tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35938982011-04-21T14:50:21.580-04:00Limousine LiberalThis Blog features blather on Politics, Economics, Globalization and CultureChrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comBlogger2091100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1151344444103336852006-06-26T13:39:00.000-04:002006-06-26T13:54:08.556-04:00Ten Questions for Ann Coulter's Readers. It appears that Ann Coulter's new "book," Godless: The Church of Liberalism, is #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and #2 at the Washington Post. This makes it harder for conservatives to whine about being embattled and belonging to such a besieged minority, but I think we can expect that to continue, of course. Either way, the fact that Coulter's "Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1151293654375457602006-06-25T23:36:00.000-04:002006-06-25T23:47:34.386-04:00Why It Matters Why They Hate Us. While the United States, the most powerful country in the world, has to be prepared for some level of resentment from other countries, it is worthwhile to care what others think of us and try to minimize anti-American sentiment. Not just because it's nice, but because it can be effective. This is what's lost on the whole who-cares-what-the-French-think crowd. Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1151035163135977952006-06-22T23:40:00.000-04:002006-06-22T23:59:23.160-04:00The West Wing and Republicans. I've heard so many conservative and moderate friends and acquaintances whine that the late, great West Wing is too liberal and biased that it never occurred to me that in a way, the opposite is true: the show, with the possible exception of the first season, actually painted a far too flattering picture of Republicans. Or so Ezra Klein at The American Prospect Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1150305517936173292006-06-14T12:39:00.000-04:002006-06-14T13:18:37.996-04:00Conservatives' Alternate Reality, Part 1. It's time to document what I think is an interesting trend of the past six or seven years: the increasing frequence with which conservative beliefs are based on "evidence" or "facts" that simply aren't true.Two examples today: first, on last night's Daily Show, John Stewart played a clip from Bill O'Reilly's O'Reilly Factor, in which O'Reilly inaccuratelyChrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1150151304092711922006-06-12T18:12:00.000-04:002006-06-12T18:28:24.103-04:00No Blogging. Sorry folks, though I'm sure you survived--I was in Northern California June 3-June 10 so no posts during that time. It was a good, relaxing vacation, with my wife and her Dad and stepmother. We visited the redwood forests, which are amazing, and stayed at a beautiful, relatively isolated hotel, the Benbow Inn. We also spent a day and a half in San Francisco, which is always great. Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1149028686653332642006-05-30T18:25:00.000-04:002006-05-30T18:38:06.666-04:00Why 'Unapologetic Liberals'? I completely agree with Kevin Drum and Matt Yglesias: the use of the term "unapologetic liberal"--most recently in a New York Times story about House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi--speaks volumes. Matt Yglesias: The phrase "unapologetic liberal" is a very common one in the press when describing, well, liberals. You almost never hear, by contrast, about an "unapologeticChrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1148590223932628972006-05-25T16:16:00.000-04:002006-05-25T16:50:24.000-04:00How Often Does Al Gore Pass Gas? One of the top political questions of our time, clearly, is how often Al Gore experiences flatulence. Seriously. After all, several commentators have alleged that Al Gore and his entourage drove 5 cars 500 feet to the premiere of his new film on global warming, An Inconvenient Truth, at the Cannes Film Festival. And Gregg Easterbrook, over at Slate, harrumphs thatChrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1148571734060028622006-05-25T11:25:00.000-04:002006-05-25T11:42:14.093-04:00Middle Class Fleeing Iraq. Sorry to be a downer, but if you missed the article from last Friday's New York Times about middle class families leaving Iraq, you should really go back and read it, particularly if you're one of these folks who think the media is reporting too much bad news. The article is bad news, but includes the kind of indicators the mainstream media can't make up: Iraq issued Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1148442645188958442006-05-23T23:03:00.000-04:002006-05-23T23:53:13.423-04:00It Really Is Worse Than You Think. Sometimes--and I'm sorry, this will make me sound like a member of the "angry left"--but sometimes the Bush administration is so pathetic that I feel sorry for them, I really do. Today, for example, we have a Wall Street Journal opinion column by some White House official that really makes you wonder what they're thinking over there. It's a desperate attempt to Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1148419263431588272006-05-23T16:32:00.000-04:002006-05-23T17:21:03.510-04:00Why Doesn't Al Gore Do Things to Hurt Himself? Is there anything more annoying than pundits and commentators who complain about politicians not taking tough stands, when they know very well that the vast majority of pundits and commentators live to slam politicians who take tough stands that they don't agree with?You'll have one pundit--we'll call him/her Pundit A--who doesn't understand why Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1148320719351456962006-05-22T13:55:00.000-04:002006-05-22T13:59:12.726-04:00Emailer Right, Sullivan Wrong. A quick note--this emailer's description of Howard Dean, quoted on Andrew Sullivan's website, is much more accurate than Andrew Sullivan's subsequent personal attack on Dean. Otherwise, I like Sullivan's blog...but of course he doesn't like Dean, if you're someone who aspires to reasonable-sounding centrism you can't possibly countenance self-confident, assertive Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1148062092827057122006-05-19T13:42:00.000-04:002006-05-19T14:08:12.886-04:00Not Sure That English-Only Is Racist. I only have time for a quick point, but I'm not sure that Sen. Harry Reid's characterization of a Senate amendment that makes English the "national language" as "racist" is right or particularly helpful to liberals or the Democratic Party or to the pro-immigrant cause. Does anyone think that Democrats have benefited in the past from branding their opponents Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1148060548802655762006-05-19T13:20:00.000-04:002006-05-19T13:42:29.023-04:00Hillary Clinton vs. John McCain. Great column today, as usual, from Michael Kinsley on John McCain's efforts to court the far-right Republican base, particularly the social conservatives such as Jerry Falwell whom he disparaged in his 2000 presidential run. What Kinsley hints at but doesn't really get into is the difference in tone between the coverage of McCain and Hillary Clinton. There is Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1148059253309021122006-05-19T13:15:00.000-04:002006-05-19T13:20:53.310-04:00Who Are Value Voters? Be sure to check out this George Will column from yesterday, if you haven't already seen it. Liberals are frequently accused, for some reason, of moral smugness, but as Will points out, it's social conservatives that refer to themselves as "values voters," implying that other voters, presumably, don't have any values.Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1146764969854701742006-05-04T13:01:00.000-04:002006-05-19T13:08:49.126-04:00Conservatives Tied in Knots Over Iran. On the issue of Iran's nuclear program, one dynamic is emerging as the elephant in the room that few people, particularly conservatives, are willing to talk about: the potentially limited utility of force. It seems an obvious conundrum: the United States has invaded two of Iran's neighbors, overthrown their governments, and killed thousands of civilians in Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1144449958259295192006-04-07T18:38:00.000-04:002006-04-07T18:45:58.273-04:00China vs. Japan. Some notes on this issue: many analysts have focused on the similarities between concerns over Japan in the 1970s and 1980s, and concerns over China today. The lesson is always obvious: Japan eventually entered a slump, and so no one's worried about them anymore. The same could happen with China, the lesson goes. And that's true. But there are major differences between the two Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1142034173847875862006-03-10T18:30:00.000-05:002006-03-13T22:26:53.463-05:00Dubai Ports Deal Collapses--Who Cares? I am trying to figure out why I don't care that state-owned company Dubai Ports World is now not going to get its mitts on the operating rights to terminals in six U.S. ports, as widely reported today. I support free trade as much as anyone, though I have become somewhat cynical on the subject after covering it for almost five years. There's no question thatChrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1141910996338356982006-03-09T08:27:00.000-05:002006-03-09T08:33:32.660-05:00GM Troubles Due In Part to Management, Not Workers. Before we all get settled too comfortably in our views that GM's current troubles are due solely to unionized workers and their allegedly over-generous benefits, let's keep in mind, as reported in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, how incompetent the company's (highly-paid) management has been. The Journal reports that for years, the company has Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1141859996975384622006-03-08T17:59:00.000-05:002006-03-08T18:19:56.986-05:00This Is Very Sad. I'm not sure how many people read the Wall Street Journal's "The Best of the Web" anymore, but it really is pretty pathetic. It's basically a round-up of dumb things that liberals have done--or things that are dumb in the editor's opinion--and it's all basically designed to simply reinforce conservative stereotypes and prejudices. The liberals in question are, as often as not, Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1141757257950289152006-03-07T13:39:00.000-05:002006-03-07T13:47:37.963-05:00This Should Be Considered Wrong. The New Republic reminds us in its current issue that President Bush said something very specific in 2004 about the concept of warrantless wiretapping, before his illegal practices came to light. The March 13 issue of the magazine says: The New Republic, March 13: In April 2004, Bush told a Buffalo, New York, audience that "any time you hear the United States Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1138645594923185892006-01-30T11:27:00.000-05:002006-01-30T13:26:34.976-05:00Hamas and "Recognizing Israel." I suppose I'm just not sophisticated when it comes to international affairs and the Mideast, but I don't fully understand the debate over pressuring the newly-elected Hamas to recognize Israel. I don't think we should allow the United States to be stuck in the "US is pressuring Hamas to recognize Israel" paradigm. It gives us too much the role of the heavy and Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1137528522279664242006-01-17T15:02:00.000-05:002006-01-17T15:11:05.666-05:00Trade Policy and Inequality. I believe it's generally accepted that globalization primarily benefits those more educated and in professional jobs, while hurting manufacturing workers and those less well-off. But sometimes it can be surprising how blatant it can seem. For example--I only have a few minutes here--consider this section of an article from The Washington Times, published Jan. 12: "TheChrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1136832923518959262006-01-09T13:49:00.000-05:002006-01-09T13:56:44.166-05:00No Blogging Today. And will be a little light this week...a great family friend, David E. Rosenbaum, was killed in Washington, D.C. over the weekend. His son, Daniel, has been a friend of mine since we were both probably 2 years old. The whole thing is outrageous, senseless and completely tragic. I may write more about it later this week...not really in the mood to say much more right now...Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1136571787396911472006-01-06T12:50:00.000-05:002006-01-06T13:23:07.416-05:00Foreign Policy in the Bush Era. Interesting juxtaposition in Wedensday's newspapers (hey, this blog does not claim to be real-time): From Tom Friedman's column in the New York Times, Jan. 4: (subscribers only): ...Mr. Mandelbaum argues that while U.S. foreign policy is hardly perfect, it is America--through its vast military deployments, diplomatic engagements, and vital role in buttressing the Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1136498647856748372006-01-05T16:58:00.000-05:002006-01-05T17:04:07.866-05:00Bush Supports Foreign Language Training. Bush administration officials said today that they will allocate funds to promote more teaching of foreign languages. Which languages? Bush himself apparently said he wants more Americans to speak Canadian, Australian and Hawaiian...(rimshot please). Also some of that "New Zealandish."Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1135198050140615442005-12-21T15:27:00.000-05:002005-12-21T15:47:30.153-05:00How Conservatives Ruined Christmas. I used to say "Happy Holidays" around this time of year, or "Have a good holiday," and I thought I was being polite and getting into the spirit of the season. Instead, I was apparently acting as a foot soldier in the "War on Christmas." While it's tempting to dismiss conservative complaints about the alleged de-Christmasizing of the holidays as a big joke (thatChrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1134167824667997592005-12-09T17:25:00.000-05:002005-12-09T17:37:04.680-05:00Dean's Track Record. John Judis at the New Republic has a brilliant point regarding Howard Dean's comments on Iraq: they may be impolitic but they have generally been right. Judis doesn't say so, but this is particularly true when compared to the Bush administration's "we will be welcomed as liberators" comments. John Judis, TNR Online: Howard Dean is being vilified again--not only by RepublicansChrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1133892565858500892005-12-06T12:45:00.000-05:002005-12-06T13:09:25.870-05:00Sept. 11 Commission Fails Bush Administration. Hopefully you've all seen the reports in the Washington Post and elsewhere about the final act of the Sept. 11 Commission, which was to give the federal government failing grades in a wide range of areas related to fighting terrorism. The Post article pretty much says it all--it ought to be an embarrassment for Bush and Co. and the GOP Congress--so IChrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1133891111202073832005-12-06T12:32:00.000-05:002005-12-06T12:45:11.216-05:00Decadent America? George Bush has weakened the United States in many ways, with yesterday's report from the 9/11 commission outlining the bill of particulars. But there is a deeper failure of the past four years, and a column several days ago in the Financial Times describes it well: the unwillingness of the Bush administration to ask for any great sacrifice or effort by Americans as a whole. Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1131233408855054642005-11-05T18:04:00.000-05:002005-12-06T12:30:18.420-05:00Title. [The following post stinks and is incomplete, but I did not get around to editing it and will post it just for the record]. This post is a little late, but if you haven't had a chance to see last Sunday's New York Times Book Review, you should. It includes several reviews of recent books on Iraq, and while depressing, helps illuminate exactly why we are in such a mess in Iraq. It is still Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1130969303733071102005-11-02T17:08:00.000-05:002005-11-02T17:12:04.870-05:00More Bad News. This just came across the Reuters wire...obviously these things happen, let's just keep it in mind next time a Democrat is in charge. The story below reports that one of al Qaeda's top lieutenants escaped from a U.S. prison in Afghanistan in July.I suppose this at least shows that even if you're "tough"--ie willing to beat and torture prisoners--it doesn't mean you'll be successfulChrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1130957479072309852005-11-02T13:37:00.000-05:002005-11-02T13:51:19.083-05:00More on Global Imbalances. If the current imbalances in the global economy ever do cause a major economic dislocation in the United States (and then likely the rest of the world), we can't say we weren't warned. Yesterday's Financial Times has an op-ed article by Morgan Stanley economist Stephen Roach on "The rising risk of a hard landing," as the title puts it. It's similar to many other Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1130819118631532972005-10-31T23:14:00.000-05:002005-10-31T23:27:24.636-05:00One 9/11 a Week. Andrew Sullivan points out that on a proportional basis, that's what they're dealing with in Iraq--from insurgents, at least; it's not clear from his post if that even includes deaths at the hands of U.S. forces. At some point, the price for our little Iraq venture has to become too high. I regret supporting the war, not that my view ever mattered, fortunately.Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1130818390979273232005-10-31T22:10:00.000-05:002005-10-31T23:13:11.013-05:00We Don't Know Any Such Thing. I hope no one read Sebastian Mallaby's sack-of-crap column in Monday's Washington Post, which reflects the kind of intellectual laziness that is becoming increasingly common among conservatives when they write about economics. Mallaby assesses three liberal ideas--or he mentions them, at least--and blithely decides that they will undermine self-reliance in the UnitedChrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1130775318942197282005-10-31T11:04:00.000-05:002005-10-31T11:15:18.953-05:00Bush Appoints Alito. Very interesting--Bush has nominated Samuel Alito for the Supreme Court. One of Alito's nicknames is apparently "Scalito," which is an indication, I suppose, of his views on constitutional issues. As a result, Bush may be putting in place a court that will overturn Roe v. Wade after all. We will see. I didn't think he'd actually go through with it. But if so, it will be a Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1125082432611713042005-08-26T14:15:00.000-04:002005-08-26T14:53:52.616-04:00Terrorism or Militias. Questions like "What makes someone a terrorist?" can quickly get tiresome, since they are usually posed by people who think they are being sophisticated and smart, when instead they are usually being sophomoric. But some on the right now appear to be advancing a very simple definition of "terrorist": any foreigner who kills an American, including soldiers. Despite its Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1125008273608901222005-08-25T17:06:00.000-04:002005-08-25T18:17:53.613-04:00George Will's Ridiculous Crap. Today's column by George Will is a pretty unbelievably misleading sleight-of-hand that he would never get away with if there was a more assertive, self-confident left in this country. Will cites a bunch of extremist rhetoric by Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a U.S. soldier who died in Iraq, and then asks, "Do Democrats really want to embrace her variation of the Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1124919713791624212005-08-24T17:34:00.000-04:002005-08-24T17:41:53.796-04:00Time to Leave Iraq? I'm a little late on this, but for those of you who missed the article by Andrew Bacevich in the Washington Post last Sunday on why we ought to begin to withdaw troops from Iraq, it's what they call a must-read--particularly if you are vehemently opposed to such an idea. Not because you'll necessarily change your mind, but you may start to think about the problem in a slightlyChrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1124734171180608612005-08-22T14:05:00.000-04:002005-08-22T14:09:31.183-04:00I Wouldn't Mind Roberts' Old Job. Incidentally, seems to me Roberts had a pretty cool job back at the Reagan White House in the early and mid 1980s when he was writing all these memos. He basically got to opine--run his mouth--on pretty much everything! He was like an early blogger! OK, yes, he was primarily providing legal analysis. But as the Post reported on Saturday, he even weighed in on Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1124733732929850822005-08-22T12:36:00.000-04:002005-08-22T14:02:12.966-04:00Feminism and Conservatives. An interesting side note to last Friday's article in the Washington Post, widely discussed in the blogosphere, that covered John Roberts' views on women. This is the story that featured what might be called a Victorian-liberal sensiblity in its headline, in that the headline seemed to be written to shock the tender sensibilities of some liberals: "Roberts Resisted Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1124464235941998002005-08-19T10:56:00.000-04:002005-08-19T11:10:35.946-04:00Conservatives and Patriotism. Interesting point by Paul Begala over at the TPM Cafe blog: it's now conservatives that are trashing the flag and other American symbols. Well, one conservative at least. Begala's talking about the recent incident in which a resident of Waco, Texas, ran over a bunch of white crosses and flags that had been planted near where Cindy Sheehan, the anti-war protestor who Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1124387104387665282005-08-18T13:23:00.000-04:002005-08-18T13:45:04.393-04:00What Sheehan Means. Peter Beinart's column in the Post today is an excellent take on Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a U.S. soldier killed in Iraq. Regardless of whether you agree with her, she does reflect some key aspects of this war, such as the small number of people serving and making sacrifices, as Beinart points out. In other words, there's no mass anti-war movement because there's no mass Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1124385784383049382005-08-18T13:13:00.000-04:002005-08-18T13:23:04.386-04:00How High a Price for Iraq? At some point it seems to me that even if things were to work out in Iraq the way we would like, the price paid could simply be too high--too many dead Americans, too many dead Iraqis. Today we have the news of 43 Iraqis killed in three horrific car bombs. Consider how disgusted most Americans were by the London subway bombings July 7 that killed 52 Britons. Iraq has Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1124302565235553402005-08-17T13:52:00.000-04:002005-08-17T14:16:05.243-04:00Tolerant, Open-Minded Democrats. One of the constant themes you hear from writers like Matt Miller, Andrew Sullivan and other centrist types is that Democrats, or liberals generally, are really a bunch of close-minded, bossy types with little patience for those they disagree with. Of course strong opinions, which are not a bad thing, frequently lead people to seem close-minded, and certainly Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1123692580539855522005-08-10T12:02:00.000-04:002005-08-10T12:50:10.863-04:00The Democrats' Biggest Challenge. Important, short article in the Washington Post today about the inability of Democrats, so far, to benefit from dissatisfaction with Bush and the GOP among many white working class voters. This is a huge issue and I'll try to touch on it below, but there's lots to say. An excerpt from the article: For Democrats, a Troubling Culture Gap, The Washington Post. Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1123689702619288142005-08-10T11:32:00.000-04:002005-08-10T12:01:42.626-04:00U.S. Interest Payments to Outpace Interest Income. British financial publications--specifically the Financial Times and the Economist--are giving far more attention to the issue of the U.S. current account deficit than U.S. publications, from what I can tell. Which is hard to believe, given how fascinating the issue of current account deficits is. I mean, who needs to hear about Tom Cruise and Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1123687018620881342005-08-10T11:13:00.000-04:002005-08-10T11:16:58.626-04:00International Trade Humor. The Onion, the greatest humor website in the world, has actually made a joke about the U.S.-Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA)--check it out. Also funny, while we're on the subject of humor, is David Letterman's recent "Top Ten George W. Bush solutions for global warming."Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1123558868384387632005-08-08T23:24:00.000-04:002005-08-08T23:41:08.386-04:00Reason and Its Role in the Founding. Good book review in the Washington Post's Book World Sunday on a new book about Ben Franklin, his scientific research, and the belief in human reason that Franklin and the other Founders had. The review was written by H.W. Brands, who has written biographies of Franklin and Teddy Roosevelt. Very appropriate for our current political situation. Some excerpts: Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1123514759435991422005-08-08T10:49:00.000-04:002005-08-08T11:25:59.443-04:00The Moral Revival of the 1990s. David Brooks points out in his Sunday New York Times column, "The Virtues of Virtue," that by most measures, Americans are essentially behaving better these days than they were in the 1970s and 80s. This is certainly a good thing, but he conveniently ignores one fairly important detail. Brooks notes that domestic violence has dropped by more than half since 1993; Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1122873101645163182005-08-01T00:40:00.000-04:002005-08-01T01:11:41.653-04:00Big-Government Republicans. I hope, by now, that it is obvious to everyone that the Republicans running things in Washington are completely betraying everything they claim to believe in when it comes to government spending and the federal government's role in the economy. The Bush administration has spent like drunken sailors and the GOP-run Congress has handed out pork faster than the Georgia Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1122433602023957402005-07-26T22:48:00.000-04:002005-07-26T23:08:32.943-04:00Look Out, Fox News. I suppose it is theoretically possible to write a more glowing, unambiguously positive profile of Bush's Supreme Court nominee, John Roberts, than Newsweek did in its current issue.But it would be very hard. Newsweek's story was written by Evan Thomas and Stuart Taylor, Jr., one of which must be a pseudonym for John Roberts' mother. Listen to this stuff: Newsweek: Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1119885612761959022005-06-27T10:55:00.000-04:002005-06-27T11:20:12.766-04:00Karl Rove Is a Terrible Person. As was reported all over the place last week, Karl Rove thinks liberals are big wimps who wanted to offer "therapy and understanding" to the 9/11 terrorists. I am sure the timing of his statement has nothing to do with the ongoing violence in Iraq or the fact that the Bush administration's policies in almost every area except national security are unpopular (SocialChrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1118941719049405762005-06-16T13:05:00.000-04:002005-06-16T13:08:39.050-04:00Wolfowitz Apologizes... for the Rwandan genocide. Well, now that he's had some practice, maybe he can apologize for some other things...where to start? How about: for misleading Americans on the cost of the Iraq War; for not having enough troops; for piss-poor postwar planning that would have been called treason had a Democrat done it. Speaking of Democrats, last time one went to Africa and Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1118941481245016342005-06-16T12:37:00.000-04:002005-06-16T13:04:41.250-04:00Schiavo Autopsy Impact. Terri Schaivo's parents and family have said the recent autopsy on their daughter does not change their view that she should have been kept alive and could have benefited from treatment. That's easy to understand and probably what most parents would say. But the rest of us should take into account the irreversible brain damage the autopsy found. Most importantly, it seems Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1118856013500123132005-06-15T13:14:00.000-04:002005-06-15T13:20:13.500-04:00Something to Keep In Mind... next time you hear that those terrible liberals are preventing all racial profiling in airline security: recently, six Qatari officials were booted from a Florida-Washington, D.C. flight because they were apparently acting suspicious. This doesn't mean they were "profiled" but it would seem to undercut the idea that the U.S. government cannot properly provide for Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1118855632676991982005-06-15T13:00:00.000-04:002005-06-15T13:13:52.680-04:00Common Sense Prevails in Virginia. As the Washington Post reports, five of the six anti-tax GOP candidates in state delegate primaries lost their campaigns yesterday. Very, very good. If you have a growing population--as many of Virginia's outer suburbs do--and increasing demand for state and local services, you will (just possibly) need more taxes. According to a Post article from a few days agoChrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1118117591498611242005-06-06T23:28:00.000-04:002005-06-07T00:13:11.506-04:00New York Times on Richest Americans. I am a bit late on this, but Sunday's New York Times has an excellent article on the great fortunes of the richest Americans in recent years. The link will probably only work for a few days, but print it out if necessary and read it later: it's pretty eye-opening. Few would probably care or be surprised about the overall growing gap between rich and poor that Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1115653479391805522005-05-09T11:20:00.000-04:002005-05-09T11:44:39.440-04:00Peter Beinart Rules. At the risk of sounding like a ridiculously sycophantic suck-up (redundant?), let me just say that Peter Beinart, editor of the New Republic, is rapidly turing into one of the best political columnists out there. Unfortunately, he only writes once a month, though perhaps that contributes to his quality. Anyway, definitely read his column today about Hillary Clinton and how Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1115651917114769672005-05-09T10:51:00.000-04:002005-05-09T11:47:47.880-04:00Brad DeLong Exposes Robert Samuelson. I usually find Brad DeLong's ranting about journalists kind of tiresome. He frequently complains that the press corps stinks because economics journalists, in writing news pieces, do not end up writing stories the way he would. But he is right to criticize Newsweek's Robert Samuelson for a column on the budget deficit that ritualistically blames both partiesChrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1115267273456210712005-05-05T00:08:00.000-04:002005-05-05T00:27:53.513-04:00That Big Government...Is the Same Size It Used to Be. (Sort of). If you spend any time listening to conservatives, you take it as a given that our federal government is now much, much bigger than it was several decades ago and this is all the fault of liberals, more or less. But National Journal's Congress Daily included some interesting numbers and a graph in its May 3 morning edition (no link--Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1115134682274805212005-05-03T11:27:00.000-04:002005-05-03T11:38:02.276-04:00More Bad News. The Wall Street Journal reports today that Costa Rica is balking at passage of the U.S.-Central America free trade agreement (CAFTA), which could be yet another factor inhibiting approval of the agreement in the United States. It occurs to me that this could at least in part reflect another problem with modern free trade deals: how necessary are they, really? For example, my post Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1115133994947265952005-05-03T11:18:00.000-04:002005-05-03T11:26:34.950-04:00Oh Those Greedy Geezers... Actually, I think our Social Security system is fairly generous, and has certainly been effective in reducing poverty among the elderly. But this story from the Financial Times is worth keeping in mind...link is subscription-only; this is an excerpt: Financial Times, May 1: US Social Security is one of the least generous public pension systems in advanced countries, Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1114741632426761352005-04-28T22:20:00.000-04:002005-04-28T22:27:12.426-04:00Humane Society and Trade. No, the two don't often go together, but Paul Blustein has a very interesting piece in today's Washington Post on the Humane Society's support for the U.S.-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA)....bery interesting, seems their opinion may have just changed a little bit after receiving a $500,000 grant from the Bush administration.Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1114619307037100782005-04-27T12:20:00.000-04:002005-04-27T12:28:27.036-04:00I Have Seen Beelzebub. While staking out various parts of the Capitol yesterday in an unsuccessful effort to interview Sen. Evan Bayh, I happened to see Karl Rove himself enter the Senate Majority Whip's office, no doubt to strategize on the judicial nominee fight. Perhaps they were going to discuss the Washington Post's story from yesterday showing widespread opposition nationwide to the GOP's Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1114573778292892112005-04-26T21:48:00.000-04:002005-04-26T23:49:38.300-04:00CAFTA: Free Trade Waterloo. For the next few weeks or so this blog--for better or worse--is going to serve as an opportunity to hash out why I am increasingly skeptical of the conventional wisdom on free trade. Today's Wall Street Journal includes an editorial in favor of the U.S-Central American Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA. For those with better things to do than follow this stuff, the Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1114460251838449362005-04-25T16:13:00.000-04:002005-04-25T16:17:31.840-04:00Mexican Bologna Stopped Dead in Its Tracks! The Customs Service is filled with hard-working individuals performing an important service, but the press release below still deserves a cheap shot or two: U.S. Customs and Border Protection Confiscates Smuggled Processed Meat--845 Pounds of Bologna Intercepted at Border Patrol CheckpointLas Cruces, New Mexico – A man who intended to sell hundreds of Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1114446724592662092005-04-25T12:10:00.000-04:002005-04-25T12:32:04.593-04:00I Am Sure They Will Be Welcomed with Open Arms... The New York Times, and many other outlets, reported last week that a Daimler Chrysler executive in China said his company is preparing to seek a joint venture with a Chinese company to build cars in China for export to the United States. This is inevitable, I suppose, and we will see how it plays out. But people wring their hands and wonder why Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1114440568905017062005-04-25T10:40:00.000-04:002005-04-25T10:49:28.906-04:00This Is Unfortunate. Good but disappointing article in Sunday's Washington Post that reports that China's Hu Jintao is tightening the Communist Party's grip on political expression and disappointing those who hoped for a more open approach than the one taken by his predecessor, Jiang Zemin. For better or worse, if Hu really goes further down that road--arresting journalists and academics, Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1114111668371715122005-04-21T15:16:00.000-04:002005-04-25T11:56:52.736-04:00Who Will Tell Bush It's Over? Here's an interesting question: when is someone going to tell the Dear Leader that his push to add private accounts to Social Security has failed? Seriously, given everything we know about the insularity of this White House--Bush doesn't read the papers, they have North Korea-style town hall meetings where sycophants and suck-ups pose scripted questions, their Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1114102808218636992005-04-21T12:43:00.000-04:002005-04-21T13:00:08.220-04:00Kinsley Has Goods on Neocons. OK, this post refers to an article that was published Sunday, but better late than never. What do you do the next time a neoconservative, like Charles Krauthammer, crows about the triumph of democracy in the Middle East and slams liberal straw-men for allegedly believing that such a thing could never occur? You can remind them that they are the ones who originally Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1113828910387643812005-04-18T08:37:00.000-04:002005-04-18T08:59:09.616-04:00David Brooks Is Actually on to Something. Frequently, that's not the case. But his column yesterday had some good points, though he pulls his punches regarding his fellow conservatives. In the column, Brooks says that young people today are more open about sex than ever but that does not necessarily mean they have no values. As he puts it: "There are Ivy League sex columnists who don't want Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1110386257191507102005-03-09T11:27:00.000-05:002005-03-09T11:37:37.196-05:00Brilliant Article in New Republic. I am way late on this, but three issues ago the New Republic had a series on liberalism as part of a 90th anniversary issue. I haven't read all the articles yet, but I highly recommend Jonathan Chait's piece Fact Finders. The article essentially argues that modern liberalism is a better governing philosophy (at least on domestic issues) than conservatism becauseChrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1110234335865393432005-03-07T17:22:00.000-05:002005-03-07T17:25:35.866-05:00Yeah, I Bet! Hmmm... This is from an article written by a colleague of mine on free trade negotiations between Thailand and Japan: For its part, Thailand wants to be able to sell sugar, poultry, and some fruit to Japan duty free, Hara said March 4. Both countries have agreed that tariffs on rice, which they both produce in abundance, will not come down as part of the free trade agreement. Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1110211807136368432005-03-07T10:55:00.000-05:002005-03-07T11:10:07.140-05:00Bankruptcy Bill Fun. Apparently the Senate is about to pass a bankruptcy bill that is almost certainly not any good, but I can't claim to know all the details. The Post had an article yesterday about how credit card companies frequently pile on so many fees and usurious interest rates--up to 30 percent--that even people paying thousands of dollars can't pay off their balances. Perhaps those Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1106756585215216742005-01-26T11:09:00.000-05:002005-01-26T11:24:04.673-05:00The Dispensable Nation. Good column by Michael Lind in yesterday's Financial Times. Michael Lind is an original and interesting thinker, in my opinion. He overstates his case in this column, but his point is one that deserves broader airing: the Bush administration's foreign policy incompetence is simply leading to many nations going around the United States, forming trade blocs that exclude the Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1106624411535460502005-01-24T22:19:00.000-05:002005-01-24T22:56:57.383-05:00God help the army that must fight for an idea rather than an objective (Mark Helprin). The most devastating critiques of Bush's foreign policy have always come from conservatives, in my view. In part there's just more credibility when someone from the right criticizes a Republican, in an area that is supposed to be a GOP strength, and that's something Democrats can't really duplicate.
But stillChrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1104167438399704272004-12-27T13:06:00.000-05:002004-12-27T12:10:38.400-05:00Eyewitness Account. While I'm linking to major papers that many of you may actually read on your own (see below), check out this eyewitness account of the terrible impact of the tsunamis from a Washington Post reporter on an island off Sri Lanka. Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1104166614739894952004-12-27T11:28:00.000-05:002004-12-27T11:56:54.740-05:00Some Good Weekend Reading... From the New York Times. Specifically, check out Tom Friedman's column from Sunday on Bush's recent policy blunders. One of them is his proposed cut to the National Science Foundation, just weeks after another batch of international test scores showed U.S. students lagging internationally (though I'm not sure those numbers weren't exaggerated).
The Times also had an Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1104099143865958592004-12-26T16:44:00.000-05:002004-12-26T17:12:23.866-05:00Some Current Reading: What's the Matter with Kansas? Thomas Frank's What's the Matter with Kansas? is an excellent book in the wake of the 2004 elections. I don't agree with all of it, but I certainly appreciate its unapologetic liberalism.
His main point has been slightly micharacterized in some accounts I've seen. It's not just that working-class voters are all wrongly voting Republican Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1102614470551142592004-12-09T13:43:00.000-05:002004-12-09T12:47:50.550-05:00Kaus on Beinart. Mickey Kaus makes some excellent points regarding the recent New Republic piece that I linked here a couple of days ago on Democrats and security and terrorism. Good to see the debate. (If you click over to Kausfiles, you'll have to scroll down a bit to find the relevant article; Kaus doesn't seem to have links within his blog).
Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1102614176685340832004-12-09T13:28:00.000-05:002004-12-09T12:42:56.686-05:00Being Conservative Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry. Yes, Rumsfeld does take some flak, to say the least, but it is still amazing to me that a sitting Defense Secretary can be grilled and criticized by U.S. troops that are heading into a war zone and it is largely shrugged off by the usual shouters from the center and right.
If the kind of thing that happened yesterday happened under a Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1102474141216616572004-12-07T21:27:00.000-05:002004-12-07T21:52:33.030-05:00Not Sure What to Make of This Bootlicking Column. Sorry, I'm catching up on yesterday's paper, but the Post's Sebastian Mallaby has an interesting column on the U.S. Trade Representative, Robert Zoellick, who I cover frequently during my day job.
The column is quite boosterish, not without some merit--by the Bush administration's standards, Zoellick is head-and-shoulders above much of the rest Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1102472871737647272004-12-07T21:16:00.000-05:002004-12-07T21:49:48.056-05:00How Hawks Write When a Republican Is in Charge. While I'm catching up on Monday's paper, there was also a column in the Post that day by a former Bush administration Defense Department official. He criticizes China for undercutting U.S. foreign policy goals regarding Iran, North Korea and Taiwan.
He's really criticizing the Bush administration, or should be. He could slam the Bush Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1102348246758525452004-12-06T10:39:00.000-05:002004-12-06T10:50:46.756-05:00A Fighting Faith. This article in the most recent New Republic is excellent. I don't agree with it all, but everyone who considers themselves liberal should read it. If I can try to summarize a fairly long piece in one phrase, it argues that liberals should more clearly support the war on terror--or more accurately, the war against Islamic fundamentalism--and put their own stamp on it. At the Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1102342282476405512004-12-06T08:58:00.000-05:002004-12-06T09:11:22.476-05:00Fox Goes After Decency Standards. This is exactly what I was talking about a few days ago: The Washington Post reports on Saturday that Fox Broadcasting is challenging federal decency standards in court. They were fined $1.18 million by the FCC for one of their craphole reality shows, Married by America, an episode of which apparently featured strippers covered with whipped cream and "digitally Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1102092890049885172004-12-03T11:00:00.000-05:002004-12-03T11:54:50.050-05:00Gosh, What Could It Be? I Can't Imagine. Charles Krauthammer is just stumped as to why all those bad Europeans are willing to support democracy in the Ukraine but not in Iraq. I just can't imagine why that is; I mean is there any difference between the two countries and what is happening there? They are both trying to hold truly democratic elections, Krauthammer notes, so why is the European Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1101923064104462902004-12-01T13:44:00.000-05:002004-12-01T12:44:24.103-05:00College Aid Is Bad. Of course, I support helping people pay for college. But Washington Post columnist Steven Pearlstein has a pretty good point in his column today: anytime you help people pay for college, or housing or health care for that matter, you do run the risk of boosting the cost of that product:
Steven Pearlstein, Dec. 1, 2004: What two things do a college education, health care and Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1101746377273862042004-11-29T11:09:00.000-05:002004-11-29T11:39:37.273-05:00George Will Beats Dead Horse. Surprisingly, according to snooty George Will's column yesterday, there are lots of liberals on college campuses. Really?!
I'll save you the trouble of reading it: lots of surveys, Will says, demonstrate that the vast majority of college professors and academics are liberals, and most academics assume that their colleagues are all liberals, so for conservatives Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1101687646143022942004-11-28T18:37:00.000-05:002004-11-28T21:10:40.886-05:00Liberals and Culture. Many liberals--not including myself--generally like to consider themselves foes of big corporations and big business, but there is one circumstance in which the most rabid liberal will defend the most rapacious corporation: when that company is accused by the religious right of distributing allegedly "indecent" content. Then the media giants somehow become underdogs and it Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1101511490703409742004-11-26T18:14:00.000-05:002004-11-26T18:24:50.703-05:00Red State Giving. The Wall Street Journal's "Best of the Web" has been hammering on a study that purports to show that "red state" residents give far more to charity, as a percentage of their income, than so-called "blue-state" residents (scroll down a bit to find the item).
Well, they should be giving more, given that other studies I've seen that I'm sure are just as reliable show that red Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1101509855447731012004-11-26T17:28:00.000-05:002004-11-28T18:32:38.423-05:00The Dollar and Lots of Smarty-Pants Stuff. OK, I am not sure I know what I am talking about, but there is increasing focus in the United States, and internationally, on the declining U.S. dollar and current account and budget deficits. The whole question is whether this will turn out badly for the U.S.--plummeting dollar, rapidly rising interest rates, declines in standards of living, cats and Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1101316644111951222004-11-24T11:44:00.000-05:002004-11-24T12:17:24.110-05:00Santiago? Twice Last Year. Posting was light--nonexistent--last week because I was in Santiago, Chile for the ministerial and leaders meetings of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum. The organization was founded in 1989 and in 1994 agreed to set up a free trade zone among the developed countries by 2010 and among all 21 member economies by 2020, though little progress has been madeChrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1101268569082119242004-11-23T22:41:00.000-05:002004-11-23T22:56:09.083-05:00George Bush Is a Very Important Man. There was plenty of buzz in Chile about the Secret Service scuffle with the Chilean security people. In this, I am on Bush's side, actually: Apparently, the Chileans simply haven't seen enough movies like "In the Line of Fire" and "Air Force One," otherwise they would have known not to mess with the Secret Service. (Or the "Secret Cervix" as Beavis and Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1101267680130485582004-11-23T22:21:00.000-05:002004-11-23T22:41:20.130-05:00I Know Bush's Secret Plans. OK, that's an exaggeration. But while in Santiago I heard Bush give a speech to a bunch of business executives in which he began what may be a longer-term effort to tie together Social Security reform with the deficit and the dollar.
The speech was pretty wide-ranging, and by the way was also the one where Bush said that the message to Kim Jong Il was clear: "get ridChrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1101266484583514682004-11-23T22:14:00.000-05:002004-11-23T22:21:24.583-05:00Tom Tomorrow Is Hilarious. Unfortunately, the liberal magazine The American Prospect does not put its cartoons from cartoonist Tom Tomorrw on the web, but his strip This Modern World is online, albeit delayed by a month or two. Even if the election is over, I still found this one amusing. Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1100485198264128482004-11-14T19:32:00.000-05:002004-11-14T21:19:58.263-05:00It Was Terrorism, Not Gay Marriage. For those who haven't yet gotten the re-defined conventional wisdom, Kerry lost because of terrorism and security concerns, not gay marriage and morals. Check out The Gay Marriage Myth at Slate and William Schneider's column, posted on the American Enterprise Institute's website. In addition, in an otherwise typically obnoxious and execrable column, Charles Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1100277286145207382004-11-12T11:22:00.000-05:002004-11-12T11:34:46.146-05:00No Vote Necessary. Good Lord, I hope everyone saw this David Broder column in the Washington Post yesterday. Apparently, a Florida congressman, John Mica, was reelected in 2004 without ever appearing on the ballot--ever. As the title of the column says (which I stole), no votes were necessary. He was unopposed in the primary and in the general election, and Florida law allows someone to not be onChrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1100197587621160142004-11-11T13:13:00.000-05:002004-11-11T13:26:27.620-05:00Fight for Fallujah. The U.S. incursion into Fallujah seems to be going more or less well, not that you can really tell if you're not there. In what I think is standard guerilla warfare style, many of the insurgents seem to have left the city and are not engaging in head-on fighting with U.S. troops. Presumably they prefer hit-and-run type stuff.
The real question is whether this fight is helpfulChrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1100120876420822162004-11-10T16:04:00.000-05:002004-11-10T16:07:56.420-05:00Sorry, Everybody. This website is hilarious--it basically features over a hundred pictures, mostly of scruffy, stereotypical liberals (which I mean in a positive way!) holding up written apologies to the rest of the world on behalf of the 49 percent of American voters who did not vote for Bush. It may sound typically snooty elitist but many of the pictures are actually funny enough to be amusing Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3593898.post-1099944096575249842004-11-08T14:57:00.000-05:002004-11-08T15:11:58.753-05:00Sell! Sell! This is interesting, from the Nov. 7 Financial Times:
Financial Times: The dollar could slide still further, in spite of hitting an all-time low against the euro last week in the wake of George W. Bush's re-election, currency traders have said.
The dollar sell-off has resumed amid fears among traders that Mr Bush's victory will bring four more years of widening US budget and currentChrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16648424679450787064noreply@blogger.com