May 24, 2008

ROBERT ASPRIN has died. He will be mythed.

OKAY, THIS, FROM THE AP'S ERIN CONROY, SEEMS A BIT LESS THAN EARTH-SHATTERING: "It's going to cost a lot more than it did last year to cook a burger, or just about any other barbecue favorite, on the grill. . . . The price of an average barbecue - with burgers, hot dogs, beer, soda, condiments, salad, paper plates and lighter fluid - could run families about 6 percent more than last year."

Um, okay. But is six percent really a lot more? If I got a six percent raise it would be nice, but I wouldn't say "I'm making a lot more than last year." I know they've got to stretch to combine editors' demands for bad economic news with editors' demands for lame holiday-weekend-themed stories, but still . . . .

UPDATE: If 6 percent is "a lot more," then how can 54-35 be "a small margin?" It's all in the narrative, I guess . . . .

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Tracy Allen emails:

I was reading the article you commented on, and was struck by the comments from the ad/marketing individual who was shopping at The Food Emporium about how he was questioning every purchase. You should take a look at The Food Emporium (http://www.thefoodemporium.com/). It’s not exactly the Piggly Wiggly.

You should probably always question every purchase when you shop there . . . And note this passage from the article:

This year, the price for a pack of hot dogs has climbed almost 7 percent to $4.29. A 2-liter bottle of soda and a 16-ounce bag of potato chips both jumped more than 10 percent to $1.33 and $3.89, respectively, while a package of eight hamburger buns costs $1.61, 17 percent more. The surge in prices is forcing people to try to cut corners and find bargains where they can, such as buying store brands, which tend to cost less than name brands.

Okay, hot dogs are up almost 28 cents a pack (what's that, about 3 cents each?). Soda up 13 cents for two liters, about 6 or 7 cents a liter. A pack of eight hamburger buns up about a quarter -- that's over three cents per bun! Yeah, this is huge.

WELL, GOOD RIDDANCE: "The leader of Colombia's largest rebel group, the Farc, has died, the military has claimed in a statement." I hope it's true.

IOWAHAWK: The Career Arc of a Republican Congressman. Ouch.

A MCCAIN BLOWOUT IN 2008? Well, possibly. However, the fact that people are even talking about this is evidence that, despite the primary-season griping, the GOP in fact nominated its strongest general-election candidate. People may like other candidates better, but I doubt any of 'em would have as good a chance of actually winning.

ONE WOULD EXPECT ANDREW SULLIVAN, OF ALL PEOPLE, to have a less-stringent attitude toward political inconsistency . . . .

UPDATE: Related thoughts here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: See also this post from Brendan Loy.

JOHN PODHORETZ says that Hillary was just reading the stage directions. "The reaction is overwrought, and the whole business has been skilfully manipulated by the Obama campaign to deliver a TKO of its already wounded rival. But that's politics. No one made her open a mouth." Meanwhile, Ann Althouse is rethinking the whole sociopath thing.

FIVE ALBUMS FOR FIVE BUCKS, via legal, un-DRM-encumbered download. Now this is how things ought to work. . . .

DEAN BARNETT: "Perhaps my mind is playing tricks on me, but I think we’ve seen more gaffes from top tier candidates in 2007-2008 than we saw in the past 20 years combined."

UPDATE: Had this as Michael Goldfarb earlier -- sorry, it's the dreaded coblogger confusion.

DON BOUDREAUX on the infestation of sexists plaguing Hillary.

THE THIRD-GENERATION PRIUS to debut in 2009? But no plugin until 2010, apparently.

STATUE-GATE?

ALGAE: IS THERE ANYTHING IT CAN'T DO? For Treating Blindness, Scientists Look to Algae.

SOME KNOXVILLE PHOTOBLOGGING from Les Jones.

CORRUPTION IN EASTERN EUROPE: Back to square one.

HOW TO HANG the U.S. flag.

BUSINESS WEEK: Beyond Blogs.

BITES FROM THE APPLE: A roundup of Apple computer and electronics news.

RAND SIMBERG ENCOUNTERS Saganite extremists!

AN OPEN LETTER TO SENATOR OBAMA, on Iran.

UPDATE: Related item here.

HILLARY RAISES RFK, D-DAY AS REASONS TO STAY IN RACE. Plus, Remember the Maine!

UNLIKELY PRAISE FOR RUSH LIMBAUGH . . . on peanut allergies.

IT ONLY HURTS WHEN I BLOG: Major John Tammes suffers an injury. Send him your best wishes. Can you get a Purple Heart for that?

NOT ACTUALLY THE FIRST SPACE LAWYER, but the first American certificate in space law.

J.D. JOHANNES: Memorial Day in Iraq.

IN THE MAIL: Ashaf Ghani and Clare Lockhart's Fixing Failed States: A Framework for Rebuilding a Fractured World.

Cambridge, Massachusetts. Yeah, it's a flag theme for the photos this weekend.

SAY IT AIN'T SO: Kanjorski says Dems were insincere about ending war. Read the whole thing.

ELIOT SPITZER WAS UNAVAILABLE FOR COMMENT: More Troopergate fallout. Are these suicides evidence of deeper problems?

PROOF OF large-scale global warming. Emphasis on the "large."

ANOTHER POTENTIAL ALTERNATIVE TO A GENERATOR for backup power, though I doubt it will run a refrigerator for very long. The price isn't bad, though.

DRINKING AND DRIVING for public safety!

A NANOTECHNOLOGY BREAKTHROUGH? Waferscale self-assembly of nanostructures.

SEEMS TO ME HE GOT OFF KIND OF LIGHT:

An Atlanta police officer convicted of lying to investigators about the Kathryn Johnston shooting was sentenced Thursday to four years and six months in prison, as well as six months on probation. . . .

Police detective Arthur Bruce Tesler, 42, spoke on his own behalf at the sentencing hearing. Earlier this week, he was convicted of lying but acquitted of two other charges stemming from the botched drug raid in which the 92-year-old Johnston was killed in a hail of police gunfire.

"I'm truly sorry for what happened," Tesler said. "I want to do as much as I can to see that it never happens again." Tesler said he hopes the community around Johnston's Neal Street home and her family can heal. . . . Johnston was fatally shot after she fired at police as they burst into her residence using a "no-knock" warrant. Tesler, stationed at the rear of the house, fired no shots but admitted in court that he participated in a cover-up of the illegal warrant and of the planting of narcotics in the house to hide the wrongdoing.

The raid wasn't just botched. It was corrupt. Nobody who killed a cop under similar circumstances would be likely to do as well.

AMERICA'S CONTRIBUTION TO the world's energy supply.

THOUGHTS ON SOME new technologies likely to boost the economy in the 21st Century.

May 23, 2008

"LITTLE DO THEY KNOW, they're part of this movie."

ANOTHER BIG DVD SALE at Amazon. I wonder if we're going to see a general decline in standard DVD prices in response to Blu-Ray's ascendance?

R.S. MCCAIN -- "the other McCain" -- is blogging the Libertarian Convention. Just keep scrolling.

RASMUSSEN: Fewer Democrats Want Hillary to Drop Out. But more pundits do . . . .

CAN POLYGAMY be a crime in the United States?

BOB ZUBRIN ON WHAT TO DO ABOUT OPEC. Plus, over at Jerry Pournelle's place, a Zubrin discussion. Just keep scrolling.

ARTIFICIALLY ENHANCED cell metabolism.

FATHER'S DAY CARDS:

Fathers sleep a lot, and they snore loudly. When they're awake, they like to fish or golf, but they're comically bad at both. They drink so much beer they're practically alcoholics, and they're complete couch potatoes, always watching television and hogging the remote.

At least, that's the less-than-favourable image of Dad on Father's Day greeting cards. It's a striking contrast to the poetic praise often expressed at Mother's Day.

Perhaps the market will take care of that. But why not branch out from cards?

UPDATE: More thoughts on this here. "That’s what really matters in the end — the personal intent and affection that accompanies the card and/or gift. It seems odd to undermine that emotion by depicting Dad as someone more absorbed with his golf game than his family, eager to belch beery cheers at his favorite team, or only around to provide spending money to his herd."

HILLARY: I'm staying in the race in case somebody assassinates Obama! Okay, that's how it's being spun, but I don't think she actually meant it that way. I think she was just pointing out that when Bobby Kennedy was shot the race was still alive, and that was June. Still, it's a pretty impressive gaffe.

UPDATE: More thoughts from A.C. Kleinheider.

Meanwhile, Andy McCarthy credits Operation Chaos.

ANOTHER UPDATE: It's IowaHawk's world; Hillary is just living in it. Or maybe it's Michelle's.

NOTHING SPECIAL ABOUT OUR SUN, in terms of characteristics needed for life.

MCCAIN'S SHORT LIST FOR VP: Shockingly, Bill Frist is omitted.

REVIEWING VH1's SERIES, Sex: The Revolution. "What if documentary-makers aimed the camera at fewer celebrity has-beens – instead giving scholars a chance to talk? The result would be a very counterintuitive picture of life before the sexual revolution."

I haven't seen the VH1 show, but I highly recommend Gay Talese's history of the sexual revolution, Thy Neighbor's Wife, which we read in my "Law and Sexuality" seminar, taught by Harlon Dalton. I often draw on it when teaching in Constitutional Law, because today's students don't really have any grasp of what life was like in an era without freely available porn and socially-approved consensual sex. That said, the review above is certainly right in suggesting that the conventional narrative (bad, repressed Puritans) is highly misleading.

MORE KNIFEBLOGGING: The Throwzini. Duck!

NOAH POLLAK ON THE BLACKOUT on Doug Feith's new book. Too many inconvenient truths?

MICKEY KAUS on McCain's immigration flipflop: "McCain to GOP: 'Suckers!'"

SECRETARY OF ENERGY IN AN OBAMA ADMINISTRATION? I certainly hope not.

UPDATE: Or maybe in a McCain Administration? Jeez.

TIGERHAWK: "While I believe -- on little more than gut -- that Hillary Clinton would be a better president than Barack Obama, I also believe that Obama would be insane to let the Clintons -- they come as a pair -- into his campaign or administration in any way, shape, or form. Indeed, nothing would more completely prove that Obama lacks the judgment necessary to be president than selecting Hillary as his running mate. Whatever one thinks of the Clintons, this much is virtually incontestable: The Clintons are too powerful to control, too ambitious to control themselves, and too untrustworthy to appease."

THOUGHTS ON bigotry, extremism, and academia.

WHERE'D THE SUPREME COURT'S 5-4 splits go?

10 EASY MPG-BOOSTING TIPS for Memorial Day weekend.

HMM: Ethanol usage up exponentially in U.S. and Brazil; not as much in Europe. If we'd drop the tariff on Brazilian ethanol, it would be better still.

IN THE MAIL: Benjamin Wittes' Law and the Long War: The Future of Justice in the Age of Terror.

Patriot Motors, Farragut, Tennessee. Because Uncle Sam would never give you a bad deal.

JOHNATHAN PEARCE: Scientology is nuts and we should be able to say so. That sounds like a brave statement on a British blog, these days, but in a victory for free speech, British prosecutors have dropped the "cult" prosecution, saying that it doesn't make out a crime.

OKAY, I LIKE MY BACKYARD, but at the moment I'm kinda jealous of Jim Fletcher's.

BUY A HONDA, kill a polar bear?

A CHE HAGIOGRAPHY that gives even The New York Times problems. "Guevara was an important player in the Castro government, but his brutal role in turning a revolutionary movement into a dictatorship goes virtually unmentioned."

THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE is 125 years old today. Compare it to today's civic works. . . .

UPDATE: Does the Internet count?

LENTIL STEW FOR EVERYONE! That'll solve the gas shortage.

ENVIRONMENTALISM as a religion? Say rather as a substitute therefor, without the troubling discerning-God's-will-and-following-it part.

MORE ON CANADA AND FREE SPEECH. Plus, filing a response to the inquisitors. Much more on the subject here. It does seem as if most of the bigotry in Canada is being perpetrated by undercover "Human Rights" Commission operatives . . . .

DON'T ASK, DON'T TELL, DON'T CARE: "Despite all the talk of the sultan preferring men, he is widely regarded as a very manly fellow." Well, there's more to manliness than where you put your wingwang.

THE DIPLOMAD: Obama and the "highly educated voter."

Best line: "I noted something among my subjects, a sense of entitlement."

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: "Those of us who have a hard time believing that even the most irrational Iranian leader would actually sacrifice Persian civilization on the altar of anti-Zionism ought to pay attention to this story, about the tendency among Islamists toward national suicide."

ARE SOLDIERS REALLY BEING ASSAULTED ON THE D.C. METRO? Bob Owens looks into it and it seems to be mostly bureaucratic smoke-blowing -- or ass-covering -- based on a single incident.

GUN-CONTROL ASTROTURF: It's in the traffic. Or rather, the lack thereof. "The internet is the grassiest of grass roots and the gun controllers have none on the internet. They have to pay bloggers. People are passionate about rights. People have to be bought and paid for to be passionate about being anti-gun."

NOMINATIONS FOR THE FEYNMAN PRIZES IN NANOTECHNOLOGY are due May 31.

FROM STEPHEN GORDON, more thoughts on the algae economy.

May 22, 2008

CHINA'S QUAKE DISASTER: The numbers.

Plus, high marks for the army. "As a result of the military's preparations, a disaster turned into a showcase for how professional and competent the troops had become. . . . On the down side, with a disaster this large, reporters will have no trouble finding people who have fallen through the cracks and gotten a raw deal."

HOMEOWNER 1, BURGLAR 0:

Monroe County authorities today identified a burglary suspect who was shot to death by a homeowner and arrested a second suspect who fled.

Bristin Self, 19, was killed Wednesday by homeowner Mark Fryer during a 4:30 p.m. break-in, and Self's companion fled, according to the Monroe County Sheriff's Department.

Based on a description given by Fryer, deputies later arrested James Cheek and have charged him with aggravated burglary. Cheek has confessed to being illegally inside the Fryer residence on Old Store Road, according to investigators.

I'm surprised newspapers haven't tried to give this a pro-gun-control spin, with headlines like Homeowner Shoots Self. Maybe I shouldn't give them ideas . . . .

THE ONE WHO'S BLESSED?

MEGAN MCARDLE: "We seem to have a grand national amnesia when it comes to carbon and flying. Cap and trade isn't going to do any good unless we do less of things like drive and fly--and most of the city loving coastal types I know want to do much, much more flying, because international travel is incredibly important to them. Yet a few long haul flights a year are the carbon equivalent of driving an SUV in an exurb." Yes, a ten-cent-per-mile carbon tax would do a lot to reduce emissions. And then there's a ban on private jets, and a requirement that members of Congress fly commercial, not military, transport except when visiting war zones and the like . . . .

OFFICIAL BIGOTRY AT U.C. IRVINE? "The administration at UC Irvine has sent a clear message to the MSU: incitement and harassment against Jews, Israel, and America is acceptable on campus and will not incur consequences."

STEVEN PINKER says that the President's Council on Bioethics was stacked. Well, yeah. I said the same thing years ago, but in more colorful fashion. And note this bit of history, too.

(Via Ann Althouse).

OUTDOOR LIFE ON JOHN MCCAIN: "Based on his comments here, at the NRA show and on his voting record it looks like not only is he the most pro-gun candidate in the running for the White House but that he is solidly pro-gun by any yardstick you care to use." (Via SayUncle, who emails: "He's the only candidate who has ever shown he has any idea what the issues are.")

WASHINGTON POST: Skyrocketing Oil Prices Stump Experts.

Hmm. What could be going on? But the best take is probably this one:

If we want low gas prices, we should lower the costs of exploration and refining. If lowering those costs has environmental costs you don't like, stop complaining and get on your bicycle.

Nonsense. Congress has made clear -- we want low prices and no new wells or refineries!

ANN ALTHOUSE on the difference between sociopathy and litigation: "It's litigation. Quite normal. If the rules help you, you insist on the importance of rules. If the rules hurt you, they are mere guidelines that must bend flexibly for the sake of justice." It's a distinction that non-lawyers sometimes miss!

NOT AS BIG A CAMPAIGN ISSUE AS IT PROBABLY SHOULD BE: "What Presidential candidate is most up on fusion and specifically the Bussard Fusion Reactor Program? Interesting question. Which candidate was interested enough to have his staffers look deeper into it in August of 2007? The answer? John McCain."

BRINGING THE NATION TOGETHER. "Democratic Sen. Barack Obama questions Republican Sen. John McCain’s commitment to the troops. CQ Politics has the video. McCain has the son in Iraq."

BOYS TO MEN: The Insta-wife looks at new books by Kathleen Parker (Save the Males: Why Men Matter, Why Women Should Care) and Meg Meeker (Boys Should Be Boys: 7 Secrets to Raising Healthy Sons.).

ILYA SOMIN: "Thomas Frank manages to pack three common fallacies about libertarianism into one short Wall Street Journal column."

MORE ON THAT BRITISH RESTAURANT BOMBING: Muslim convert held after nail bomb blast in restaurant.

MICKEY KAUS: "Please tell me that Obama has not picked Jim Johnson, Walter Mondale's campaign manager and an an architect of the multi-billion dollar Fannie Mae debacle, to lead his vice-presidential selection process. . . . Obama's rhetoric about avoiding the old Washington players always seemed to me the phoniest part of his message. Now we know just how phony."

A DEFENSE OF COUSIN-MARRIAGE FROM William Saletan, and a response from Megan McArdle.

MOTE, BEAM, YADDA YADDA: Howard Kurtz's discussion of Ted Kennedy's illness includes this passage:

(A digression: Michelle Malkin is among those conservatives asking readers to put aside political differences and pray for Kennedy and his family, and most of her commenters did just that. But there were a few, revoltingly hateful exceptions-- posters who were reveling in the news and, in one case, talked of celebrating.)

I've always liked Howard, but isn't this kind of gratuitous? Bloggers aren't responsible for their comments -- and have you seen some of the stuff that has appeared in the WaPo comments in the past? -- but the possibility of this kind of cheap shot from media folks is one reason (among many) why I don't have them. Meanwhile, Charles Johnson, who's been the target of similar shots in the past, does the obvious.

SOME ADVICE ON WHAT THE HOBBIT MOVIE should be like.

KYLE SMITH DOESN'T LIKE the new Indiana Jones movie, calling it "the worst Steven Spielberg popcorn flick since the forgotten 1941. . . . Spielberg and producer George Lucas, who gets a story credit, seem to think they’re too good to revisit the original trilogy so they mock it instead." Ouch. I had actually planned to go see it today, but family issues intervened.

REPORT IT TO THE HATE-CRIME POLICE: The one acceptable prejudice: Anti-Americanism.

PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE: "Virginia Senator Jim Webb speaks a truth that’s supposed to remain unspoken and thus probably disqualifies himself as Barack Obama’s running mate. . . . This statement isn’t just going to get Webb in trouble with the non-black ethnic groups eligible for affirmative action, such as Asians, Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders, Hispanics, Native Americans and Alaska Natives, it’s going to exacerbate the sexism debate roiling Democratic waters these days."

CAR LUST: Remembering the BMW 645 CSi. I remember seeing one of those and being very impressed that the dash was red-orange at night. That was a big deal, then.

DAVID BARON, CALL YOUR OFFICE: It's not just cougars:

Ray Yager, 23, and a buddy were on their bicycles when they saw all the police activity and were told about the bear.

Moments later they saw the animal running but couldn’t believe it.

“We could have run right into it,” he said.

About 2:30 a.m. officers found blood on the pavement outside 134 Central St. eight blocks or so northwest of the original sighting and began following the drops.

Looking up they found the wounded bear in a pine tree on the east side of Fremont Elementary School and shot and killed it.

It is not true, as the story reports, that bears are "vegetarian." The return of dangerous animal life is an interesting phenomenon of 21st Century America, as is the human reaction. More background here, here, and here.

NO, IT WASN'T A PHOTOSHOP: The "flag disposal bin" pictured below is real, and stands in front of the City Hall in Lenoir City, Tennessee. I assume it's for people who have old or damaged flags to dispose of, who don't want to go through the appropriate steps but don't want to just heave them into the dumpster. A plaque, which I couldn't get a good photo of, says it was donated by the D.A.R. a couple of years ago. Here's a broader view:

MAKING THIN-FILM SOLAR CELLS MORE EFFICIENT, with nanotechnology.

TEXAS POLYGAMY CASE UPDATE: Appeals court says state had no right to seize polygamists’ children. I mentioned earlier that this was looking like an embarrassment to the authorities. I think it's gone beyond "looking like" now.

UPDATE: Much more here.

DUDE, WHERE'S MY RECESSION? (CONT'D): U.S. Initial Jobless Claims Unexpectedly Decline.

A FAILED SUICIDE-BOMB ATTEMPT at a London Exeter restaurant.

GUN CONTROL IN THE NEXT CONGRESS? Not much enthusiasm, even among gun-control backers. But, of course, they could just be shamming until the election.

ARE PROGRESSIVES OUT OF IDEAS? Let's just say that intellectual capital is in short supply everywhere in politics, by all appearances.

MORE PROBLEMS with Rules of Engagement?

IN CANADA, signs of sanity on censorship at last.

THERE'S AN ESPIONAGE CASE involving a retired professor here at the University of Tennessee. I don't know much about it, but here's an interesting angle from AvWeek.

IN THE MAIL: Steven Lubet's The Importance of Being Honest: How Lying, Secrecy, and Hypocrisy Collide with Truth in Law.

Lenoir City, Tennessee. Jeez, I thought we'd at least have until the Democrats took the White House before these things started popping up . . . .

UPDATE: More on this here.

AT WIRED, rethinking what it means to be green.

THE KARSENTY / AL-DURA CASE: covered, but also buried, by the Times.

WHAT BARACK OBAMA IS READING: "Meanwhile, let's summarize: here we have the current frontrunner (barely) to be the 44th president of the United States (the son of a Kenyan man and an American woman, named Barack Obama), reading the top-selling current events book of the season (by an immigrant from Mumbai named Fareed Zakaria) called The Post-American World." Kind of an odd picture, though -- looks a little too GQ for a politician, more like a studio exec or something. I think it's the sunglasses. Meanwhile, Obama ought to give this a read on his next flight.

UPDATE: Related item here: "In his campaign, Obama plays on his supposed resemblance to JFK, and his supporters respond to it. But it’s not so good to emulate the flaws of the man. See whether any of this sounds familiar."

MICHAEL YON'S BOOK, MOMENT OF TRUTH IN IRAQ, is selling quite briskly, which leads him to wonder why you can't buy it on most military bases.

Our podcast interview with Yon, by the way, is here.

COMPARE AND CONTRAST.

Plus, we're all bozos on this bus!

GLOBAL WARMING: Cracks in the Consensus? Hey, science advances by changing its mind in response to new data. The worrisome thing would be if people didn't.

UPDATE: Reader Walter Boxx emails: "If I was the really paranoid type I'd believe that all this fear-mongering on global warming was never intended to last past the inauguration of a Democrat." Such cynicism.

WHY WE NEED TO SPEED UP PHARMACEUTICAL RESEARCH:

I’ve been in this business for almost 19 years now. That means that the drugs that were discovered during my first few years of work are now either on the market or expected to be there soon.

(Via Megan McArdle, who has some thoughts, too).

GOOD NEWS: Global terrorism on the decline:

A group of researchers from Simon Fraser University says global terrorism is on the decline, despite previous data and public perceptions that suggest otherwise.

The university's Human Security Report Project says fatalities from terrorist attacks around the world have, in fact, decreased by 40 per cent since 2001.

Al Qaeda, apparently, has become remarkably less popular. More here.

"Even if the Iraq 'terrorism' data are included, there has still been a substantial decline in the global terrorism toll," said the 2007 Human Security Brief, an annual report funded by the governments of Canada, Norway, Switzerland, Sweden and Britain.

For example, global terrorism fatalities declined by 40 percent between July and September 2007, driven by a 55 percent decline in the "terrorism" death toll in Iraq after the so-called surge of new U.S. troops and a cease-fire by the Shi'ite militant Mehdi Army, the brief said.

Read the whole thing.

MICKEY KAUS: "Now the success of the our counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq represents a 'vindication of a left of center worldview'"!

Victory has a thousand fathers . . . .

"I KNOW YOU ARE, but what is Hillary?"

Coming soon: "Obama is rubber, you are glue!"

MICHELLE CATALANO on cyberbullying.

IF YOU BUY A GUN IN SOUTH CAROLINA IN NOVEMBER, it'll be sales-tax free! Now there's a good idea.

A BLOG AFFIRMATIVE-ACTION SCANDAL. No, really. Well, kind of.

IN THE MIDWEST, a Great Cougar Coverup? Yeah, that'll solve the problem. . . .

Plus, this: "The cougar issue was magnified last month when Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley received threatening letters complaining about the animal shot and killed by police. The FBI is now investigating whether those threats are connected to an arson next to Daley's vacation home in Michigan."

When in doubt, yield to terrorism! Background here.

AT BLOGGINGHEADS: How to beat Obama.

THAT WAS FAST: IRS Clears Rev. Wright's Church of Improperly Assisting Obama's Campaign.

ENRON WAS FOR PIKERS (CONT'D):

The federal government's long-term financial obligations grew by $2.5 trillion last year, a reflection of the mushrooming cost of Medicare and Social Security benefits as more baby boomers reach retirement.

That's double the red ink of a year earlier.

Taxpayers are on the hook for a record $57.3 trillion in federal liabilities to cover the lifetime benefits of everyone eligible for Medicare, Social Security and other government programs, a USA TODAY analysis found. That's nearly $500,000 per household. . . . The reason for the discrepancy: Accounting standards require corporations and state governments to count new financial obligations, even if the payments will be made later. The federal government doesn't follow that rule.

If it did, it would be harder to promise voters a free lunch! Plus, the actuarial assumptions on which many government pension systems are based are likely bogus. You'd better be saving for your own retirement, because Social Security, etc., isn't likely to deliver. And that's just the beginning of the bad news, I'm afraid. Meanwhile, a reader who probably doesn't want me to use his name emails:

I am GC for a private company with a legacy UK pension plan. Since I joined the company in December 2001 the pension plan has been the number one non-operational issue for the company. This experience has left me absolutely frightened of what is going to happen to municipalities in the US. The most basic concepts relating to pension funding assumptions are likely beyond the grasp of most city council members. Some of these issues:

- Since 2000, the S&P 500 has been essentially flat. If your pension scheme has 50% of its assets in equities (fairly typical) and presumed equities would earn a 10% return (unrealistic, but probably not uncommon for these pension funds) your scheme likely has less than 75% of the assets that were projected in 2000.

- These pension funds likely are using early 1980s mortality tables. If updated to current mortality rates, the liabilities will increase anywhere from 10-20% (recognizing that a 2 year increase in life expectancy is at least a 10% increase in the length of time a person earns a pension).

These two items alone could mean that a pension plan that was thought to be fully funded in 2000 is, at best, 60%-70% funded today. Investments alone will never recover these type of funding deficits. These deficits will disappear only if (i) the municipalities file for bankruptcy, or (ii) there are massive tax increases.

Realistically, I think we'll see drastic benefit cuts, one way or another.

May 21, 2008

MATTHEW YGLESIAS: Is Obama Jimmy Carter?

Ezra Klein: No, he's Bill Clinton.

MEN IN HIGHER EDUCATION:

Thomas Mortenson, a senior scholar at the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education, didn’t question the specific numbers in the report or the idea that both male and female students can succeed at the same time. “Women have made huge progress in education over the last six decades,” he said. “The success of women is a great story — it shows what we can do when we set our minds to task.”

But he said that in 1970, when he started his career in higher education policy analysis, there were 1.5 million more men than women in higher education and “I recall vividly that women complained that this was a crisis. Now there are 2.7 million more women than men in higher education and the feminists assert that this is not a crisis. What am I missing here?”

He noted the hugely disproportionate rates of suicide among men who are 25 to 34, and of incarceration, and asked how this could be anything but a crisis.

“The hypocrisy of the feminists — AAUW being a major part of this — astounds me,” Mortenson said. “The fact is male lives are falling apart at the growing margins of male welfare, and the utter failure of the education system to address male needs on male terms is indeed a crisis. We have shown what the education system can do for women when we set our minds to it.

Meanwhile, Tom Maguire drills down. And I touched on the subject at some length a while back.

EDTV: HAVE FUN STORMING THE CASTLE!

THE STRANGER: Way To Not Look Like Crazy Cult Members, Guys.

SMART, SAVVY supernatural thrillers. Just in time for the beach. It's like they planned it this way.

IT'S NOT OVER: Clinton may take delegate fight to convention.

Plus, this: Clinton compares the Florida and Michigan fight to civil rights movement.

ANN ALTHOUSE ON "The absolutely insane talk of Obama promising Hillary Clinton the next seat on the Supreme Court."

CJR: Press Declares Victory, Even if Obama Won't.

JOURNALISTIC ETHICS: "Does the New York Times leverage access to campaign events through threats of negative news articles? According to one source at the McCain campaign, the answer is yes."

RICH LOWRY:

I'm told that the Washington Post won't be reviewing Doug Feith's book. And the New York Times hasn't reviewed it yet either. I know as conservatives we always complain about MSM outfits not reviewing our books, but this is truly outrageous. Apparently it's OK to heap every failure in Iraq on Feith's head, but then to turn around and pretend he's a figure of no consequence when he writes a book.

Maybe it contains too many inconvenient truths. Here's a review from the Christian Science Monitor.

NORMALLY, THEY HAVE TO COMPLETE AT LEAST ONE TERM before achieving this sense of entitlement:

Capitol Weekly reports that newly elected California Congresswoman Laura Richardson walked away from the mortgage on her $535,000 Sacramento home, letting the house slip into foreclosure and disrepair less than two years after she bought it with no money down.

"While being elevated to Congress in a 2007 special election, Richardson apparently stopped making payments on her new Sacramento home, and eventually walked away from it, leaving nearly $600,000 in unpaid loans and fees," the publication reports.

Richardson, a Democrat from Long Beach, declined to comment for the Capitol Weekly story, and her office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from LA Land.

On the other hand, this makes the budget deficit easier to understand . . . .

UPDATE: An update says that Richardson denies the story.

BOONE PICKENS FUNDING world's largest wind farm. In Texas, where he won't have to worry about the NIMBYism we've seen from the likes of Ted Kennedy and Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley.

JENNIFER RUBIN: "A tip for presidential hopefuls: if you want your husband or wife exempt from scrutiny, sending them on the campaign trail as your surrogate or making them a key advisor isn't a good idea."

MARK STEYN VS. THE SOCK PUPPETS.

TEST-DRIVING the new Nissan Maxima.

DEBUNKING dangerous detox diets.

WAIT, I THOUGHT it was supposed to be John McCain with the temper problem.

REPORTS ON CANCER VACCINE TESTS: The scientist involved is described by CTV as "Canadian-born," but he researches at Duke.

FRENCH COURT VINDICATES AL DURA HOAX CRITIC: Philippe Karsenty, fresh from his victory over a bogus libel suit, reports. "Now it is time for France 2 to acknowledge that it created and is continuing to perpetuate the worst anti-Semitic libel of our era. It’s the responsibility of the French government and, ultimately, the responsibility of the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy — who is, for all practical purposes, the chief executive of French public television — to finally reveal the truth."

JOE LIEBERMAN ON DEMOCRATS AND OUR ENEMIES. "How did the party of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy drift so far from the foreign policy and national security principles and policies that were at the core of its identity and its purpose? . . . A great Democratic secretary of state, Dean Acheson, once warned 'no people in history have ever survived, who thought they could protect their freedom by making themselves inoffensive to their enemies.' This is a lesson that today's Democratic Party leaders need to relearn."

I THOUGHT WE WERE SUPPOSED TO listen to the generals.

MORE PROGRESS WITH ARTIFICIAL BLADDERS: "In this recent study, they grew substitute organs out of bladder cells taken from 23 animals, cultivated the cells in a biodegradable scaffold, and then implanted them back into the test subjects. Six months after the surgery, the regenerated bladders were the same size as the originals, and worked effectively, too. Next the company hopes to start clinical trials in 2009."

More like this, please.

THE PRESS: PROTECTING BARACK.

THIS WILL NECESSITATE SOME REFINING SHIFTS: Volkswagen predicts U.S. diesel share could hit 30% by 2018.

BUT THEY SUPPORT THE TROOPS: More on the mistreatment of American soldiers by antiwar types.

ON FRIDAY, JUNE 27, what looks to be an important conference on aging and longevity research at UCLA.

IN THE MAIL: Party of Defeat, by David Horowitz and Ben Johnson.

Annie's Alterations, Bearden, west Knoxville.

FORGET THE RECESSION-TALK. WANT REALLY BAD ECONOMIC NEWS? Try this report:

By firing its actuarial consultant last week, the New York State Legislature shone a light on one of the public sector’s deepest secrets: All across the country, states and local governments are promising benefits to public workers on the basis of numbers that make little economic sense. . . . In the private sector, pension funds are highly regulated, and actuarial numbers are less of an issue. But in government, actuaries and the consulting firms that employ them are starting to draw lawsuits in places like Alaska, San Diego, Milwaukee County, Wis., and Evanston, Ill. . . .

Two big problems are being laid on actuarial doorsteps: overly aggressive investing and overly rich benefits. Benefits can go off the scale because widely used actuarial methods tend to make them look inexpensive. And this tends to encourage aggressive investing, because the greater the risk in the portfolio, the less costly it can seem to provide the benefits.

Read the whole thing. This has the potential to be much, much worse than Enron, and with much, much less accountability -- because, you know, it's government instead of those greedy selfish businessmen.

IN ESQUIRE, a surprisingly sympathetic portrait of John Yoo.

Is that a surprise? Well, there's this Yoo defense, too.

MICKEY KAUS: "Paul Maslin's Electoral College math looks surprisingly grim for Obama."

HERE'S MORE ON THE Tennessee judicial selection fight: "Tennessee Plan" dies for session.

ABSURD AS IT IS, I KIND OF WANT ONE: Samsung Shows Off 82" 2160p HDTV. "The prototype features a resolution of 3820x2160 pixels with a refresh rate of 120Hz. Compare that to the kind of HDTV that's currently on the market: 1080p TVs that run at 1920x1080 pixels. Or to put it another way, that's an 8.3-megapixel screen compared to today's 2.1-megapixel TVs."

UPDATE: Yes, the problem of what to watch on it did occur to me. . . .

ADVENTURES IN police professionalism.

SELF-REGULATION COMES TO molecular nanotechnology.

AL DURA UPDATE: "Israel Radio's Paris correspondent Gil Michaeli has just reported that the French Court of Appeals has overturned the libel judgment against Phillipe Karsenty and has determined that Karsenty did not libel France 2 correspondent Charles Enderlin when he reported that the 'death' of 12-year old Mohamed Al-Dura at Netzarim in the Gaza Strip in September 2000 may have been staged, and that it was unlikely that the death was caused by IDF soldiers." Perhaps the Israeli military should start filing foreign libel suits against media outfits that collaborate in fake reporting. There's likely enough to keep quite a few lawyers busy . . . .

DON SURBER: "Is Geraldine Ferraro nuts to call Democrats sexist? No."

WHY DON'T I GET ASSIGNMENTS LIKE THIS (CONT'D): Touring Nevada in the Maserati Gran Turismo.

SEE, ATTACK THE BLOGOSPHERE AND HERE'S WHAT YOU GET:

Representative Rob Briley criticizes the press and bloggers cautioning that if media doesn’t act responsibly they will be denied access to information.

Rep. Briley, of course, was the subject of quite a few barrels of ink and webspace after getting clipped for DUI after a hit and run. Following his arrest, Briley gave the name of a lobbyist as his next of kin. Later, it was reported by the Nashville Scene that Briley and the lobbyist were having an affair.

Plus, a whole roundup of "irresponsible links" on Briley's history. Really, was bringing this up again smart? And wasn't there somebody better-situated to issue a lecture on responsibility?

UPDATE: Briley's blogging legislative colleague Stacy Campfield is unimpressed: "It was almost hilarious when the first bill after the speech was a bill increasing the penalty on people who leave the scene of an accident."

LONDON BOBBIES COMPARED TO Saudi and Iranian Religious Police. And I remember when they were a symbol of civilization. . . .

DARING TO ASK THE TOUGH QUESTIONS: White House Challenges NBC News to Explain Whether Iraq Is in 'Civil War'. I remember when it was journalists who did that . . . .

INDEED: "What a great way to spend your free time, pestering Islamofascist-abetting tyrants."

MICHAEL YON on " Verbal assaults directed at uniformed [military] personnel" in the Washington, D.C. area. Stay classy out there. . . .

UPDATE: Reader Joe Hughes writes:

Earlier this month I took my son to the Greensboro, NC airport and while we waited in the ticket counter area, a burst of spontaneous applause broke out nearby where passengers were arriving. My son couldn’t see over there and asked me what was happening, and I told him, “We’re welcoming home one of our guys.” One of our military in desert fatigues appeared through the applauding people, heading to baggage claim, with a big smile on his face.

That’s how we do it here – what’s wrong with those people in DC? As we say here, they weren’t raised right by their Mom and Dad.

But don't question their patriotism!

ANOTHER UPDATE: A longtime reader emails:

Glenn -- Please don't use my name if you pass this along.

I've been riding Metro quite a bit for most of the War in Iraq, and have shared plenty of rides with service personnel. Not once have I seen anyone harass servicemen in uniform.

Let's hope this is a rare phenomenon.

MORE: Nick Foresta emails:

Maybe these were your garden variety racists or maybe they were just a bunch of drunk kids or maybe a crazy homeless guy. The point is, we don't know and can't tell from this little tidbit. I don't see much mistreatment of troops and I live and work in NYC, the heart of east coast liberalism. It's fleet week here. Servicemen and women can't pay for a drink in this town. I went to pick up a check for a few sailors having a lunch today and the bartender said it was already taken care of and I was the fourth of fifth person to ask him. That's a hell of a lot more common than any abuse stories but I doubt the Dept. of Transportation sent out a bulletin.

I certainly hope so.

LATER: There doesn't seem to be much more than bureaucratic CYA behind this story.

THE LAW IS FOR LITTLE PEOPLE (CONT'D): Here's more on unregistered gun-owning Chicago alderman Dick Mell: "His son-in-law just happens to be Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. . . . The rest, as they say, is Rezko."

Plus, "Like you and me, only better."

LOOKING AT inflow and outflow in Britain.