PRESTOPUNDIT -- "Kerry in Cambodia" Wall-to-Wall Coverage

"Mourning in America".

The special exhibit is to open July 4th at the Reagan Presidential Library.

Gay Marriage.

In Oregon the people will decide. Imagine, democracy allowed to function in America. Wait till the 9th circuit here's about this ..

Michael Moore -- another name for liar.

Newsweek has the goods.

Home Sweet Home.

SuperSize It.

"Because he could."

Isn't this the punch line to a joke about a dog, not the considered moral reflections of a President?

I guess the joke would work just as well for the case of a man with no backbone ...

#5 at Amazon.

Michael Moore Is A Big Fat Stupid White Man.

The wheel of history turns.

Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve hike interest rates 1/4 percent.

It looks like like the Fed is going to give us months and months of slow drip water torture all over again.

The Fed statement is here.

Quotable: "underlying inflation still expected to be relatively low .. ".

InstaFisking: Let's cut to the chase. High rates of monetary growth -- i.e. inflation -- have artificially prevented prices from a benign natural falling, as huge productivity gains create supply increases at lower cost. So large productivity gains are masking substantial underlying inflation in the economy. For the Fed to now sanction higher unmasked inflation is simpy to fan the flames of an unsustainable inflation-generated artificial economic boom -- fueled in some large measure by an unsustainable housing bubble.

Bill Buckley.

"Buckley was everything and more .. He was exactly what I wanted him to be, and more ..". More Rush Limbaugh on Bill Buckley.

Paul Krugman -- socialist assassin.

"Nor is Moore alone in spewing vitriol into the national debate. Many on the left seem incapable of carrying on a political discussion without descending into character assassination. One of their roadside bombs hit close to home this week. From his perch on the New York Times editorial page, Paul Krugman spins a bit of a conspiracy tale of his own. In a column titled "Who Lost Iraq?" Krugman attributes the "failure" of Iraq's reconstruction to "ideological obsession and cronyism." Now, let's see, we know that Saddam modeled Iraq on Stalin's Soviet Union, so what ideological obsession is Krugman referring to? It turns out that Krugman objects to capitalism. Yes, Krugman is appalled to learn that Paul Bremer was intent upon "privatizing government-run factories." Good heavens, these Bush administration people really are zealots! Later, Krugman calls them "right-wing economic theorists." Hello? Was Krugman asleep when we won the Cold War? Note: Free markets work; state-run economies flounder. But this news may not yet have filtered down to the New York Times. As for cronyism, Krugman smirks, "If the occupiers often seemed oblivious to reality, one reason was that many jobs at the C.P.A. went to people whose qualifications seemed to lie mainly in their personal and political connections -- people like Simone Ledeen, whose father, Michael Ledeen, is a prominent neoconservative ..."

This is rich. I happen to know Simone Ledeen. She is an MBA who speaks three languages .. ".

MORE Mona Charen, "Leftists hate fellow Americans more than Islamists".

Free our

Fireworks.

The N-word & the Illiberal Left.

"For more than seven decades, the left has insisted that the more you disagree with them the more like a Nazi you are .. ". "The new n-word" by Jonah Goldberg, editor of NRO.

2:15 p.m. EDT -- the End of an Era.

The AP previews the Fed's interest rate hike.

In related news the value of the dollar strengthens against foreign currencies.

Michael Moore Is A Big Fat Stupid White Man.

Is #8 on Amazon.

And here is the story behind the book (from the Introduction).

Your teacher spouts Chomsky.

What to do?

Via Watcher of Weasels.

Iraq, Bush & political label confusion.

"If the conservative driven experiment in nation building in Iraq enjoys even modest success in the coming years, it will provide long-term nourishment for progressive ideas in America. And if it fails, as many progressive critics of Operation Iraqi Freedom think it is bound to, it will strengthen over the long haul conservative proclivities in America. To understand these paradoxes, it is necessary to recall the simple truth that is increasingly blurred by the present partisan strife: Most conservatives in America as well as most progressives are small “l” liberals and small “d” democrats .. ". MORE "Political Paradoxes" by Peter Berkowitz, GMU Law School.

As I always ask my lefty friends, "Call yourself a progressive, eh? So where's the progress?" The mistake Berkowitz makes here is to flatter the Left they way the Left attempts to flatter itself -- by conflating the good-government Progressives of 90 years ago (most of whom where Republicans) with the Michael Moore - Tom Hayden - Paul Krugman Left of today. It just won't wash. "Progressives" today are in many ways illiberal and anti-democratic -- hence the twin problems of "political correctness" and Leftist tyrants in robes.

Rush Limbaugh is not Michael Moore.

Jeff Jarvis thinks that "It's time to treat Michael Moore as the extremist that he is." Adding that Moore is "Simple-minded, simplistic, mean, venemous, a hate-monger who does nothing to advance the debate and aims instead to divide." So far so good. But then he adds this "And the same goes for Rush". Well, no, the same does not go for Rush Limbaugh.

Limbaugh does not trade in deceit, Limbaugh often does advance the debate in rather complex ways. Limbaugh isn't a hater, and he seeks to pursuade, which he often does, as countless thousands of phone calls over the years bare witness. And his show is full of information, often read from newspapers and magazines.

Jeff Jarvis simply doesn't have his facts straight here. He's showing his lefty journalist social cohort bias here, and he's not dealing off the top of the deck with the reader.

This is a meme which is floating around the center-left -- and its a false one. A real slander on Limbaugh. Time to kill it in the crib.

The Rush = Moore meme got a big bump from CNN's reporter Jeff Greenfield late last week:

"I think this is -- there's no pretense that this is a fair movie. To me, it's like a Rush Limbaugh rant. Rush Limbaugh takes facts and shapes them around his point of view. I also think that how you see this movie to a great extent depends on how you see the war. Jeff's blog, which a lot of us read, has been relatively looking for positive news, I think. You remind us that the media can sometimes be negative. People who look at this war and think it was a mistake from the beginning, or worse, are going to love this movie. But he doesn't pretend that it's fair.

Rush Limbaugh responds to Greenfield here.

I'll get back to this story over the course of the week.

This is chilling.

911. Via Bill Hobbs.

California in Crisis.

"What the story doesn't report is that the general fund cost of employee salaries and benefits in that county has grown by 25 percent in the past three years, from $466 million in 01-02 to $586 million for 04-05. Salaries and benefits as a share of the county's budget, meanwhile, have grown from 38 percent to 53 percent. Much of that has to do with Contra Costa's increasing pension costs, which are a leading indicator for the rest of the state .. ". More -- California Insider, "The story behind the story".

Overheard at DailyPundit ..

"Ralph Nader says Michael Moore weighs three hundred pounds. I'd say that works only if Moore is two feet, three inches tall. My guess is he's closer to five hundred."

Posted by Bill Quick on June 29, 2004 05:33 AM

"The hot air probably offsets the weight calculation."

Posted by Patrick Chester on June 29, 2004 06:27 AM

The link -- with pictures -- is here.

Don't miss

the latest CARNIVAL OF THE LAISSEZ-FAIRE CAPITALISTS.

Why is the Fed raising rates?

Here is Reuters' thinking. Quotable: " A Reuters survey of the top economists on Wall Street found all 21 expect the Fed to raise rates to 1.25 percent."

The Boston Globe -- lowest rates in 46-years are history. Quotable: "By year's end, many economists expect the benchmark rate to double to 2 percent from its current 46-year-low of 1 percent, and then double again, to about 4 percent, by the end of 2005."

Hayward on Carter.

Steven Hayward is getting strong reviews for his new book The Real Jimmy Carter: How Our Worst Ex-President Undermines American Foreign Policy, Coddles Dictators and Created the Party of Clinton and Kerry.

A better title might have been "Carter -- the Unknown President" judging from reader reviews. Example: "According to Steven Hayward Jimmy Carter is a .. man with a mean streak a mile wide." Who knew?

I certainly didn't know this: "[Carter] was the guy who carried his garment bag on board Air Force 1 to try to appear like a normal guy when in fact the garment bag was empty."

Or this: "To win in Georgia, he sold himself as a Redneck and a segregationist and switched faces when it suited his ambitions for power." .. "Carter's campaign smears and race-baiting are by far the dirtiest campaigns of the 20th Century."

One reader titles his review "Machiavelli meets Mr. Rogers"

Hayward is author of The Age of Reagan, 1964-1980: The Fall of the Old Liberal Order.

The U.N. & Old Europe.

Anyone know anything about this book: Inside the Asylum: Why the UN and Old Europe are Worse Than You Think by Jed Babbin?

UPDATE: Babbin has an excerpt from his book in today's National Review.

Linda Chavez on Unions -- the Interview.

Highlight -- Bill Clinton's mobster union pal and their $4.8 million campaign cash for no-indictment deal.

Chavez is the author of the bestselling Betrayal : How Union Bosses Shake Down Their Members and Corrupt American Politics

Bill Buckley, 1955.

" Ideas have to go into exchange to become or remain operative; and the medium of such exchange is the printed word .. it is at this point that we steal the march. For we offer, besides ourselves, a position that has not grown old under the weight of a gigantic, parasitic bureaucracy, a position untempered by the doctoral dissertations of a generation of Ph.D's in social architecture, unattenuated by a thousand vulgar promises to a thousand different pressure groups, uncorroded by a cynical contempt for human freedom. And that, ladies and gentlemen, leaves us just about the hottest thing in town .. ". More "Publisher’s Statement, 1955".

Patterico.

He's back. And always worth reading.

Dot.com reporter decides fate of Iraq.

"Before major combat operations were over, [the WaPo's] Chandrasekaran was already quoting Iraqis proclaiming the American operation a failure .. ". More -- "The Untouchable Chief of Baghdad" by U.S. Marine & Iraq veteran Eric Johnson.

Colby Cosh.

The skinny on the wild Canadian Elections.

U.S. crimes, executions, starvation -- Germany '45 under Truman.

From Chuck Simmins: "Greg, I just put up a collection of items from post-war Germany. We executed hundreds of people. Our soldiers committed thousands of horrific crimes agains civilians. People starved. All of the things that have not happened in Iraq." The link is here.

Jude Wanniski & Galbraith.

Yes! We Have No Inflation! The John MaynardKeynes / Supply Side case for no rate hike -- not now, not later. Quotable:

Yes, we gotta no inflation No inflation We gotta no inflation today. I sella you no inflation. Hey, Mary Anna, you gotta no inflation? Why this man, he no believe-a what I say .. Hey, Mary Anna .. Yes, inflation, no No, yes, no inflation today We gotta no inflation. Yes, we gotta no inflation today.

Source.

Elsewhere, the Washington Times calls for a 1/2% rate increase.

Tale of the Tape.

Reconstruction -- Iraq '03 vs. Germany '45. The one that bothered me:

WAR TRIALS: Germany -- 6 MONTHS Iraq -- PENDING

Fed Goal: 2% Inflation at 2.5% Fed Fund Rate.

"Though Mr. Greenspan adamantly opposes setting any official inflation target, Fed officials have implicitly aimed to keep core inflation near 2 percent. That leads to the Fed's.. big concern: avoiding the kind of disruption that occurred in 1994, when the central bank decided to head off inflation by doubling the federal funds rate, to 6 percent, in a single year. Since early May, Mr. Greenspan and others have sought to reassure investors that the Fed could afford to raise interest rates at a "measured pace." That has been interpreted as a series of quarter-point increases that might bring the Fed funds rate to 2.5 percent by early next year from 1 percent today .. ". More "Up, Yes. But How Much, How Fast?".

Also: "J. Bradford DeLong .. said he thought inflation would remain low for some time because there were still large numbers of unemployed workers. The nation has one million fewer jobs today, he said, than it did when employment peaked four years ago. In addition, he said, the adult population in the United States has expanded by about 1.4 million a year over the last four years. "We are still five to six million jobs below where we should be," Mr. DeLong said, even if one assumes that many adults will choose not to work. "We are still very short of reaching potential output.""

Horowitz on the Democrat Party.

"What is disturbingly new in this political season is not that there exists a large radical culture that has learned nothing from the fall Communism and that identifies Americans as agents of evil and George Bush as their Fuehrer-in-Chief. What is new is that they are joined in this electoral campaign by the Democratic Party establishment .. ". MORE "Where Have All The Democrats Gone?" by David Horowitz.

Bubble Trouble.

The bond market bubble and it's significance for the housing bubble -- a primer from home buyers and bond owners.

Ralph Peters on Iraq.

LESSONS FOR NEXT TIME. Bullet points: (1) Plan for the worst-case scenario, not just the one you hope for. (2) In the wake of combat operations, always impose martial law. (3) Fight terrorists and insurgents immediately, remorselessly and comprehensively. (4) Kill terrorists, rather than taking them prisoner. (5) Don't treat an occupation as a bonanza for American contractors — hire locals. (6) Don't place blind trust in émigrés. (7) Preventive War is a concept that's here to stay. (8) The globalized media demands new rules. (9) Ignore the Left. (10) Speak softly, and carry a big stick. (11) Trust the troops.

Quotable: "The hard Left in America has gone European. They live in a fantasy world in which dictators are virtuous as long as they're anti-American. They care nothing for human rights or women's rights — unless Washington can be blamed for abuses, real or imagined .. ".

Steyn blogs the Canadian Election.

" If these numbers hold, we're looking at a Liberal minority government governing well to the left of M Chretien's three ministries. So it's corruption plus socialism .. ". Steyn's election blog.

Buckley criticizes Bush, War -- hands over National Review.

"As for conservatism today, Mr. Buckley said there was a growing debate on the right about how the war in Iraq squared with the traditional conservative conviction that American foreign policy should seek only to protect its vital interests. "With the benefit of minute hindsight, Saddam Hussein wasn't the kind of extra-territorial menace that was assumed by the administration one year ago," Mr. Buckley said. "If I knew then what I know now about what kind of situation we would be in, I would have opposed the war." Asked whether the growth of the federal government over the last four years diminished his enthusiasm for Mr. Bush, he reluctantly acknowledged that it did. "It bothers me enormously," he said. "Should I growl?" MORE "National Review Founder Says It's Time to Leave Stage".

And I liked this: "By ironic periphrasis, arch understatement and surprising deployment of familiar and of course unfamiliar words, Buckley convinced his opponents that he knew something they did not, and what's more, that he intended to keep the secret from them," Mr. Bramwell said as he presented the award. "Thus did he waken their minds to the possibility that liberalism is not the philosophia ultima but just another item in the baleful catalogue of modern ideologies."

FAHRENHEIT 9/11 -- the TRANSCRIPT.

The first 43 minutes of Michael Moore's movie -- THE TRANSCRIPT.

Core Consumer Inflation at 14-year high.

And bond market goes in the tank.

Philadelphia Fed President

looks for long, slow interest rate hike.

FED President on Inflation.

The "credibility" of the Federal Reserve keeps inflation under control.

Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Just say no -- the thing has an unfixed security hole of truly massive proportions. I've begun using Foxfire, which is free and very good.

The FED raises interest rates WEDNESDAY.

Here's how it effects you.

The CSM on the same story.

Canadian Elections.

Colby Cosh is blogging the Canadian Election minute to minute.

Highlight: "5:16 pm Triumph! Beleaguered Conservative Rex Barnes surges to a 33-30 lead over Scott Simms in Bonavista-Exploits! Clearly, a nationwide Conservative sweep is on the cards! ROCK!"

Where we are.

A Google search for "Bush" & "Hitler" produces 522,000 hits.

Taxes will go up -- and so will interest rates.

Quotable: "The Federal Reserve has been pumping money into the economy at a high rate for more than three years now, in order to keep interest rates low and help stimulate investment and growth. Were this policy maintained too long, it would eventually lead to roaring inflation like we had in the 1970s. Therefore, the Fed must tighten monetary policy .. If the Fed is able to keep to a gradual pace of tightening, financial markets should be able to adjust without trouble. But there is always the danger that mistakes will be made or that unexpected circumstances may arise that will trap the unwary and create a crisis situation. Among those risks are these:

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are now such huge players in the mortgage market that their combined debt is close to $3 trillion, as millions of Americans have refinanced their mortgages to take advantage of low interest rates and rising housing prices. This also means that even the tiniest mistake by these organizations could have massively disruptive effects on financial markets.

The U.S. is becoming more and more dependent on foreign capital inflows to finance the federal debt and domestic investment. Indeed, foreigners now own more than 50 percent of liquid Treasury securities. Even a slowdown in foreign Treasury purchases, perhaps due to fears of a fall in the dollar, would also be massively disruptive.

Among the largest purchasers of Treasury securities has been China, whose economy has been booming. But some analysts now believe that the Chinese bubble may soon burst, just as the telecom and dot-com bubble of the late 1990s burst here. That could force the Chinese to stop buying Treasuries and start selling them. Once again, this would be massively disruptive .. ".

MORE -- Bruce Bartlett "Get Ready. Taxes have to increase".

Babies in the womb.

A remarkable picture show.

A letter to the Washington Post.

"I am a long-time subscriber and I like to read all points of view, but today's front page really troubled me. It contained two news-analysis articles, each of which read like a rally for opponents of President Bush .. I believe that the Post could do two things to remedy this. One is to simply drop the pretense of unbiased journalism, and simply say that the front page is used to promote the opinions of your reporters and editorial staff. Ultimately, I think that this is the most honest approach. If you wish to try to hang on to the myth of an unbiased front page, then I think you ought to hire a conservative to scrutinize the front page before it is printed. That way, some of the bias will be caught ahead of time, rather than leaving it up to the readers .. ". More ARNOLD KLING writes a letter to the Washington Post.

The housing bubble in PrestoPundit's home town.

The news about Ladera Ranch hits The New York Times.

Virgina Postrel explains my home town here.

Michael Kinsley

comes out swinging like a cop with a baton as the new editor of the LA Times -- here, for example, is Sunday's smash-mouth anti-Bush editorial "The Disaster of Failed Policy".

“Why should the government have given you the money in the first place?”

Can this story possibly be true? Don't miss Monday's Lileks (scroll down).

Schwarzenegger.

Call him Governor Prime-Time.

P. J. O'Rourke.

"Being foreigners ourselves, we Americans know what foreigners are up to with their foreign policy — their ven­omous covenants, lying alliances, greedy agreements, and trick-or-treaties. America is not a wily, sneaky nation. We don’t think that way. We don’t think much at all, thank God. Start thinking and pretty soon you get ideas, and then you get idealism, and the next thing you know you’ve got ideology, with millions dead in concentration camps and gulags .. ". From chapter 1 of Peace Kills.

You might also enjoy "I Agree With Me".

Steyn -- The 9/11 Commission.

"These poseurs have blown it so badly they've become the definitive example of what they're meant to be investigating: a culture so stuck in its way it's unable to change even in the most extreme circumstances .. They were appointed to take a cool, dispassionate look at the government's response to an act of war, but they were unable to rise above the most pointless partisan point-scoring .. ". More STEYN -- "How the Sept. 11 commission blew it".

Perhaps it's time Americans grabbed the microphone and forcefully said, "I paid for this Commission".

Feed your kids

their omega-3s. Fish oils are a good source, e.g. tasty grilled salmon with dash of garlic and brown sugar. Mmmm. Mmmm.

UPDATE: More here.

Debt-ridden American families

will get slammed by rising interest rates. Listen .. there .. there it is .. the timeless siren call of the inflationists. Quotable: "One-fifth of the $9 trillion in total household debt, or $1.8 trillion, is borrowed at variable rates .. ".

U.S. Economy --

THE BIG STORY.

UPDATE: Postrel has more.

BushCheney '04 "F"-bombs the Michael Moore Democrats.

George Bush may get my vote after all. BushCheney '04 goes bare knuckles against the Michael Moore Democrats in this web-only video ad [wmv] from the The Official Re-election Site for President George W. Bush.

And the unspoken F-word here is Fascist. BushCheney 04' is laying down the gauntlet and saying what needs to be said -- the Michael Moore Democrats have seriously raised the stakes by promoting a kind of anger and deceit unheard of in America discourse outside of the circles of the Fascist Left.

The consequential lies and rage of Al Gore, Ted Kennedy, George Soros, Howard Dean, Michael Moore, etc. must be opposed forthrighty and with clear eyes -- with a clear understanding that this ain't bean bag and these aren't decent people and these "big" lies aren't without civic and mortal consequence.

Let's be straight. Kennedy, Moore, et al are not Communists or Fascists, but it is right and necessary to say that consistent "big lie" raging certainly is behaving like the Communists and Fascists -- and this is absolutely intolerable in America.

If you don't understand how Kennedy or Moore or Dean have been practicing the politics of lies, read a book or get the facts from someone like Sean Hannity on the radio. It ain't my job to make sure you know what the truth is -- the truth is out there and its easy to get. That's your job.

Read the AP story on the Bush ad here.

UPDATE: This may explain alot when you consider that the Democrat Party has been led in recent years by the likes of Bill Clinton, Ted Kennedy, Jesse Jackson, Terry McAuliffe and Al Gore.

UPDATE II: Read an alternative perspective here.

UPDATE III: Michael Barone's latest "The Media Joins the Big Lie Game" is a must read.

Quotable: "Bush and Cheney have in fact been careful not to claim that Iraq and Al Qaeda collaborated on 9-11. Yet Democrats and many in the media claim they have. Their argument -- I heard it recently from Clinton National Security Council staffer Nancy Soderberg -- is that by mentioning Iraq-Al Qaeda ties many times, Bush and Cheney are trying to fool the public into believing that they collaborated on 9-11. So while they don't claim collaboration on 9-11, they do. Words evidently mean the opposite of what they mean. George Orwell's Winston Smith would feel at home."

"The media and the Democrats have been using one Big Lie after another to attack Bush. Another example: the Times' White House reporter wrote that Bush claimed the threat from Iraq was imminent. But Bush actually said was the threat wasn't imminent, and then he proceeded to argue that we should act anyway. It's interesting that no one at the Times caught this obvious error."

"It is common knowledge that about 90 percent of journalists vote Democratic, and it is common sense that this must affect their news coverage. A recent survey of journalists found that only 7 percent call themselves conservative versus 34 percent liberal and 59 percent moderates, and that the large majority of moderates took liberal stands on issues. Ordinarily most journalists try to be fair and accurate. But it's hard to resist the conclusion that at least some have crossed the line and are, consciously or unconsciously, actively trying to defeat the president."

Larry Summers vs. Leftist Faculty at Harvard

"Summers seemed barely able to contain his disdain as he implicitly accused Palmer and others of seeking to turn the university into a "political institution." "It's not for Harvard to have an opinion on the merits of the Iraq war, or the right to choose versus the right to life," he told the students. Harvard has become "a more conservative place" under Summers, said Palmer, whose three-year contract expires at the end of this month and has not been renewed .. ". MORE -- "Harvard's Leader Keeps Up Push To Remake School for 21st Century".

"One of Summers's recurring themes since becoming president has been the need to break down the traditional barriers between arts and sciences. He complains repeatedly that many students graduate without knowing "the difference between a gene and a chromosome." .. Summers's supporters say he is helping to modernize a venerable institution and raise academic standards that had grown so lax that in 2001 -- the year of his inauguration -- the university awarded honors to 91 percent of its graduating class ..".

Not since Johnson

has the rate of Government spending increase so fast as it has under President Bush.

Take this in: during Bill Clinton's first term Government spending increased 4.2%. Under George W. Bush Government spending has increased 19.7%.

6-1.

Americans believe by a factor of 6-1 that Ronald Reagan was a better President than is George W. Bush.

Quotable: "Reagan was a man primarily of ideas," said Don Devine, a former Reagan administration official and a conservative activist. "Bush is a man primarily of politics."

And this: "President No. 40 had a vision, conservatives say. President No. 43 doesn't .. ".

Steyn

reviews "My Life". The tale of Sir Edmund Hillary Rodham Clinton and others whoppers.

MooreLies.com

-- the blog.

Europe -- slacker paradise.

"The average number of hours worked per person aged 15 to 25 each year in France and Germany is about 50 percent lower than in the United States .. course, this 50% figure somewhat overstates the overall labor force comparison, since young people in France and Germany face daunting rates of unemployment, as employers there are most reluctant to add new workers .. when they know that they can’t easily be laid-off, and when every new worker will cost them a huge burden in social welfare taxes and other involuntary expenditure, over and above the hourly wage. Still, losing half of the labor of the most energetic, innovative, and forward-looking segment of the labor force is not a particularly enlightened practice .. ". MORE "Europe doesn’t work".

The VP smacks down the insufferable Sen. Leahy.

VP: "I think a lot of my colleagues felt that, ah, what I said badly needed to be said. That it was long overdue." NC: "Pretty feisty guy, aren't you?" VP: "Well, I am usually calm, cool, and collected, and ordinarily I don't express myself in strong terms, but I thought it was appropriate here."

Hugh Hewitt has the full transcript. And here is Hugh's commentary: "Appropriate indeed. And long overdue. After listening to Leahy serially slander numerous judicial nominees, then John Ashcroft last week and the Vice President this week, it was to Dick Cheney's great credit that he let the small man from the small state know what most Americans think of such Uriah Heep-like conduct."

A long way from John Dewey.

"The standards of socially acceptable [leftist] opinion have shifted."

Reagan vs. the Communists -- in Hollywood.

This is the autobiography I wish I could have read. Quotable: "He's the only president whose early years included a course in how dirty the Commies can get, how clever and resourceful they can be, and the guts it takes to handle them in direct, personal conflict," said the screenwriter Art Arthur, who worked with Reagan in Hollywood labour causes during the 1940s and 1950s. "No other president had ever met the Communists early on toe-to-toe in that fashion and learned the hard way." More "The real truth about Reagan is that he was a bit of a Leftie".

More Clinton

lies. You could probably fill a book with these ....

Chavez on Unions.

Friedrich Hayek would have loved this book. The big issue: unions operate largely beyond the rule of law. Linda Chavez describes the current system "Legal Apartheid" -- a set up where unions are beyond the bounds of law as it is written for everyone else.

IF only Rudy Giuliani had been special prosecutor ..

"Had [Ken Starr] been the vindictive sort, the latter could have trapped Clinton in a lie before the federal grand jury investigating Whitewater .. Starr's team eventually learned from the FBI lab that the stain on Lewinsky's dress was in fact semen .. as Schmidt and Weisskopf wrote, "prosecutors could have waited until after the (Clinton's) testimony to ask for a blood sample, keeping him in the dark. Then, if he stuck to his denial of a sexual relationship with Lewinsky, Starr would have an open-and-shut case of perjury." Rather than trap him in a lie, Starr chose to throw "Clinton a lifeline" and ordered a blood test of then President Clinton. In asking for the test, Starr team-member Bob Bittman "tacitly confirmed DNA had been found on the dress," a truthful admission that saved Clinton from making false ones .. ". MORE "Ken Starr Saved Bill Clinton from Himself".

Lefty movie critics

love Michael Moore & Fahrenheit 9/11.

Saddam asked bin Laden

for help in going after the Saudis.

F--- yourself Sen. Leahy.

I think we can all cheer this.

If Bush could work up the manhood to say it to -- well, how about Al Gore? -- he'd win re-election in a walk-away. It would be the "I payed for this microphone" moment Bush dearly needs to re-establish his leadership cahonies, the ones he displayed just after 9/11 at the World Trade Center.

Here Comes the Judge.

The Smoking Gun.

Reagan -- Myth vs. Reality.

"Rumors of the President nodding off during meetings were unfounded: he never napped during the day .. He had an aversion to sleeping while travelling. On flights back from Tokyo or Moscow, he would sit working with battery-like energy while everybody else crashed.. When he made his address to Congress after the Geneva summit, he had been writing and talking for nineteen hours straight." More EDMUND MORRIS -- The Unknowable Reagan.

And let's end the speculation: Reagan first reading of Hayek came in 1945: "During the Second World War, he became addicted to The Reader’s Digest—so much so that he seemed to memorize every issue as soon as it hit the stands." A condensed version of Hayek's The Road to Serfdom was the lead article in the March, 1945 issue of the Digest.

Generation Kill.

An interview with Captain Nathaniel Fick, Marine's First Reconnaissance Battalion, and Evan Wright author of Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America, and the New Face of American War. About the book: "Wright rode into Iraq on March 20, 2003, with a platoon of First Reconnaissance Battalion Marines—the Marine Corps' special operations unit whose motto is "Swift, Silent, Deadly." These highly trained and highly motivated First Recon Marines were the leading unit of the American-led invasion force. Wright wrote about that experience in a three-part series in Rolling Stone that was hailed for its evocative, accurate war reporting. This book, a greatly expanded version of that series, matches its accomplishment .. ".

Let the English stick with kinky sex.

Leave grammar to the Americans. Worth quoting:

"One of the most mysterious of writing’s immaterial properties is what people call “voice.” .. Prose can show many virtues, including originality, without having a voice. It may avoid cliché, radiate conviction, be grammatically so clean that your grandmother could eat off it. But none of this has anything to do with this elusive entity the “voice.” There are probably all kinds of literary sins that prevent a piece of writing from having a voice, but there seems to be no guaranteed technique for creating one. Grammatical correctness doesn’t insure it. Calculated incorrectness doesn’t, either. Ingenuity, wit, sarcasm, euphony, frequent outbreaks of the first-person singular—any of these can enliven prose without giving it a voice. You can set the stage as elaborately as you like, but either the phantom appears or it doesn’t."

"When it does appear, the subject is often irrelevant .. A lot of the movies that James Agee reviewed between 1942 and 1948, when he was The Nation’s film critic, were negligible then and are forgotten now. But you can still read his columns with pleasure. They continue to pass the ultimate test of good writing: it is more painful to stop reading them than it is to keep going. When you get to the end of Agee’s sentences, you wish, like Auden, that there were more sentences."

InstaPundit is a NAZI.

"The Administration works closely with a network of "rapid response" digital Brown Shirts who work to pressure reporters and their editors for "undermining support for our troops."" So says former Vice President of the United States Al Gore.

The Democrat party

has chosen to embrace the lies and politics of flim-flam-film maker Michael Moore.

Paul Krugman.

Columnista for the NY Times. Oh, and Krugman is at it again.

Blogostroll.

Right Wing News takes a stroll through the blogs.

This is funny.

Straight Plan for the Gay Man.

Schwarzenegger -- How I Govern.

"Asked to describe his governing philosophy seven months after toppling Gray Davis in California's recall election, he said, "Crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentations of their women." He stopped himself. "Wait a minute, that's Conan," he said. "I stepped out of character here for a second."

On fiscal matters, Mr. Schwarzenegger considers himself an old-school Republican determined to ferret out waste. No item is too minor to escape his attention. For instance, since Mr. Schwarzenegger took office on Nov. 17, the toilet paper in the Capitol has been switched from two-ply to one-ply, a saving of thousands of dollars over the years. "It's not anymore the two-ply," he said. "Because you know what? We're trimming."

More -- NY Times on Schwarzenegger.

Who is Douglas MacEachin?

"As it happens, the staff member who reported to 9/11 Commission members yesterday that there was no “collaborative relationship” between Iraq and Al Qaeda was none other than Douglas MacEachin – a man who once held senior positions at the CIA, including posts with the Office of Soviet Analysis from 1984-1989, the Arms Control Intelligence Staff for the next few years, and the job of Deputy Director for Intelligence from 1992 until 1995. In these capacities, MacEachin appeared to colleagues to get things wrong with some regularity. For example, he was reflexively averse to conclusions that the Soviets were responsible for supporting terrorism. He reportedly rejected as “absurd” analyses that suggested Moscow was illegally developing bioweapons. And, as DDI, he forced CIA analysts to tailor their assessments to please Clinton administration policy-makers. MORE "The 9/11 Commission Fails to Connect the Terror Dots" by Frank J. Gaffney Jr.

Hayes on the Saddam -Al Qaeda connection.

An interview.

The Clintonian lies of Sidney Blumenthal.

Or is he simply insane.

10 million pap tests.

For women who lack a cervix. That's more than one out of ten women tested.

Greg Packer.

Does it again.

Going Up -- Grant on interest rates.

"Interest rates will be rising for the next quarter-century. You can look it up. Cycles in the bond market are famously long-trending. In the U.S. yields fell for the last 40 years of the 19th century. They rose for the first 20 years of the 20th century. They fell between 1920 and 1946, then started up again. They peaked in 1981 and fell for the next 22 years, i.e., until June 13, 2003, when the yield on the ten-year Treasury note slid to a meager 3.1%. Now the yield is back up to 4.7%. You would perhaps like to know where it will be next week, on Labor Day or at the close of business on New Year's Eve. The truth is that I don't know. Nevertheless, I do believe I know where rates are going over the next generation: They're going up .. ". MORE "Why Rates Will Go Up" by James Grant.

George W. Rockefeller.

"The role of government is to stand there and say, 'We're going to help you.' The job of the federal government is to fund the providers .. " -- George W. Bush quoted by Jonah Goldberg, who got the quote from Andrew Sullivan.

Stephen "The Connection" Hayes

rips 9/11 commissions staffers and their false "no collaborative relationship" claim. The Hayes piece appears on the op/ed page of Michael Kinsley's LA Times, but where the article really belongs is on the front page of that paper -- as a necessary corrective to the erroneous news reporting of the paper on this topic. Even better, I'd like to see Kinsley put in charge of the whole sorry newspaper -- with John Carroll out on the street looking for another lefty paper to edit. UPDATE: Here's a longer piece by Hayes in the Weekly Standard.

Kimball, Huntington & ParaPundit.

Quotable:

"“multiculturalism” is really a form of mono-cultural animus directed against the dominant culture .. ".

"The “sensitivity” of the multiculturalist is an index not of moral refinement but of moral vacuousness .. ".

"Many intellectuals are promoting ideas that are causing decay of our civilization simply in order to position themselves at higher points in status hierarchies."

MORE -- ParaPundit "Roger Kimball On Samuel Huntington".

Kimball's article on Huntington is here.

Leftist journalism -- bad business for big media.

"Journalists are [more predominately leftists] than [are] voters in the most [leftist] congressional district in the United States, the 9th district in California, which contains the city of Berkeley .. ".

"Among all Americans, those who watch the evening network news regularly have fallen from 60 percent in 1993 to just 34 percent today. Among Republicans, 15 percent or less report watching the evening news on ABC, CBS or NBC .. ".

Professor William Mayer .. suggests that conservatives have adopted talk radio.. as an alternative news outlet .. In Mayer's words, "[Leftists] .. do not need talk radio. They already have Dan Rather, Peter Jennings and Tom Brokaw .. ". More BRUCE BARTLETT.

Al Qaeda and Saddam.

More on the connection. Quotable -- Czech Interior Minister Stanislav Gross: "I believe the counterintelligence services more than I believe journalists."

Foreign nationals are voting

and serving on juries, among other things. Michelle Malkin calls it "The End of American Citizenship".

Home Land Insecurity.

I've never had much faith in the naive idea that the Bush administration is putting my safety first when it comes to home land security .. now here's more evidence that politics and political correctness are trumping national security once again. At what point did America go insane?

Patterico.

More lies from the Los Angeles Times.

Clinton judge likens Bush to Hitler.

Bush is like Mussolini, Hitler according to a Clinton appointed Federal judge. Hey, thanks for the insight.

We don't need no stinkin' stolen money.

Free men using their own property fly into space.

Capitalist bloggers.

It's Carnival Time.

Take calcium, loose 15 pounds.

LA Times -- "The Calcium Connection".

Assume the economic position.

"Take the assumption that people are rational .. It is merely the following three-pronged understanding that the typical human adult: (1) is goal-oriented; (2) learns; (3) has preferences that are transitive .. ". MORE "Sound Assumptions" by Donald Boudreaux.

Clintonian lies fill new Clinton tome.

"Clinton briefly defends his last-minute pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich, insisting the Justice Department did not object and that he was in part acceding to a request from the then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. (The top Justice Department pardon attorney testified he had never been consulted about the pardon until just before it was issued, and National Security Council transcripts kept by White House note takers showed that it was Clinton, not Barak, who raised the Rich pardon in a conversation just before he left office.) .. ". MORE -- "The Clinton Book" by Michael Isikoff.

The coming global power vacuum.

"Why might a power vacuum arise early in the 21st century? The reasons are not especially hard to imagine.

• The clay feet of the colossus. The U.S. suffers from at least three structural deficits that will limit the effectiveness and duration of its crypto-imperial role in the world. The first is the nation's growing dependence on foreign capital to finance excessive private and public consumption. It is difficult to recall any empire that has long endured after becoming so dependent on lending from abroad. ..

• "Old Europe" grows older. Those who dream that the European Union might become a counterweight to the U.S. should continue slumbering. Impressive though the EU's enlargement has been, the reality is that demography likely condemns it to decline in international influence. With fertility rates dropping and life expectancies rising, European societies may, within less than 50 years, display median ages in the upper 40s. Indeed, "Old Europe" will soon be truly old. By 2050, one in every three Italians, Spaniards and Greeks will be 65 or over, even allowing for immigration. Europeans therefore face an agonizing choice between "Americanizing" their economies, i.e., opening their borders to much more immigration, with the cultural changes that would entail, or transforming their union into a fortified retirement community.

MORE --"Without American hegemony the world would likely return to the dark ages" by NIALL FERGUSON.

What's up with China & Japan?

A Marginal Revolution investigation: Why do Asian central banks buy so many dollars?. Quotable: "I can think of a few theories .. #7. They are just plain, flat-out stupid. I call this the uh-oh scenario. They won't stay stupid forever .. ".

Steyn -- Tina Brown & Bill Clinton in heat.

".. in the Clinton era, the only naked guy with women's panties on his head and a dog leash round his neck would have been the President breaking in the new intern pool ..

.. Clinton is what you wind up with when you have Reagan's communication skills but nothing to communicate .. ".

.. Seven-eighths of the picture was Clinton with a big broad smile and his arms outstretched, like a cheesy Vegas lounge act acknowledging the applause of the crowd before launching into his opening number ("I Get a Kick Out of Me"). The gaunt, cadaverous fellow wedged into the left-hand sliver of the photograph proved on closer inspection to be Senator John Kerry .. ".

More MARK STEYN -- Bill Clinton in heat.

Is it "The Onion"?

"To counter runaway spending in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, the conservative Republican Study Committee is considering a proposal to station a watchdog congressman on the House floor to curb expedited approval of money bills."

No, its Robert Novak on "The Free-spending Congress".

Powerline vs. NY Times.

"As a news organization, the New York Times is illegitimate .. You simply can't believe anything you read in the Times .. ". MORE "Another Disgrace at the New York Times".

USA vs. EU -- Europe ranks just above Arkansas & Mississippi.

"If the European Union were a state in the USA it would belong to the poorest group of states. France, Italy, Great Britain and Germany have lower GDP per capita than all but four of the states in the United States. In fact, GDP per capita is lower in the vast majority of the EU-countries than in most of the individual American states. This puts Europeans at a level of prosperity on par with states such as Arkansas, Mississippi and West Virginia."

Download the full report "EU versus USA" (pdf) by Dr Fredrik Bergström, President of the Swedish Research Institute of Trade, and Mr Robert Gidehag, President of the Swedish Taxpayer's Association.

And here is the WJS on the report:

"U.S. GDP per capita was a whopping 32% higher than the EU average in 2000, and the gap hasn't closed since .. Higher GDP per capita allows the average American to spend about $9,700 more on consumption every year than the average European. So Yanks have by far more cars, TVs, computers and other modern goods. "Most Americans have a standard of living which the majority of Europeans will never come anywhere near," the Swedish study says. But what about equality? Well .. in 1999, 25% of American households were considered "low income," meaning they had an annual income of less than $25,000. If Sweden -- the very model of a modern welfare state -- were judged by the same standard, about 40% of its households would be considered low-income.

In other words poverty is relative, and in the U.S. a large 45.9% of the "poor" own their homes, 72.8% have a car and almost 77% have air conditioning, which remains a luxury in most of Western Europe. The average living space for poor American households is 1,200 square feet. In Europe, the average space for all households, not just the poor, is 1,000 square feet.

So what is Europe's problem? "The expansion of the public sector into overripe welfare states in large parts of Europe is and remains the best guess as to why our continent cannot measure up to our neighbor in the west," the authors write. In 1999, average EU tax revenues were more than 40% of GDP, and in some countries above 50%, compared with less than 30% for most of the U.S. .. ".

The Clinton Book.

The NY Times has a dandy review of Bill Clinton's My Life. Quotable: "The seeds of his adult self can be glimpsed in an autobiographical essay he wrote in high school: "I am a living paradox — deeply religious, yet not as convinced of my exact beliefs as I ought to be; wanting responsibility yet shirking it; loving the truth but often times giving way to falsity." It is only because Mr. Clinton was president of the United States that these excavations of self .. are considered newsworthy .. The nation's first baby-boomer president always seemed like an avatar of his generation .. yet the former president's account of his life, read in this post-9/11 day, feels strangely like an artifact from a distant .. era. Lies about sex and real estate .. psychobabble mea culpas .. all seem like pressing matters from another galaxy, far, far away."

The "pureheart" watermelon.

Well, I've had one and it's a terrific watermelon. My kids like them much better than the standard SoCal grocery store watermelon. The Dulcinea Pureheart™ seedless watermelon is the smaller, sweeter, redder, tastier watermelon with the wafer-thin rind. And the ultra-thin rind really is remarkable. In SoCal you can get them at Vons (Safeway).

However, for the best watermelons in the world you still can't touch the famed Hermiston Oregon watermelon.

David Horowitz -- Big Media and

The Big Lie.

9/11 lies of Peter, Dan & Tom.

Call them the spokesholes of the Democrat Party: "The Republican Chairman and Democratic Vice Chairman of the 9-11 Commission on Thursday rejected the media’s widespread reporting that the commission’s report issued the day before had directly contradicted Bush administration statements about connections between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Yet on Thursday night ABC’s Peter Jennings declared that there “continues to be a discrepancy between the commission’s findings and the President’s on whether al-Qaeda has a link to Saddam Hussein,” and CBS anchor Dan Rather repeated how “the commission yesterday said it had found no credible evidence of a quote, 'collaborative relationship’ between al-Qaeda and Iraq -- no plotting together against the United States,” but, he added in treating President Bush as out of step, without mentioning how Kean and Hamilton had corrected CBS’s mis-reporting, “President Bush insisted again today that there was a quote 'relationship’ of some kind and defended his position.” NBC’s Tom Brokaw took a similar tack, repeating how the commission had found “that there was no 'collaborative relationship’ between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.” But, Brokaw lectured, “despite that conclusion, President Bush insisted there was a relationship between the two.”

MORE "Media Suppress Hamilton’s Scolding of Misreporting of Iraq-Qaeda" UPDATE: The 9/11 lies of the LA Times -- Patterico has the goods.

Illegal Immigration & the job market.

A ParaPundit indepth analysis. Quotable:

"Note that the absolute number of employed Hispanics has increased in the last year by more than the number of employed non-Hispanics. So most new jobs now go to Hispanics."

""The median, or midpoint, weekly earnings for Latinos dropped from $402 in the first quarter of 2003 to $395 during the same period this year .. " .. A person earning about $20,000 a year is not paying much in taxes. If that person has even a single child then the cost of that child's education per year is way more than the person pays in taxes. Add in subsidized medical care and other subsidies it is easy to see that the employers of the low salaried workers are getting labor subsidized by taxpayers. That decline in wages translates into more demand for government services and less taxes paid to the government. The middle and upper classes have to pay more in taxes and get less in government services to pay for this trend in labor costs and the growth in the number of illegal Hispanics living in the United States."

Mexicans drain $13.8bn from U.S. economy.

Read the story here.

Mexico's Fox -- American's need to give more

to Mexican nationals in the U.S.

Steyn - Bush vs. Reagan.

"Bush’s conservatism is neither a romance nor a balance sheet. He’s adopted a lot of the soft fatuities of the Left — ‘Leave no child behind’ — and he doesn’t care how expensive they are to implement. On Labor Day last year, Bush said, ‘We have a responsibility that when somebody hurts, government has got to move.’ With conservatives like that, who needs Sweden?

Reagan knew better: ‘Outside its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector.’ He didn’t say that as president or even as governor, but one Sunday night back in the Fifties as the host of General Electric’s weekly playlet ‘GE Theater’. There’s more conservative philosophy in the average Reagan intro to those old shows with Joan Crawford and Burgess Meredith than we’re likely to get in Bush’s keynote address at this year’s convention ..

Three years on [since 9/11], I think one can make the argument that this fuzziness about the precise nature of the enemy is one reason so many Americans have checked out of the war .. Bush had an opportunity to shift the broader cultural landscape in 2001 — to take on the enervated, self-loathing, multiculti self-absorption that in the days after 9/11 looked momentarily vulnerable. But he chose not to do so .. ". More MARK STEYN.

INFLATION -- The Economist wants to know ..

Is it back to the 1970s?. Quotable:

It is alarming, therefore, that monetary and fiscal policies are currently so lax. In the G7 economies the average budget deficit as a share of GDP is almost as big as at any time in the past 50 years, while global monetary policy is, by some measures, at its loosest since the 1970s — when inflation last took off."

Paul Krugman's double dishonesty.

"Intellectual honesty compels one to acknowledge two things: first, weaknesses in one's position; and second, controversial assumptions on which one's position rests. Paul Krugman, the economist-cum-columnist, is routinely dishonest in both ways .. ". MORE -- Paul Krugman's dishonesty.

Neal Boortz says "later" to the Libertarian Party.

"I’ve found that when I’m trying to sell someone on the libertarian philosophy I usually have around 10 seconds to make that first impression. If I say the wrong thing in those 10 seconds, I’ve lost them. If someone asks me “what do you people believe in?” and I respond, “Legalizing marijuana!” I’m written off as a kook. One convert lost.

But what if I respond to that initial query with something like; “Well, Libertarians believe that if you make $1000 a week your paycheck every other Friday should be for $2000.” OK … now you have their attention. That idea has universal appeal, and you have just been granted an extra few minutes to make the sale. Or you could respond; “Libertarians believe that the government shouldn’t be allowed to condemn your home, seize it, and turn it over to a developer for a fancy new condo project.” Once again, you have their attention ..

After the nominating speeches are concluded, and after the delegations present their votes in writing, there’s a lull in the action while votes are tabulated. This is a prime opportunity for the Libertarian Party to sell itself to the C-Span viewers. So, what do we get? .. Predictably, some rocket scientist at the Libertarian Party decides to fill this void with a feature on … what else! … medical marijuana! Here comes that “legalize drugs” thing again .. ". MORE Neal Boortz: "Blowin' smoke".

The Wall Street Journal blackballs Michelle Malkin.

"The problem, an editorial-page staffer informed me, stemmed from two columns I had written (here and here) .. which had challenged the WSJ's advocacy of amnesty for illegal aliens. Were there factual inaccuracies in either of those pieces? No. In fact, the only errors in those columns were the ones I pointed out had been made by the WSJ editorial page when it mischaracterized the amnesty program it was championing. I was told by the editorial features staffer that I had antagonized the page's higher-ups. The bottom line is that my criticism of the WSJ's misleading pro-illegal alien propaganda caused me to be shut out of the esteemed editorial pages .. ". MORE -- Michelle Malkin: "WHY THE WALL STREET JOURNAL IS SNORT-WORTHY".

Milton Friedman -- 4 ways to spend money.

"There are four ways in which you can spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you're doing, and you try to get the most for your money.

Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I'm not so careful about the content of the present, but I'm very careful about the cost.

Then, I can spend somebody else's money on myself. And if I spend somebody else's money on myself, then I'm sure going to have a good lunch!

Finally, I can spend somebody else's money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else's money on somebody else, I'm not concerned about how much it is, and I'm not concerned about what I get. And that's government.

And that's close to 40% of our national income .. ". MORE -- An interview with Milton Friedman.

Bin Laden & Saddam -- "a wealth of evidence".

"A wealth of evidence on the public record — from government reports and congressional testimony to news accounts from major newspapers — attests to longstanding ties between bin Laden and Saddam .. ". More -- "WRONG AGAIN" by RICHARD MINITER.

Fed Rate Moves.

Barry Ritholtz at The Big Picture has a chart of Fed interest rate moves over the last 4 years -- and makes a prediction: its 1/4 point increases as far as the eye can see. Gongloff wants to know, "Is there anyone on the planet doesn't know that rate increases are coming?".

Arnold Kling -- the Left marches on.

"The idea that government planning of the economy is rational has been dealt a series of mortal blows, including:

-- the failure of wage-price controls in the United States and other countries in the 1970's
-- the poor performance of state-run enterprises in Europe and the success of Margaret Thatcher's privatization initiative in the United Kingdom in the 1980's
-- Japan's "lost decade" of the 1990's, which ended the last myth of rational central planning, as Japanese industrial policy foundered in stagnation
-- the ability of computers on the Internet to self-organize in the 1990's, demonstrating that Friedrich Hayek's concept of "spontaneous order" is valid. It was Hayek who argued strenuously that the market's ability to process local information makes it more efficient than central planning.

With all this evidence in favor of markets and decentralization, the good news is that much of the Left now recognizes the efficiency of markets and is in favor of them, with some exceptions. The bad news is that the exceptions include the sectors of education, health care, and retirement security, which have been and are likely to continue to be increasing as a share of GDP. Although all of the arguments against central planning apply to government provision of these services, the Left employs its Compassion weapon there, while using the Corruption weapon to fight a rearguard action against markets everywhere else .. ". MORE "The Left's Tactical Weapons" -- Arnold Kling.

Nearly 1 out of 3 new U.S. jobs go to non-Americans.

And foreigners are driving down wages in the U.S. job market -- hitting the U.S. Latino population particularly hard. Quotable: ""Immigrant Latinos, especially the most recent arrivals, have captured the most jobs," the report said. "Moreover, the improved employment picture has not delivered higher wages to workers overall and to Latinos in particular." The median, or midpoint, weekly earnings for Latinos dropped from $402 in the first quarter of 2003 to $395 during the same period this year, after adjusting for inflation. They lost ground when compared with African American and white workers. "The growth in the supply of labor has surely contributed to keeping wages down," Kochhar said .. ". "Many New Jobs Going to Noncitizens" -- LA Times.

The news report is based on this PEW Hispanic Center study (pdf).

U.S economic BOOM -- the latest.

"Output at U.S. factories, mines and utilities rose 1.1 percent in May, the biggest monthly gain in almost six years .. ". MORE "Housing, Industrial Production Show Gains".

Reagan staffer PAUL KRUGMAN exposed.

"I've seen Paul Krugman make lousy predictions about the economy before -- lots of times (actually, every time). But until I read this [1982 CEA] memo, I had no idea that he could be so thoroughly, spectacularly, awesomely, shockingly wrong. And this is no mere Krugman jeremiad on the op-ed pages of the New York Times. This is a document on United States Government letterhead, written in order to guide national economic policy. Thank God Ronald Reagan was smart enough not to believe one word of it .. ". More "THE REAL LIVE WHISTLE-BLOWING SMOKING GUN KRUGMAN MEMO".

There's a new Blowhard

at 2BLOWHARDS, one of my favorite blogs. Her background is explained here.

Michael Kinsley in ethical stumble.

Not a good way to start of your first day on the job at the LA Times. Patrick Frey has the details.

Michael Moore Is A Big Fat Stupid White Man.

Do your part to make this book the No. 1 book in the country.

Greenspan Decoded.

"Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has removed any ambiguity about how the central bank intends to go about raising interest rates to remove some of the monetary stimulus that has solidified the U.S. economic expansion. .. the Fed will raise its target for overnight interest rates by 25 basis points at the end of a June 29-30 meeting, and that Greenspan's current intention is to proceed from there at a ``measured'' pace in increasing rates .. ". "Greenspan Removes Any Doubt About Rate Increase" -- John Berry.

Friedman on Reagan.

Postrel has a bit of FRIEDMAN ON REAGAN from Friday's WSJ.

Prof. Ronald Reagan.

"Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher accepted the Austrian Nobel laureate Friedrich von Hayek’s Road To Serfdom critique of creeping socialism. But Reagan, again referring to Mises, emphasized that limited-government advocates must advance a positive program as a strategy .. ". MORE "Going to School on Reaganomics".

Inflation rips at 5.5% annual rate.

Another PrestoPundit "I TOLD YOU SO" moment. Next stop -- the Federal Reserve and rising interest rates.

Here is your carnival of inflation coverage:

"Most fund managers believe the Fed, which says it wants to raise rates at a "measured" pace, is dangerously behind the curve, keeping the accelerator too close to the floor and risking runaway inflation." "Wall Street vs. the Fed: Investors and the Fed disagree about inflation" -- CNN Money.

"A cab ride in New York now costs 26 percent more than it did a year ago. In Omaha, Neb., the price of Oxboard, a stronger form of plywood, is up 187 percent over the past six months. Since January, buying a $10,000 used car has cost about $320 more. Don't even mention the price of anything sold by the gallon. If you think things are getting more expensive, you're right. While two months ago jobs were the biggest worry, inflation is now emerging as one of the main threats to the US economy .. "This isn't pretty," says Bob Gay, chief economist at Commerzbank Securities in New York .. ". "Inflation a top threat to economy" -- Christian Science Monitor.

"Prices for commodities such as copper, soybeans and cotton, which fueled Wall Street inflation worries at the beginning of the year, have cooled off." "Signs of Inflation. Or Not." -- CNN Money

"Food and beverage prices rose 0.9 percent, the department said in its report, the biggest monthly increase since 1990." "CPI jumps but in line with forecasts" -- CNN Money.

"Our general view is that inflationary pressures are not likely to be a serious concern in the period ahead," Mr. Greenspan said."Consumer Prices Surge at Fastest Rate in 3 Years" -- NY Times.

CofC is UP.

It's the Carnival of the Capitalists. So we had to wait a day, let the party begin!

French ambition.

"70 percent of French schoolchildren aspire to become bureaucrats.

You don't say.

[Chicago Fed President Michael] Moskow said accurate predictions of inflation are only part of inflation forecasting. Another component, he said, is learning from forecasting errors. "Understanding the reasons that forecasts are off the mark often yields important insights into the workings of the economy," he wrote. "This requires a view or theory of the inflation process -- something that is missing from forecasts simply based on the price of gold or last year's inflation rate." MORE "Fed's Moskow Urges Vigilance on Inflation".

George Bush -- The Anti-Reagan.

Jonah Goldberg has the goods. Quotable: "The first rule of politics is that you have to say what you believe before you do anything about it ..

.. Discussing the importance of dogma, William F. Buckley wrote in 1964, "If our society seriously wondered whether or not to denationalize the lighthouses, it would not wonder at all whether to nationalize the medical profession." Reagan's rhetoric and actions moved America closer to a country where we argue about denationalizing lighthouses. George W. Bush's rhetoric and actions are moving us in the opposite direction. Last Labor Day, George W. Bush told a crowd, "We have a responsibility that when somebody hurts, government has got to move." Reagan would never had said something like that ..

.. the first President Bush believed, as he put it in his first inaugural speech, that America had "more will than wallet." The current President Bush has lots of will and a wallet full of credit cards. On the domestic side, Bush has asserted that the federal government has a central role in education — once a local concern — and he's backed that up with a 60 percent increase in federal funding. He's created a new Cabinet agency, massively expanded entitlements in the form of a prescription drug benefit and asked for a major new commitment by the federal government to insert itself into everything from religious charities to marriage counseling ..

.. at minimum, Bush seems to have abandoned the rhetorical high ground. Reagan declared that government wasn't the solution, it was the problem. In countless ways, Bush has been saying the reverse. And once you concede that the "government has to move" every time "somebody" hurts, you've pretty much abandoned your dogma and picked up the opposition's. What makes things even worse is that while Bush may be good and decent and unfairly criticized for a host of things, he's a terrible spokesman for conservative principles. One cannot listen to four decades of Reagan speeches and off-the-cuff remarks and not be amazed by the man's ability to enunciate a coherent philosophy. Bush gives some excellent written remarks, but off the cuff he can make even sympathetic listeners cringe .. ".

Bruce Bartlett.

How Ronald Reagan killed inflation.

9th Circuit tyrants lose another one.

The Supreme Court rules 8-0 that the 9th Circuit has -- again -- been unlawfully ordering around its fellow citizens. Popularly knows at "the 9th circus", this West Coast panel of lefty clowns has become the most overturned Federal court in the nation. Thanks to the Supremes we are still "one nation, under God", and not "one nation, under the thumb" of the these democracy-hating 9th circuit judges.

Reagan & "American Conservatism".

"When he went searching for radical ideas in the 1950s, he turned to European intellectuals such as Friedrich Hayek .. ". More "American Conservatism" in the WSJ.

The Era of Big Government -- IT'S BACK!

Sebastian Mallaby, WaPo: "Last week's Reagan-Bush comparisons emphasized the similarities between the two presidents. But the biggest contemporary change in American politics is revealed by the difference between them .. The anti-government era of Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich has ended. A new era of big government is beginning .. if last week's Reagan retrospectives emphasized his lasting influence on history, it's worth remembering that his small-government crusade is one area in which his influence has come and gone .. ". MORE - "Big Government Again".

Clinton & Bush II -- our worst modern Presidents.

"The following table lists how many of the major agencies or departments had their budgets cut in a given Presidential term ..

Johnson, 4 out 15
Nixon, 3 out 15
Carter, 5 out 15
Reagan 1, 8 out 15
Reagan 2, 10 out 15
Bush, George H., 2 out 15
Clinton 1, 9 out 15
Clinton 2, 0 out 15
Bush, George W., 0 out 15

Marginal Revolution reports on an AEI study.

Krugman -- another word for liar.

Powerline has the details.

Patterico nails the LA Times - again.

How dishonest are the editors of the LA Times? Well, this dishonest. This isn't a newspaper, it's the local propaganda sheet of the Democrat Party in SoCal.

UPDATE: Patterico has more here.

Reagan's Commencement Address -- Eureka College 1957.

This is rather revealing. A serious man seriously interested in the fate of liberty, America and -- tied up in all that -- Eureka College.

TIME mag discovers the blog.

I liked this subhead for a sidebar on InstaPundit, "BETTER THAN TETRIS" -- some details you may not know about the most popular blogs on the web.

Your professors where the stupid ones.

"Ronald Reagan was always dismissed by the academic left and its legion of pundits and public mouthpieces because they deemed him simple, ideological, not sufficiently in tune with the complexities of contemporary politics. As usual, the academic left had it wrong: Reagan was never simple, nor an ideologue in the sense in which the left uses that term - meaning by it someone who invents and simplifies ideas to serve ulterior motives. He was, instead, a skilled communicator of complicated ideas in terms that nearly everyone who paid attention could understand .. To appreciate why the sophisticated class got Reagan so wrong, one needs to understand the intellectual framework within which most of these folks operate. Any claim to know something about ethics, political principles or comparative government is deemed by these people to be too judgmental, Eurocentric and otherwise fraught with hubris - the only exception being all of their own pronouncements, which are, of course, gems of human wisdom as they see it. To think that one's society has it over another in, say, its legal constitution, its public priorities and its institutions is to be nothing but blindly boastful, and never correct based on evidence and argument. So someone who unabashedly proclaims the opposite isn't merely in disagreement with others but must be a simpleton, intellectually defective. That way no one needs to argue with such a person and those who dismiss him can proclaim victory by sheer default. Ronald Reagan was never fooled by such sophistry and knew his purpose well enough to pay very little attention to these essentially ad-hominem attacks. He was all the wiser for this, and his detractors found that nearly intolerable, retaining a disdain for and opposition to him to this day .. ". More TIBOR MACHAN -- A great friend of liberty is lost. UPDATE: Steyn on Reagan & the Professors raises the question, What is an Intelligent" person anyway?

Great stuff -- Chris Matthews' commencement address.

"I've come here today with five bits of advice on how to get where you want to get, follow your dreams, keep your values and make good on the best hunch you ever had about yourself. William Butler Yeats once said "Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire." I'm here to light your fire.

Rule One: Get yourself in the game. Ever watch a little kid standing along courtside while the big kids play basketball? When a ball goes out of bounds, he or she runs for it and passes it back in. As time goes on, when an older kid has to get home for dinner, somebody yells "Hey! Wanna play?" That's it, the heart of it really: the first rule of building a life and a career. Whatever your ambitions, whatever the field you want to enter, if you want to play a game go to where it's played. If you want to be a lawyer, go to law school. If you can't get into the best law school, get into the best one you can. Same with medical or business school or whatever. If you want to get into TV, get yourself a job, any job in the business. The important thing is to get your seat at the table. Newspapers, same deal. Name your dream; there's a place people are pursuing it. Three things happen when you get in the door: You learn how the game is played but also how the players act with each other. You learn the game's manner, its cadence, its culture. Second, you meet people. Let's face it, it's not who you know, it's who you get to know. Third, and this is the big one, you're there when the lightning strikes! ..

Rule Two: If you want something, ask for it! Some people aren't going to like the cut of your jib. But those who do will change your life. They will open doors for you. If nine people will say "No" to you, then ask ten. It's like dating. But just as it takes only one strike to transform a prospector into a gold miner, it only takes one "Yes" to turn a proposal into a marriage. There is magic that results when a person invests in you. He becomes a big-time investor in your success, a stockholder in your dreams. Because, when you ask someone for help, you are implicitly asking him to place a bet on you. The more people you get to bet on you, the larger your network of investors and the shorter the odds. This isn't Pollyanna I'm talking. It comes from the smartest man who ever wrote about politics, or human nature for that matter, Niccolò Machiavelli. "Men are by nature as much bound by the benefits they confer as by those they receive." "If you want to make a friend," said Benjamin Franklin, a fellow who grows wiser the older I get, "let someone do you a favor." Know that and you know an awful lot about life. How did I get to be a Presidential speechwriter? First I got a no-big-deal job at the White House. I got the tip on that from someone I worked with in the Senate, an ex-girlfriend actually. As for the speechwriting job? I had met a guy while working in a Congressional campaign in Brooklyn. We've been friends ever since. He introduced me to a Presidential speechwriter. When that fellow moved up to chief speechwriter, he put me up for his job. There's a false assumption out there that talent will surely be recognized. Just get good at something and the world will beat a path to your door. Don't believe it. The world is not checking in with us to see what skills we've picked up, what idea we've concocted, what dreams we carry in our hearts. When a job opens up, whether it's in the chorus line or on the assembly line, it goes to the person standing there. It goes to the eager beaver the boss sees when he looks up from his work: the pint-sized kid standing at the basketball court in the playground waiting for one of the older boys to head home for supper. "Hey, kid, wanna play?" That's life .. ". MORE -- Chris Matthews 2004 Commencement Address -- Hobart and William Smith Colleges.

Fair and Balanced.

According to a recent GMU study .. "the New York Times is twice as far from the center as Fox News’ Special Report, to gain a balanced perspective, one would need to spend twice as much time watching Special Report as he or she spends reading the New York Times .. ". Horologium has the link & details.

The USSR vs. Reagan's America.

"By the time [Reagan] left office, American output had expanded by an amount nearly equal to the entire economy of what was then West Germany .. ". More PETER ROBINSON - "Thanks to Reagan's optimism, the sun set on the Soviet empire".

Mark Steyn.

"'It's so American,'' Margaret Thatcher is said to have remarked, watching from Bill Frist's Senate office as Ronald Reagan's casket was brought to the Capitol and 21 jets flew overhead in missing-man formation. She's right. Serious nations have serious ritual, but each in its own way. From this last extraordinary week, the memorable images have been spare and simple -- the overhead shot of the caisson in the Rotunda -- or small and human: Nancy Reagan running her finger along the broad stripes of the flag-draped coffin .. When Thatcher stood before President Reagan's coffin, by the way, she curtsied -- which you're supposed to do only for kings and queens .. ". More MARK STEYN - "Like Thatcher, Americans grasped Reagan's worth".

Reagan got it.

"The Nazis never had the means to destroy the United States, and Arab radicals don't today; the Soviets did. In Reagan's War, Peter Schweizer describes a fascinating incident during the all-out Soviet war games of the early 1980s. The Russians (just for the hell of it) blipped the orbiting Challenger space shuttle with a high-power laser. Only minor damage resulted, but the message was clear. We are feeling our oats, and we have you in our sights. We can hit where and when we please .. ". MORE - "What Ronald Reagan Understood".

A Ronald Reagan Flag.

My 2 year old loves to say "Ronald Reagan", a name she picked up over the week listening with me to the news. The kids and I were walking into McDonald's today, with a giant American flag standing out in front at half mast. I thought I'd entertain her by using the name "Ronald Reagan". Now, my daughter is a big fan of flags, so I said, "Do you see that flag? The flag is half way down today for Ronald Reagan." She looked up at me and simply asked "Why?". Maybe it was the way she said it. For a second or two I lost it. I was sad, I was thankful, I thought of death, love and many things. And I answered as best I could "Because Ronald Reagan is a good man" I said.

Later tonight, as my wife and I were watching the burial ceremony with the little ones, my daughter pointed at the screen and said, "Look daddy, it's a Ronald Reagan flag."

"Yes, it is," I replied.

Thatcher on Reagan -- Transcript 6/11/04.

"We have lost a great president, a great American, and a great man. And I have lost a dear friend. "In his lifetime Ronald Reagan was such a cheerful and invigorating presence that it was easy to forget what daunting historic tasks he set himself. He sought to mend America's wounded spirit, to restore the strength of the free world, and to free the slaves of communism. "These were causes hard to accomplish and heavy with risk. "Yet they were pursued with almost a lightness of spirit. For Ronald Reagan also embodied another great cause - what Arnold Bennett once called 'the great cause of cheering us all up'. "His politics had a freshness and optimism that won converts from every class and every nation - and ultimately from the very heart of the evil empire. "Yet his humour often had a purpose beyond humour. In the terrible hours after the attempt on his life, his easy jokes gave reassurance to an anxious world. "They were evidence that in the aftermath of terror and in the midst of hysteria, one great heart at least remained sane and jocular. They were truly grace under pressure. "And perhaps they signified grace of a deeper kind. Ronnie himself certainly believed that he had been given back his life for a purpose. "As he told a priest after his recovery 'Whatever time I've got left now belongs to the Big Fella Upstairs'. "And surely it is hard to deny that Ronald Reagan's life was providential, when we look at what he achieved in the eight years that followed. "Others prophesied the decline of the West; he inspired America and its allies with renewed faith in their mission of freedom. "Others saw only limits to growth; he transformed a stagnant economy into an engine of opportunity. "Others hoped, at best, for an uneasy cohabitation with the Soviet Union; he won the Cold War - not only without firing a shot, but also by inviting enemies out of their fortress and turning them into friends. "I cannot imagine how any diplomat, or any dramatist, could improve on his words to Mikhail Gorbachev at the Geneva summit: 'Let me tell you why it is we distrust you.' Those words are candid and tough and they cannot have been easy to hear. But they are also a clear invitation to a new beginning and a new relationship that would be rooted in trust. "We live today in the world that Ronald Reagan began to reshape with those words. It is a very different world with different challenges and new dangers. All in all, however, it is one of greater freedom and prosperity, one more hopeful than the world he inherited on becoming president. "As prime minister, I worked closely with Ronald Reagan for eight of the most important years of all our lives. We talked regularly both before and after his presidency. And I have had time and cause to reflect on what made him a great president. "Ronald Reagan knew his own mind. He had firm principles - and, I believe, right ones. He expounded them clearly, he acted upon them decisively. "When the world threw problems at the White House, he was not baffled, or disorientated, or overwhelmed. He knew almost instinctively what to do. "When his aides were preparing option papers for his decision, they were able to cut out entire rafts of proposals that they knew 'the Old Man' would never wear. "When his allies came under Soviet or domestic pressure, they could look confidently to Washington for firm leadership. "And when his enemies tested American resolve, they soon discovered that his resolve was firm and unyielding. "Yet his ideas, though clear, were never simplistic. He saw the many sides of truth. "Yes, he warned that the Soviet Union had an insatiable drive for military power and territorial expansion; but he also sensed it was being eaten away by systemic failures impossible to reform. "Yes, he did not shrink from denouncing Moscow's 'evil empire'. But he realised that a man of goodwill might nonetheless emerge from within its dark corridors. "So the President resisted Soviet expansion and pressed down on Soviet weakness at every point until the day came when communism began to collapse beneath the combined weight of these pressures and its own failures. "And when a man of goodwill did emerge from the ruins, President Reagan stepped forward to shake his hand and to offer sincere cooperation. "Nothing was more typical of Ronald Reagan than that large-hearted magnanimity - and nothing was more American. "Therein lies perhaps the final explanation of his achievements. "Ronald Reagan carried the American people with him in his great endeavours because there was perfect sympathy between them. He and they loved America and what it stands for - freedom and opportunity for ordinary people. "As an actor in Hollywood's golden age, he helped to make the American dream live for millions all over the globe. His own life was a fulfilment of that dream. "He never succumbed to the embarrassment some people feel about an honest expression of love of country. "He was able to say 'God Bless America' with equal fervour in public and in private. And so he was able to call confidently upon his fellow-countrymen to make sacrifices for America - and to make sacrifices for those who looked to America for hope and rescue. "With the lever of American patriotism, he lifted up the world. "And so today the world - in Prague, in Budapest, in Warsaw, in Sofia, in Bucharest, in Kiev and in Moscow itself - the world mourns the passing of the Great Liberator and echoes his prayer 'God Bless America'. Twilight "Ronald Reagan's life was rich not only in public achievement, but also in private happiness. "Indeed, his public achievements were rooted in his private happiness. The great turning point of his life was his meeting and marriage with Nancy. "On that we have the plain testimony of a loving and grateful husband: 'Nancy came along and saved my soul.' We share her grief today. But we also share her pride - and the grief and pride of Ronnie's children. "For the final years of his life, Ronnie's mind was clouded by illness. That cloud has now lifted. "He is himself again - more himself than at any time on this earth. For we may be sure that the Big Fella Upstairs never forgets those who remember Him. "And as the last journey of this faithful pilgrim took him beyond the sunset, and as heaven's morning broke, I like to think - in the words of Bunyan - that 'all the trumpets sounded on the other side'. "We here still move in twilight. But we have one beacon to guide us that Ronald Reagan never had. "We have his example. Let us give thanks today for a life that achieved so much for all of God's children."

link.

MARGARET THATCHER.

From 1988 -- Margaret Thatcher remembers.

Don Feder.

"In coverage of Ronald Reagan’s passing, a network anchorman noted that the ex-president "gave conservatism a human face." As opposed to what -- the Frankenstein mask it usually wears? Now, try to imagine a newscaster speaking of someone who "gave liberalism a human face." .. ". MORE "It's a Vast Right-Wing (Literary) Conspiracy!".

Gorbachev on Reagan, Russia & the Cold War.

"[The USSR] was being stifled by the lack of freedom .. We were increasingly behind the West, which .. was achieving a new technological era, a new kind of productivity .. And I was ashamed for my country -- perhaps the country with the richest resources on Earth, and we couldn't provide toothpaste for our people."

And this: "I think we all lost the Cold War, particularly the Soviet Union. We each lost $10 trillion .. We only won when the Cold War ended." MORE Gorbachev.

Reagan vs. the Left -- the war goes on.

"Next to Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan was perhaps the most divisive president in the nation's history. Lincoln ended a way of life for the American South. Reagan said that he was ending a way of life for [the] American [Left] .. On hearing the Reagan inaugural in January 1981 -- a radical's blunt challenge to establishment Washington orthodoxy -- the [left] mounted a counteroffensive. To any who were there, the first Reagan term was bloody .. The air burned with political antipathy. I recall in 1985 attending a confirmation hearing .. for Edwin Meese to be attorney general. The confirmation was a long ordeal whose details are forgotten. But on this day Sen. Joe Biden ended a long, dramatic denunciation of Mr. Meese by intoning, twice, that the nominee was "beneath contempt." There was a sound in the silent room. It was Mr. Meese's wife seated behind him, sobbing violently .. ". MORE "Ronald Reagan Started a War That Rages Today".

JOHN PATRICK DIGGINS.

Ronald Reagan vs. the Neocons?.

Charles Krauthammer.

"The second-greatest president of the 20th century dies .. and the [leftist] establishment that alternately ridiculed and demonized Ronald Reagan throughout his presidency is in a quandary. How to remember a man they anathematized for eight years but who enjoys both the overwhelming affection of the American people and decisive vindication by history? .. ". More Charles Krauthammer.

Andrew Sullivan reminds us of what the establisment Left thought back then.

LECH WALESA.

"When talking about Ronald Reagan, I have to be personal. We in Poland took him so personally. Why? Because we owe him our liberty. This can't be said often enough by people who lived under oppression for half a century, until communism fell in 1989 .. ". More LECH WALESA.

Reagan -- "many think of him as religious".

That is the unbelievable headline for a story on Reagan and religion in the OC Register. Well, Ronald Reagan attended church services his whole life before he became President, and attended church regularly after he left the White House (before he was struck down by Alzheimer's). The full OC Register headline reads: "Worshippers found president inspirational -- Reagan skipped services, but his views and attitude make many think of him as religious". And the "news" story reads: "But unlike avid churchgoers George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, Reagan begged off Sunday services .. Nevertheless his optimistic demeanor, combined with the support of religious activists and his position on social issues, left an impression of spirituality on many."

Note well, a mere "impression of spirituality".

The article never mention the fact that Reagan attended church his whole adult life, with the singular exception of the time serving in the White House after being shot in the first months of his Presidency. Indeed, the full story leaves the distinct "impression" that Reagan never attended church throughout his adult life -- a complete falsehood. In any case, whole books have been written attesting to Reagan's religious faith and practice -- an overwhelming theme of his life. But these books aren't cited -- although a book by Reagan hater Garry Wills does get quoted.

The unavoidable reality is that reporters are hired because they can write, not because they have any genuine depth of understanding about anything -- which, as we've just seen, can result in some truly embarrassing journalism.

(Sorry, the OC Register's truly horrible web site turned up zero search results for this story. If you know how to locate it, send me a note.)

Thatcher

pays her respects to Ronald Reagan.

If you read one thing

about Ronald Reagan, read this.

Arnold Kling.

Economics -- Learning from Reagan.

If you haven't seen it.

Rush Limbaugh has a great Ronald Reagan tribute page.

AP Correction.

"06-09) 11:09 PDT NEW YORK (AP) -- In a June 7 story on the impact of Ronald Reagan's presidency on U.S. business, The Associated Press erroneously reported that he had little schooling in economics. Reagan earned a bachelor's degree in social science and economics from Eureka College in 1932."

The link is here.

You could also justly say that Reagan was a "continuing education" student in economics -- he continued his economic training reading the writings of Hayek, Friedman and other economists -- and Reagan even had personal "seminar" sessions with Friedman and other leading economists through the mid and late 1970s, sessions organized by Martin Anderson.

The original erroneous AP story is here. Quotable: "He had almost no schooling in economics but confidently marshaled sweeping reforms, motivated partly by a decades-old grudge over the whopping tax bills he incurred as a World War II-era film star."

Young girl

befriends a President.

Reagan's greatest domestic achievement.

It's not what you think. Robert Samuelson on Ronald Reagan vs. inflation.

PEW. Americans agree -- news sources stink.

"More than half [of Americans surveyed] agree with the statement "I often don't trust what news organizations are saying." Nearly as many believe people who decide on news content are "out of touch." .. ". "News Audiences Increasingly Politicized".

It turns out that Republicans are far less credulous than are Democrats when it comes to evaluating the honesty and credibility of such news sources as CBS News and the NY Times. Only a meager 15% of Republican trust the believability of CBS News, while a full 34% of Democrats "believe all of most" of what CBS says. And only 14% of Republicans trust "all or most" of what appears in the NY Times, but more than double as many Democrats -- 34% -- believe "all or most" of what the NY Times prints.

These facts may help explain why a full 35% of Republicans regulary get their news from the Fox News Channel, while only 13% of Republicans bother to tune in the broadcast of "Rather Bias" CBS News -- a favorite news source for Democrats.

The return of 1970's style inflation doublespeak.

Here is Alan Greenspan's latest statement on inflation.

In the alternative universe of "Greanspanian Economics" inflation isn't always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon, no, it's a product of what Greenspan calls "pricing power". Well, whatever. The important thing is that Greenspan & Co. finally recognized that something has to be done to put the kabosh on ever accelerating Fed-generated inflation. Quotable:

"Lastly, let me emphasize that recent financial indicators, including rapid growth of the money supply, underscore that the FOMC has provided ample liquidity to the financial system that will become increasingly unnecessary over time. The Committee is of the view, as you know, that monetary policy accommodation can be removed at a pace that is likely to be measured. That conclusion is based on our current best judgment of how economic and financial forces will evolve in the months and quarters ahead. Should that judgment prove misplaced, however, the FOMC is prepared to do what is required to fulfill our obligations to achieve the maintenance of price stability so as to ensure maximum sustainable economic growth."

Here is how the Finanicial Times covered the story.

OK, let's do it.

Put Reagan on the $20.

Remembering Reagan -- Reagan reads Hayek.

"That Reagan was indeed an "idea guy" is for sure. One time John Hospers, the first LP candidate for president and USC philosophy prof. was on a radio talk show in Cal. and a call came in from the governors mansion; it was Reagan jumping into the conversation. In 1976 when he was trying to wrest the GOP nomination from Ford he came to Colorado to give a speech in Ft. Collins. I drove up from Denver to hear him and after the speech when he and Nancy got to me in the receiving line, they found a wide eyed kid who was jazzed that he cited The Road to Serfdom by Hayek in his talk. He told me he also really liked Hayek's The Constitution of Liberty. This, of course, put me in orbit.

I then mentioned that I enjoyed the points he made in an interview with Reason ( July 1975.) (it was in this interview where he made the, "If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism" quote.) I remember he then said, I swear, "Well, I'll have to look at that again". (remember when the "Well" was the stock in trade of a Reagan imitation?) As I shook their hands in an enthusiastic "fare well", Nancy assured me that; "Ronnie loves that little magazine" .. ". Rick Barton in the comments section -- Hit & Run: Ronald Reagan, RIP.

Here's a picture of Reagan & Hayek together in Reagan's White House office.

Jesse Walker.

"On his death, let's do both him and history a favor, and start talking about the real Reagan as opposed to the Reagan of our nightmares and fantasies .. ". MORE "The Search for the Historical Reagan".

Wall-to-wall Reagan.

There's lots of Reagan stuff at the LA Times, National Review, the CATO Institute, and the Heritage Foundation.

Scenes from Reagan's last years.

Peter Robinson, "He was a man".

Site down.

My apologies to those who tried and found the site unavailable. I was behind in plunking down the cash needed to renew the domain name registration for HAYEKCENTER.ORG My genuine thanks to all who, over the years, have hit the tip jar or have ordered a book via the web site. It's my money and your money together which make the Hayek Center (and PrestoPundit) possible, and I'd like to express my genuine thanks for your support.

The book that changed Ronald Reagan's life.

"Paul Kengor [God and Ronald Reagan: A Spiritual Life] .. outlines three crucial books that shaped Reagan's faith throughout the course of his life: the Bible, which Reagan believed was divinely inspired; Whitaker Chambers' Witness; and Harold Bell Wright's That Printer of Udell's. After reading That Printer of Udell's, a story about a young boy who became a Christian and pursued a life in politics, Reagan, at the tender age of 11, told his mother, "I want to be like that man. I want to be baptized." Soon after, he was baptized in the Disciples of Christ, of which Reagan was a lifelong member." -- Loredana Vuoto .

Ronald Reagan and I were raised and baptized in the same church. The history of the Disciples of Christ can be found here and here.

There's also another new book on Reagan's religion and faith -- Hand Of Providence: The Strong and Quiet Faith of Ronald Reagan by Mary Beth Brown.

And here is the web page on Ronald Reagan and his family produced by Reagan's church in Dixon, Illinois.

UPDATE: Here's a cartoon Reagan would have liked.

Textbook Reagan.

"The change of one word -- from Strategic Arms Limitation Talks to Strategic Arms Reduction Talks -- displayed Reagan's refusal to accept the Cold War as he found it and instead make a difference .. ". MORE "Reagan's gifts to Americans".

Patti Davis on her father.

This is remarkable stuff -- "A Daughter's Remembrances":

Eventually, I grew beyond the girl who wanted more from her father than he was able to give. I began to focus on the gifts he gave me. He taught me to talk to God, to read the stars, respect the cycles of nature. I am a strong swimmer and a decent horsewoman because of him. I plucked from the years the shiniest memories, strung them together. It's what you do with someone who is always a bit out of reach. You content yourself with moments; you gather them, treasure them. They are the gemstones of the years you shared ..

I don't know whether the loss is easier or harder if a parent is famous; maybe it's neither. My father belonged to the country. I resented the country at times for its demands on him, its ownership of him. America was the important child in the family, the one who got the most attention. It's strange, but now I find comfort in sharing him with an entire nation. There is some solace in knowing that others were also mystified by him; his elusiveness was endearing, but puzzling. He left all of us with the same question: who was he? People ask me to unravel him for them, as if I have secrets I haven't shared. But I have none, nothing that you don't already know. He was a man guided by internal faith. He knew our time on this earth is brief, yet he cared deeply about making his time here count. He was comfortable in his own skin. A disarmingly sunny man, he remained partially in shadow; no one ever saw all of him. It took me nearly four decades to allow my father his shadows, his reserve, to sit silently with him and not clamor for something more.

I have learned, over time, that the people who leave us a little bit hungry are the people we remember most vividly. When they are alive, we reach for them; when they die, some part of us follows after them. My father believed in cycles—the wheel of birth, and life, and death, constantly turning. My hand was tiny when he held it in his and led me to a blackened field weeks after a fire had burned part of our ranch. He showed me green shoots peeking out of the ashes. New life. I let go of his hand for too long, pushed it away, before finally grasping it again, trusting that even in his dying, I would find new life.

Noonan on Reagan.

"After the war, Ronald Reagan went on the local speaking circuit, talking of the needs of veterans and lauding the leadership of FDR and Truman. Once a woman wrote to him and noted that while he had movingly denounced Nazism, there was another terrible "ism," communism, and he ought to mention that, too. In his next speech, to industry people and others, he said that if communism ever proved itself the threat to decency that Nazism was, he'd denounce it, too. Normally he got applause in this part of the speech. Now he was met by silence. In that silence he built his future, becoming a man who'd change the world. The long education began. He studied communism, read Marx, read the Founders and the conservative philosophers from Burke to Burnham. He began to tug right. The Democratic Party and his industry continued to turn left. There was a parting. A word on his intellectual reflexes. Ronald Reagan was not a cynic--he did not assume the worst about people. But he was a skeptic; he knew who we are. He did not think that people with great degrees or great success were necessarily smart, for instance. He had no interest in credentialism. He once told me an economist was a fellow with a Phi Beta Kappa key on one end of his chain and no watch on the other. That's why they never know what time it is. He didn't say this with asperity, but with mirth. He did not dislike intellectuals--his heroes often were intellectuals, from the Founders straight through Milton Friedman and Hayek and Solzhenitsyn. But he did not favor the intellectuals of his own day, because he thought they were in general thick-headed. He thought that many of the 20th century's intellectuals were high-IQ dimwits .. ". More NOONAN ON REAGAN.

Reagan & the Boy from Troy.

"As a third grader I sent President Reagan all I had left of my allowance one week--a quarter--because I wanted to see him re-elected. A few weeks later, I got a note from the President, with a shiny new quarter in the envelope." Boi from Troy has a long compilation of blogosphere reactions here.

Steyn on Ronald Reagan, dead at 93.

"“The Great Communicator” was effective because what he was communicating was self-evident to all but our dessicated elites: “We are a nation that has a government - not the other way around.” And at the end of a grim, grey decade - Vietnam, Watergate, energy crises, Iranian hostages – Americans decided they wanted a President who looked like the nation, not like its failed government. Thanks to his clarity, around the world, governments that had nations have been replaced by nations that have governments. Most of the Warsaw Pact countries are now members of Nato, with free markets and freely elected parliaments."

One man who understood was Yakob Ravin, a Ukrainian émigré who in the summer of 1997 happened to be strolling with his grandson in Armand Hammer Park near Reagan’s California home. They happened to see the former President, out taking a walk. Mr Ravin went over and asked if he could take a picture of the boy and the President. When they got back home to Ohio, it appeared in the local newspaper, The Toledo Blade. Ronald Reagan was three years into the decade-long twilight of his illness, and unable to recognize most of his colleagues from the Washington days. But Mr Ravin wanted to express his appreciation. “Mr President,” he said, “thank you for everything you did for the Jewish people, for Soviet people, to destroy the Communist empire.”

And somewhere deep within there was a flicker of recognition. “Yes,” said the old man, “that is my job.”

Yes, that was his job.

More STEYN.

He was my commander in chief.

Ronald Reagan, 1911-2004. I'll share some thoughts later.

If you haven't seen it, there's lots of interesting stuff being posted at National Review's The Corner.

Torpedo Squadron 8.

"It's the end of the world and I have a ringside seat" -- the thoughts of Pilot Ensign George Gay -- the lone survivor of Torpedo Squadron 8 -- 62 years ago floating off Midway Island in the Pacific. The cost of war and the staggering inscrutability of fate and heroism are captured in words and pictures by Donald Sensing of One Hand Clapping.

Not your grandfather's Democrat party.

"A party that hates America so much that it cannot see the difference between the 9/11 terrorists and the liberators of Iraq cannot lead a nation in war .. ". .

Three months -- 947,000 jobs.

But CNN's Chris Isidore is worried that continued salary inflation will hurt corporate profits.

Amazing.

Meteor turns night to day. Click on links to see security camera videos capturing the remarkable.

Gov. Pension Thievery -- ROLLBACK.

Or did Schwarzenegger roll the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn.? Only time will tell.

An economist at Smith is railroaded by the Left.

"Enjoy perilous work? Try being a conservative on a college campus in Massachusetts. This is a story of how I was--almost--done in by the politically correct crowd. In April 2000 my career as an economics teacher at Smith College looked bright .. ". MORE "James Miller - My Story".

248,000 New Jobs in May.

The American economic boom keeps on rolling.

Yes Virginia, there is a housing bubble.

Economist Mark Thorton has the details.

Thomas Sowell.

"Whether you are for or against [partial birth abortion], you ought to know what you are for or against. But there are newspapers, TV programs, and whole networks that you could watch for years without ever finding out .. The partial birth abortion issue is just one of those issues in which major parts of the media filter out facts that might lead you to take a position different from the one the journalists have. MORE Thomas Sowell.

Why they hate us.

"I am just returned from two weeks in Europe, which meant having to watch CNN International, with its wall-to-wall anti-Bush anchoring, reading the International Herald Tribune --a New York Times lite-- and of course enduring the BBC. I don't know if the world hates us, but American and British media reporting to the English-speaking world living in Europe certainly do .. ". MORE Hugh Hewitt.

U.S. tort costs are double those in France, U.K.

When it comes to bloated torts costs as a percentage of GDP the U.S. is a real loser among nations. Economist Peter Gordon investigates.

David Yarnold of the Mercury News.

""Find the pro-lifers in a newsroom. That's harder than finding Waldo." link.

Occupation to end?

"The Pentagon has proposed a plan to withdraw its two Army divisions from Germany .. ". MORE "A Pentagon Plan Would Cut Back G.I.'s in Germany".

Club for Growth donors stiff Bush.

"Major donors to the Club for Growth, a principal fund-raising engine of the conservative movement, have said they plan to sit out this year's presidential election to protest what they see as the administration's big-government tendencies .. ". MORE "Some Big Conservative Donors, Unhappy With Bush, Say They Won't Back His Campaign".

Richard Ebeling.

"Austrian Economics and the Political Economy of Freedom", the Mises Memorial Lecture delivered March 19, 2004.

Douglass North, Vernon Smith

and some other worthy folks ranks 17 proposals for "improving the world". The Economist reports.

Steyn on the Saudis.

"The West backs the Saudi regime as a bulwark against local destabilisation, in return for which they underwrite destabilisation of the West across the entire planet".

And this: "The polite thing among the ex-US ambassadors now shilling for Abdullah on various Saudi-funded think tanks is to ignore any statement that any senior prince tells his own people. We’re supposed to agree to overlook what the House of Saud says in Arabic rather than CNN English."

And this: "The war on terror is a Saudi civil war which the Saudis cunningly exported to the rest of the world. The trick now is to gift-wrap it and send it back home marked for the attention of Prince Nayef."

More STEYN.

Eight months.

That's how long Swedish Prime Minister Göran Persson has had to wait to have his hip replaced. Quotable: "In September last year [Persson] was diagnosed to need an urgent operation for his arthrosis in the hip. Persson has obviously been in great pain, walking with a limp, and he has reportedly been using strong painkillers. He has been forced to cancel official travels, such as the recent EU-Latin America meeting, since he is in too much pain .. ". Read the whole thing.

"NASCAR Nazis".

Instapundit has picked up the "NASCAR Nazis" story I posted on Wednesday.

Tucker Carlson.

The Alan Colmes of the Right.

More evidence that the Libertarian Party has

jumped the shark.

UPDATE: Brian Doherty reports from the Libertarian Convention in Atlanta. A fine bit of reporting.

Got to love this.

It's the BOOMER DEATHWATCH. Two-four comments, "With its first post in two months, the Boomer Death Watch sends news that its "Chicago Eight dead pool is down to five members". This is progress."

Damages in the trillions.

Don Boudreaux has a a class action lawsuit designed to solve the problem.

Inflation hits the labor market.

"Workers [are] benefiting from a job-market recovery with business labor costs on the rise" with hourly compensation up 4.6 percent in the first quarter. MORE "Jobless Claims Slip, Productivity Growing".

Jonathan Rauch on Hayek & gay marriage.

Jonathan Rauch -- "What Friedrich Hayek can teach us about gay marriage."

Inflation -- here it comes.

"The price gains [in core CPI] from February to April, if stretched across 12 months, would be 3.3 percent, a rate not seen since 1993 .. This week's closely watched manufacturing index from the Institute for Supply Management contained some May inflation numbers that were more obviously alarming. Its "prices paid" measure stayed close to April's 25-year high. Its "supplier deliveries" index, a measure of supply bottlenecks, jumped to a 25-year high. "Welcome to the supply shock," said Russell Sheldon, senior economist at BMO Nesbitt Burns. "The economy has outgrown last year's conservative expectations by a mile, generating shortages and widespread price hikes that are large and will have to be passed on to consumers." MORE "Two faced inflation".

California Madness.

One billion dollars spent on things like a male inmate’s breast reduction surgery and skin treatments for inmates at a Beverly Hills dermatologist. File this under "only in California".

The Cornell "English" Department.

AKA the anything but English studies department.

Reaganite defections fuel Bush poll decline -- Bruce Bartlett.

"I do not believe that Kerry’s gains in the polls have come as the result of Iraq. Rather, I think President Bush is paying the price for having abandoned conservative principles on too many occasions over the last three and a half years, which has sapped his support among the Republican party's base. Poll data support this analysis. According to the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, almost all of Bush's decline in support has come from his base. He is not losing support from moderates, nor is Kerry gaining at his expense. Rather, Bush is simply losing his own people. I believe this has nothing to do with Iraq. I think it is because conservatives have slowly come to the conclusion that he is really not one of them .. ". More BRUCE BARTLETT.

Did Ike blunder?

"Granted the Allied war aim of unconditional surrender, Hitler would clearly fight on to the end, and that meant we had to destroy his large-scale fighting capacity by breaking up all major units and occupying territory. But how, exactly? Montgomery was all for the rapid thrust by armored divisions deep into Germany, backed by overwhelming air-power. "Berlin by Christmas" was one phrase used. This was a fighting soldier's strategy and one which the Germans, in a similar situation, would certainly have used. Indeed, to some extent it was used by Gen. Patton and his armor. But it was risky. The faster the spearhead moved, the more extended its lines of communication became and the more likely it was that the Germans would be able to mount a devastating lateral attack which might sever the advanced armored units from their tail. In the end, Eisenhower decided it was too risky and overruled Montgomery's enthusiasm. Instead, a "broad front" strategy was adopted, the Allies advancing slowly, steady and always as a continuous mass, forward units never out of touch with their companions to left or right. This virtually ruled out the possibility of German counterattack breaking right through the front and nipping off a spearhead. It was the safe approach, and typical of Eisenhower's minimum-risk attitude to warfare. But of course such an approach involved penalties. It allowed the Germans to keep their line, to regroup and reinforce, and to maintain morale. Not until the very last weeks of the war did their front collapse, and individual units begin to surrender freely. Moreover, the political consequences were enormous. Instead of the war ending in autumn or early winter 1944, it lasted until the end of April 1945. Instead of the U.S. and Britain occupying Berlin and most of central Europe, it left these spoils to the Russians. The broad-front policy set the stage for 40 years of Cold War. Indeed, had it not been for the firmness of President Truman in reversing Roosevelt's policy of appeasing Stalin, it is quite possible that Western Europe too might have fallen victim to communism, and that the frontiers of Stalin's empire would only have ended at the English Channel. More PAUL JOHNSON ON THE LESSONS OF D-DAY.

Sullivan has more on Howell Raines.

Quotable: "Now get a load of Raines' loathing of the American market economy as a whole".

Bush is Hitler, Republicans are Nazis.

Words of wisdom from The OC Weekly -- i.e. the Village Voice Orange County edition. Quotable: "I’m adding my voice to the other hysterical-seeming Americans who are likening the current White House administration to Germany’s grim men in gray." so writes the OC Weekly's lead writer Jim Washburn under the headline "The NASCAR Nazi." Perhaps Washburn is angling for a position with the Washington Post.

Blogging for grades.

I'm guessing we'll see more of this: Tufte's Economics Classes Blog.

Mark Steyn.

On the A Raisin in the Sun revival. This is why we love Steyn.

Al Qaeda plans targetted U.S. border with Mexico.

"Khalid Shaikh Mohammed suggested that they enter the United States by way of Mexico .. and that once in the country, they locate high-rise apartment buildings that had natural gas supplied to all floors, that they rent two apartments in each building, seal those apartments, turn on the gas, and set timers to detonate and destroy the buildings simultaneously at a later time. This was precisely the mission that Padilla and Jafar had trained for, and now Padilla had a new accomplice .. ". More: TRANSCRIPT -- U.S. Deputy Attorney General James Comey.

And from the LA Times: "Padilla was instructed to conduct the operation in the central U.S., along the U.S.-Mexican border, perhaps in Texas or California .. ". Government Says Padilla Plotted High-Rise Attacks.

A penny for your thoughts ..

"There is no escaping economic history: it takes nearly a dime today to buy what a penny bought back in 1950. Despite this, the U.S. Mint keeps churning out a billion pennies a month. Where do they go? Two-thirds of them immediately drop out of circulation, into piggy banks or — as The Times's John Tierney noted five years ago — behind chair cushions or at the back of sock drawers next to your old tin-foil ball. Quarters and dimes circulate; pennies disappear because they are literally more trouble than they are worth. The remaining 300 million or so .. go toward driving retailers crazy. They cost more in employee-hours — to wait for buyers to fish them out, then to count, pack up and take them to the bank — than it would cost to toss them out .. ". MORE "Abolish the Penny".

Tenured bigots blackball job applicants.

Prof. Mike Adams -- "It didn’t take long for me to realize that religion was used against some applicants seeking employment at UNC-Wilmington. In the fall of 1993, just a couple of months after starting my job, a social work professor dubbed an applicant “too religious” during an applicant screening meeting in the faculty lunch room. When I heard the remark (as I was seated at the table where the screening was taking place) I was shocked. This was despite the fact that I considered myself an atheist. But it wasn’t my place to speak up as I was not officially on the committee. Over the next few years, I did manage to serve on a number of hiring committees .. During those first few years, I heard and recorded a number of instances of direct and indirect religious and political discrimination ..

*In 1996, the label “too religious” was attached to an applicant who had graduated from a religious institution.

*In 1996, the label “too conservative” was attached to an applicant who had written an article for a conservative publication.

*In 1996, the label “too much of a family man” was attached to an applicant who was married and had several children before the age of 30.

*In 1997, a feminist objected to another female candidate after having dinner with the applicant and her husband. She specifically complained that the applicant’s husband played “too dominant a role in the marriage.”

*In 2001, a job candidate was asked the following question during an interview: “Who did you vote for in the 2000 election?”

.. A tenured UNCW English professor recently tried to convince me that the absence of a single Republican in their department of 31 full-time faculty members was just a coincidence. Thanks to David Horowitz and others, the public now knows better. .. Instead of speaking out publicly, I would love to work towards an internal resolution of these problems. But that can’t happen until the university admits that the problems exist. Besides that, I haven’t served on a university committee in years. But I’m sure it’s only a coincidence .. ". MORE Mike Adams -- "Fear and loathing in faculty recruitment".

Roger Ailes on John Carroll.

"John S. Carroll, the editor of the Los Angeles Times, recently gave a speech at the University of Oregon, in which he attacked Bill O'Reilly, Fox News Channel and me, the chairman of Fox News. However, Mr. Carroll obviously did not feel particularly restricted by facts, truth or sources .. the Fox News Channel today has 53% of the audience share of cable news .. According to Mr. Carroll, that proves most Americans are therefore stupid and gullible. It's that elite, arrogant, condescending, self-serving, self-righteous, biased and wrongheaded view of Americans that causes viewers and readers to distrust media people like John Carroll." MORE Roger Ailes on John Carroll.

The Tax Misery Index.

Proving once again that it sucks to be French .. and its good to be Hong Kongian.

Captain Ed on Howell Raines.

This -- as they say -- is must reading. Quotable: "Howell Raines writes an editorial in tomorrow's London Guardian expressing serious concerns about John Kerry as a candidate, and in the process exposes the obvious bias he inculcated into the New York Times as editor-in-chief .. Does the Gray Lady's performance over the past few years come into clearer view now? .. It's amazing that a representative of the American media can write such a bitter and cynical column."

Right Coasters guest on Volokh Conspiracy.

USD "Right Coast" law professors Gail Heriot, Sai Prakash, Mike Rappaport, Maimon Schwarzschild, Tom Smith, and Chris Wonnell will be guest blogging through June 8 on The Volokh Conspiracy. As Eugene Volokh says, "This is really a first-rate group of accomplished scholars and thinkers". I might particularly recommend Christopher Wonnell's "Contract Law and the Austrian School of Economics". Fordham Law Review. 1986. Vol. 54: 507-543.

U.S. boom continues.

"U.S. factories cranked up output in May and construction spending surged to a third straight record high in April .. ". MORE "Robust Growth for Factories, Construction".

The Fascist roots of the "postmodern" Left.

Richard Wolin, The Seduction of Unreason : The Intellectual Romance with Fascism from Nietzsche to Postmodernism

Book Description: "Fifteen years ago, revelations about the political misdeeds of Martin Heidegger and Paul de Man sent shock waves throughout European and North American intellectual circles. Ever since, postmodernism has been haunted by the specter of a compromised past. In this intellectual genealogy of the postmodern spirit, Richard Wolin shows that postmodernism's infatuation with fascism has been widespread and not incidental. He calls into question postmodernism's claim to have inherited the mantle of the left--and suggests that postmodern thought has long been smitten with the opposite end of the political spectrum.

In probing chapters on C. G. Jung, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Georges Bataille, and Maurice Blanchot, Wolin discovers an unsettling commonality: during the 1930s, these thinkers leaned to the right and were tainted by a proverbial "fascination with fascism." Frustrated by democracy's shortcomings, they were seduced by fascism's grandiose promises of political regeneration. The dictatorships in Italy and Germany promised redemption from the uncertainties of political liberalism. But, from the beginning, there could be no doubting their brutal methods of racism, violence, and imperial conquest.

Postmodernism's origins among the profascist literati of the 1930s reveal a dark political patrimony. The unspoken affinities between Counter-Enlightenment and postmodernism constitute the guiding thread of Wolin's suggestive narrative. In their mutual hostility toward reason and democracy, postmodernists and the advocates of Counter-Enlightenment betray a telltale strategic alliance -- they cohabit the fraught terrain where far left and far right intersect. Those who take Wolin's conclusions to heart will never view the history of modern thought in quite the same way."

Read the introduction.

Quotable: " For a long time the career of Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900-2002) seemed to be one of the Federal Republic of Germany's unequivocal success stories. Unlike his mentor, Heidegger, Gadamer never joined the Nazi Party. In an era marked by totalitarian extremism, he seemed to possess an uncanny knack for remaining above the political fray. During the Nazi years, Gadamer allegedly sought refuge in "inner emigration." But a closer look at his orientation during this period demonstrates how difficult it was both to achieve professional success and to steer clear of compromises with the reigning dictatorship. During the early 1940s Gadamer proved a willing propagandist on behalf of the regime, traveling to Paris to present a lecture on "Volk and History in Herder's Thought," which explicitly justified the idea of a Nazi-dominated Europe. Enlightenment ideals were bankrupt, argued Gadamer. Germany's battlefield triumphs reflected the superiority of German Kultur. In the New Europe, the Volk-Idea, as set forth by Herder and his successors, would predominate. This dubious chapter of Gadamer's political biography represents a paradigmatic instance of the ideological affinities between Counter-Enlightenment and the forces of political reaction. Philosophically, Gadamer remains one of the leading representatives of hermeneutics, a view that stresses the situated and partial nature of all truth claims as well as the irremediably contextual basis of human knowledge. The traditionalist orientation of Gadamer's thought--his stress on the "happening of tradition"--would seem unambiguously unpostmodern. Yet in American pragmatist circles, his "anti-foundationalism" (his rejection of "first principles" and universal morality à la Kant) has been widely viewed as an important harbinger of the postmodernist rejection of objective truth.36 Thus, the postmodernist embrace of hermeneutics may not be as strange as it might seem on first view. In "Fascism and Hermeneutics: Gadamer and the Ambiguities of 'Inner Emigration,'" I suggest that Gadamer's acquiescence vis-à-vis the Nazi dictatorship possesses a philosophical as well as a biographical basis. Hermeneutics' skepticism about Enlightenment reason made the Nazi celebration of German particularism--the ideology of the German "way"--seem unobjectionable, and, in certain respects, politically attractive. The German mandarin tradition had long held that the sphere of politics was corrupt. From this vantage point, to make a devil's bargain with Hitler and company seemed no worse than the compromises required by other political regimes. At this juncture, relativist conceptions of ethics and politics begin to unravel and cry out for an unmediated dose of cognitive and moral "truth.""

Lou Cannon -- Reagan vs. Schwarzenegger.

"The governor's biggest break with the Reagan legacy has come on taxes. Mr. Reagan, who inherited a whopping budget deficit, eliminated it at one swoop by agreeing to a mammoth and surprisingly progressive $1 billion income tax increase. Mr. Schwarzenegger, however, has opposed any tax increase .. ".. More Lou Cannon.

Interview with a professor.

"I was once convinced that the UNC system was leading the country in terms of academic lunacy but now I’m not so sure. When I speak at other campuses I hear the same kinds of horror stories from students, and occasionally from professors. The emails I get from around the country also reveal that the tactics of the academic Left vary little from campus to campus .. ". More Professor Mike Adams interviewed by David Horowitz.

Sacramento continues its war against California businesses.

"As Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger crusades to make California more business friendly, Democrat lawmakers passed an array of bills last week that would impose a variety of fees and higher costs on businesses operating in the Golden State. In a weeklong blur of activity, the houses of the Democrat-controlled Legislature passed bills that would raise the minimum wage to one of the nation's highest levels; hit chemical companies with a fee to pay for new programs; keep it easy for employees to sue their bosses for workplace violations; and require the recycling of cell phones and fluorescent lamps. All .. make it harder to do business in a state that's already one of the nation's most expensive .. ". More "Bills from Legislature could raise costs for Calif. businesses".

Mark Steyn.

"There is something not just ridiculous but unbecoming about a hyperpower 300 million strong whose elites .. want the outcome of a war, and the fate of a nation, to hinge on one freaky jailhouse; elites who are willing to pay any price, bear any burden, as long as it's pain-free, squeaky clean and over in a week. The sheer silliness dishonors the memory of all those we're supposed to be remembering this Memorial Day ..". more MARK STEYN.

Economists grade Bush.

"The National Journal .. asked a dozen distinguished and politically independent economists to grade the Bush administration's economic performance .. As a group, the panel gave the Bush team a B-plus for short-term fiscal policy, a C-minus for long-term fiscal policy, a B for regulatory policy and a B-minus for trade and international economics .. I thought it might be interesting to see what the Bush people themselves thought of their marks, so I brought The National Journal into the White House and asked a few senior officials to respond. Their first answer, not surprisingly, is that you have to understand the reality that confronted them when they took office in 2001. Business leaders were calling in to say that economic activity was falling off a cliff. The dot-com bubble was over, manufacturing was getting hit, business confidence was plummeting. Before it became a general concern in the papers, administration folks were worrying that the U.S. might go through a Japanese-style stagnation. Deflation was an unlikely but scary possibility. They decided to do what was necessary to head off any immediate catastrophe. As Stephen Friedman, director of the National Economic Council, sums it up, "We didn't want to err on the light side when it comes to stimulus." Hence, the large tax cuts. They wouldn't admit it to me, but I think the administration folks knew they were kicking several large problems down the road .. ". MORE noneconomist David Brooks.

Capitalists + blogs =

The Weekly Carnival of the Capitalists.