Wienergate

This is no "he-said-she-said," the truth is there on the parties' computer, according to Kaus, who points out that Representative Wiener can end the scandal by simply having a neutral third party examine the computer. If the account was hacked it will be evident. Conversely, if the Congressman does not make his computer and account available for such an examination it should be taken as evidence that he is lying about the hacker, no?

But isn't the important thing that the scandal go on? I mean, really, any scandal that lends itself to the name "Wienergate" should be given a fair chance to live.

Helpless

I don't normally take much interest in sex scandals but in these circumstances I feel I have no choice. I am only human. A member of Congress sending a picture of his (underwear clad) member to a 21 year old college student is difficult enough to pass up on its own, add to that he is a member of the party I don't like and is very prominent one at that it becomes practically irresistible, but that the guy's name is "Weiner"? We are in sign from God territory. I declare it the solemn duty of all God-fearing Republicans to pursue the truth in its every trivial detail beyond all bounds of common sense or taste with all the self-righteousness and sarcasm they can muster or risk divine retribution. Let Weinergate begin!

The relentless pursuit of the obvious

In a economical matched pair design, a social scientist has demonstrated that personal attractiveness among young women is associated with a greater willingness on the part of merchants and operators of various public conveyances to offer their goods or services gratis. In laymen's terms pretty girls get free stuff. Where would we be without social science?

An example of the costs of not solving collective action problems: the return of measles. This is one place where economics supports a strong government role.

The great books explained in under 20 minutes.

And, for those who need a little more terrorism in their weekend, an interesting article about the increasing mismatch between our practices on targeted killing and international and domestic law.

Mark Steyn on Cass Sunstein. I happen to have met Sunstein a couple of times and of course knew a lot of people that were quite well acquainted with him and I must say that he is a very nice and capable man. Still, I think that Steyn's criticisms are on target and, as always, very funny.

what are you more worried about?

The Republicans are accused of being irresponsible for refusing to raise the debt ceiling. But the only meaning of the debt ceiling is the signal it sends to our creditors about our intention and ability to repay them. What is more worrisome to a creditor, your willingness to apply for another credit card or your willingness to reign in your spending? Would a bank be relieved if you walked into a credit negotiation with a handful of newly filled out credit card applications? Or would they rather see you cut the credit cards up and see that you had traded in your expensive car that you were still making payments on for a beater you had paid cash for? Who is really being responsible? Who is really the one that is risking the full faith and credit of the US? The people that want us to send in the application for a new home equity loan or the people that want us to stop eating out and shut off the cable?

Punish your enemies, reward your friends

Michael Barone mentions,

'In a Univision radio interview during the 2010 election cycle, Barack Obama urged Latinos not "to sit out the election instead of saying, 'We're going to punish our enemies and we're going to reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us.'"

I wish he would take that attitude in foreign policy, particularly in the conduct of the war in Afghanistan. Kill an American and you get a bunch of advisors showing up to build power stations and roads to get you to like us. Welcome the Americans and they ignore you because everything is fine where you are.

Of course, doing this in domestic society where the rule of law is established is the worse sin of a political leader. But in a situation where not the rule of law, but rule itself, the monopoly on violence that is the prerequisite for any government, then punishing your enemies and rewarding your friends is not only forgivable, it is imperative.

Judgement

Courts are sacrilegious. They presume to deliver judgement. That is wrong. Only God can judge.

Now many of the people that support the killing of bin Laden support this argument on the argument that bin Laden was evil. I am a supporter of killing him but I do not presume to know that he was evil. His actions were evil, but I, since I am not God, do not know and have no way of knowing that he was evil. Who knows? If I had been raised in the same society and milieu as he was, perhaps I would have ended up thinking the same things he did and doing the same things. I am not particularly committed to the proposition that he wasn't a bad guy, he probably was. But the larger point remains that all through history we have seen people do things that to us seem unquestionably evil but that to them and the societies they were a part of were seen as necessary or even virtuous.

I only know that his continued existence on this Earth was dangerous to innocent people, not only for the further evil actions he was in all likelihood planning but for the example that he set to the world of being able to publicly gloat and boast of defying the US and inflicting a grievous and humiliating defeat on the most powerful nation on the face of the Earth.

But that is a prudential argument, not a moral catharsis argument. I regard the pleasure and pride with which most Americans greeted the death of bin Laden at the hands of our brave soldiers at the direction of our able president as justifiable and innocent. Still, justice, if it is to be done, will be done by God. We cannot inflict enough pain to expiate the pain caused by his crimes nor claim the moral standing to judge him as an individual human being.

But the fact is that his acts were evil. His acts put him beyond the protection of any human laws. Weather he deserved to be punished in the deepest, moral sense it is beyond my power to judge, but that his death was necessary and useful is beyond anyone's power to seriously question.

"Israel is not what is wrong with Middle East, Israel is what is right with the Middle East

Well received speech by the Israeli Prime Minister.

I don't agree that Israel needs unique security arrangements, I think that smaller states living within the security constraints set by larger states is routine in the international world. The only thing that makes the security arrangements unique is that the one demanding constraints is the smaller country.

I don't agree that "peace cannot be imposed, it can only be negotiated." It may be true that the UN's attempts to impose peace will fail but that is only because the UN is not really interested in peace. But peace is imposed all the time. We didn't come to an agreement with the Nazis. More to the point, Israel is attempting to impose a peace on the Palestinian--quite rightly in my view, but imposing nonetheless.

It is nice to see someone who can really give a speech for a change. How can people watch Obama in his robotic, pedantic drone and gush about what a great speaker he is? How can you watch the Prime Minister of Israel give a speech and then sit through the anointed one thinking, "There is a guy who can talk?"

Pawlenty

I never much cared for Pawlenty but I am impressed that he is telling Iowans he is against the ethanol subsidy and is apparently set to go to Florida to advocate for a fundamental overhall of social security and medicare. These are long over due and, in the case of Social Security and Medicare, absolutely vital to our continued prosperity and vitality as a country. Maybe there is hope after all. On the other had, I have to say that I found his saccarine campaign roll-out radio ad a bit embarrassing.

One of the basic problems in our democracy is that we don't realize that rent-seeking is damaging and wrong because of the amount of value it destroys in the economy, not the incomes of the people that are receiving the funds. The payoff can be a million dollars to one guy or a dollar a piece to a million guys, the damage to the economy is the same. Many of the most politically successful programs are massive rent-seeking schemes that are politically successful precisely because they give relatively small amounts of money to very large numbers of people. These people don't think of themselves as exploiting the system because their total incomes are not particularly large. But that doesn't matter. If a large number of people are taking a relatively small amount of money the deadweight loss can be just as large or larger than with the sort of payoff that we usually think of as corruption.

Teutonic Shift

This piece mentions the President's "Teutonic shift" slip of the tongue which was cleaned up in the written version of the President's remarks later distributed to reporters and un-commented upon by same. If only Bush had made this error we could be having some good fun with it.

War of Choice

this is an odd phrase, "war of choice." Is a war of no choice better? WWII was not a war of choice. Is that a good model to follow? We were attacked. We had no choice. Does that make us right? Or does it make us foolish?

There was nothing surprising about the Japanese attack. In many ways it was inevitable from 1937 onward. From that point on we made it clear that we would not accept their expansion into China. We asked for war and then gave them four more years to prepare for it. Was that smart?

Churchill called WWII the unnecessary war. Why? Because it could have been prevented if the British and their allies had confronted Hitler before back in 1936 when he re-occupied the Rhineland in clear contravention of the Treaty of Versalles. He is undoubtably right, but following his advice, as with confronting the Japanese earlier in the Pacific, would have surely constituted a war of choice.

The idea that a war of choice is a bad thing is a corollary of our idea that war is unnatural, an indication that we have mistreated an enemy or that there is a misunderstanding of some sort that should have been resolved. The Romans had no such idea. They expected war. War was in the nature of man. All of their wars were in some sense a war of choice. Waiting till you had no choice was an indication of failure, not turpitude.

The most open administration in history

Isn't it a bit odd that the same administration that wants to see what political campaign contributions corporations have made before deciding on giving them government contracts refuses to disclose what campaign contributions were made by the companies to which it is granting waivers for its new health care law?

I am officially worried

Mitch Daniels is out of the race. I have always dismissed talk about not having good candidates but now I have to admit to being worried.

1949 or 1967?

The link goes to reactions in Congress to the Administration's insistence on going back to the 1967 lines.

Why are they always referred to as the 1967 borders? They might as accurately be referred to as the 1949 borders. They are the borders that were set at the time of the armistice in 1949 after the first Arab attempt to destroy Israel. There is nothing special about 1967 but that the Arabs attempted to destroy Israel again in that year.

There would be some legitimacy to the demand from the Arabs that the Israelis go back to the 1967 lines if the Arabs had ever recognized those lines either formally or in practice. Since the only thing that the Arabs ever did was attack across those lines there seems little moral force in their demand that they now be respected.

Against Abortion? Have the Government Fund It

This is a nice introduction to the argument for voucherizing medicare. It is a video with some helpful graphics on the size of Medicare in relation to other programs.

The most interesting contribution is the evidence for the effectiveness of markets in holding down healthcare costs. He cites two examples which are pretty well known (though he again accompanies them with very useful graphics): Lasik eye surgery and cosmetic surgery (elective). Since these are both entirely (or almost entirely) paid for by the consumer they have both actually gotten cheaper relative not just to other medical prices but also to inflation in the rest of the economy.

But the most interesting piece of evidence he introduces comes from abortion provision. It turns out that this has gotten cheaper over the years, too.

This is quite a remarkable piece of evidence. One of the first things that you hear when you point out to people that cosmetic surgery has gotten cheaper is that, "people don't really need it so they can afford to shop around." Of course, one can always use the economist's argument that people also need money and so do, in fact, find ways to shop around anyway, but the argument that cosmetic surgery and lasik might somehow be a special case and that the lessons learned from those fields might not apply to the rest of the medical field strikes most people as being sensible.

That is one of the reasons that the evidence of the price of abortions is such a handy thing for advocates of the free market in health care. Broadly speaking advocates for greater involvement in health care and the advocates of abortion rights tend to be on the same side. They can hardly say that abortions are not necessary. At least rhetorically they are committed to the idea that the typical seeker of an abortion is a poor mother facing serious health risks from carrying a pregnancy to term. The fact that these consumers are able to control health care costs more effectively than expert allocation should carry weight with people holding such views.

It also poses a question for conservatives (or at least those that are not libertarians and are against abortion and socialized provision of health care): if government provision of is so inefficient then wouldn't, in the long run, a more effective way of reducing abortions be to put government in charge of paying for them?

If the price of abortions had been going up along with the rest of our healthcare system then even with the government picking up 80% of the cost the out-of-pocket costs to the patient would be more than the entire cost of the procedure at present.

Narcissism in Pop music

Mark Steyn makes this interesting observation in a discussion of entitlements:

"I was interested to discover recently that Nathan DeWall of the University of Kentucky has conducted a survey of “linguistic markers of psychological traits and emotions” in popular music from 1980 to 2007, and concluded that we are in (to use the book title of two of his co-authors) a narcissism epidemic. Once upon a time, love songs were about other people: “Me, Myself, and I (Are All in Love with You)” — Billie Holiday, 1937. Seventy-odd years later, Fergie sings in unconscious echo that she needs more time to be with herself; Beyonce sings about how hot she looks when she’s dancing; and, on the increasingly rare occasions when a vocalist directs her attention to an object of her affection other than herself, it sounds more like self-esteem boosterism than a love ballad. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Pink’s current blockbuster hit, “F**kin’ Perfect”:

Pretty, pretty please
Don’t you ever, ever feel
Like you’re less than
F**kin’ Perfect."

This is one of those things that you never notice until it is pointed out to you. It is amazing and disturbing how many love songs are praises of oneself.

The fine print

This is something I really didn't know.

"Under today's Medicare, seniors are subject to an individual mandate more subtle but just as coercive as ObamaCare's. By regulation, seniors must enroll in Medicare or forgo their Social Security checks. By law, they are denied the right to go outside of Medicare and buy the kind of private insurance they prefer. They are thus trapped within a single-payer government monopoly. Add budget pressures to the mix, and you have the perfect conditions for rationing."

That really does seem remarkable to me. So remarkable that I suspect it is not true, or some important fact is being left out.

Showing Nixon a Little Respect

Ok, let's be fair to Nixon. Sure, he had an enemies list, but he had the good sense to at least try to keep it secret. Actually, being able to tell your friends from your enemies is an important presidential skill, but you should know better than to talk about it and calmly explain why it is a good idea. Explaining why reporters you don't like aren't invited to the press poll a White House spokesman said, “I tend to consider the degree to which papers have demonstrated to covering the White House regularly and fairly in determining local pool reporters.”

Now doing it is bad enough but not having the respect for the intelligence of the American people to not think of a decent lie to cover for it is inexcusable. Let's give Nixon a little credit.

Advice for Newt

Note to Newt: Before you throw someone under the bus check to make sure your bus is moving. Paul Ryan just finds himself under a bus that is not moving and says, "Hey, why am I under this bus?" and gets up and brushes himself off and strolls off. Newt can think outside of the box. He has to learn to think outside of his mouth.

Common bared from White House

The link is to the youtube video of Common's objectionable appearance.

This is from the NBC story:

Their objection stems from a 2007 YouTube video of Common flagged by The Daily Caller. In the video, Common says "tell the law, my Uzi weighs a ton" as well as "Burn a Bush cos' for peace he no push no button."

Leaving aside the affront he poses to Police officers, he is a clear and present danger to the English language.

It is hard to write a hard and fast rule, sometimes one set of considerations may outweigh what would normally put someone beyond the pale. Ronald Reagan was sheepish when chided for inviting Frank Sinatra to the White House. You wouldn't normally invite someone with well-known ties to organized crime to the White House but for a truly great artist (that your wife happens to be sweet on). Could you say anything about Common that couldn't be said about someone who had been invited at some point to the white house? I suppose not.

But still, we are entitled to question the President's judgment. The White House is not his pad, it is the people's house and the people invited there to take a prominent role in public events should be people that all Americans can, broadly speaking, think are admirable and not offensive. Could someone watch the youtube video linked to and say that about Common?

Bob Dylan has been brought up as a counter example, someone who had defended someone convicted of murder. But Dylan thought that the guy did not do it. That is not Common's point.

"This is someone who fought for my freedom." She fought for his freedom by killing this cop--that is her point, no? Surely that is a bit different? Is it bad enough to keep someone out of the White House? Well, I think so. The president is the chief law enforcement officer in our country. It is, oddly enough, National Police appreciation week or something. It just isn't done.

We know that Reverend Write or Bill Ayers will never be invited to the White House because his association with them had become a problem in the election campaign leading the Obama operation to throw them under the bus. Once you are under the bus you don't come back. Having them to the White House would now just be too inconvenient.

Ask yourself, if Common had become a problem during the campaign is there any doubt that he would have found himself under the bus as well? Can you watch this Common fellow and then listen to another sermon on racial tolerance from Obama?

NBC says that Common was on his best behavior:

It ended with "one King's dream, he was able to Barack us."

Sanctimonious and insipid. Whether treating Common as a respectable figure is acceptable, treating him as a poet is genuinely appalling.

It is only news when Jews do it

The Turks killed 12 trying to cross their border yesterday. Nothing to see here folks, keep moving. It is only a human rights issue when Israel does it.

Of course, the Turks have every right to kill people trying to cross their border. That is what it means to be a state, to have the right to decide when to use violence to defend your sovereignty. Your borders are your sovereignty. If you don't decide who comes in here you are no longer a state.

And of course that is precisely the point. Israel's defense of its borders is treated as a human rights issue by much of the human rights community precisely in order to undermine its continued existence as a state.