obama as demagogic and unqualified, but fair is fair.

Brilliant Marketing Ploy If It Works

And it seems to be working: the product is currently sold out.

The Kindle™ wireless reading device from Amazon has many appealing features and I'll think seriously about it if and when I can afford it. Not mentioned in the pitch is that the buyer pays $399 for the privilege of being subjected to Amazon's digital rights management. Customer reviews are positive on balance, but there is a definite body of negative opinion.

Barack & Michelle (and Jeremiah Wright): Chickens Come Home to Roost Indeed

Harvard Law graduates with a sense of aggrieved entitlement.

Such is the harvest of 30+ years of "affirmative" action and the concomitant encouragement of victimology and identity politics.

There's no such thing as an ideal meritocracy, but a serious effort to construct a society along meritocratic lines would yield a far better result than the mess we have now.
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The idea that electing Obama would dissipate the mess is ridiculous on its face. The mess might even get worse: that is, it might get worse faster than it already is.

Happy Saint Paddy's to All

This first stanza is perfect IMO:

‘Though logic choppers rule the town,
And every man and maid and boy
Has marked a distant object down,
An aimless joy is a pure joy,’
Or so did Tom O’Roughley say
That saw the surges running by,
‘And wisdom is a butterfly
And not a gloomy bird of prey.'

Wisdom is a butterfly, and not a gloomy bird of prey. Noted, with thanks for the insight.

Replacing S&P and Fitch?

The situation in the financial markets is too serious for playing the blame game, but I'm pretty sure where the buck will stop after, hopefully, we get through this. (Hint: it won't be at the Democratic Congress.)

Last year I commented at Dinocrat:

It’s a good thing that the current Treasury Secretary is a hardened Goldman Sachs capo.

Even if Paulson and Bernanke bring us through, I wonder if the Europeans and Asians, with OPEC concurrence, will form their own ratings agencies without whose blessing no American instrument will be acceptable in global financial markets.

Addendum 20081111. Indeed the Europeans are considering forming their own rating agencies. They're also realizing that that may be unnecessary if they take over the American ones: if European regulation of rating agencies is stricter than US regulation, the American entities will have to comply. And the Yanks still take the blame when something goes wrong.

Addendum 20081112. Given the bailout's incompetence (yes, incompetence), special-interest feeding frenzy, opaqueness and stonewalling, and possible malfeasance, it is no longer unthinkable that the US financial position could collapse completely.

On one side of the aisle, we have people who threatened to fire a civil service actuary if he gave his professional opinion about the costs of Bush's prescription drug benefit. On the other side, there are people who want to restore the "Fairness" Doctrine. Given a pretext and irrespective of the merits, neither would hesitate to unleash the full power of the state against an American entity that they disfavored.

The rest of the world might establish a nonAmerican rating entity in order to get proper warning of US default or reduced creditworthiness.

Hay-soos Works at Dilbert's Company

Recent Dilbert strips during this Lenten season feature a character named Jesus (pronounced 'hay-soos') who does things like turn coffee into wine, etc.

I've read that strip for decades, but IMO recently it's frequently crossed the blurred line between mockery and nastiness. Consider this exchange between Scott Adams and a commenter on his blog:

Scott,
So when do you plan to start mocking Islam (pronounced hey-zeus)? Or do you only mock religions that won't threaten you with a fatwa?

[Is there some sort of contest for dumbest question of the century and no one told me? -- Scott]

Maybe I'm eluded by the sophisticated banter of the enlightened intelligent elite that guides and rules us.

Though I'm an agnostic and skeptic, I'll give William Blake the last word:

Mock on, Mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau;
Mock on, Mock on, 'tis all in vain.
You throw the sand against the wind,
And the wind blows it back again.

And every sand becomes a Gem
Reflected in the beams divine;
Blown back, they blind the mocking Eye,
But still in Israel's paths they shine.

The Atoms of Democritus
And Newton's Particles of light
Are sands upon the Red sea shore,
Where Israel's tents do shine so bright

(Democrat) Americans on Trade

According to CBS exit polls:

Ohio Democratic voters hold mostly negative views on U.S. trade with other countries: Eight in ten say trade takes jobs away from their state. In Texas, 58 percent say trade takes jobs away, while a quarter say U.S. trade with other countries creates jobs.

Since Texas presumably benefits greatly from the two-way commerce with Mexico, it's astonishing that trade is so unpopular there.

Last year I remarked:

Will the world's financial traffic reroute around America the way the Internet routes around censorship? My guess is that we're not at that point yet, but if it happens it will happen faster than people expect.

Perhaps the global economy too, at some point? Not that we are imminently becoming a backwater--but if it happens, it could happen faster than people expect: for example, our global competitors might sign trade agreements with partners we spurn out of protectionism.

We are in the fifteenth year after the Gore-Perot NAFTA debate. The quality of American leadership and, I am inclined to believe, the sagacity of the electorate have declined.

Afterthought. The sagacity of the electorate may not be to blame. Surveys show that people think that the country is moving in the wrong direction. IMO that's correct and the biggest single--not the only--reason is the corrupt incompetent hypocritical pharisaism of the Republican party. Since the malfeasance is deliberately disguised and hidden, one can't expect John and Joan Public to formulate policy prescriptions. It's understandable that they look to themselves when the leadership has repeatedly demonstrated it cannot be trusted.

William F. Buckley Jr. 1925-2008

From National Review's mission statement:

Radical conservatives in this country have an interesting time of it, for when they are not being suppressed or mutilated by the Liberals, they are being ignored or humiliated by a great many of those of the well-fed Right, whose ignorance and amorality have never been exaggerated for the same reason that one cannot exaggerate infinity.

Even more true today, perhaps, than in 1955.

Afterthought. On the other hand, this obituary is considerably less than heartbroken.

Improperly Resisting Genocide

Even the BBC sounds skeptical:

Rwanda has urged foreign governments and Interpol to ignore Spanish arrest warrants for 40 Rwandan army officers on genocide charges.
...
Spain's high court has accused the officers of involvement in mass killings in the early 1990s.

Spanish courts can prosecute war crimes even if the offences took place abroad.
...
But Rwanda's foreign ministry said the judge had never visited Rwanda or the Democratic Republic of Congo, where some of the killings are alleged to have taken place...It adds that he has not tried to liaise with Rwanda's judicial authorities to seek the officers' arrest.
...
During a 100-day period in 1994, an estimated 800,000 Rwandans were killed, mainly ethnic Tutsis at the hands of radical Hutus.

The genocide came to an end when Tutsi-led rebels under Paul Kagame took control.

But the judge said that, after taking power, the army under Mr Kagame carried out mass killings of Hutus in Rwanda and in refugee camps in what was then neighbouring Zaire.
...
In 2006, French judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere issued indictments against nine close aides of Mr Kagame, sparking a huge diplomatic row.

So why--this question is not meant as commentary on that war--don't these heroic European jurists indict Russian officials for the destruction in Chechnya?

Because they know full well that such indictments would expose them to a case of Litvinenko's disease.

That's why the investigations of Putin's alleged money laundering won't come to anything, and why things like this will continue.

The GOP's Parasites Remain in Charge

Dinocrat commenter staghounds on a McCain speech:

“I will not sign a bill with earmarks in it, any earmarks in it. ”

That is a base-turning-out promise...

I agree, but here, here, here and here, with many worthwhile links, Instapundit notes that the GOP is determined to keep going in the opposite direction.

Glenn Reynolds remarks

Sometimes I think they'd rather be a porky minority than a porkless majority.

A similar thought has crossed my mind. I prefer Instapundit's phrasing, which is a tweak or two away from a mot juste--something like "Better to be a corrupt minority than an honest majority."

McCain is saddled with Bush's underperforming record and with continuing Republican parasitism. Maybe, without being explicit about his own party, he needs to make the case that Obama's messianism will yield an extrapolation of how Republicans have governed.

Ask Your Children How to Vote

Dr. Helen notes reports that children are telling their parents how to vote, usually with Obama in mind. She wonders why.

Maybe the parents attribute to childhood a pure wisdom to which soiled adults no longer have entree.

Let's amend the Constitution so no one over 35 can be elected President. Then we can all live in the paradise described in 'Lord of the Flies'.

I blame George Bush. Ever since they took Congress in 1994, the Daddy Party has governed like Hollywood's caricature of the American father. It shares responsibility for the infantilization of politics.

18-1

I've paid attention to the Patriots but don't consider myself a fan (or knowledgeable about football). In fact, I hadn't intended to follow the team this year, but the prospect of a historic perfect season pulled me in.

The season was historic, all right. Ouch.

Congratulations to the New York Giants and their fans for a well-deserved Super Bowl victory.

Afterthought. The probability that a team will have a 16-0 regular season is far lower than the--unit--probability a team will win the Super Bowl. I knew this all along. Nevertheless, I'd prefer a Super Bowl victory to a perfect season. Why?

Phlegmatic Freddie Flops: Oaf Flees the Fray

Thompson withdrew.

In the 1976 Republican primaries, Ronald Reagan was completely written off but doggedly kept going--and then he won North Carolina and almost the nomination. His sustained commitment in 1976 was the springboard for the successful run in 1980.

Freddie is pathetic.

Apparently, like Condi Rice a year or so ago, he thought he'd show a little leg and be nominated by acclamation.

This is the principled standard-bearer of conservatism? One more reason to write off the Republicans.

What's next for Freddie--joining Trent Lott's lobbying firm?
********
Full disclosure. Viewing them as high-risk high-payoff contributions, I made two small donations to Thompson. That my eyes were wide open doesn't mean I'm happy the money was wasted.

Apologia: Robert James Fischer 1943-2008

Great wits are sure to madness near allied
And thin partitions do their bounds divide. --Dryden

Yes, he was warped. Yes, he said vile things--but he sprayed the venom at large; he did not inject it into individuals. He did not leave damaged friends and a family with maimed souls.

RIP. Perhaps somewhere somehow, by means impossible to imagine or verify, the clashing elements of his makeup are now harmonized.

Inauguration Day 2001: S&P 500 1343 January 17, 2008: S&P 500 1333 (in dollars)

The S&P 500 is the most commonly used metric of the broad US market. (Arguably, the Dow Jones Industrials have too few stocks to accurately reflect the overall market.)

When George Bush was inaugurated on January 20, 2001, the S&P 500 stood at 1343. Today it closed at 1333. Never mind what happened to the dollar that the index is valued in.

As we enter an election year, the market is lower than when Bush took office seven years ago. For six of those years, there was a Republican Congress.

Apothegms

According to Winston Churchill,

It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.

I came across that years ago--while browsing in a book of quotations. I was taken aback...and then laughed...and then resumed reading.

So maybe there's some hope for me yet.

Presumably Sir Winston would also approve of posting quotations on one's blog. I haven't decided whether to collect such here or to make this a series. Anyway, here goes.

Peter Woit laments that the drunken colossus of our political system has accidentally squashed funding for high-enery physics:

This seems to be how US democracy works these days: you need to pay to not get screwed, and we haven’t been paying…

Attributed to Wang Yang-ming (see also here and here):

To know and not to act is not to know.

September 1, 1939 (W.H. Auden):

Defenseless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

John Derbyshire::

Wherever there is a jackboot stomping on a human face there will be a well-heeled Western liberal to explain that the face does, after all, enjoy free health care and 100 percent literacy.

Obamamania?! (Not to Mention Huckabee)

Since Bush was inaugurated, the US stock market has not kept up with inflation, while the value of the dollar has plunged. As the 2008 campaign begins, those who claim all is well and those who call for "change" have not confronted the real change that has been happening.

A fraction of a typical American stock's market value is its book value, but most of the market value represents the price investors are willing to pay for the company's future growth. So the world's valuation of America's future has not kept pace with inflation--with valuation in a sharply lower American dollar.

None of the presidential candidates is sounding the alarm about this. In particular, Obama spouts charismatic babble about change, new kind of politics, experience is unnecessary, blah blah blah. Actually, the foregoing sentence is not completely fair because, whether you agree or not, Obama's site has some thoughtful policy proposals, but the sentence is not completely unfair either.

While I can't picture Obama going eyeball-to-eyeball with Putin, Barack's supporters worry me at least as much as the candidate himself. Having roused the tiger's passion, after riding it to the Oval Office President Obama may find it difficult to persuade it to allow him to govern rationally.

Afterthought. Can I picture Hillary going eyeball-to-eyeball with Putin? Maybe. Depends on which Hillary shows up.

Hillary Clinton

As 2008 approached, I was resigned to an unwelcome but competent Clinton presidency. Certainly on paper Hillary is more palatable than Barack. Yet now that the campaign is unfolding,
I am astonished by how dislikable that woman is.

Consider the image at right (from TPM). What's with the red dress and Chinese collar? Is Hillary trying to evoke Madame Mao Tse-tung for radical voters? Or is the dress a gift from a Chinese Clinton...supporter?

Though I've hesitated to express the speculation that her hairstyle is intended to send a coded message to a constituency, apparently similar thoughts have occurred to others.

And there are other such things about Senator Now-The-Fun-Part-Starts, a number of which I possibly don't notice consciously.

Years ago I thought that many of the female guests on Louis Rukeyser's Wall Street Week obviously did not dress to advantage. I finally realized that the standards of their circle had evolved to a point which was strange to my Main Street sensibility. Conceivably that's what may have happened to Clinton--but, come to think of it, it doesn't matter to me whether the dissonance is intentional or accidental.

Peggy Noonan on Hillary:

There's something about her that makes you look, watch, think, look again, weigh and say: No.

Right now, my first sentence notwithstanding, that pretty much says it all.

Afterthought.During the 1992 campaign Hillary's pose as the All-American Modern Spouse was effective, but since then she has been unable or unwilling to maintain it. Perhaps she is moved by anger to send her non-mainstream signals. The privileged 60s boomers dressed distinctively when they fabricated anger about the terrible terrible world that the Great Generation created. There is also her resentment from decades of living with Bill. Maybe she thought the election was in the bag and started acting out the payback she wanted. The cause is far less important than the consequences.

Afterthought soon before the NH Primary polls close. Recent Hillary photos look like Ms. All-American Wholesomeness is back. It's too late--and not necessarily just for NH.

Afterthought with 66% of vote counted. Well, maybe it's not too late...

The Nonbarking Dog in the Iowa Nighttime

It's astonishing that the Bhutto assassination's effect on the campaign was imperceptible.
*********
An Instapundit reader notes that the 2008 campaign has kicked off with two populist demagogues taking the lead.

Be careful what you wish for...

The voters want change? They may get it.

They demand excitement? They may get it.

They want to complain about the economy? They may get one to complain about.

Market Down--Mark It Down

The stock market was down sharply today. The S&P 500 closed at 1447. When George W. Bush was inaugurated on January 20, 2001, the index stood at 1343--separated from today's close by 7 or 8%. Today's dollar-denominated close, not to put too fine a point on it...

Accordingly, even without a recession or other negative events, there's an appreciable chance that on Election Day and Inauguration Day the market will have meandered below where it stood when Bush took over eight years earlier. Surely electoral strategists are well aware of this possibility, but such a trifle may not merit the attention of George W. Bush, the Great Syncretist, Liberty's Apostle to Islam, and BIG Thinker.

The insider-trading indicator is strongly positive and I'm sticking with it. Uneasily.

If You Think There's Hypocrisy Now...

The blogosphere has pointedly noted environmental hypocrisy: all the private jets at the Bali conference, for example. Glenn Reynolds often says that he'll take it seriously as a crisis when the people who say it's a crisis start acting like it's a crisis.

There's a definite pecking order among Gaia worshippers. The Important People fly in on private jets to give speeches to the Significant People, who arrive in their high-end SUVs and learn what sacrifices Gaia requires of the Little People. It brings to mind classical brahmin-controlled India or pharaonic Egypt under the priesthood.

But that will be as nothing if and when significant life extension occurs.

Picture the high priests of Gaia urging that the technology be forbidden--and using it themselves. Picture televangelists (and mullahs, perhaps) condemning it as diabolical because it evades God's judgment and man's just reward in heaven--and using it themselves.

The Bhutto Assassination

My first reaction[1] is that Condoleezza Rice should resign. She's been blundering around in over her head, and, in view of subsequent events, this is definitive:

Let me just say that we have an unfolding story in Pakistan. There appear to be authoritative sources, Pakistani television, saying that a state of emergency is going to be declared. We’ve not heard from President Musharraf, to my knowledge, yet.

I just want to be clear that the United States has made clear that it does not support extra-constitutional measures because those measures would take Pakistan away from the path of democracy and civilian rule. And whatever happens, we will be urging a quick return to a constitutional order, we will be urging that the commitment to hold free and fair elections be kept, and we’ll be urging calm on all the parties.

If she doesn't have the grace to resign, Bush should fire her.

Fat chance of either.

[1] I say 'my first reaction' because it's not clear who is responsible for the assassination. The above comments presume that it isn't Musharraf's people. It would be nice if we had an intelligence service capable of making that determination--correctly.

Follow-Up. From Andrew McCarthy at NRO:

It is the new way of warfare to proclaim that our quarrel is never with the heroic, struggling people of fill-in-the-blank country. No, we, of course, fight only the regime that oppresses them and frustrates their unquestionable desire for freedom and equality.

Pakistan just won’t cooperate with this noble narrative.
...
For the United States, the question is whether we learn nothing from repeated, inescapable lessons that placing democratization at the top of our foreign policy priorities is high-order folly.

The transformation from Islamic society to true democracy is a long-term project. It would take decades if it can happen at all. Meanwhile, our obsessive insistence on popular referenda is naturally strengthening — and legitimizing — the people who are popular: the jihadists. Popular elections have not reformed Hamas in Gaza or Hezbollah in Lebanon. Neither will they reform a place where Osama bin Laden wins popular opinion polls and where the would-be reformers are bombed and shot at until they die.

We don’t have the political will to fight the war on terror every place where jihadists work feverishly to kill Americans. And, given the refusal of the richest, most spendthrift government in American history to grow our military to an appropriate war footing, we may not have the resources to do it.

But we should at least stop fooling ourselves. Jihadists are not going to be wished away, rule-of-lawed into submission, or democratized out of existence. If you really want democracy and the rule of law in places like Pakistan, you need to kill the jihadists first. Or they’ll kill you, just like, today, they killed Benazir Bhutto.

Like Instapundit often says, read the whole thing.

The Internet

IMO without the Internet Hillary Clinton's campaign likely would have successfully maintained its image of inevitability, and the Iraq situation likely would have been pushed toward collapse like Vietnam was.

That's not to say that Hillary won't be nominated. It's not to say that the Iraq occupation will be salvaged. And it's definitely not to deny that Iraq may have been an even more dubious strategic decision than Vietnam.

Nevertheless.

Added December 26, 2007. In particular, 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. Now Instapundit links to a warning that a Tet is coming in Iraq.

Rachel Davis and the Decline of the West

Instapundit responds that a Tennessee student Rachel Davis was suspended from high school for defending herself against assault. As of this writing, 141 out of 450 people in an online poll believe that the suspension was justified.

A California high school teacher replies that

The principal at my own son's school expects--and I kid you not--that students will curl up on the ground into a fetal position and hope that someone else goes running for help.

This insane outlook is not confined to otherworldly educators; it is pervasive.

Nicholas Sarkozy opposes firearms ownership and declares that you may not shoot dead a home invader who turns out to be unarmed.

Tony Martin...John Howard...

No wonder that Islamists take us for pushovers.

I haven't pulled a trigger since basic training long ago. I don't own a gun, but the right to purchase one is very important to me.

Afaic the right to self-defense is a fundamental human right. IMO a government which denies this right is, or will ultimately become, a despotism. A populace that consents to such government powers deserves to be serfs. I'm skeptical that such a civilization will survive, and I'm pretty sure that it won't progress.

Jew Lawyers Scheme Against Their Country!

A primary inadequacy of Bush's war leadership is his failure to articulate the nature of the struggle. (That failure may well be rooted in a failure to conceptualize the nature of the struggle, which in turn may well be rooted in his mental laziness. But I digress.)

The Israelis would never be that naive, right? Wrong, according to the JPost Pasionara (caveat lector! although her current column is plausible, she often gets carried away):

While the soldiers and general public view the (Hizbullah) war as a failure, one sector of Israeli society sees the war as a great triumph. For Israel's legal establishment, the war was a great victory. It was a war in which its members asserted their dominance over Israel's political and military leadership.
...
Mazuz effectively asserted that international law prevents victory in war when he argued, "The laws of war, or international humanitarian law doesn't concern itself with relations between two states, but with the relationship between civilians and states. That is, it places the two warring states on one side of the divide and the citizens of the two states on the other side, and the goal of international law is to protect the citizens of the two states and to say: You're big kids. You want to fight, go fight, you have rules… and the rules aim to minimize as much as possible the consequences of the war."

By so arguing, Mazuz demonstrated that he views the goals of legal advisers as different from and indeed in conflict with the goals of political and military leaders. The goal of the latter is to defend the country from its enemies and to win wars. As Mazuz and Mandelblit see things, lawyers are tasked with protecting enemy populations from the IDF.

The distinctive way that legal advisers define their responsibilities has had an enormous impact on the military and the political leadership of the country. It is not that the internalization of the lawyers' approach has made the IDF or the Israeli government any more moral or law abiding than they have always been...

What has changed is the focus of military and political leaders in conducting war. Before the advent of legal dominance, commanders and political leaders devoted themselves to winning wars. Today they concentrate their efforts on avoiding criminal indictments.

(HT: Instapundit and National Review) This brings to mind the Internet rumor that during the overthrow of the Taliban, a Predator-drone operator had Mullah Omar targeted, but the commander (Franks?) insisted on checking with a military lawyer before giving permission to fire. By the time the lawyer okayed the attack, Omar was gone.

The Sabotaged Fence and Our "Elites"

See the previous post for a link about the fence.

Suppose the American people finally resort to installing a Putin and he goes after our elites the way Vladimir goes after his enemies. If the Enlightened People think I'll go in the streets on their behalf, they should think again.

For perspective: IMO America is in decline and we are heading for stagnation or, at some point, collapse. However, the decline is not irreversible.

Afterthought. Maybe the best realistic 2008 outcome is a caretaker who will minimize our decline until, heaven willing, the country produces another real leader. (Reagan restored the country for a generation, but time and entropy happen to us all.)

Every Time I Suppress My Misgivings about Fred Thompson, He Gets in the News

When I read that Congress sabotaged the border fence, I hit the roof:

It’s important to me that a Presidential candidate have an executive track record. The lack thereof has been my primary reservation about Thompson and one of my primary reservations about Obama.

However, when the government reminds me of a bordello, I’m not going to seek out the candidate with the most experience in brothels.

Right afterwards, I saw this:

Fred Thompson: Lazy as charged
By: Roger Simon
Dec 19, 2007 01:35 PM EST

WAVERLY, Iowa — When is retail politics not retail politics? When candidates refuse to get off their big buses and go do it.

Fred Thompson rolled into this small town on the Cedar River in north-central Iowa on a giant brown bus Tuesday. He also had a van, an entourage of guys with earpieces and a press aide.
...
So the sum total of Thompson’s day in Waverly was meeting with a newspaper editor and saying nothing and then meeting about 15 people in a warm firehouse and saying nothing.

When he was supposed to go out and find voters in shops and diners, talk to them and answer their questions, he decided to skip it and get back on his luxury bus instead.

That’s not retail politics. That’s not Iowa. And that’s not laconic. That’s lazy.

Is Thompson running because his young wife wants him to?

Shades of John Kerry.

Follow-Up. I don't have time to post links, but the above article has been discredited as a hit piece. IMO Thompson should stay in the race and, without becoming a full-fledged supporter, I've made a small donation to his campaign.

"There You Go Again"?

Obama to Clinton: “Hillary, I’m looking forward to you advising me as well.” Zap!

It's unthinkable that Bill Clinton would ever lead with his chin the way Hillary did.

If True, This Is Gobsmackingly Stupid. Even Worse, It's Adolescent.

From the Jerusalem Post:

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reportedly said in Annapolis this week that her childhood in the segregated South had helped her to understand the suffering on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"I know what its like to hear that you can't use a certain road or pass through a checkpoint because you are a Palestinian. I know what it is like to feel discriminated against and powerless," Rice told a closed meeting of Arab and Israeli representatives, according to the Dutch representative at the summit, Franz Timmermans.

"Like Israelis, I understand what it's like to go to sleep not knowing if you will be hurt in an explosion, the feeling of terror walking around your own neighborhood, or walking to your house of prayer," Timmermans quoted Rice as saying, the Washington Post reported.

Rice described her childhood in Birmingham, Alabama, during the era of segregation and the killing of four young girls in a bombing at a Baptist church in 1963. She reportedly said the bombing, which killed one of her classmates, helps her understand the fear of terrorism felt by Israelis.

I'd like to think that this report is inaccurate, but Rice was appointed by The Most Brilliant Man Harriet Miers Ever Met, who is the son of the man who selected Dan Quayle for the Vice Presidency.

Memo to Condoleezza Rice: Smarts, hard work, and sucking up will take you only so far. There comes a point at which real talent is essential.

Memo to the whole No Small Ball administration: If you manifestly lack the talent to achieve great things (and are mentally lazy to boot), you shouldn't try.

A Modest Proposal Regarding the Border Fence

Just brainstorming:

If Mexico refuses to patrol their border, we should build and garrison the fence on their side.

Come to think of it, I'd be willing to expedite US citizenship for Mexicans and other Latinos who would serve a term guarding the border. Carefully screened and supervised Mexicans, that is: the work might be dangerous and the potential for corruption significant.

Monitor the real fence with a virtual fence.

A Modest Proposal for Maria Shriver

Arnold Schwarzenegger is a viable governor of California, but he is ineligible for the Presidency because he is not a natural born citizen.

Yet it's sometimes argued that the Clintons are circumventing (the spirit of) the Constitution's 22nd Amendment, which limits Presidents to two terms.

If the Clintons can do an end run, why can't the Schwarzeneggers?

If Maria is President, Arnold can run the US like Prince Albert ran the UK.

Which party's nomination should the Schwarzeneggers seek? It doesn't matter.

Not only is there California's bloc of Electoral College votes, but the whole country would flock to see "Pumping Iron with the Kennedys".

Afterthought (December 15, 2007). Mike Dukakis succeeded in skedaddling out of Massachusetts onto the national ticket while his financial mismanagement could still be swept under the rug. Schwarzenegger might not be as lucky.

Demagogues and Ben Franklin

Benny is often quoted to the effect that people who would give up liberty for temporary security deserve neither.

It's an obvious point once you realize it, so the trick is to keep people, perhaps including yourself, from realizing it. The populist demagogue proceeds by promising security in the language of challenge and renewal.

As for the GOP, the admirable Virginia Postrel quotes one Daniel Weintraub:

PS to my Republican friends: I know CNN did a lousy job picking the questions and half of them came from people with links to Democratic candidates and causes. But they didn't pick the answers. The candidates still had their say. And in two hours of yakking, I don't think I heard a single sentence expressing confidence in the ability of individuals to pursue happiness on their own. Isn't that what the Republicans are supposed to be all about?

My gut reaction is that 'compassionate conservatism' is more dishonest, and ultimately more pernicious, than Clinton's and Obama's shticks.

IBD on the Dollar

(HT: Dinocrat) Investor's Business Daily editorializes:

Others see in the dollar's slump a metaphor for America's future — one of decline and waning influence in the world.

To be sure, the dollar is down almost 40% against the euro since 2001. Against the pound, it's off almost 44%. It's even down against the yen, by nearly 13%.

But put in perspective, these declines are neither dangerous nor even undesirable. Over the long-term, the dollar is well within normal bounds. After years of rallying due to massive flows of investment into the U.S., the dollar has simply come down to Earth.

To say it has "collapsed" or "plunged" is simply wrong — as the chart above shows.
...
The weak dollar, by making U.S. goods more competitive overseas, will sow the seeds of future growth through booming exports, more domestic jobs and a new surge in investment from overseas to snap up bargains in the U.S.

That's not a cause for concern, but of celebration.

IBD tiptoed gingerly toward the obvious, but managed to ignore it completely by the end of the editorial. Let's let the dollar drop further so we can celebrate even more. Yaaay!!! George Bush is smart! Strategery!!

The dollar advanced because the world believed that America--the country that won the Cold War--the country that wired the planet--would lead humanity into the future. The dollar is declining because the world no longer believes that.

Afaic American decline is obvious, but it is neither inevitable nor irreversible. Nor is it accidental. Who benefits? On the left, there are obvious culprits: the trial lawyers, the social-service apparatchiks, the NGO nannystaters, the deathwish Greens, etc. I have no doubt that a similar rogues' gallery exists on the right.

The Rich are ewww Breeding...

People who can afford it are choosing to have several children, and sages in the media are sneering:

In richest Manhattan, an alarming trend has risen from the primordial ooze that is hedge-fund money. This trend is flooding the chic nursery schools,clogging the fashionable secondary schools and sending many a billionaire from a sports car into a giant gas-guzzling Denali. Yes, the hot accessory of 2007 is children—but not just one or two. It seems that fashionable women in Manhattan just can’t stop popping them out...

But I believe (subscribing to the maxim that the rich are just like us, but with more money) that there is more to this boomlet than just showing off. Perhaps they are trying to keep their numbers up so their kids don’t have to venture to Second Avenue for a play date. Perhaps the loneliness and isolation of wealth in the face of global suffering is causing the baby blitz.

See also:

It seems the rich are pumping out children (almost) like it’s 1899. Yes, the latest conspicuous consumption is conspicuous reproduction - uber-rich women giving birth to the beginnings of a softball team: three, four, five, even six, children.

Hey, what’s the biggie if they can afford it? Well, the question is, can the rest of us?

There’s something in this that stinks of what I call “show brats”: children as the latest fashion accessory. Less well-to-do people have them, too — they just have fewer of them, and are less apt, simply by virtue of income, to pass their children’s rearing off on “the staff.”

Is such writing the sign of a social conscience, or are very different attitudes embodied in the wannabe-hip NYC commentary?

I can't think of a better prognosis of a civilization's vitality than its people choosing to reproduce. Coming among many troubling cultural indicators, this news is extremely welcome.

Encounters While Grocery Shopping

I ran into Barack Obama at the supermarket and he asked for my support. When I declined, he asked if it was because he was black. No, I said, it was because it is irresponsible of him to run for President without executive experience, ideally as governor.

I got in the deli line behind Condi Rice, who told me she could never be bothered to run for President, but might accept the office if people asked her very very nicely. I said I wouldn't be asking her. Condi inquired if that's because she is black and female, and I replied that it's because she already seems in over her head running State. I did thank her for helping me realize how important an executive track record is.

In the checkout line, I told Fred Thompson he had my good regard but not my support. When Fred asked if the issue was his Southern accent, I said I'd just had that discussion with Barack and Fred should get a replay from him.

On my way out, Hillary Clinton demanded my vote. I raised the executive-experience issue and she snarled that she had a successful governorship and Presidency to her credit. Then she shouted that junk food would be illegal when she had something to say about it, grabbed my shopping bag, and threw it in the trash. Mike Huckabee was nearby, smiling during Hillary's tirade. He looked like he wanted to chime in but decided not to.

I really wanted to get home, but John Edwards came up to me in the parking lot. I said, "Look! What happened in the mall? An ambulance just drove in there," and he ran off.

All this time Jeb Bush had followed me around without saying anything, but he nodded effusively every time I mentioned experience. Mike Dukakis was collecting shopping carts in the parking lot, so I called him over and introduced him to Jeb. As I got in my car, a babbling Al Gore pointed at it and tried to block my way; he barely jumped aside as I ignored him and drove off.

A Transcendent New Metascience: Quantum Ecocosmology

I founded it after reading "Mankind 'shortening the universe's life'" (here).

In Peter Woit's post, commenters WB and anon. come to the edge of the crucial conceptual chasm, but unfortunately they shy away from--anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it re the Templeton Prize--the bold cognitive leap which I take herewith:

The Multiverse is an All-Nurturing Overmother Who shelters Gaia and her sister worlds. Negative thinking releases cosmic cognitive pollutants that threaten not only Gaia but also her sisters and the Overmother Herself.

Toni Vernelli is on the right track, but stronger measures are needed.

Think globally multiversally, act locally.

Afterthought. Although biology and, arguably, computational science are ascendant, traditionally physics has been first among the sciences. Perhaps, like some civilizations, a science decays from within before it is overthrown from without.

Noteworthy Speech By Giuliani

Here.

Afterthought. Consider this extract about Clinton and the Spitzer proposal for driver's licenses for illegals:

First she was for the idea and supported Governor Spitzer who wanted to give driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants. Then she was against the idea. Then she was for and against the idea and then finally she said it should be decided on a state-by-state basis.

(LAUGHTER)

This is the only time in her career that she’s ever decided anything should be decided on a state-by-state basis.

You know something? She picked out absolutely the wrong one.

(LAUGHTER)

Right? I mean this is one of the areas that is given to the federal government to deal with under our Constitution, the borders of the United States, immigration...

Is this a coded way of asserting that state and local governments cannot take action against illegals?

First Impression of the 2008 Candidates

Qualified: Giuliani and Romney.

Arguably qualified: Clinton, Thompson, McCain, maybe even Richardson.

At least the field is better than the Three Stooges of Bush, Gore and Kerry.

Help might be on the way.

"Birder Admits Killing Cat, but Was It Animal Cruelty?"

Here.

To Secure--with Manacles--the Blessings of Liberty for Ourselves and Our Posterity

The AP reports:

WASHINGTON (AP) - A top intelligence official says it is time people in the United States changed their definition of privacy.

Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguards people's private communications and financial information.

This guy should be fired and barred from working for the government, and any government contractor, ever again.

I doubt that even J. Edgar Hoover at the height of his power would have dared go this far.

Kerr's speech is here. Note the chummy interplay with the moderator.

Dwight Eisenhower's farewell address is here.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Yes, there's a war on. Yes, technology changes things. But Eisenhower spoke when the threat--the external threat, that is--was far greater than it is today.

Hillary Rodham Nixon

I didn't read Morris's book, but some time ago I perceived a similarity between Hillary Rodham C and Richard Milhous N.

Afaic the similarity is pretty obvious...I'm just linkin' to my thinkin'...

Climate Change

I remarked at Dinocrat that

I’m a global warming skeptic, not a global warming disbeliever.

I view anthropogenic global warming as

...a great issue for aging boomers who ‘had issues’ in the 60s and continue to have issues today. Al Gore has written:

We have the opportunity to become the Greatest Generation, responding to our climate debate – but only if we take urgent action to limit global warming.
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Given the demagoguery, looniness, and civilizational deathwish among alarmists, it’s hard to keep an open mind about anthropogenic global warming. I support research on climate modelling and measurement, and I support research on reversible climate engineering. For example, Gregory Benford seems to be thinking constructively.

Linking to a news report on geoengineering, Instapundit warns

Be cautious.

Indeed. That's why my comment above specified reversible climate engineering.

Who But a Bigot Would Oppose an Employment Nondiscrimination Act?

Via Instapundit and Volokh, I see that

WASHINGTON, Nov. 7 — The House on Wednesday approved a bill granting broad protections against discrimination in the workplace for gay men, lesbians and bisexuals, a measure that supporters praised as the most important civil rights legislation since the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 but that opponents said would result in unnecessary lawsuits.

The bill, the Employment Nondiscrimination Act, is the latest version of legislation that Democrats have pursued since 1974.

Golly, who but a bigot is against nondiscrimination in employment?

I do not believe that this issue is serious enough to warrant federal intrusion into the private sector. Similarly, I oppose the Federal Marriage Amendment's intrusion on the states. The number of Republicans and Democrats who crossed party lines in both pieces of legislation is roughly comparable.

Afaic ENDA, like the FMA, is grist for a partisan constituency, an episode in the culture wars, and pork for lawyers.

I don't view either the so-called religious right or the so-called progressive left as qualified to govern the most advanced society of the 21st century. Nevertheless I concede that these factions may dominate our governance. If so, the odds that America will not remain the center of gravity of human progress will become a near-certainty.

A plague on both their houses.

Recycled Imbalances, Imbalanced Recycling

Dinocrat warns:

The massive build-up of unrecycled liquidity in a few exporting nations is one of the preeminent financial dangers of our time, and so far almost no one seems to be talking about it.

A scenario: You notice that public- and private-sector mismanagement has made the US economy wobbly, so you convert your large trove of dollars into a currency that you expect to hold its value against the dollar. You use that currency as collateral for sustained cumulative shorting of the US stock market, converting the proceeds of the short sales into the robust currency. When your selling precipitates a market break, US equities and the dollar crash together and your short-covering yields a dual profit.

IMO this kind of financial warfare is not in China's interest at present, but perhaps some oil producers would find it to their advantage and maybe there are hedge funds that bet on such a double-crash scenario.

The Dollar Should Stock Market May Be an Election Issue

On 19 January 2001, the day before Bush was inaugurated, the S&P 500 closed at 1342.54. As I write twenty minutes before today's close, it is at 1482.93. In recent years the annual standard deviation has been about 10%; historically it's been more like 20%.

There seems to be at least a one-in-eight chance (my estimates for various scenarios range from one-in-eight to seven-in-twenty) that Bush will leave the White House with the market lower than when he took office eight years before--lower in terms of a dollar which has plunged under his stewardship.

It's the economy, stupid. If the average citizen endures a recession or worse, it would intensify nostalgia for Clintonian prosperity--but how suitable is Hillary to cure a sick economy? Romney, on the other hand, has strong executive experience in the private, nonprofit and government sectors. Mitt's economic credentials are stronger than Giuliani's, and he seems a better choice than Rudy or Hillary to lead a turnaround. But if the Bush-Rove-Delay-Lott economic chickens are home to roost in 2008, how can a Republican, no matter how well qualified, be elected President?

Afterthought. Heaven forbid that the foregoing clears the way for a demagogue. A demagogic President would compound the damage while blaming Bush for the consequences.

The Dollar Should Be an Election Issue

This is disgraceful:

Nov. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Gisele Bundchen wants to remain the world's richest model and is insisting that she be paid in almost any currency but the U.S. dollar.

Like billionaire investors Warren Buffett and Bill Gross, the Brazilian supermodel, who Forbes magazine says earns more than anyone in her industry, is at the top of a growing list of rich people who have concluded that the currency can only depreciate because Americans led by President George W. Bush are living beyond their means.

Conceivably the damage that the Bush-Rove-Delay-Lott Republicans have done to America's standing in the world economy will eventually eclipse Bush's incompetence as a war leader.

This should be an election issue but, in the political big leagues, the straight talk required is probably perceived as electoral suicide.

Afterthought. During the Clinton-era Internet bubble, America was leading the world into the future; when the bubble burst, much of enduring value survived and continued to grow. During the Bush-era real estate bubble, America fabricated funny money; the aftermath is cruddy reposessed property.

The Pakistan Coup Etc

After a period of encouraging indications from Iraq, this wake-up call was unwelcome but probably inevitable. I remain inclined to believe that the Iraq invasion was a gross strategic blunder: that is to say, it would have been a strategic blunder if we had a strategy. While General Petraeus may turn a looming defeat into a victory, it's a victory in a battle that should not have been fought at this time.
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Back when "Mission Accomplished" Bush was riding high, I would sometimes ask his supporters why we invaded secular Baathist Iraq when the enemy was Islamism. A typical response was that I didn't understand strategery guh-yuk guh-yuk.

Hear the wisdom of The Blessed Condoleezza:

Let me just say that we have an unfolding story in Pakistan. There appear to be authoritative sources, Pakistani television, saying that a state of emergency is going to be declared. We've not heard from President Musharraf, to my knowledge, yet.

I just want to be clear that the United States has made clear that it does not support extra-constitutional measures because those measures would take Pakistan away from the path of democracy and civilian rule. And whatever happens, we will be urging a quick return to a constitutional order, we will be urging that the commitment to hold free and fair elections be kept, and we'll be urging calm on all the parties.

This tripe comes from America's top diplomat, who is a former National Security advisor and a former provost of Stanford University. What should our enemies and friends, and the American people, think?

Looking at the presidential line of succession, I go down to #5 (#6 if Bush is included) before seeing anyone likely to grow into the job.

Possible mitigations:
1. The military takeover in Algeria was not expected to block the ascendancy of Islamism there, but to date it has done so.
2. Bad leadership on our side does not mean that the enemy's leadership is superb.
3. An election is coming up. When I see a photo of Bush and Putin (or Bush and Vicente Fox, for that matter), I am embarrassed. I cringe. I might not feel that way with Hillary or Mitt in the picture, and I'm sure I wouldn't feel that way with Rudy. Thompson has yet to convince me that he wouldn't seem outclassed by Putin. Heaven save us from Obama and Edwards: like Gore and Kerry, they probably would be even bigger embarrassments than Bush. (And if we get another incompetent administration, embarrassment might be the least of my worries.)

"Lesbian" Hillary: Cui Bono?

Apparently Kausfiles was the pebble that triggered the Webalanche. Who tapped that pebble and who positioned all the dirt that is now sliding?

A Karl Rove hit job? It's true that Rove has left the White House, but it seems premature for the Republicans to go after Clinton this way.

Yet surely no diversity-celebrating Democrat would ever do such a thing...

(This post has speculated about the origin of the rumors, not about their validity or implications. Nevertheless, the possible Saudi connection warrants clarification. It's hard to see why the sexual allegation, whether or not it is verified, would be relevant to my voting decision.)

Afterthought. If Clinton were rendered toxic, Edwards' chances for a VP nomination would improve. The robotic Al Gore who blundered away the 2000 election couldn't have coordinated this kind of hit, but, come to think of it, I don't really know all that much about the upgraded model.

Second afterthought. And I was startled to realize that Obama's name never for a moment crossed my mind even though I've come to distrust him.