PRESTOPUNDIT -- "must readings" says Nick Schutz

Schwarzenegger on Schwarzenegger -- no vision for California, no fixed principles, still a fan of Milton Friedman.

"Q: When you ran for governor, you talked about Gray Davis lacking a vision for California. What would you say is your vision for the state?

A: Well, what I was talking about is that you go out there, and you ask people, what are we really shooting for? What are we trying to accomplish here with the state? What are we all working towards? You know, when you pay your taxes, and all this. I think it's always better when people know what the vision is, rather than saying, "OK, my money is gone, I don't know where it goes to... ." (But)at this point I'm not at a stage of creating a vision for California because I'm still kind of like trying to bring the state up to the level where it ought to be, where just our finances are concerned, and our budget is concerned, and where obstacles that have been created over the last few years for businesses are concerned. All of those things have to be straightened out. There are just a lot of things that have to be straightened out, including the prison system, and all that. Then after we have done this, after we go through this year, then the mission is to go out and to really let the people know, this is where we are trying to go, and this is what we are trying to do now, if it is the mass transit systems, and all that ..

Q: You haven't really had a chance to lay out a long-term plan?

A: Absolutely. The clear thing is that for the first year we have to kind of stop the bleeding and correct some of the problems. And what we are trying, what my goal is, is to eliminate a lot of those problems within the first year, sort of the things that were created over the last few years. And then really - you know, basically, what we are trying to do is, make this giant ship stop the direction it's going. And instead of hitting that iceberg, we want to steer it a little bit to the right, and then set a new direction after it's standing still. It's not standing still yet; it's still moving. But it's much slower, and now we're going to then go and turn it, and send it in a different direction after the stop, and then go in the right direction.

Q: The campaign was so fast and so strange that it's like you never actually were asked to define your ideology, your political ideology. What is your sense, from your experience and your instincts, about the proper role of government to play in society?

A: I think in general I would say that government's role is to assist people, and not to be an obstacle. And, you know, there's a fine line, as there is with everything. I think that if you have a government that feels like they should be involved in every step of your way, like it was under socialism in Austria, or in general under socialism, then you become kind of an obstacle for moving people, inspiring people to move ahead. You maybe take care of a certain segment of society, but in general you don't really support the whole state, or the whole nation, to move forward. So, what I'm trying to do is - and what I always saw was - there is a middle ground between what Austria did and what, for instance, a very conservative government would do. Where they say, you know, limit it down to the minimum of the government.

Q: When you first started becoming involved in politics, and talking about economics, you associated yourself with Milton Friedman.

A: Right.

Q: Do you feel like you've pulled back from that a little bit?

A: No, no. Milton Friedman is still my mentor, and the king. I read everything of Milton Friedman. And you know, you don't have to - when you have someone as an inspiration, that doesn't mean that you have to agree with everything that the person does. ... So Milton Friedman laid out a lot of great principles and laid out also where government goes wrong with trying to think that they are the ones that can solve all the problems, because they cannot. And he laid it out, you know, how things have happened before ever government was, how things miraculously came together because of the private industry, because of people's needs, they will come then together. And so, I just think that a lot of times the government makes a mistake by getting involved in things, and sitting around and making up laws that really become, then, an obstacle. It maybe again solves a problem of a certain segment, but then for the mass, it maybe does not. ... The balance is the key thing. For me, everything is about the fine line, finding the fine line, because in everything there is a fine line where you go a little bit to the right, you fall, and it's like being on that balancing beam. You go a little bit to the right, you fall; you go a little bit to the left, you fall. So, finding the fine line - it's the same with negotiating a workers' comp deal, it's negotiating the budget. What is that fine line, and what is reasonable? And so, to me, government can be a great, great asset. But it also can be a huge obstacle if you don't find that fine line ...

Q: What have you learned about yourself during these six months? A: I think in general, when I go through the issues, I'm amazed of how much I am to the center, I would say, with the programs and with where government should be and all this rather than to the right.

Q: So you thought you were more conservative?

A: Well, I did not know, because a lot of issues I never asked myself the question, where do I stand on this and that. But as we go along on that, if I go now and take an inventory, you know, I'm surprised, yeah."

The full interview can be found here.

WMD's & the NY Times -- Bruce Barlett:

"You [Donald Luskin] missed the real story behind the New York Times' WMD coverage. It is precisely because the paper has been so relentlessly negative about Bush that its support for the administration's view on WMD's stood out. People like me figured that if the Times thought there were WMDs in Iraq, then they had to be there. Because, given the paper's biases, it would have done everything in its power to refute the administration's evidence if it could. Therefore, to the extent that the invasion of Iraq was wrong because of a mistaken belief that it had WMDs, the Times is as responsible as anyone. link.

John Leo: Tomorrow's newsroom -- a closed Leftist shop?

"Why does the news business keep hiring more and more people who disagree sharply with the customers, many of whom are already stampeding out the door for a variety of reasons? One explanation is that national journalism is now an elite profession, staffed by people­ -- black and white, female and male -- ­who went to elite colleges and who share the conventional social views of their class. This was not true a generation ago. When I was at the New York Times, the leadership was full of people who had gone to the wrong schools and fought their way up with brains and talent. Two desks away from mine was McCandlish Phillips, a born-again Christian who read the Bible during every break, no matter how brief. Phillips was a legendary reporter, rightly treated with awe by the staff, but I doubt he would be hired by most news organizations today. He prayed a lot and had no college degree .. The big deal is that media workers are becoming [increasingly leftist] at a fairly rapid pace­ -- up from 22 percent nine years ago to 34 percent now, according to Pew. It would be a bigger deal if the hiring of [leftists] reached the point (as it has in the academic world) where [non-leftists] don’t bother to apply for jobs .. ". More JOHN LEO.

Honor the dead.

Support Operation Homefront.

Something that didn't make the news.

Meet First lieutenant Brian Chontosh.

The U.S. flag is back up

at PrestoPundit world headquarters. I took it down for a washing at the beginning of rainy season here in SoCal. It's a new neighborhood and the community association gave out flags as an optional housewarming gift. So most houses on the block had a flag up through most of the summer last year. The flag I'm flying was given to me by my folks -- a sturdy nylon flag with sewn stripes and stars. But it't time for a new flag, mine's now faded badly. This one looks like a good one. Anyone with a better recommendation please let me know in the "your thoughts" section.

Tracking by Race - California's dirty little education secret.

"For eight of the past 10 years, Garden Grove has had the lowest college-preparation rate – the number of students finishing college-prep courses with at least a C average – for Latinos in Orange County, despite winning national recognition largely for raising test scores. It is a paradox that runs rampant in Orange County and across California, where the frenzy over test scores has obscured what researchers say matters more to students' success - the classes they take in high school. In California the top-tier curriculum is required only of students who go straight to a university, but researchers say the classes could also benefit community-college students or workers who lay pipe. About a third of students overall and only 15 percent of Latinos in Orange County take these classes. Latinos are now the largest group in public schools here and statewide, but they are also the least- prepared for college - especially in Orange County, where the preparation rates for Latinos are lower than in San Diego, Riverside and Los Angeles counties .. ". MORE "Latinos pay price for missed chances".

Funniest "Day After Tomorrow" review.

"[Emmerich] crams the film with enough digital wizardry to make you wish he had jettisoned the script altogether and simply paraded the visual effects with chapter titles such as "Snow Over New Delhi" and "The Hollywood Sign Gets Totaled." MORE The Day After Tomorrow Reviews.

Smugglers & illegal aliens released in case of 900 square foot "clown house".

"A shortage of detention space and resources has foiled attempts by federal prosecutors to build a case against three alleged smugglers accused of holding 110 illegal immigrants at a "drop house" in Watts. The number of immigrants overwhelmed the system and made it impossible for federal officials to comply with a judge's order to make them available to defense attorneys, officials with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said. Because the government could not comply, smuggling charges against the alleged "coyotes" were dropped. Since then, many of the 88 immigrants apprehended in the raid have been released .. ". Case against Watts smugglers falling apart.

Fetus of illegal alien declared U.S. citizen.

A Federal judge has refused to allow the deportation of an illegal alien based on his decision that the woman's unborn fetus was an American citizen. The judge cites "Laci's Law" as the rationale for his decision ..

Can you find a decent watermelon in So Cal?

Building a better grocery store watermelon.

Michael Blowhard -- Why I Blog.

"I grew up in a sweet, provincial, middle-class, small-town/suburb-ish, vanilla-American part of the world. Bicycles, baseball, Boy Scouts, cheerleaders; parents with jobs, not "careers," whatever those were; nice kids who married high-school sweethearts and raised nice, vanilla kids. Granted that a little "Twin Peaks" and "Boys Don't Cry" could be found too if you looked hard enough. But this really was a fringe element. Horizons may not have been big, but on the other hand nine out of ten people were trustworthy, and nearly everyone meant you well. Parental ambition and my own curiosity blasted me out of that comfy universe and landed me on a very different planet, one of high-powered narcissists, glittering schools, big egos, money, vanity, connections, etc. .. ". MORE 2Blowhards.

More art!

"Aw, phooey!" Donald Duck in art history -- Die DUCKOMENTA. (via Hit & Run).

PrestoPundit blogs Art.

Justine's daughter does a painting for mom. As a professionally trained art critic* I pronounce it wonderful.

*U. of W.

P.J O'Rourke.

"John Kerry says America shouldn't cut and run .. But we don't have to retreat ignominiously from the war on terrorism and from our other international responsibilities and commitments; we can recuse ourselves .. On every issue of geopolitical adjudication, from 9/11 to the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change, America is a jury of cops and crime victims. A change in venire has already been called for by noisy street protestors, France and suchlike. Let's accede to the pre-emptory challenge and go home.

The benefits will be immediate. We can cut $300 billion from our defense budget. This will be almost enough to pay for the aging baby boomers' prescription drug benefits, which can now include Levitra, Botox and medicinal cannabis. America will enjoy cleaner air and less traffic congestion as oil goes to $200 a barrel due to chaos in the Middle East. A U.S. withdrawal from the Middle East will cause chaos, of course. Then again, a U.S. intervention in the Middle East has caused chaos already. And, during those periods of history when the U.S. was neither intervening in nor withdrawing from the Middle East, there was . . . chaos. The situation is akin to the famous complaint women have against men: failure to acknowledge that not every problem can be fixed. Sometimes the best thing is just a little sympathy. America had everyone's sympathy after the World Trade towers were attacked. We can get that sympathy back if we limit our foreign policy objectives to whining.

One thing to whine about will be the fate of Israel. Without American safeguards that nation is certain to be militarily attacked. To judge by previous Israeli wars, in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973 and 1982, the result will be serious headaches for Israelis as the Knesset furiously debates the status of Jewish settlements outside Damascus and on the west bank of the Euphrates .. ". More P.J. O'ROURKE.

Mark Steyn is

The Last Warmonger. Quotable:

.. more and more towns are holding elections and voting in "secular independents and representatives of non-religious parties". I have been trying to persuade my Washington pals to look on Iraq as an exercise in British-style asymmetrical federalism: the Kurdish areas are Scotland, the Shia south is Wales, the Sunni Triangle is Northern Ireland. No need to let the stragglers in one area slow down progress elsewhere. Iraq won't be perfect, but it will be okay - and in much better shape than most of its neighbours. So I've moved on. I am already looking for new regimes to topple. And here's where the events of recent weeks may have done some damage. In my corner of northern New England, as in Highgate and Holland Park, it is also stressful being a Bush apologist. Most of the guys I hang out with demand to know why he's being such a wimp, why's he kissing up to King Abdullah about a few stray bananas in some jailhouse, why's he being such a pantywaist about not letting our boys fire on mosques, why hasn't he levelled Fallujah. In other words, don't make the mistake of assuming that Bush's poll numbers on Iraq have fallen because people want him to be more multilateralist and accommodating. On my anecdotal evidence, they want him to be more robust and incendiary .. ".

. MORE STEYN

The Edgeworth Box

is now an Applet.

Your next house will be built by a robot.

USC economist Peter Gordon has the scoop.

"Brenda"/David Reimer ends his life.

The human and social sciences of 1960s were built on a foundation of falsehoods and fraud -- from Margaret Meade, Sigmund Freud and Alfred Kinsley to John Keynes, Karl Marx and B. F. Skinner -- a house of fictions and pseudo-science propping up an ideology hostile to traditional liberal civilization and its institutions. But none of these frauds and fictions are as heartbreaking to discover as is the story of "Brenda", a boy sacrificed to the "scientific" sexual ideology of a modern pediatric Mengele. Wendy McElroy reports on this incredibly sad story of fraud and inhumanity.

The USS Jimmy Carter.

The attack sub striking fear into the hearts of our enemies. Hat tip The Pirate's Blog. Meanwhile

the USS Ronald Reagan steams for its new homeport in San Diego California.

Jobs -- Good News in California.

"Since July 2003, California entrepreneurs have created 134,200 new jobs in private-industry sectors ranging from construction to professional and business services. Total government employment declined in the period .. ". MORE "Greg Kaza on Jobs & California".

Immigrants are a job threat -- culture should be shared.

So say the citizens of Mexico. Quotable: "Almost half of Mexicans, whose country has less industrial development than others polled, said they see immigrants as a threat to their own work force. "In spite of so many Mexicans migrating to the United States, Mexicans have a harsh view on immigration in general," said Jorge Buendia of Ipsos-Bimsa in Mexico. A large majority of Mexicans, 71 percent, said they think it's better if almost everyone in a country shares the same customs and traditions .. ". MORE AP world poll in immigration.

Dim and dimmer.

Scientists now say we're suffering from global dimming. What will researchers say tomorrow? Stay tuned.

Rodney Dangerfield -- It's not such a wonderful life.

He's written his life story: It's Not Easy Bein' Me : A Lifetime of No Respect but Plenty of Sex and Drugs.

Christian hating.

In Hollywood it's become the new anti-semitism. Don Feder reports.

New Global Threat.

Prepare for the new environmental threat of Global Brightening.

Blogging fools.

"If this were beer, I'd be an alcoholic".."

BOOM.

4.4 percent economic growth. Jobless claims are down. And inflation continues to accelerate.

1979.

"In Britain, and soon in the world, a great reaction had commenced. On November 13, in the Grand Ballroom of the New York Hilton, Ronald Reagan announced his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination in yet more plain, inspiring words: "A troubled and afflicted mankind looks to us, pleading for us to keep our rendezvous with destiny... [W]e will uphold the principles of self-reliance, self-discipline, morality, and — above all — responsible liberty for every individual." The miserable shuffling retreat had been stopped. Western civilization had turned to face its enemies, both those inside the walls and those without. The war that then commenced is not yet over. Perhaps it never will be; but it was in 1979 that we got our nerve back, picked up our discarded weapons again, and resolved to fight. This was the year it all changed, the year the ice cracked".

First it was "Give War a Chance".

Now P.J. O'Rourke serves up Peace Kills : America's Fun New Imperialism.

Bruce Bartlett on Productivity.

"In 1830, the average worker put in a 76-hour workweek. This fell to 60 hours in 1890, 39 hours in 1950, and just 34 hours today .. ". MORE "Productivity and the Dallas Federal Reserve".

The press -- leftists and

lying about it.

WoPo -- how far left will it go?

"People ask whether the media is "liberal"? They should be asking how far left it will eventually become. The recent appointment of Harold Meyerson -- an obscure radical and quaint believer in working class radicalism -- to one of the most coveted jobs in American journalism provides a troubling answer. Meyerson, a political editor for The L.A. Weekly, a leftist throwaway tabloid, and Editor-at-Large for Bill Moyers’ ideological journal, The American Prospect, has been made a regular columnist for the Washington Post .. ". MORE "The Washington Post's New Leftist".

China by the numbers.

Frank Shostak examines the superheated Chinese economy -- "China: Soft Landing or Bust?"

The China Boom -- Robert Samuelson.

"[China] is the world's biggest consumer of copper, tin, zinc, platinum, steel, and iron ore; second biggest of aluminum and lead; third largest of nickel. . . . It is now the world's second-largest oil consumer [after the United States], and accounted for 35 percent of the global rise in oil demand in 2003 .. ". MORE Robert Samuelson.

Friedrich von Blowhard takes a blogging sabbatical.

A tribute from co-blogger Michael Blowhard. I've long thought these were the two best bloggers on the web. Just my opinion.

Pension thievery.

California cities borrow billions to pay six figure pensions to unionized government workers who retire at age 50. It's the stuff that's "legal" that is really criminal.

Get your weekly

Carnival of the Capitalists.

Chalabi vs. Bush.

ParaPundit takes a multi-link look at the significance of Chalabi's Deceptions. Must reading for those trying to make sense of the war in Iraq.

HELP! I need a new web host.

My web hosting service was bought out by IQuest Hosting, and the service has continued to go down the toilet. Delays and outages and CGI problems have been ongoing. I need a new web hosting service! Recommendations would be much appreciated.

Yet Moore Lies.

Fred Barnes, "Michael Moore and Me".

Symantec's Norton Internet Security has crapped up my computer.

Blogging will be light the next few days while I work on a fix to a CPU usage problem caused by Symantec's latest update for Norton Internet Secutity, which has crapped up my computer. Symantec is notorious for these sorts of problems -- this is the second time this product has produced a CPU usage problem for users. Unbelievable.

Oh, That Leftist News Media.

That's right they are leftists.

France, Germany & California.

The three places in the world were Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina says HP doesn't want to do business. MORE "A portrait of the actor as a young governor".

Fix California -- Initiative, Referendum & Recall are NOT the problem.

"Mention initiative, referendum, and recall to political insiders and you'll hear a one-word rebuttal: California! California politics is almost universally portrayed as, well, a little loony. California stands out from other states of the union, of course, for a host of reasons, from the sheer size and diversity of its population and geography to its more frequent use of initiative, referendum and recall. And California has its problems, no doubt about that. But loony? Not for its citizen activism. Citizen empowerment is not California's problem; time and again, it has provided the solution. California voters not only have a right to make these decisions, but they have also generally made the right decisions at the ballot box. Take the oft-maligned (outside California) Proposition 13 in 1978 and term limits in 1990 and the recall of Governor Gray Davis last year. In each case, the voters have been right on the mark. So, what's the problem? Why then hasn't California's initiative, referendum, and recall made the state a governmental paradise? Government by Referendum Initiative, referendum, and recall provide checks on government. They are not an alternative method of day-to-day management. It's our so-called representative bodies that are failing. The increasing use of the various processes of citizen-led democracy is a reaction to politicians' failures. Blaming California's fiscal woes on voter initiatives ignores the elephant in the room: the spending binge whereby Governor Gray Davis and the California Assembly nearly doubled state spending in less than a decade. When times were good, politicians spent as if there were no tomorrow; when times got tough, they whined and pointed fingers. As for the budgetary impact of voter initiatives, a study by Professor John Matsusaka of the University of Southern California found that initiative measures dictate only about 2 percent of state government spending. Professor Matsusaka concluded, "[T]he initiative process is a scapegoat for the inability of elected officials to manage the competing demands for public funds in a period of declining revenue." Not only is the blame unfounded, the initiative process provided Governor Schwarzenegger the very leverage he needed to succeed in starting to put California's fiscal house back in order. Key first steps, borrowing to avert the immediate crisis and taking steps to restructure and prevent future debt, were approved by the voters. And workers' compensation reform, long a sore point for businesses, found a legislative solution only after the governor again threatened the initiative. Again and again .. the problem is the Legislature. California's Assembly defines the term dysfunctional. Legislators are overpaid, over-perked, overstaffed, unaccountable and, thus, out of control. When Governor Davis was being recalled, opinion polls showed the legislature was actually even less popular. Term limits have certainly helped, creating the only degree of competition in the entire system. But term limits haven't yet fully kicked in. Senator John Burton, president of the Senate, has been in the legislature for 24 years. Other current members have served for as long as 30 years. Finally, with this year's elections, any legislator having served without interruption since voters passed term limits, back in 1990, will be removed. Best of all, term limits will continue to inject fresh blood into the system cycle after cycle. But term limits are not a panacea. As University of California-Irvine Professor Mark Petracca wrote, "Term limitation is only the first response to the problem of professionalization that increasingly permeates the entire American political system." Three Reforms California needs three additional reforms: a part-time legislature, de-politicized redistricting, and smaller legislative districts .. ". MORE "Fixing California".

Libya had N Korean Uranium.

Libya wasn't building centrifuges capable of enriching weapons grade uranium for no reason. Quotable: "International inspectors have discovered evidence that North Korea secretly provided Libya with nearly two tons of uranium in early 2001 .. The classified evidence .. has touched off a race among the world's intelligence services to explore whether North Korea has made similar clandestine sales to other nations or perhaps even to terror groups seeking atomic weapons .. ". MORE "Evidence Is Cited Linking Koreans to Libya Uranium".

Bush Plan produces "Season of Death".

"At the bottleneck of human smuggling here in the Sonoran Desert, illegal immigrants are dying in record numbers as they try to cross from Mexico into the United States in the wake of a new Bush administration amnesty proposal that is being perceived by some migrants as a magnet to cross .. Mr. García said he had heard that the new Bush immigration plan, which would grant work visas to millions of illegal immigrants inside the United States and to others who can prove they have a job, was "amnesty," and he wondered why he was arrested. He said he would try to cross again in a few days .. "It's like catch-and-release fishing," Mr. Stroud, the Border Patrol agent, said with a shrug after helping Mr. García with his blisters. "One week, I arrested the same guy three times. If I dwell on it, it can be frustrating." Agents .. say the spike in crossings and deaths are the fault of the Bush proposal, which .. has created a stir in Mexico, they say. "They've dangled this carrot, and as a result apprehensions in Arizona are just spiking beyond belief," said T. J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, which represents about 9,000 agents. "The average field agent is just mystified by the administration's throwing in the towel on this." Mr. Bonner // said the people were crossing in huge numbers, even at the high risk of dying in the desert, because "they're trying to get in line for the big lottery we've offered them." .. ". MORE "Border Desert Proves Deadly for Mexicans".

Why does Geoffrey Miller still have a job?

A helpful update from the AP on Abu Ghraib prison story.

"Everyone does it".

Teachers in California are helping their students cheat on standardized tests.

Another Army Sargent charges coverup at Abu Ghraib.

Abu Ghraib computer network manager Sgt. Samuel Provancel speaks out.

Serving & dying in Iraq.

"The average age of servicemen killed in Vietnam was 20, in the Korean War, it was 22. For this war, the average age is 27 .. As devastating as every war casualty is, the impact of casualties from this older fighting force can be especially widespread. "More of them are married, more have children" .. Part of the reason the U.S. fighting force is older is this conflict's heavy reliance on the National Guard and Reserve forces, which make up 46 percent of the 110,000 troops now rotating into Iraq. MORE Older Fighting Force in Iraq Leaves Big Holes Behind.

Mark Steyn.

Is the U.N. corrupt? Is it evil? Quotable: "If you object to what's going on in those Abu Ghraib pictures - the sexual humiliation of prisoners and their conscription as a vast army of extras in their guards' porno fantasies - then you might want to think twice about handing over Iraq to the UN. In Eritrea, the government recently accused the UN mission of, among other offences, pedophilia. In Cambodia, UN troops fueled an explosion of child prostitutes and AIDS. Amnesty International reports that the UN mission in Kosovo has presided over a massive expansion of the sex trade, with girls as young as 11 being lured from Moldova and Bulgaria to service international peacekeepers. In Bosnia, where the sex-slave trade barely existed before the UN showed up in 1995, there are now hundreds of brothels with underage girls living as captives. The 2002 Save the Children report on the UN's cover-up of the sex-for-food scandal in West Africa provides grim details of peacekeepers' demanding sexual favors from children as young as four in exchange for biscuits and cake powder."

The World Bank is funding terrorism.

One third of all developmental bank loans end up stolen -- funding thugs, crooks and terrorists.

China.

Booming China Devouring Raw Materials. Quotable: "Four miles off Nobbys Head, a spit of land jutting into the Pacific like a beckoning finger, 34 bulk freight ships sit anchored in involuntary vigil, pounded by ceaseless wind. They are waiting their turn to proceed to the wharf and load coal for power plants in northeast Asia .. The China Syndrome, as it known, explains why as many as one-fifth of the bulk freighters in the world are effectively unavailable on any given day and why the cost of moving bulk freight has more than doubled in just over a year. The same ships that sit stranded outside Newcastle, or at iron ore ports in Brazil, India and western Australia, must line up again for as long as three weeks to unload at congested Chinese ports such as Qingdao and Ningbo."

Charles Krauthammer.

"Americans have every right to shop for groceries in vehicles built for hunting elephants, but then they should stop whining about the inevitable oil price crunch that follows. Especially when they drive their SUVs to environmental rallies to prohibit drilling in the largest untapped oilfield in North America because of an exquisite sensitivity for the mating habits of Arctic caribou ..". More CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER.

Interrogation deaths

under investigation.

What you haven't heard

about the Sarin warhead found in Iraq.

The doggie genome project.

"The researchers sorted the 85 breeds into four major groups, based on genetic similarities. Three groups turned out to share physical characteristics, geographic origins or uses: guarding, herding and hunting. The fourth group consisted of ancient breeds that showed close genetic relationship to wolves .. Most of the 85 breeds fell into the hunting, herding or guarding groups and were created primarily in Europe or North America in the past 200 years to conform with the concept of purebred dogs, defined by appearance, behavior and closed gene pools, the researchers said. The oldest breeds tend to be most distinct, while the more recent creations, like retrievers, setters, pointers and hounds in the hunting group, are less well-defined genetically .. Because most breeds come from mixed ancestral stock, the differences among them result mainly from reproductive isolation, reliance on a limited number of "founders" and inbreeding to fix desired traits, Dr. Ostrander said. The breeding practices have also left many purebred dogs susceptible to one or more of 350 genetic diseases. The "ancient" group includes 14 geographically diverse breeds that are not usually grouped together, including the Asian chow chow, Shar-Pei, Shih Tzu, Pekingese, Tibetan terrier, Akita and Shiba Inu; the African basenji; the Middle Eastern Saluki; and the Siberian husky and Alaskan malamute. MORE "Collie or Pug? Study Finds the Genetic Code".

Hugh Hewitt on Tim Russert's

"Big Russ & Me.

Skip the tip jar.

Send your donations to Operation Homefront and help out the families of the troops.

Is there a dimes worth of difference

between Bush and Kerry? Radley Balko investigates.

John Carroll -- the Michael Moore of American journalism.

So says Bob Kohn, author of Journalistic Fraud: How The New York Times Distorts the News and Why It Can No Longer Be Trusted.

The lies of John Carroll, editor of the LA Times.

"[John] Carroll's speech was an attack on Fox News Channel .. Carroll's case-in-chief of Fox News' "pseudo-journalism" is "The O'Reilly Factor." .. Carroll lyingly says of O'Reilly: "Where, he asked, was the L.A. Times on the so-called Troopergate story?" In fact, O'Reilly never mentioned "Troopergate." He didn't mention the Arkansas State Troopers. And he certainly didn't mention "so-called Troopergate." He compared the L.A. Times coverage of Schwarzenegger's alleged inappropriate behavior decades earlier with that paper's coverage of the scandals of various Democrats – among them the stunning, contemporaneous sexual assaults by Bill Clinton on identifiable women. I suppose it's easy to confuse sex scandals involving Bill Clinton – I keep a "Women Bill Clinton Has Raped or Groped at a Glance" file on my Blackberry, just as a time-saver – but O'Reilly was referring not to the 1993 allegations from Arkansas State Troopers, but to the 1998 Clinton sex scandals involving allegations from specific women, such as Kathleen Willey. We know this because while the word "trooper" never passed O'Reilly's lips, he did expressly refer to "Kathleen Willey." .. You don't have to enter the "No Spin Zone" to see the "disconnect," as [leftists] love to say, between the L.A. Times' frantic, wild-eyed search for a woman – any woman, even anonymously – to accuse Schwarzenegger of groping her at some point during the previous quarter century, and the Times' equally determined efforts to discount the many credible accounts of women, all named, who plausibly accused Bill Clinton of raping, groping or otherwise sexually assaulting them .. ". More ANN COULTER.

This is sick.

Where do these people come from? An Abu Ghraib photo that is truly disturbing. Does the Army still give hard time for truly heinous crimes? Ugly, ugly stuff.

Economic liberal named India Prime Minister.

"NEW DELHI (AP) - Manmohan Singh, whose humble origins inspired him to start the reforms that opened up India's economy, was named prime minister Wednesday, ending weeks of turmoil that culminated with Sonia Gandhi's refusal to take the post .. Singh, an Oxford-educated economist, emphasized the importance of a healthy capital market, creation of jobs and social development, as he tried to calm investors who have been jittery since the likely makeup of the government became clear. The markets soared at the news that Singh was to take the helm .. As finance minister from 1991-96, Singh had reversed four decades of Soviet-style central planning and control and began easing subsidies, blocks on foreign imports and investment that had nearly brought the economy to a standstill .. " MORE "Economist Named India's Prime Minister".

LA Times editor John Carroll.

Fisked by Catherine Seipp. Who is Jill Stewart anyway?

U.S. Marines on Abu Ghraib -- and the press.

"By GORDON DILLOW -- WITH THE 1ST BATTALION, 5TH MARINE REGIMENT, NEAR FALLUJAH, IRAQ – It was early morning chow time in the 1st Battalion's rear area mess hall, and as Marines fresh in from the field were shoveling down their breakfasts - sausage, cold pancakes and greenish- hued scrambled eggs - CNN's Larry King came on the flickering big-screen TV in the corner. King announced that the subject of his show was, once again, the ongoing prisoner- abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib. And one Marine probably spoke for most Marines here when he shouted at the TV: "Aw, shut the (blank) up!" The Marines here aren't directly connected to the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal. Although these Marines routinely detain and do the initial processing of suspected insurgents, the handling of prisoners at the prison was and is a U.S. Army operation. And given the generations-old rivalry between Marines and soldiers, these Marines express no surprise when the Army stumbles into a minefield, literally or figuratively. But some of the Camp Pendleton-based Marines here do worry that people back home may not make such a distinction, that all U.S. forces will be painted with the same abusive brush. And while every Marine interviewed condemned the abuse of prisoners, almost to a man they think the news media is overhyping the story and losing sight of the big picture of what's going on in Iraq.

"I'm tired of it," says Chief Warrant Officer David Bednarcik, 36, of Temecula. "(The news media) are making us look like a bunch of goons over here. What those (Army) yo-yos did was wrong, and if they're guilty, they deserve to get crushed. But do we really need to keep going on and on and on about it? Can't anybody talk about some of the positive things we're doing here?"

MORE Marines see ripple effect of abuse scandal.

Gordon Dillow, a former OC Register columnist, is reporting from Iraq as a free-lancer. He is embedded with Marines from Camp Pendleton.

Science genius Arnold Beckmen dead at 104.

The passing of a pioneer.

Inventor, chemist and philanthropist Arnold O. Beckman died Tuesday. He was 104.

• Invented or improved: A pH meter that measured acidity and alkalinity, aiding development of soaps, paints and foods; the DU spectrophotometer, a tool that advanced the study of penicillin; oxygen analyzers for submarines, airplanes and infant incubators.

ARNOLD O. BECKMAN'S SEVEN RULES FOR LIVING 1. Absolute integrity in everything. 2. There is no satisfactory substitute for excellence. 3. Moderation in everything, including moderation. 4. Hire the best people, then get out of their way. 5. Don't be afraid of making mistakes; if you're not making mistakes, you're probably not doing very much. 6. Acquire new knowledge and always ask 'why.' 7. Don't take yourself too seriously.

"Arnold O. Beckman of Corona del Mar, the genteel son of a blacksmith who gave away $400 million of the fortune he made inventing and making instruments that revolutionized science and medicine, has died at 104. Beckman died at 5:15 a.m. Tuesday at Scripps Hospital in La Jolla, where he lived for the past 15 months, said his daughter, Pat Beckman. His death culminates the life of one of the 20th century's most influential inventors and philanthropists - a man whose favorite word was "why" and who spent countless hours sitting behind a desk bearing a plaque that said, in big but unimposing letters, "THINK." Beckman and the company he formed created laboratory instruments and analytical tools that were so fast, precise and easy to use they led to everything from enriched foods for soldiers during World War II to oxygen analyzers that greatly decreased blindness among babies placed in incubators. The pensive chemist - a "meat and potatoes" guy from the Midwest - also helped advance military and civilian radar, explain the structure of penicillin, and hasten the search for molecules that might be used in drugs to better fight AIDS and many types of cancer. IN HIS OWN WORDS "I gave Einstein a ride once. Seemed like a nice person." "Unfortunately, scientific discovery, once the pride of our nation, is now relegated to the back pages of the dailies. How do we rekindle the flames of discovery?" (His answer: philanthropy.) "Today's children need fewer electronic games and more eclectic imagination. In other words, less Nintendo and more Newton." Much of the work was done at Beckman Instruments in Fullerton, one of Orange County's first high-technology companies and the firm that brought him such great wealth he almost seemed embarrassed by it. "I want to give all of my money away before I die," Beckman told The Orange County Register in 1985, more than six decades after he helped pay his way through college by playing piano at silent-movie houses. "He was one of the last great Renaissance men born in the 20th century," said biologist Michael Berns, co-founder of the Beckman Laser Institute at the University of California, Irvine. "Dr. Beckman was a gentleman of great intellect and integrity with far-reaching interests that he pursued with a sense of humor. He was always telling people, 'Don't take life too seriously.' " Beckman's humor was soft and subtle. A few days before he turned 100, he was asked by a reporter what he thought about most in the twilight of life. "What time do we eat?" Beckman quipped with a wink. Arnold Orville Beckman was born April 10, 1900, in Cullom, Ill., a farming community southwest of Chicago where life was simple and isolated. Movie theaters had yet to debut. Television was decades away. Cullom had more horses than cars, which provided work for his father, George, one of four blacksmiths in town. George Beckman taught the craft to his son, who helped his father attach metal strips to wagon wheels and extended his expertise beyond horses. By 9, Arnold Beckman was building his own toys. "In Cullom, we were forced to improvise. I think it was a very good thing," he told a biographer. When he was 10, Beckman went rummaging through an attic and found a dog-eared copy of "Fourteen Weeks in Chemistry," a textbook filled with practical experiments. He soon converted an old shed into a laboratory where he performed crude experiments that fused the worlds of chemistry and electricity - something that would later help him develop sophisticated instruments for use in chemistry and biology. Beckman earned bachelor's and master's degrees at the University of Illinois in four years, then headed west to Caltech, where he earned a doctorate in chemistry after toiling in a department that has produced five Nobel Prize winners, including his friend the late Linus Pauling. He was asked to stay on and teach, which he did, for $250 a month. But he also set up a lab off-campus where he could pursue privately-supported interests. It was in that little lab that he created a revolutionary pH meter that made it quick and easy to measure the acidity and alkalinity of citrus. The meter was the first of many instruments that would have a direct impact on human welfare. Beckman and his company played a role in the creation of a polio vaccine and made it possible for emergency-room doctors to quickly detect kidney and pancreatic failure. His tools also helped enrich the diet of soldiers and sailors, let submariners analyze the dank air they were breathing, and contributed to pioneering smog studies in greater Los Angeles in the 1950s and '60s. One of his chromatographs analyzed gas on Mars. Another instrument measured the brain waves of Gemini astronauts. Beckman loved the creative process. But he allowed his company to merge with SmithKline Corp. in 1982 in a deal worth a reported $1 billion. About half of that money went to Beckman and his wife, Mabel. The merger made the couple among the richest people in California and gave birth to a second career for Arnold Beckman: philanthropy. There were times when the self-effacing chemist would wander the breezeways of his seaside home in Corona del Mar, pondering which projects to support. The Beckman donations span the fields of science, medicine and education. The University of California, Irvine, is home to one of five major research centers that Beckman's money funded. Institutions in Orange County have received about $40 million of the largesse. Beckman originally intended to give all of his money away. But he changed his mind after Mabel died in 1989. The Beckman Foundation, using investments, will operate in perpetuity. "It's fair to say that, considered in its totality, the results of his remarkable philanthropy have played a substantial part in enabling the United States to lead the world in science and technology," said Bruce Alberts, president of the National Academy of Sciences."

Arnold Beckman: Key dates 1910 Reads "14 Weeks of Chemistry," decides to become a chemist. 1918 Graduates high school, joins U.S. Marines, meets Mabel Meinzer, whom he marries in 1925. 1922 Receives bachelor's degree from University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Earns master's degree one year later. 1928 Earns doctorate at California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. 1935 Invents pH meter. Founds National Technical Laboratory South Pasadena, renamed Beckman Instruments in 1950. 1940 Invents helipot, a device instrumental in radar. 1942 Develops personal radiation dosimeter for Manhattan Project. 1943 Develops oxygen analyzer for submarines, airplanes and incubators. 1954 Beckman Instruments moves to Fullerton. 1978 Establishes Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation. 1982 Beckman Instruments merges with SmithKline Corp. in $1 billion deal. 2004 Dies May 18, at 104, at Scripps Hospital in La Jolla.

More on Beckman.

Bruce Bartlett.

India lurches left.

Whites students are minorities -- in schools from coast to coast.

"[White]-minority schools in central cities across the nation are inevitable. Only about a third of California's pupils are white, and whites are a minority of students in Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico and Texas as well. By the end of the decade, Arizona, Florida, Nevada and New York will probably join the list. Cities too have changed. White students are down to an average of 16% in central city districts with school populations of 60,000 or more .. ". MORE "No, Brown Isn't a Bust".

WMD's found in Iraq.

Sarin, Mustard Gas found in Iraq. (via Patterico).

"My authority can beat up your authority."

Enjoy this one.

Daniel Weintraub.

Gov. Schwarzenegger's first six months -- A Report Card.

"China

to go easy on brakes". Quotable: "The authorities have targeted certain sectors that appear to be experiencing over-investment .. restricted lending to some industries."

Calling Greg Packer.

"An Editor's Note reveals the dirty little secret about where the New York Times finds those ordinary citizens sprinkled throughout public policy pieces to complain in homespun fashion about the dire effect of this budget cut or that government initiative: they are handed to the Times on a platter by ([leftist]) advocacy groups .. two of its non-random surveyees on a Medicare drug story had actually also appeared in a video for an advocacy group, Families USA .. ". MORE Mickey Kaus.

The Oregonian describes the statutory rape of 14 year old

by former Gov. Neil Goldschmidt as "an affair". The highly partisan Oregonian has long been a key arm of the Democratic party in Oregon, a state which flipped from stanch Republican to reliably Democrat in the 1970s -- at about the same time the news coverage of the Oregonian flipped from journalistically neutral to partisan Democrat. Quotable: "Finger-pointing has also turned on the Oregonian, the Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper that dominates state politics and has the largest circulation in the Northwest. The newspaper has been dogged by questions -- from inside and outside the newsroom -- about why it was scooped and then seemed to allow its catch-up coverage to be spun by Goldschmidt."

Sleeping Giant -- the Bank of China.

"While China accounts for only 4 percent of world GDP, it has accounted for as much as 15 percent of the world's GDP growth and almost 20 percent of the growth in world exports and imports. These figures understate the importance of China's role as the locomotive for its neighbors, including Australia and Japan, which have become increasingly dependent on the 40 percent growth rate in Chinese imports. They also understate the importance of China as the dynamo for the boom in international commodity prices, including aluminum, copper, petroleum, and soybeans, which have helped keep Latin America's economies afloat. No less impressive is the importance that China is assuming in the international capital markets as its external sector has strengthened and as foreign capital has flooded into China. By April 2004, China's holdings of US Treasury bonds approached US$400 billion, while it now accounts for almost 12 percent of each new auction of US Treasury paper. Were China to withdraw from the US Treasury market for any reason, ripples would be felt globally as US interest rates would be forced sharply higher .. ". MORE "When the Bank of China Wakes".

UPDATE: The Big Picture on how Chinese demand helps fuel the oil price spike -- and how Chinese banks are cooling the red-hot Chinese economic pressure cooker.

What will Fed rate increases do

to stock prices?

Mark Helprin.

"Before the war's inception, and even after September 11, the Bush administration, having promised to correct its predecessor's depredations of the military, failed to do so. The president failed to go to Congress on September 12 to ask for a declaration of war, failed to ask Congress when he did go before it for the tools with which to fight, and has failed consistently to ask the American people for sacrifice. And yet their sons, mainly, are sacrificed in Iraq day by day. When soldiers are killed because they do not have equipment (in the words of a returning officer, "not enough vehicles, not enough munitions, not enough medical supplies, not enough water"), when reservists are retained for years, and rotations canceled, it is the consequence of a fiscal policy that seems more attuned to the electoral landscape of 2004 than to the national security of the United States. Were the U.S. to devote the same percentage of its GNP to defense as it did during the peacetime years of the last half-century, and the military budget return to this unremarkable level, we would be spending (apart from the purely operational costs of the war) almost twice what we are spending now .. ". MORE Mark Helprin.

Mark Steyn.

"Now's not the time for Bush to go soft".

Josh Cohen brings you

The Carnival of the Capitalists -- postings from all over the market-positive blogosphere.

I particularly liked this posting by Patterico.

Terror threat -- illegal alien border stampede.

"Confusion over President Bush's proposal to create a guest-worker program for illegal immigrants has fueled a rush across the Southwest border that threatens to overwhelm the U.S. Border Patrol in some areas, agents say in intelligence reports .. ". MORE L.A. Times -- "Border Agents Warn of Influx".

James Grant -- The Fed is chasing its own tail.

"Inflation is returning to the American checkout counter under the unlikely sponsorship of the Federal Reserve. For the past year, the Fed has been striving to make the dollar buy less. It's well on its way to succeeding, to judge by the recent readings on wholesale and consumer prices.

Why the Fed decided to propagate inflation, after having so long battled against it, is a story that begins with the return to common usage of an old word. Late in 2002, officials began to warn of the danger of "deflation," or broadly falling prices. Everyday low prices are well and good, the central bankers allowed. Yet if prices steadily and predictably fell, people would stop buying things. They would stay home to wait for tomorrow's guaranteed lower prices. And if the American consumer stopped shopping — and borrowing to shop — where would we be?

So, last June 25, the Fed pushed the federal funds rate, the rate it directly controls, down to 1 percent, the lowest since the second Eisenhower administration. And it warned that "the probability, though minor, of an unwelcome substantial fall in inflation exceeds that of a pickup in inflation from its already low level."

Before the Fed was founded, in 1913, there were recurrent cycles of inflation and deflation. In general, prices rose in wartime and fell in peacetime. In the last quarter of the 19th century, prices persistently fell. Technological innovation pushed down costs, and lower costs translated into lower prices. Wage-earners flourished as the spending power of money increased. Creditors prospered, too, as interest rates declined.

Then, about 1900, the world struck gold — in Alaska, Colorado and South Africa. As gold was then the monetary asset on which national currencies were based, the world, in effect, struck money. For the next two decades, prices went up.

It is a relatively new thing in finance that prices should not be allowed to fall. The Federal Reserve implicitly admits as much. On the one hand, it extols the rising productivity of the United States economy. On the other, it declares that this extraordinary progress should not be registered in falling prices. In so many words, the central bank says that what is good for Wal-Mart's customers is not necessarily good for the country.

The Fed doesn't literally print money. Instead, it manipulates the interest rate that induces others to print money. In a modern economy, money-printing takes the form of credit creation, i.e., lending and borrowing.

There has been a great deal of this in recent years. By any and all measures, America is more heavily indebted than ever before. In 1958, when the funds rate was last at 1 percent, the economy's overall indebtedness was about half of today's. Back then, overall debt (excluding the borrowings of banks and the federal government) represented 84 percent of gross domestic product. Nowadays, it stands at 163 percent of G.D.P.

The weight of this indebtedness, foreign as well as domestic, helps to explain why the Fed set its rate so low. One percent is an emergency rate, unseen before the institution of the Fed and only rarely since. It was the rate intended to raise the economy from the Great Depression and to see it through World War II and the immediate cold war era.

The Fed chairman, Alan Greenspan, and his colleagues keep saying that there is no emergency — that, on the contrary, the United States economy is a paragon of strength, lacking only an acceptable rate of job creation. Yet they have kept their rate at the emergency setting, thus fomenting a real-estate boom on Main Street and a stock-and-bond boom on Wall Street.

Now the 1 percent era is fast closing, and financial markets worldwide are shuddering. As the signs of inflation multiply, the Fed finds itself in a very interesting position. It never wanted much inflation, it protests; just a whiff would suffice.

But the subjects in the central bank's monetary experiment are human beings, not laboratory mice. When people sense that prices are going to rise, they take steps to protect themselves. They buy extra inventory, invest in so-called hard assets (houses, not bonds) and pass along their rising costs as best they can. Once instilled, inflationary habits are hard to break, as the Fed exactly understands.

And the Fed will raise its rate, though grudgingly and gradually. It will act in this fashion not only out of conviction but also, perhaps, out of a guilty conscience. It knows that its 1 percent rate drove many risk-averse people into stocks and bonds because they could no longer afford to live on the meager returns of their savings. That is at one pole of the spectrum of financial sophistication. At the other, hedge funds borrowed at ultra-low rates to speculate in everything from gold to lead. Just the prospect of a slightly higher borrowing rate has brought about disturbances in the temples of high finance.

The Fed has another reason to be conscience-stricken. It knows, or should know, that by trying to make the dollar cheaper, it has precipitated even more borrowing in an economy heavily encumbered. The greater the debt, the more deflation-prone the economy. And the more deflation-prone the economy, the more the Fed is apt to try to cheapen the dollar. The truth is that the central bank of the United States is chasing its tail."

James Grant is the editor of Grant's Interest Rate Observer.

James Grant -- "Low Rates, High Expectations" in the NY Times.

Patterico:

The Carl Levin Interview.

Thomas Sowell.

"Today, with 50 years of experience behind us, it is painfully clear that the educational results of Brown have been meager for black children. Meanwhile, the kind of reasoning used in Brown has had serious negative repercussions on our whole legal system, extending far beyond issues of race or education. While Brown in effect overruled the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court decision that racially "separate but equal" facilities were constitutionally acceptable, it avoided saying that Plessy was simply a wrong interpretation of the Constitution--that is, wrong in 1896 as well as wrong in 1954. Instead it relied on "modern" psychological knowledge, not available to the court in 1896 .. Brown v. Board of Education was the crucial case establishing a pattern in which rhetoric beats reasoning -- and we are still paying the price today. The painful irony is that black schoolchildren, the supposed beneficiaries of all this, have gained little or nothing in their education .. ". More SOWELL on Brown vs Board of Education in the WSJ.

$65 million goes to subsidize

college for illegal aliens in -- where else -- California. Quotable: "THIS year, nearly7,500 qualified California residents -- who would otherwise be entering California state universities as incoming freshmen -- are likely to be turned away for lack of funds. Meanwhile, approximately7,500 illegal immigrants will receive heavily subsidized university educations .. ".

"Deflation" -- book excerpt.

From Deflation: What Happens When Prices Fall by Christopher Farrell:

"Deflation is not synonymous with depression. The conventional notion that a persistent decline in prices is always a disaster, an economic disease to be avoided at all costs, a depression in the making, is wrong. University of Minnesota economist Timothy Kehoe examined the record of deflation in 15 countries over 100 years. There were indeed a number of episodes when nations experienced both deflation and depression. But it was more common for economies to grow during periods of deflation.

Hyper-deflation, say a 1930s deflation rate of 5% to 10%, is ruinous. Period. The record is mixed when it comes to mild deflation, say a rate of 1% to 2% a year. Sometimes, mild deflation signals a vigorous, healthy economy. What matters are why are overall prices persistently falling. Bad deflation stems from a "demand shock" perhaps a bankrupt banking system or some other trauma that pushes a weak economy into a downward deflationary spiral. Good deflation can co-exist with strong economic growth when the primary cause is a "supply shock" coming from a string of major technological innovations that push costs and prices down, strong productivity improvements, consumer and business gains from freer international trade, and the like. "Such benign productivity-driven deflation was a common occurrence during the last part of the nineteenth century, when people routinely looked forward to goods getting cheaper," says George Selgin, economist at the University of Georgia.

You have to go back to the 1800s to find examples of persistent supply side deflation, especially in the late 19th century. Like now, the last third of the 19th century and the early years of the 20th century were defined by the rapid emergence of an integrated world economy. International trade flourished. The volume of world foreign trade per capita was more than 25 times greater at the end than at the beginning of the 19th century. It was an era of astonishing technological and organizational innovation. Immigrants crossed borders in astonishing numbers. This was also the period of the international gold standard. A shared belief, a commitment to the economic and political benefits of the gold anchor, facilitated international commerce and investment, and kept the price level stable to down.

Deflation and better everyday circumstances went together in America. The wholesale price level fell about 1.5% annually between 1870 and 1900. Living standards improved as real incomes rose by 85%, or about 5% a year. The U.S. economy grew threefold as America went from an agricultural republic to an industrial empire. In the 1860s, America's industrial output lagged behind Germany, France, and Great Britain. By 1900, the U.S. had became the world's leading industrial power with a combined output greater than its main European rivals. The supply side of the economy, including trade, technology, business organization, and immigration, put enormous downward pressure on prices. Writes George Edward Dickey in Money, Prices, and Growth, The American Experience, 1869-1896: "Such a supply or cost-induced deflation does not have the same deleterious effects as a demand-induced fall in prices.... Deflation in this case is a direct result of the rapid growth of output and is not an inhibitor to growth.... The nineteenth century American experience demonstrated that economic growth is compatible with deflation."

What about stock and bond returns? Stocks returned an average of 8.5% a year and bonds 6.6% from 1870 to 1900. Hardly a disastrous return on investment considering that the long-term return on stocks averages 7% and bonds 3.5% since 1802, according to data compiled by Jeremy Siegel, professor of finance at the Wharton School .. ". MORE "Deflation".

Only suckers pay taxes

and clearly the well endowed Mrs. John Kerry is no sucker. Quotable: " 'WE don't pay taxes," Leona Helmsley famously said in 1989. "Only the little people pay taxes." Leona Helmsley, meet Teresa Heinz Kerry, second wife of the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, Sen. John Forbes Kerry of Massachusetts .. The widow of the late Sen. John Heinz, Teresa is worth $550 million, owns at least five mansions and controls a corporation that owns a Gulfstream V private jet worth $35 million. The widow Heinz, who is five years older than her second husband, does pay taxes, but only up to a point. Last year, according to the "summary," she paid income taxes of about $750,000 on an income of $5.1 million. That works out to less than 15 percent of her income, because over half of her income - $2.8 million - came from tax-exempt interest on government bonds. In other words, in addition to the $45,000 a week on which she did pay taxes, Mrs. John Kerry last year collected another $56,000 a week upon which she paid zero taxes .. ".

Patterico fisks LA Times editor John Carroll

and his "you're an idiot" speech.

Alan Reynolds on Fed Chair Arthur Burns

and the lessons of 1972. Quotable: "Burns advised running a "sizable" budget surplus .. That loony idea -- that a budget surplus could substitute for cautious Fed policy -- led to the 10 percent surtax in 1968. The policy mix of high taxes and easy money doubled the inflation rate and collapsed the real economy by the end of 1969. When his fiscal nostrum failed to fix a monetary meltdown, Burns imagined that inflation could be kept down by economic dictatorship -- the government dictating to businessmen what they could charge for their products, and to workers what their time was worth. With government thus declaring inflation illegal, what harm could there be from an easy money policy? So, the Fed minutes promised to "foster financial conditions consistent with the aims of the new government program." By March 1, 1972, the Fed had pushed the funds rate down from 5.6 to 3.2 percent. The funds rate rose only slightly to 5 percent by the time of the election, but it was doubled to 10.4 percent nine months later. A severe 16-month inflationary recession began one year after the election. By the end of 1974, inflation was 12.3 percent -- only slightly below the peak fed funds rate of 13.6 percent in July 1974. I am not sure Burns was primarily motivated by politics when he promoted and pursued terrible policies. He was clearly motivated by terrible economic theories, which were ubiquitous at the time. Like Burns, Alan Greenspan is now trying to shift attention away from the Fed by lecturing about budget deficits. Unlike Burns, however, Greenspan is not known for embracing incompetent theories or policies .. ".

UNC criminology prof. Mike Adams

is out with his book Welcome to the Ivory Tower of Babel: Confessions of a Conservative College Professor. Dr. Adams writes for Townhall and his column can be found here.

Despite bank tightening

the Chinese economy keeps on booming.

What can we do about

Global Dimming? Of course, all this is more bad news for "global warming" crackpots.

Advice for students.

"Many professors don’t tolerate dissent, so conservative students have to use their heads. If you’re afraid the professor will grade you down, keep quiet. It isn’t worth sabotaging your grade .. ". MORE An Interview with UCLA grad Ben Shapiro author of the Amazon bestseller Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America's Youth.

The Best Places to do Business in the U.S.A.

Here are the Top Ten:

• 1. Madison, Wis.
• 2. Raleigh-Durham, N.C.
• 3. Austin, Tex.
• 4. Washington, D.C.-Northern Va.
• 5. Atlanta, Ga.
• 6. Provo, Utah
• 7. Boise, Idaho
• 8. Huntsville, Ala.
• 9. Lexington, Ky.
• 10. Richmond, Va.

Of course, the best places to do business are not always the cities where the super-rich make it big.

Saudi royals vs. Islamic terrorists.

"The U.S. Embassy security officer didn't mince words. "You should get the f--- out of here," he told representatives of American companies at a May 4 meeting in Riyadh. After gunmen killed five employees of engineering firm ABB Lummus Global at a refinery part-owned by Exxon Mobil Corp. at Yanbu on May 1, expats in the kingdom are listening. ABB has evacuated about 90 employees, and other companies are reducing head counts. It is dawning on everyone who does business with the kingdom that the Saudi government is locked in a long, vicious struggle with Islamic militants .. While the Saudis have woken up to the dangers posed by Islamic fanaticism, diplomats in the kingdom are skeptical that they have the skills to deal with committed militants .. ". MORE "Shaking The Timbers Of The House Of Saud".

Inflation & the Fed.

"New data showing that wholesale prices posted their largest increase in a year last month have reinforced the view that the Federal Reserve will begin to raise interest rates at its next policy meeting in late June .. ". MORE "Rate hike agenda depends on CPI data".

Food price continue

up. Quotable: "Consumer prices for food and beverages have been growing at an annual rate of more than 3 percent for the past 5 months in a row .. ".

Producer Price Index

going up.

Inflation continues to spead

hitting hard now in American factories and farms.

Who's more ignorant?

The average Fox News viewer or leftist newsie John Carroll, editor of the Los Angeles Times.

Thomas Sowell.

on Brown v. Board of Education at 50.

9/11 ringleader meets Iraqis in Prague?

"Important new information has come from Edward Jay Epstein about Mohammed Atta’s contacts with Iraqi intelligence. The Czechs have long maintained that Atta, leader of the 9/11 hijackers in the United States, met with Ahmed al-Ani, an Iraqi intelligence official, posted to the Iraqi embassy in Prague. As Epstein now reports, Czech authorities have discovered that al-Ani’s appointment calendar shows a scheduled meeting on April 8, 2001 with a "Hamburg student." That is exactly what the Czechs had been saying since shortly after 9/11: Atta, a long-time student at Germany’s Hamburg-Harburg Technical University, met with al-Ani on April 8, 2001. Indeed, when Atta earlier applied for a visa to visit the Czech Republic, he identified himself as a “Hamburg student.” The discovery of the notation in al-Ani’s appointment calendar about a meeting with a “Hamburg student” provides critical corroboration of the Czech claim. Epstein also explains how Atta could have traveled to Prague at that time without the Czechs having a record of such a trip. Spanish intelligence has found evidence that two Algerians provided Atta a false passport. MORE "The Saddam-9/11 Link Confirmed".

Carnival Time.

Mr. Clay Whittaker serves up this week's Carnival of the Capitalists.

Law, Liberty & Judicial Review.

The constitutional theories of Profs. Bainbridge, Barnett and Cramer are discussed by Lawrence Solum here and here. Lots of links and a very interesting discussion, for those with a taste for such things. Quotable:

Essentially, Bainbridge would have judges engage in a process of construction that would transform the American system of checks and balances, enumerated federal power, and constitutional protection of individual rights (freedom of speech, equal protection, due process, privileges and immunities, and retained rights) into something like the English system of parliamentary supremacy, that is unlimited legislative power without constitutional protection for individual liberty. I am quite sure that Bainbridge does not offer this radical suggestion lightly. He is responding to a real problem in American constitutional theory and practice. The politicization of the judiciary plus the general and abstract language of the individual rights, separation of powers, and federalism provisions of the United States Constitution slowly but surely created a judiciary that sometimes views constitutional interpretation as the appropriate vehicle for enacting personal beliefs about what the law should be into binding constitutional law. This is a real worry, and it is not surprising that it would produce radical proposals, like Bainbridge’s proposal for judicial rewriting of the Constitution.

The politics of Mars.

President Bush has chosen the middle of his re-election campaign as the best time to stump for his $100 billion dollar plus manned mission to Mars. As far as I've been able to make out, no one has come up with a rationale for the proposal -- other than Bush's own re-election effort. And I do wonder if anyone ever bothered to brief the President on this little problem -- how the heck will humans make it back off the Red planet once they have landed? Or is the idea simply to land folks there and then have them spend their last days on Mars?

France attacks EU on farm subsidies.

A free trade breakthrough looks possible, if the EU is willing to piss off the French.

Bainbridge on Randy Barnett.

"What we have allowed the modern court to do is nothing short of judicial tyrrany .. ". More Professor Bainbridge.

Education -- too important to be left to government.

"Two Americans who aim to change that attitude are T.C. Pinckney, a retired Air Force brigadier general, and Houston attorney Bruce Shortt. Lay leaders in the Baptist church, they have drafted a resolution -- which they hope to bring before the Southern Baptist Convention in Indianapolis next month -- urging the denomination's 16 million members to take their children out of public schools .. To which I say: Amen. I'm not a Southern Baptist or even a Christian -- I'm a religious Jew -- but I vote with Pinckney and Shortt. Parents who take their faith seriously ought to think twice before putting their kids' education in the hands of the state. If war is too important to be left to the generals, the shaping of children's minds and values is surely too important to be left to government educators. More JEFF JACOBY.

Joe Darby -- Soldier, Hero.

"The military policeman who blew the whistle on fellow soldiers who were photographed abusing Iraqi detainees has an independent streak and knew "right from wrong," say people who know him .. ". MORE "Town lauds soldier who revealed abuse".

Fun with rulers.

"The U.S. economy is expected to grow a healthy 4.6 percent this year, with inflation picking up as producers pass on the cost of rising commodity prices to consumers, a panel of top forecasters said on Monday .. ". MORE "Analysts see strong U.S. growth, rising inflation".

Competive vs. non-competitive America.

"Michael Barone, America's foremost political analyst, wonders why America produces so many incompetent 18-year-olds but remarkably competent 30-year-olds. The answer is in his new book, Hard America, Soft America: Competition vs. Coddling and the Battle for the Nation's Future .. Barone says, ``Hard America plays for keeps: The private sector fires people when profits fall and the military trains under live fire.'' Soft America depends on the productivity, creativity and competence of Hard America, which protects the country and pays its bills .. For a while, Soft America, consisting of those sectors where there is little competition and accountability, threatened to extinguish Hard America. By 1950, America had what Barone calls a Big Unit economy -- big business and big labor, with big government often mediating between them. This economy was, Barone says, ``inherently soft.'' .. Between 1947 and 1968, big business got bigger: the share of assets owned by the 200 largest industrial companies rose from 47 percent to 61 percent. Then came a hardening .. Between 1970 and 1990, the rate at which companies fell from the Fortune 500 quadrupled. The portion of the gross national product accounted for by the 100 largest industrial corporations fell from 36 percent in 1974 to 17 percent in 1998 .. the second half of the 1960s brought the Great Softening -- in schools and welfare policies, in an emphasis on redistribution rather than production of wealth and in the criminal justice system. The number of violent crimes per 100,000 people rose from 1,126 in 1960 to 2,747 in 1970 while the prison population declined from 212,000 in 1960 to 196,000 in 1970 .. ". MORE George Will "Competition vs. Coddling".

Kick & punch party.

"If ever there was a group that should understand adults losing control in a group setting, ganging up on weakened individuals and then humiliating them gratuitously, it is journalists .. ". More Debra Saunders.

Quotable Victor Hanson.

"As long ago as the fourth century B.C., Demosthenes warned how complacency and self-delusion among an affluent and free Athenian people allowed a Macedonian thug like Philip II to end some four centuries of Greek liberty -- and in a mere 20 years of creeping aggrandizement down the Greek peninsula. Thereafter, these historical lessons should have been clear to citizens of any liberal society: We must neither presume that comfort and security are our birthrights and are guaranteed without constant sacrifice and vigilance, nor expect that peoples outside the purview of bourgeois liberalism share our commitment to reason, tolerance and enlightened self-interest .. ". MORE Victor Davis Hanson

Moore

lies.

"What should be on an "Economics and Philosophy" reading list?"

Here are economist Brad DeLong's picks:

* Jacques Le Goff, : Your Money or Your Life: Economy and Religion in the Middle Ages.
* Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, selections.
* John Locke, Second Treatise of Government.
* Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments.
* Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.
* Jeremy Bentham, Principles of Morals and Legislation.
* John Stuart Mill, On Liberty.
* Hal Varian, Intermediate Microeconomics (chs. 29-35).
* Friedrich Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty.
* Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia.
* James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock, The Calculus of Consent.
* John Rawls, "Justice as Fairness."
* Kenneth Arrow, Social Choice and Individual Values.
* Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom.
* David Gauthier, The Social Contract as Ideology, Philosophy and Public Affairs.
* Jon Elster, The Market and the Forum: Three Varieties of Political Theory, in Elster and Hylland, eds., Foundations of Social Choice Theory.
* Bernard Williams, The Idea of Equality, Philosophy , Politics and Society 2nd Series.
* Amartya Sen, Equality of What?.
* Steven Shavell, Economic Analysis of Welfare Economics, Morality and the Law.
* Tibor Scitovsky, The Joyless Economy.
* William Baumol, Welfare Economics and the Theory of the State.

Here are some of my own choices:

* Alexander Rosenberg, Economics - Mathematical Politics or Science of Diminishing Returns?.
* Deidre McCloskey, The Secret Sins of Economists.
* D Wade Hands, Reflection Without Rules: Economic Methodology and Contemporary Science Theory.
* Bruce Caldwell, Hayek's Challenge: An Intellectual Biography of F. A. Hayek.
* Daniel Hausman, The Inexact and Separate Science of Economics.
* Friedrich Hayek, Individualism and Economic Order.
* Deborah Redman, The Rise of Political Economy as a Science: Methodology and the Classical Economists.
* Bruce Caldwell, Beyond Positivism: Economic Methodology in the Twentieth Century.

UPDATE: Tyler Cowen recommends Derek Parfit and Plato.

"This book would probably no longer pass as a Ph.d. dissertation at the University of Chicago ..".

Marginal Revolution on Friedman & Schwartz's Monetary History.

The LA Times Festival of Leftist Books.

"I've never seen more Noam Chomsky books in one place in all my life."

Patterico - more NY Times lies.

"Once again, the [leftist] media is presenting a fabricated history of the California energy crisis. A New York Times editorial praising Arnold Schwarzenegger revives the myth of "deregulation" in California:

Last week, in an announcement barely noticed outside the state, the governor offered a comprehensive energy plan that dealt the final blow to the unfettered deregulation that helped cause a series of blackouts in 2000, bankrupted a major utility and marked the beginning of the end for Mr. Davis.

What was "unfettered" about a system of deregulation that maintained price controls on the prices that utilities could charge consumers? The idea that "deregulation" caused blackouts in California is a falsehood, perpetuated by [leftists] who don't understand economics -- or do, but choose to engage in dishonest rhetoric nevertheless. What caused the problem, for the most part, was not "unfettered deregulation," but rather half-assed deregulation -- a "deregulation" that lifted controls on the prices that suppliers charged utilities, but which fixed the prices charged to consumers .. And, of course, you had the spectacle of politicians spending all sorts of money on advertising begging people to conserve -- because they refused to do the one thing that could actually cause conservation: lifting the caps on prices charged to consumers. And when this soft-headed strategy failed -- a result which was pre-ordained -- what do we do? Blame "deregulation." "Unfettered deregulation," no less. The editors at the New York Times certainly know that true deregulation never had a chance in California. Yet they use the word "unfettered" to describe a "deregulation" that deregulated only one end of the power equation. This characterization is dishonest. But, it does help the editors fight their war on deregulation in general. And we know what happens when facts get in the way of a pet position of editors at a major newspaper: facts be damned .. ". MORE Patterico's Pontifications: More Media Lies About Energy.

And the award for worst ex-president

goes to .. .

More capitalism, less greenhouse gas.

""Put simply, poor people are willing to sacrifice clean water and air, healthy forests, and wildlife habitat for economic growth. But as their incomes rise above subsistence, "economic growth helps to undo the damage done in earlier years," says economist Bruce Yandle .. The link between greenhouse gas emissions and economic prosperity is no different. Using data from the United States, Professor Robert McCormick finds that "higher GDP reduces total net [greenhouse gas] emissions." He goes a step further by performing the complex task of estimating net U.S. carbon emissions. This requires subtracting carbon sequestration (long-term storage of carbon in soil and water) from carbon emissions. Think of it this way: when you build a house, the wood in it stores carbon. In a poor country that wood would have been burned to cook supper or to provide heat, thus releasing carbon into the atmosphere. McCormick shows that economic growth in the United States has increased carbon sequestration in many ways, including improved methods of storing waste, increased forest coverage, and greater agricultural productivity that reduces the acreage of cultivated land. Because rich economies sequester more carbon than poor ones, stored carbon must be subtracted from emissions to determine an economy's net addition to greenhouse gas emissions. McCormick's data show that "rich countries take more carbon out of the air than poorer ones" and that "the growth rate of net carbon emission per person will soon be negative in the United States." .. ". MORE Terry Anderson.

Productivity up. Factory orders up.

Jobless claims down. Quotable: "The productivity of America's companies rose solidly in the opening quarter of this year, and new filings for jobless benefits plunged last week to their lowest level in more than three years, good news for the country's economic health .. ". .MORE AP Business News.

Weintraub on Schwartzenegger.

"This [NY Times editorial] is just the latest in a series of laudatory pieces on the new governor. I was bullish on him going in and I have been impressed with his approach to the job, but I feel now as if many observers are overreacting in the other direction. Schwarzenegger is not working political miracles. His first big accomplishment was a $15 billion bond to restructure state debt and a new budget reserve plan that fell far short of the spending limit he was seeking. His second major deal was a workers compensation agreement that passed only after it got a sign-off from organized labor. Meanwhile he has run into a brick wall with the public employee unions, is struggling to overhaul an out-of-control prison system, and has had to back away from a number of his most controversial budget proposals. He is not rolling over the Democrats in the Legislature so much as he is creating the appearance of doing so by declaring victory at just the right moment. But oddly, each time that happens he grows more powerful, and that makes it more likely that he will get his way in the future. He says he is succeeding, so he is. He is the ultimate self-fulfilling prophecy." "California Insider - Self-fulfilling prophecy".

An interview with Islamic scholar

Bernard Lewis.

The Top 125 Political Web Sites.

According to Alexa rankings, theses are The Top 125 Political Websites on the internet. Compiled by Right Wing News.

Who is

David Souter.

Kerry -- "devious, disruptive .. a loose cannon" in Vietnam.

"A group of 18 veterans gathered in the nation's capital asking Kerry to authorize the Department of the Navy to independently release his military records, including medical information, about his service during the Vietnam War. Many said Kerry was unfit to be commander-in-chief of the U.S. military. More than 200 veterans have signed a letter from the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth seeking the release of records.

Retired Rear Adm. Roy Hoffmann commanded the swift boat force during Kerry's tour of duty. "He arrived in country with a strong anti-Vietnam War bias and a self-serving determination to build a foundation for his political future," Hoffmann said. "He was aggressive, but vain and prone to impulsive judgment, often with disregard to specific tactical assignments. He was a loose cannon." "In an abbreviated tour of four months and 12 days," Hoffmann added, "and with his specious medals secure, Lt. j.g. (junior grade) Kerry bugged out of Vietnam and began his infamous betrayal of all United States forces in the Vietnam War." ..

Another officer, retired Capt. Charley Plumly, said Kerry was under his command for two or three naval operations. He criticized Kerry's attitude and behavior. "Kerry would be described as devious, self-absorbing, manipulative, disdain for authority, disruptive," Plumly said, "but the most common phrase you would hear [was] 'requires constant supervision.' " MORE "Kerry Was a 'Loose Cannon' While in Vietnam, Says Ex-Commander".

The Fed statement.

"The Federal Open Market Committee decided today to keep its target for the federal funds rate at 1 percent. The Committee continues to believe that an accommodative stance of monetary policy, coupled with robust underlying growth in productivity, is providing important ongoing support to economic activity. The evidence accumulated over the intermeeting period indicates that output is continuing to expand at a solid rate and hiring appears to have picked up. Although incoming inflation data have moved somewhat higher, long-term inflation expectations appear to have remained well contained. The Committee perceives the upside and downside risks to the attainment of sustainable growth for the next few quarters are roughly equal. Similarly, the risks to the goal of price stability have moved into balance. At this juncture, with inflation low and resource use slack, the Committee believes that policy accommodation can be removed at a pace that is likely to be measured. " FOMC Statement - May. 4, 2004

Fed will raise rates .. next time.

"The Federal Reserve signaled on Tuesday it was preparing to lift interest rates even as it left them at 1958 lows for now, saying price risks were balanced and dropping a pledge to be patient on policy. The rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee formally abandoned its contention that deflation was a risk, preparing markets for the first rate rise in four years without specifying when higher borrowing costs may come. While the key federal funds rate on overnight loans between banks remains at 1 percent, the Fed eliminated a reference to policy patience adopted in 2003, implying it may raise rates sooner rather than later to ward off potential inflation pressures. However, it said rate rises would come at a "measured" pace." Reuters. UPDATE: Will it be a replay of 1994?

Michael Kinsley.

The new editor of the LA Times editorial pages will spend 1/2 the year in Seattle. As Kinsley explains in an interview with Newsweek.

The cost of immigration.

"Two decades of growth in the supply of immigrant workers cost native-born American men an average $1,700 in annual wages," according to a study by Harvard economist George Borjas, a leading authority on the economics of immigration. MORE "Immigrant labor holds down wages, report says".

Skyrocketing household debt.

"Household debt climbed at twice the pace of household income from the beginning of 2000 through 2003, according to data at the Federal Reserve. Enticed by low interest rates, Americans took on $2.3 trillion in new mortgage debt during that period - an increase of nearly 50 percent. Consumer credit, from zero-interest auto loans to the much more expensive debt on credit cards, climbed 33 percent, rising to $2 trillion in 2003 from $1.5 trillion in 2000 .. ". More "Household Debt Rises".

Open borders -- it's official policy.

"I am appalled and outraged that federal law enforcement officials would hold a meeting with lawbreakers to tell them they won't enforce the law." -- U.S. Rep. John Culberson, R-Houston after U.S. immigration officials promised a meeting of illegal immigrants that Federal agents would be prohibited from enforcing U.S. immigration laws in the workplace.

LA -- 1,200 illegals with outstanding warrants for homicide.

"We've seen many examples of illegal aliens who were stopped by local police but set free, only to commit crimes instead of being deported. One such case is the notorious Dec. 19, 2002, gang rape in Queens, N.Y., of a mother of two by five illegal aliens from Mexico and Central America who had been arrested several times, but never turned over to the immigration agency.

The most famous example is Washington, D.C.-area sniper Lee Malvo, a Jamaican who was caught by local law enforcement in Bellingham, Wash. He was identified as an illegal alien who should have been deported, but instead was set free by federal authorities.

Three of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers, including ringleader Mohammed Atta, had been stopped and ticketed for significant traffic violations, such as driving without a license and speeding at 90 mph. Thousands of innocent lives could have been saved had there been closer cooperation between local police and immigration authorities.

The Los Angeles police department is handcuffed by Special Order 40, which prohibits the police from asking anyone they arrest about their immigration status unless the suspect is already charged with a felony. The police cannot notify immigration authorities about an illegal alien picked up for minor violations, even though it is well known that enforcing laws against minor crimes often prevents major ones.

The 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act makes it unlawful for any municipality to restrict its employees from reporting illegal aliens to federal authorities. It also allows the federal government and local police to work together under specific written agreements. A few local agencies have reached such agreements, and Virginia just became the third state to give its state police more authority to detain illegal aliens.

Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, trying to defend his city's sanctuary policy, fought against that law all the way to the Supreme Court. He lost in court, but Mayor Michael Bloomberg's "don't ask, don't tell" rule continues to skirt the 1996 law.

There are 400,000 illegal aliens walking our streets who are under standing deportation orders, known as absconders, of whom 80,000 are criminal aliens and nearly 3,800 are from countries with a known al-Qaeda presence. The Los Angeles Police Department has more than 1,200 outstanding warrants for illegal aliens on homicide charges.

The foreign born make up 30 percent of federal prisoners. The big-city gangs are mostly foreign born, and their viciousness is illustrated by Valentino Mitchell Arenas, the 16-year-old who on April 21 is alleged to have shot and killed California Highway Patrol officer Thomas Steiner as the boy's admission ticket to the 12th Street Pomona gang, which authorities say has ties to the Mexican Mafia .. ". MORE Phyllis Schlafly.

Steyn -- 25 years of Thatcherism.

Steyn puts out the call -- "Complete the Revolution".

Quotable: "On any honest account of 21st-century Britain, most of the problems derive from the unThatcherised sectors, in which the post-war, centralised, bureaucratic conventional wisdom still holds .. Forget all the strikes in that "winter of discontent", and try to remember how well Britain worked when things were going well. In a "globalised economy", would you still want to be trying to get an extra phone line from the old GPO? Would you want them regulating your access to the internet? The things that don't work in post-Thatcher Britain are not in those areas where she followed her market instincts, but in those where she didn't .. Mrs Thatcher privatised British Telecom, British Airways, British Leyland. But we still have a nationalised British political culture: the reflexive gripe that, if something's wrong with your local hospital or your local school, it ought to be fixed by some secretary of state in a Whitehall department. It never will be. But the way to get some dynamism and creativity into the system is to denationalise the problems, and make them local issues to be solved locally, in a thousand different ways. As Mrs Thatcher recognised, the British are an inventive people. Unfortunately, though she freed them to apply that inventiveness to their economic life, they're artificially prevented from applying it to everything else. It's time to complete the revolution."

Russell Kirk -- Conservative.

Yes, a tenured faculty member is actually taking Russell Kirk serioiusly.

Quotable: "The boldness and eloquence with which Kirk made his claims for a serious conservative intellectual tradition drew the grudging respect of some on the left. But the effect on the right was enormous. "Russell gave the conservative movement its name," says Lee Edwards, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a leading conservative think tank. "If you look at what people in our movement were calling themselves before 1953, you find words like 'individualist,' 'classical liberal,' 'libertarian,' and so on," he says. He gives two examples to illustrate the point. In 1951, he says, when William F. Buckley published God and Man at Yale, he identified himself as an individualist, not a conservative. And Barry Goldwater, when first elected to the Senate in 1952, "called himself a progressive Republican or a Jeffersonian Republican ... but not 'conservative.'" By the middle of the decade, though, both had adopted the label that Kirk helped put into circulation."

Jean-Francois Revel.

"How to understand this war against globalization, which has grown in scope and virulence over the past five years? First, we must realize that it is a war in the real, not the figurative, sense of the word. It is a physical struggle being fought in the streets, not just theoretically. The demonstrators who are its shock troops are organized by activist organizations, many of them subsidized by governments, and they sack cities and lay siege to international meetings during their battles.

What motivates this extraordinary resistance? Globalization simply means freedom of movement for goods and people, and it is hard to be violently hostile to that. But behind this fight lies an older and more fundamental struggle—against economic liberalization, and against the chief representative thereof, which is the United States. Anti-globalism carnivals often feature an Uncle Sam in a Stars-and-Stripes costume as their supreme scapegoat. In this way, the new movement taps into an old socialist tradition, where opposition to economic freedom and opposition to America are impossible to separate .. ". MORE "Anti-Globalism = Anti-Americanism".

John Kerry -- unfit to serve.

"In 1971, I debated John Kerry, then a national spokesman for the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, for 90 minutes on "The Dick Cavett Show." The key issue in that debate was Mr. Kerry's claim that American troops were committing war crimes in Vietnam "on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command." Now, as Sen. Kerry emerges as the presumptive Democratic nominee for the presidency, I've chosen to re-enter the fray.

Like John Kerry, I served in Vietnam as a Swift Boat commander. Ironically, John Kerry and I served much of our time, a full 12 months in my case and a controversial four months in his, commanding the exact same six-man boat, PCF-94, which I took over after he requested early departure. Despite our shared experience, I still believe what I believed 33 years ago--that John Kerry slandered America's military by inventing or repeating grossly exaggerated claims of atrocities and war crimes in order to advance his own political career as an antiwar activist. His misrepresentations played a significant role in creating the negative and false image of Vietnam vets that has persisted for over three decades.

Neither I, nor any man I served with, ever committed any atrocity or war crime in Vietnam. The opposite was the truth. Rather than use excessive force, we suffered casualty after casualty because we chose to refrain from firing rather than risk injuring civilians. More than once, I saw friends die in areas we entered with loudspeakers rather than guns. John Kerry's accusations then and now were an injustice that struck at the soul of anyone who served there.

During my 1971 televised debate with John Kerry, I accused him of lying. I urged him to come forth with affidavits from the soldiers who had claimed to have committed or witnessed atrocities. To date no such affidavits have been filed. Recently, Sen. Kerry has attempted to reframe his comments as youthful or "over the top." Yet always there has been a calculated coolness to the way he has sought to destroy the record of our honorable service in the interest of promoting his political ambitions of the moment.

John Kennedy's book, "Profiles in Courage," and Dwight Eisenhower's "Crusade in Europe" inspired generations. Not so John Kerry, who has suppressed his book, "The New Soldier," prohibiting its reprinting. There is a clear reason for this. The book repeats John Kerry's insults to the American military, beginning with its front-cover image of the American flag being carried upside down by a band of bearded renegades in uniform--a clear slap at the brave Marines in their combat gear who raised our flag at Iwo Jima. Allow me the reprint rights to your book, Sen. Kerry, and I will make sure copies of "The New Soldier" are available in bookstores throughout America.

Vietnam was a long time ago. Why does it matter today? Since the days of the Roman Empire, the concept of military loyalty up and down the chain of command has been indispensable. The commander's loyalty to the troops is the price a commander pays for the loyalty of the troops in return. How can a man be commander in chief who for over 30 years has accused his "Band of Brothers," as well as himself, of being war criminals? On a practical basis, John Kerry's breach of loyalty is a prescription of disaster for our armed forces.

John Kerry's recent admissions caused me to realize that I was most likely in Vietnam dodging enemy rockets on the very day he met in Paris with Madame Binh, the representative of the Viet Cong to the Paris Peace Conference. John Kerry returned to the U.S. to become a national spokesperson for the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, a radical fringe of the antiwar movement, an organization set upon propagating the myth of war crimes through demonstrably false assertions. Who was the last American POW to die languishing in a North Vietnamese prison forced to listen to the recorded voice of John Kerry disgracing their service by his dishonest testimony before the Senate?

Since 1971, I have refused many offers from John Kerry's political opponents to speak out against him. My reluctance to become involved once again in politics is outweighed now by my profound conviction that John Kerry is simply not fit to be America's commander in chief. Nobody has recruited me to come forward. My decision is the inevitable result of my own personal beliefs and life experience.

Today, America is engaged in a new war, against the militant Islamist terrorists who attacked us on our own soil. Reasonable people may differ about how best to proceed, but I'm sure of one thing--John Kerry is the wrong man to put in charge". JOHN O'NEILL, decorated Vietnam veteran.

UPDATE: "A group of Vietnam veterans will charge today that Sen. John F. Kerry [related, bio] is ``unfit'' to be commander-in-chief because of his claims that U.S. soldiers committed widespread atrocities during the war. Roy Hoffman and John O'Neill, both known Kerry opponents, said they will be joined by at least a dozen swift boat veterans today in releasing a letter saying he is unfit to serve. The drafters of the letter, a new group calling itself ``The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth,'' claims it will be signed by ``a substantial majority of all known Swift boat veterans.'' MORE.

"The Hedy Lamarr Story".

Brought to you by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

If you don't know Lamarr's spectacular story, read about it here and here.

The BIG question: What contemporary actress could possibly play Lamarr? .. perhaps the most brilliant and beautiful actress to ever set foot on a Hollywood sound stage.

$57,078,000,000 - the deadweight cost of music copyright law.

So argues Zimram Ahmed as quoted by Arnold Kling, responding to an argument by Richard Epstein favoring copyright protection for intellectual property.

Kerry's "potatoe" moment.

John Kerry instructs a Jewish audience on a previously unknown Commandment. Or perhaps he was simply attempting to convert them to the teaching of Jesus -- and his own Christian faith (see Matthew 22:36-40).

Charles Krauthammer.

"The last challenger to unseat an incumbent President, Bill Clinton, ran on the axiom that it's "the economy, stupid." He won, but that does not make the assumption — that Presidents control the economy — any less fictitious. They do not. The idea that they do, the central motif of most every presidential election, is crazy .. ". More CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER.

Blogging Capitalism.

The latest. The greatest. The Carnival of the Capitalists.

The Baghdad road to serfdom in America.

George Bush is deeply committed to advancing freedom -- overseas in Iraq BUT NOT here at home in the U.S.A. AEI president Chrisopher DeMuth explains how Bush's passion for liberty through war has increased serfdom at home -- and for no good reason.

Of God, gonads & Iraq.

"“The Jesus Factor,” which aired on Monday, is an hour “documentary” on the role that religion plays in the mind of President Bush. It was produced by the leftwing series “Frontline” for PBS .. In this production, the featured critic of the President’s God-talk on the war was the Reverend Jim Wallis, who explained that calling the enemy “evil” was “bad theology” and in effect un-Christian .. The Frontline documentary failed to mention that Wallis is a liberation theologian .. with a long history of support for Communist causes ..

Watching the program I couldn’t help thinking of Bill Clinton, a president guided not by his God, but by his gonads. I couldn’t help remembering how fiercely the same [leftists] who made “The Jesus Factor” and who are positively phobic about Bush’s Christian faith defended virtually to a man the most irresponsible human being ever to occupy the White House. While Clinton was setting his sights on confused and vulnerable female interns, Osama bin Laden and his fellow Islamic fanatics were actively carrying out their war against American citizens .. ". MORE David Horowitz.

Keep the easy money party going.

Here it is -- the ultimate in brain-dead economics from a Clinton-era economist.

More outstanding SC journalism.

This time it's The North County Times.

Inflation changes relative prices.

It's economics 101. And it explains how and why the CPI index has been front loaded to hide inflation.

The Fed rate hike.

""The elephant is practically in the room" .. former senior Fed staffer Steve Axilrod said .. ". MORE "Fed May Lay Groundwork for Rate Hike".

Inflation - even Buffett feels it.

Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway are feeling the inflation squeeze.

UPDATE: Buffett warns of "too low" US interest rates. UPDATE II: "Inflation Hits the Family Dinner Table".

The bone dry West - an historical norm

"A world of eternally blue skies and meager mountain snowpacks [in the West] may not be a passing phenomenon but rather the return of a harsh climatic norm. Continuing research into drought cycles over the last 800 years bears this out, strongly suggesting that the relatively wet weather across much of the West during the 20th century was a fluke .. ". MORE "Drought Settles In, Lake Shrinks and West's Worries Grow".

UPDATE: .. but the AP blames "greenhouse gasses" and "global warming" for modern drought troubles in the West.

Science & technology - America's lost edge.

"The United States has started to lose its worldwide dominance in critical areas of science and innovation, according to federal and private experts who point to strong evidence like prizes awarded to Americans and the number of papers in major professional journals .. ". MORE "U.S. Is Losing Its Dominance in the Sciences".

It's that time of year again ..

"Bernardine Dohrn is one of America's most notorious homegrown terrorists. She was the head of the Weather Underground in the 1970s. She and her cohorts declared "war" on "AVmerika" and blew up many sites, including a bathroom in the Capitol in an effort to incite others to take up arms this country. Today she is anti-American activist, in full support of global radicals dedicated to overthrowing this democratic government and to aiding and abetting America's enemies. She is also the scheduled commencement speaker at Pitzer College, one of the nation's premier liberal arts schools. All across this country, liberal administrators and radical professors are providing support for terrorist ideas and movements. Indicted terrorists Lynne Stewart (a colleague and comrade of Dohrn's) and Sami al-Arian (head of Palestine Islamic Jihad and a leading "civil libertarian" against the Patriot Act) have been honored speakers at law schools and universities all over America. They are supported by the National Lawyers Guild and the ACLU (Dohrn is on the ACLU advisory board for example). I guarantee you that conservatives who are in the forefront of the battle of ideas defending this country -- Victor Davis Hanson, David Frum, Robert Kagan to name three -- have never been commencement speakers, officially sponsored keynoters and honored guests of any liberal university. This tells you more than you probably care to know about the commitments of our university officials and the state of their campuses .. the other three speakers at the Claremont Colleges (Pitzer is one of them) are Bill Bradley, Gloria Steinem and Walter Cronkite. David Horowitz Blog.

"The Wall", Gorelick & 9/11

"Readers will recall that in his testimony Attorney General Ashcroft declassified a March 1995 memo written by 9/11 Commissioner Jamie Gorelick--then Deputy Attorney General--instructing federal prosecutors and the FBI director to go "beyond what the law requires" in limiting their cooperation. Ms. Gorelick has since responded that she played only a subordinate role in setting this policy, and was only implementing settled law in any case. But the newly released memos appear to contradict Ms. Gorelick on both counts, further strengthening the case for having her resolve the issue in testimony and under oath.

A key piece of evidence is a June 13, 1995 memo to Attorney General Janet Reno from Mary Jo White, then U.S. Attorney and lead World Trade Center bombing prosecutor, and a recipient of the March memo Mr. Ashcroft referenced: "You have also asked whether I am generally comfortable with the instructions. It is hard to be totally comfortable with instructions to the FBI prohibiting contact with the United States Attorney's Offices when such prohibitions are not legally required."

Ms. White added: "Our experience has been that the FBI labels of an investigation as intelligence or law enforcement can be quite arbitrary depending upon the personnel involved and that the most effective way to combat terrorism is with as few labels and walls as possible so that wherever permissible, the right and left hands are communicating" (emphases added).

Then Ms. White asked for a number of changes to the proposed guidelines, most of which Gorelick subordinate Michael Vatis recommends rejecting in a June 19 memo to Ms. Reno. That memo is accompanied by a handwritten note from Ms. Gorelick saying that she concurs.

Or to sum up the exchange: The principal U.S. terrorism prosecutor was trying to tell her boss that she foresaw a real problem with the new and "not legally required" wall policy, but Ms. Reno--again delegating that policy to Ms. Gorelick--largely rebuffed her concerns.

Commission Chairman Tom Kean has thus far been a staunch defender of Ms. Gorelick's refusal to testify. Perhaps he can explain how all of the above squares with Ms. Gorelick's recent remarks on CNN that "The wall was a creature of statute. It's existed since the mid-1980s. And while it's too lengthy to go into, basically the policy that was put out in the mid-'90s, which I didn't sign, wasn't my policy by the way, it was the Attorney General's policy . . ."

We've never expected much from this Commission, but the stonewalling is getting ridiculous. Everyone knows the wall contributed to serious pre-9/11 lapses, such as the FBI's failure to search "20th Hijacker" Zacarias Moussaoui's hard drive following his arrest on immigration violations in August 2001. Yet the Commissioners are treating reasonable requests that they explore the wall fully as some sort of affront.

U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois Patrick Fitzgerald summed up the core issue last October in testimony to Congress: "I was on a prosecution team in New York that began a criminal investigation of Osama bin Laden in early 1996. . . . We could talk to local police officers. We could talk to other U.S. government agencies. We could talk to foreign police officers. Even foreign intelligence personnel. . . . But there was one group of people we were not permitted to talk to. Who? The FBI agents across the street from us in lower Manhattan assigned to a parallel intelligence investigation of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. We could not learn what information they had gathered. That was 'the wall.' "

That's also what the 9/11 Commissioners now seem determined to ignore. How long will they continue protecting their colleague at the cost of their own credibility? More WSJ OPIONON.

The Real World.

Micha Ghertner explains "Why I Am Not A Socialist".

France.

"Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without an accordion. All you do is leave behind a lot of noisy baggage."

Or, better still, the quote from last week's Wall Street Journal: "They're there when they need you." More "Heh".

LA Times -- Lying for the Greater Leftist Good.

Patterico gives it good once again to the truth distorting LA Times.