The International House of Bacon

* Continuing with the sweet, sweet schadenfreude of the Spitzer crash, here’s a contrast between Keith Olbermann’s reaction to the New York Times non-story regarding John McCain and the lobbyist and Elliott Spitzer (Liz, you wanted to know why I’m not an Olbermann fan, here’s an example), and, just to show how detached some people are, FireDogLake being convinced that it’s just another Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. Riiiiight.

* David Freddoso at National Review talks more about the wage stagnation myth.

* It only took four years, but the New York Times finally starts asking some questions about Obama.

* Even though it’s from the Competitive Enterprise Institute - a group I’m not really huge on and one most of you would likely discount immediately - this list of the five dumbest product bans is interesting.

* We kept hearing over and over in 2000 and 2004 about preachers shilling for Bush from the pulpit and the tax ramifications. Why is Obama getting a free pass on this? The American Spectator has another piece on how Obama may have screwed one of his churches. I’ll say it again - our campaign laws are moronic, as are our tax laws. Fix them so we don’t have to worry about this sort of nonsense.

* I subscribed to The American Conservative for a while, but they’re pretty damn isolationist and tend to bring out the worst in American conservatism - then again, Pat Buchanan runs it, so why are we shocked? Then again, they are one of the few publications to present Barack Obama as a “warmonger,” and it’s worth highlighting. Sure, Obama might have a plan to get us out of - and then back into - Iraq, but it’s no guarantee that Obama’s foriegn policy is really going to change that much in terms of military action from our current situation. If anything, deciding to go and “meet” with every loony dictator this planet has to offer will probably create more opportunities, not less.

* Some new, peer-reviewed information putting current “consensus” thought on global warming in context. Short answer - these researchers may have figured out why the models never match up with the reality. It’ll be interesting to see if this gains any traction.

* In a good move, Samantha Power resigned last week after calling Hillary Clinton a “monster.” The problem with Power wasn’t the “monster” comment, it’s what she believes and her possible influence on Obama that makes her resignation a net gain for the Obama campaign. I don’t need to write a post only on her anymore, now that she’s gone, but her positions regarding Israeli influence and knee-jerk reactions to accurate reporting on Israel should have given Obama some serious pause. Israel’s far from perfect, but they’re also arguably one of our best allies.

* Outer space is CRAZY.

* Finally, I knew my memories weren’t decieving me: it IS possible to shoot that dog in Duck Hunt.

Idiot overbearing prosecutor gets caught up in a prostitution ring. The glee I’m feeling over this guy getting bitten in the rear end by the same types of laws he’d vigorously prosecute (including, it appears, four other prostitution rings) knows no bounds.

No, prostitution shouldn’t be illegal. Neither should things commonly referred to as “price fixing,” large executive salaries (see Dick Grasso), or even payola. That Spitzer is being caught up in the same type of thing that he went after with complete disregard for people’s rights or the government’s responsibilities is probably the only form of justice we’ll get for him, sadly.

Dancing on his proverbial grave? Sure, but it’s Eliott Spitzer. If there’s anyone who deserves it…

So much for me not being busy. Hopefully I can write a bunch of stuff over the weekend. I’m sure you’re all very, very excited.

* Michael Gerson was a former Bush 43 speechwriter, so that would probably dismiss 90% of what he has to say in most minds anyway, myself included. I was still compelled, however, by his point of view on the image of the United States overseas. Essentially, we’re well liked in Africa, well liked in Eastern Europe, well liked in Japan and India, and Europe’s unhappy more because of their increased pacifism than anything else, which is largely something that’s unavoidable for the “superpower” anyway. You might not agree with him, but it’s a very interesting position, regardless.

* David Brooks, the “conservative” (quotes intentional) columnist for the New York Times, points out that as Obama’s campaign slips into attack mode, one of the hallmarks of his campaign is eroded as a result. Not that I haven’t been noting that for weeks already or anything…

* If I felt that Ann & I could handle it, I’d push harder to consider homeschooling our own future kids. This chilling California Supreme Court ruling is one I desparately hope will be overturned. This worries me greatly, and I know about the slippery slope fallacy, but what’s next?

* As a postscript to the Michelle Obama stuff from yesterday, I found John Podhoretz’s commentary on it to be illuminating:

[F]or a 44 year-old woman to tell a black audience that things have “gotten worse during my lifetime” is astonishing. When Michelle Obama was born, racial intermarriage was against the law in at least two dozen states. Governors were standing in front of university and classroom doors, attempting to bar black children and teenagers from entering white-only institutions. The per capita income of African Americans has risen sixteen-fold over the past 40 years. Black homeownership has risen tenfold. The black poverty rate has declined from 75 percent to 25 percent.

The piece is relatively short, but really spot-on, IMO.

* Go figure - heavily Democratic-weighted polls show the Democratic candidate winning in November. Y’don’t say.

* This is embarrassing:

McCain’s likely to trounce the eventual Democratic candidate on security issues anyway - when one of your foriegn policy advisors decides to go on national television and concede it like this, well, that’s easy enough.

* I won’t lie - I worry about this quite a bit. Who would have thought a history book that has the KKK as a subject would cause this much trouble?

* From Willisms, a correllation between Iraq war deaths and Iraq war coverage. Some of this might be attributable to the campaign season, but the trendlines are still interesting.

Has it been a slow week for anyone else?

* New Hampshire government ranked last overall in performance. There’s a shocker. The government was doing well in 2005 overall - above average in most categories. Democrat John Lynch gets into office, we suddenly see a $150m deficit and further infringements on basic freedoms. Go figure. John Lynch’s New Hampshire certainly isn’t the one that attracted me up here.

* More on the Obama/NAFTA flap. Canada is upset because they feel, even as they confirm all the details, that it’s “unfair to Obama.” Uh, no one forced his campaign to tell you he was lying to the American public, folks. Meanwhile, CBS decides to be semi-responsible for once and asks whether there’s “buyer’s remorse” surrounding Obama at this stage. I think that’s a good word for it. Both links from William Katz’s Urgent Agenda, quickly becoming my favorite political blog.

* Apparently, some people were angry that I had anything to say about Michelle Obama. Well, there’s a problem with that: I’m not sure she’s actually aware of what’s going on in the United States. Michelle Obama’s America is a Reel Big Fish song - “Everything Sucks.” It’s not realistic - magnet schools aren’t the problem, and we’re not all mean, we’re just mean to people like you who don’t get it. I don’t expect her to poop rainbows, but at least be realistic.

* Victor Davis Hansen on “The Party of Anecdote”. Another National Review Corner publishing from John Derbyshire really resonated with me, and fits in well with this link: “Clinton, Obama, McCain, zzzzz. Where is our candidate — the candidate for those of us who don’t want our kids to live in a U.S.A. with a billion people? Those of us who don’t believe that a rabble of religious fanatics represent an existential threat to Western Civilization? Those of us who think that sitting round a campfire clapping hands and chanting ‘Yes we can!’ is not an adult activity? Where is our candidate, huh?”

* I’ll say it again - Democrats who are complaining about our international image have no business voting for a Democrat this year.

* Finally, The Washington Post considers Obama mainstream regarding foreign policy. Does this sound mainstream to you?

As noted, I’m having a really hard time talking myself into voting for McCain, mostly because of a wealth of reasons that seem to keep cropping up when I least need them to. The fact that I think he’s generally a good choice for the left on a whole doesn’t help that feeling, and a piece on Reason’s blog yesterday really highlighted that for me a bit more, even if it wasn’t the intent.

Matt Welch wrote a book on McCain, McCain: The Myth of a Maverick (a book I have yet to read but still plan on reading), and his piece at Reason was not entirely positive, but not completely negative either. Two of the three highlights, however, were what tipped me off, even if I don’t necessarily agree with Welch on them.

The first, of course, is Iraq. For better or for worse, McCain at least appears to be framing himself as the war candidate, and while it might have been a tactical mistake a year ago, but with perception starting to catch up with reality, it may not be a terrible thing for McCain to focus on at least in terms of gaining significant distance between his eventual opponent (as he lacks it in other areas). The highlight of Welch’s Iraq note was this speech, where McCain stated that he “will defend the decision to destroy Saddam Hussein’s regime as I criticized the failed tactics that were employed for too long to establish the conditions that will allow us to leave that country with our country’s interests secure and our honor intact.” While Welch somewhat mocks the apparent dismissal of the “should we have gone” question, I think it’s a much better way to view it at this stage - no matter how you feel, felt, or plan on feeling about the Iraq War at this point, essentially everyone is in agreement that the sooner we can leave without causing any extra problems, the better. McCain’s dedicated to doing it right, and there’s no question that he’s in the interests of making sure that happens - a stark difference from Clinton, who isn’t looking to rush but is concerned chiefly with getting out rather than solving the remaining problems, and Obama, who’s looking to rush and is fine with going back in if things go sour (which would likely end up costing more and taking longer than any other plan out there currently). Plenty of the Democratic/left-wing anger and hunger for “change” is tied into Iraq policy, but if it’s a major issue for you, the true “change” you want is a complete separation from Iraq, which can only be done via a changeover that ensures that there won’t be a need to go back caused by ourselves. Can we really be confident that the Clinton and Obama plans provide that? Sure, McCain’s might not be able to either, but McCain’s plan is at least aware of the realities that the country is facing.

The second, and perhaps more importantly, is trade. If we learned anything about Ohio last night, it’s that a) lying about your trade statements on the campaign trail isn’t going to help you in the polls, and b) that voting Democrats have wildly poor views regarding trade realities. While McCain has a very checkered economic record, if there’s one thing he has been relatively consistent on, it’s trade. He has generally understood the need for free trade, and he’s been pounding that point home as of late, which is a sharp, sharp contrast from the Clinton/Obama mantras. As others have said in the comments, it’s not like the Republicans have been perfect on trade, or that everything is completely hunky-dory, but compare McCain’s more recent statements (and most of his recent career) with Obama’s alleged desire to renegotiate NAFTA or Hillary’s fairly schizophrenic record on the issue - with global trade a reality, it’s hard to sy that either Democrat is a solid choice.

I’m sure more will crop up as time goes on, but once we see the two parties seriously campaign against each other, I think we’ll see more of this sort of thing reveal itself.

* The news of the day is that Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons, has died. This isn’t just news because I’ve started playing, but more because if it wasn’t for this guy, RPGs and fantasy gaming (both tabletop and computerized) wouldn’t exist in the way we know it. RIP, and no saving roll jokes, please.

* The Wall Street Journal has a great piece about the differences between Ohio and Texas. I’m very glad I’m not in a union.

* A list of questions for Barack Obama. Some miss the point, but others, such as how his positions aren’t really representative of “change” or his Constitutional interpretation, are questions that need to be asked but probably won’t be.

* I learned something new today: Barack Obama is against gay marriage, but somehow can justify same-sex civil unions by using the Bible. Oh, but that part in the Bible about homosexuality being a sin and an abomination is “an obscure passage in Romans.” I’m very much in favor of gay marriage, but if this isn’t an incredible example of Obama’s use of speech to somehow at least partially please everyone, I don’t know what is. This was absolutely stunning to read.

* Of course the media is being hard on Obama.

* Of course the tax cuts were for the rich.

Someday, things will calm down.

ETA: fixed the WSJ link.

* Patterico comments on the endorsement of Hillary Clinton by Wesley Clark and former Joint Chief of Staff vice-chair William Owens. His statement is worth repeating: “Hillary, by virtue of 8 years as first lady and 8 years in the Senate, with her 80 trips abroad, is more qualified to be Commander in Chief that McCain, who graduated from the Naval Academy, had a real military career, and has spent 24 years in the Senate, serving a significant period of time as Armed Services Committee Chairman.”

* Did you know that Barack Obama once proposed a federal ban on gun shops within five miles of a school or park? And yet we’re supposed to believe that he’s in favor of Constitutionally-protected gun rights.

* Mark Perry notes pre- and post-NAFTA numbers on manufacturing and employment. More here.

* Meet McCain’s schizophrenia on taxes. I pulled this from Reason’s Hit and Run, but they’re much kinder to him than I’m going to be - it’s one thing to do the right thing and note that the corporate tax rate is too high and that it would be helpful to economic interests if people and businesses knew that their taxes weren’t going to go up. It’s another entirely to only drop the corporate tax rate 10 points (which won’t make a difference in most states) and not make a very simple vow that taxes won’t go up on your watch. Want to prove you get it economically? You’re missing a really good chance right here.

* Byron York at National Review notes that Clinton might have similar NAFTA problems to Obama. This is kind of reminding me of the “John Kerry has talked to other world leaders who endorse him” thing, except that this story isn’t really going away.

* Dear Netroots Left: Republican doesn’t equal conservative. The idea that Obama would fill his cabinet posts with some Republicans is laughable at best - one commenter said it best that it’s just a “you can’t trust your own party with X” waiting to happen - but to act as if Hagel and Lugar are somehow strong conservatives is a disconnect that I’m surprised still exists. Yeah, so Hagel votes with the Bush position - if you guys could move past the knee-jerk reactions to even seeing Bush’s name, you’d know that he’s not a conservative, either.

* The Jerusalem Post puts together a very fascinating piece about Obama and the youth vote. The piece really is great, here’s my favorite part:

His evident charisma aside, a clue to the source of Obama-mania may be found in the demographics of his support: he is far and away the favorite of younger voters and college students, routinely winning over 75% of the votes of Democrats under 30. Obama has tapped into is the first generation educated in schools focused on “self-esteem.” Now, the products of self-esteem education have come of political age in substantial numbers, perhaps with profound implications for this and future elections.

Being an Obama supporter, in a way, is like getting a participant ribbon on field day. It completely makes sense to me.

* Howard Kurtz on the media treatment of Clinton v. Obama:

Would Clinton have skated as easily if she were found to have visited radicals tied to violence? Or bought land from an indicted businessman, as in the Rezko case? Or if the pastor of her church had talked about “this racist United States of America,” as the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who heads Obama’s church, has?

I’m not all that into the “association” games that a lot of people like to play - it’s normally a distraction and is usually false or misleading anyway. With that said, however, considering how often these things get talked about, why isn’t there more examination with Obama’s associations?

* WizBang (in two parts) shows how conservatives and percieved conservatives can’t win on certain issues, no matter what. A hint - voting against a certain budget doesn’t mean you hate children.

* A note on the “costs” of drinking.

* I talked a bit about Obama’s rhetorical strategy, and forgot to link you to this example from the John Locke Foundation. “Sure, the free market is great, but…”

* Obama’s idea to have pre-filled out tax forms is pretty much the worst idea in the history of ideas for the IRS. I mean, apart from having an IRS…

Whew!

Back on schedule, I think.

* Charles Krauthammer wrote an excellent piece on lobbying Friday. The idea that any candidate or politician would go against the right to petition the government is really pathetic.

* You know a tax bill is completely moronic when it raises taxes on domestic companies, but inadvertently provides a break to Venuzuela. Great job, Congressional Democrats. Way to live up to that approval rating.

* A fun little memoriam: The Collected Controversies of William F. Buckley.

* From Volokh: Barack Obama, Sept. 26, 2002, where he said that the Iraq war was “a cover-up for a failing economy.” “Right from the beginning,” right folks? This would be one of the most ignorant things I’ve heard from the candidates yet if it weren’t for…

* …McCain buying into the thimerosal/autism allegations. For me, this is one of those issues that bothers me more than the creationism/evolution thing. This is my creationism. Remember how I’ve been trying to talk myself into McCain? This essentially put me back to square one. Pathetically dumb.

* Victor Davis Hansen at National Review put up a great article about what the next President faces “After Dubya.” Puts a lot of things in context.

* I’m not sure what to make of this yet, but 60 Minutes may have been duped again. Whether it happened or not is still being looked into, but the fact that we can’t even rule it out without a second look is more damning about the sad state of affairs in the mainstream national media than anything else.

* Cool link of the day: the incredible expanding Dubai. Yet we still haven’t rebuilt the World Trade Center.

* That the United States incarceration rate is as high as it is is quite shameful. Reason puts it into perspective a bit, though.

* A link I keep forgetting to post: Stuff White People Like, a blog dedicated to stuff that white people like. Pretty funny.

* This is why I avoid Talking Points Memo. Josh Marshall essentially decides, with no evidence of a link but plenty of evidence of ignorance from sectors that weren’t even behind McCain until he was the only choice left, that McCain will run a bigoted campaign against Obama. That’s the hard-hitting analysis we’ve been looking for, right?

That’s all for now.

Yes, I’m bothered by Obama in a lot of ways, but a good deal of it is, at its root, philosophical differences. As said elsewhere, I don’t doubt that Obama generally has the best interests of the country in mind, but I simply think he’s going about it the wrong way. One of the most major ones that keeps popping up for me is Obama’s protectionism.

The root of the issue comes in the fact that we’re now a global economy. The internet has facilitated it on an individual level, and the ease of which to transport goods and services has made it a basic inevitability among the Western world. The idea of a “domestic economy” is in the past, and those who are still fighting the war against globalization have simply lost.

Unfortunately, at least rhetorically, Obama still appears to be fighting that fight. To his defense, he may have had to - both John Edwards and Hillary Clinton have taken positions against outsourcing and NAFTA, and the misguided idea that free trade is hurting “ordinary Americans” seems to be a pretty solid meme amongst “concerned” Democrats. The problem is that the protectionism simply doesn’t work, hasn’t worked, and is not doable in the current economic atmosphere.

Here are the facts: While Obama and Hillary trade blows about who’s more against NAFTA, they both ignore that unemployment has dropped since NAFTA was implemented. No, correllation does not necessarily mean causation in this case, especially in the tech boom of the 1990s, but there’s something to be said about employment levels improving as trade is opened up on both sides of the border, while protectionist policies like steel tariffs adversely affected the economy..

The position certainly has some place in massaging the xenophobic populace’s straining muscles (how soon we forget the Qatar/port authority flap), but it also has root in the old populist canards of the jobs that Americans are somehow entitled to flying away overseas, or the mythological tax breaks for offshoring, ignoring the facts of the matter for an easy scapegoat in an era of budget deficits. The position is not only pandering, but it’s simply unrealistic.

For one, as Daniel Griswald at Cato notes, the choices to the upcoming President aren’t many - unilateral withdrawal will result in tariffs on our trade, Canada and Mexico aren’t going to be interested in reopening the treaty. So this sort of rhetoric has the double-edged sword of angering our allies (which, I’m told, is bad to do given how Bush has allegedly treated our allies over the last year - not to mention unilateralism in just opting out of the treaty, but that’s beside the point.) and possibly harming our economy in a significant way.

But there’s also the outside chance that Obama’s just trying to get elected anyway. His campaign’s been assuring Canada (and this back-channel communication could be illegal if true) that it’s “just campaign rhetoric not to be taken seriously.” Or not. Maybe. Well, that’s nice in any regard - he may be taking a position that will actively hurt our economy, but that might be all a lie just to get elected, a lie that’s probably hurting our relationships with other countries. How pleasant.

Whichever way you slice it, this is pretty bad news. Especially in a time of a slowing economy, any help we can get should be a positive one, and Obama seems pretty set on looking toward the opposite.

Everyone in the Raymond household is various forms of ill and sickly and yeah. Plus, I’m wicked busy, so most of this should have posted last night. Alas…

* The big news, at least amongst folk like me, is the passing of William F. Buckley. I’m much too young to have been directly influenced by him, and I’ve only been reading National Review for the last five years or so, but to consider him anything less than one of the top three figures in modern conservatism (along with Reagan and Goldwater) is probably improper. He made conservatism intellectual again in an era where it was reeling from the disaster of the New Deal and wasting away in McCarthyism. In an era of Bush-administration-style neoconservatism, I’m hoping that someone will be inspired to take up his mantle that WFB’s death brings to the forefront. For a pretty great overview of the importance, Reason pulls it together kind of nicely, and Radley Balko hits a lot of notes that went through my head.

* This is a good example of why I think Obama’s missing the point. And while I give him some minor kudos for his attempt at a response, never mind that he’s likely wrong to some degree on that anyway. Still, Obama’s ridiculous position on it does open up a can of worms - if things go to hell in Iraq once we withdraw, you’re gonna go back in? Yeah, that’ll go over well.

* It’s still way too early for these polls to have any significant meaning, but McCain’s essentially closed the gap in head-to-head polling. Compare McCain going after Obama in the previous piece with Clinton’s anemic “attacks” over the last week - I think Obama’s going to struggle more with McCain than even I previously thought.

* Orin Kerr at the Volokh Conspiracy muses over possible Obama Supreme Court appointments. What’s most telling about this is Obama’s view of the Court: “part of the role of the Court is that it is going to protect people who may be vulnerable in the political process, the outsider, the minority, those who are vulnerable, those who don’t have a lot of clout. . . [S]ometimes we’re only looking at academics or people who’ve been in the [lower] court. If we can find people who have life experience and they understand what it means to be on the outside, what it means to have the system not work for them, that’s the kind of person I want on the Supreme Court.” Uh, no, Mr. Senator. That has nothing to do with the Supreme Court’s role in society. You have no clue what you’re talking about. Can his supporters even defend this ignorance? That he can talk about the Supreme Court in multiple sentences and not mention the Constitution once should really give anyone pause, I think.

* This was a big Obama day for me, sorry: National Review covers one of those odd video collections of Obama on the military and kind of cuts to the chase as to how stupid it sounds to “slow the development of future combat systems.”

* In other news, Obama decides to redefine liberal in order to assert that he isn’t one. I’ve never bought into the “liberal as a dirty word” meme, for what it’s worth.

* How Obama deals with the media. More importantly, what the military thinks of Obama. Remember the howling over Bush allegedly not listening to the military regarding the run-up to Iraq? Do we think Obama’s going to fix that from what we’ve heard so far? Both links from William Katz’s great Urgent Agenda.

* Obama currently has a “hold” in the Senate on one of the Federal Election Commission appointees. Putting aside that this is simply more evidence of Obama equalling “politics as usual,” this would normally not be news except that the FEC is short enough members to produce a quorum, and this is actively harming McCain’s campaign, especially in terms of fundraising. Now, as far as I’m concerned, McCain made his campaign finance bed and he can damn well sleep in it, but there’s something that should feel kind of dirty about this whole thing about the guy running for President using his Senate position to harm his opponent, even if it’s completely (o my knowledge) legal and above-board. Hell, he couldn’t even convince one person to do the hold for him? Still shady.

* I repeat: Barack Obama is the Same Old Washington Politics as Usual. Thanks, Jana. You can’t complain about lobbyist influence while giving the impression that you’re influenced by lobbyists.

* Don Luskin has been one of my favorite economic bloggers for a while now, and I’ll even forgive him for latching onto McCain’s campaign. He wrote a great piece on prediction markets this week that is worth reading.

* Venuzuela introduces food rationing. Because, you know, socialism works, nationalizing the oil companies was a wonderful idea, and Hugo Chavez is to be praised for his wonderful reforms that are improving so many lives.

I’ve gone long enough for now.

I’m so happy that the duo for Once won an Oscar last night. I call them “the duo for Once” because I don’t know how to spell Marketa Irgosloveta. See?

* Bookseller has announced the shortlist for oddest book titles.

* Saturday Night Live came back this week - one funny bit with Mike Huckabee, one “would be funnier if it weren’t so true” bit about Obama.

* Is there any piece of populism that Obama won’t embrace? I worked in textbooks for years, it’s no more a racket than any other form of bookselling.

* I loved this story: Minnesota bar patrons become actors in theatrical productions to retain their right to smoke. Any way to poke holes in ridiculous anti-smoking laws, I’ll support.

* Meet the new Florida Marlins cheerleaders: the plus-size male group, The Manatees.

* QandO has an amazing takedown on the ethanol movement. Required reading.

* Barack Obama, funded by corporate interests. Same old Washington politics as usual.

* PowerLine posts the response from Rep. John Shadegg about his changing his mind over retiring following a large groundswell of support for him staying in Congress. I’m pleased.

* Female readers, do you agree that you “wake up every morning wondering how on earth I am going to pull off that next minor miracle to get through the day”? Are you “struggling to keep her head above water?” Exactly how out of touch is Michelle Obama? Do we assume that her husband is this out of sync with the rest of us, too?

Last week, I discussed some basics regarding Obama’s position on economics. Since then, he’s pushed out some more information on what he wants to do economically, and it ain’t pretty.

Let’s review really quick: right now, employment is what’s considered full - hovering around 5% unemployment, may leap up a point between now and the election, which is still decent. The manufacturing sector has been decimated in a number of areas, specifically the Midwest, and we’re hampered in part due to a xenophobic economic policy that has fear of foriegn made goods and irrational hatred of foriegn-based companies and outsourcing. Our corporate tax rate is uncompetitive with other comparable nations, and is only getting worse. To say that the economy is the top issue in this campaign is not a bad thing to say, really.

The first big pitch is that he’s looking to create two new major public works initiatives - one for “green energy,” one for “Infrastructure Reinforcement.” Let’s put one thing out of the way - the idea that the government can create jobs in this way was tried during the Great Depression: it didn’t work. The unemployment rate at the height of the problems in the 1930s was at 25%, and the result before the war issues began to ramp up for the United States was at 17%. Hardly a vast improvement for what it meant to be, and, more importantly, did nothing to help economic prospects and possibly aided in stalling them. Beyond that, what’s “Infrastructure Reinforcement” outside of the same sort of bogus earmark spending that voters overwhelmingly rejected in 2006 and are still considered a big issue today? Obama wants to spend $500b on infrastructure when it’s all said and done - what?! And so he wants a “Green energy sector,” whatever that means - will it mean more food for fuel that only ends up hurting the environment as well as the same poor and middle class he claims to be all about? (The answer, by the way, is yes). To be fair, Obama’s not shutting the door on nuclear power, but he’s hardly willing to pioneer an easy, long-term, viable pitch to our energy woes, either. Instead, it’s more of the same regulation that doesn’t work and ends up hurting the middle class where they can’t afford to be hurt - at least according to Obama’s narrative.

His other big platform piece is health care. His plan is dicey at this point - sometimes he wants universal, sometimes he doesn’t, he doesn’t like the Clinton plan, but his plan will insure all kids, etc. Two things we do know - it won’t work, because we we can’t get people to enroll in the plans provided to them already, and that it’ll cost a lot. Obama himself claimed last year that it would cost up to $65b a year, but if the Massachusetts funding gap is any indication, that number will go way higher.

Of course, that’s not the only way he plans to help people, you know. Tax credits! Increase the Earned Income Tax Credit, refundable credits for college students, savings credits, mortgage credits, tripling the EITC for middle class earners! Of course, Obama wants to close what he considers tax havens and increasing taxes on the top 1% of earners to help pay for these things. The problem, of course, is that the Bush tax cuts, in full, only accounted for roughly $110b/year, and closing the so-called loopholes isn’t going to bridge the gap in his spending proposals any further. You like the deficit spending now? Just wait!

Granted, we all need a tax cut - the taxes we pay right now don’t make sense, and the code is extremely complicated. But when the answer is to get those who create the jobs, invest in companies who create the jobs, and the companies that provide jobs, to pay more taxes, and to knock trade advances (and they are advances) such as NAFTA along the way, that’s not the route to a healthy economy. If you want more jobs, you don’t tell people “I want you to incorporate here, but I’m going to make you pay more money to the government to do it, and, oh, force employers to set up an IRA for you. Oh, and did I mention raising the Social Security cap, which will raise taxes quite a bit more for a number of people in that $100k-500k bracket who aren’t exactly rich, but, depending on where they live, aren’t poor either?

This is a huge error, and, more importantly, contrary to the meme Obama wants to push out there - this is typical Washington politics. This is the same type of politics we’ve seen for 70 years running now - government can solve the problem (even though they can’t) and the way to prosperity is by fleecing those who create it (it’s not). Politics as usual. I’d love to hear some defenses of this, because this seems epic in its proposal stage. He may not get much of it passed, but is that even worth a risk to possibly give that opportunity? I sure don’t think so.

* I have lots of reasons to like Mike Lowell, but this doesn’t hurt, either. A class act through and through, he’s the type of guy you want to root for. I’m so excited for this season.

* My conspiracy theory as to why Obama’s largely masking his platform with inspirational quotes that belong on pictures of kittens? the fact that he’s probably the most liberal candidate to come this close to the Presidency in my lifetime. That doesn’t jive with the center.

* I’m glad that the New York Times was able to take some time out of their busy schedule to go after Obama’s economic hypocrisy. Oh, wait, they didn’t - they were too busy implying McCain’s having an affair with a staffer/lobbyist. Bang-up job there, Grey Lady. Great sourcing, too, really.

* Two movie notes:

a) Not a huge fan of Where the Wild Things Are. I skipped the picture book phase of my learning to read portion of the program, and so I never got to read it when it might have made any sort of lasting impression. With that said, I wasn’t at all interested in the Spike Jonze film interpretation until I read how poorly it’s testing. It seems like he’s either missing the boat and making an adult film, or (my broader suspicion) Warner Bros. forgot that the book isn’t 100% for kids anyway, and there’s no way not to make a book that ends with the monsters yelling “Oh please don’t go–we’ll eat you up–we love you so!” This could end up being absolutely phenominal.

b) A World War Z movie? While I always harbored a desire to film this myself someday, I’m pretty excited by the prospect.

* Via Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist, someone’s gonna be getting fired over this one.

* If I only had about $5m in expendable cash….

* Required reading alert: The Impossible Dream of Energy Independence at Reason.

* An interesting story making the rounds is that Lawrence Lessig, lawyer and copyleft pioneer, is considering a run for Congress. I’m not really a big proponent of copyleft/Free Software Foundation positions, and I think that having a person with those points of view in power could seriously undermine our ability to keep innovative technologies and ideas in the United States. With that said, it would be a very interesting campaign, as Lessig could quite possibly become the first true internet candidate in the sense that he’s well-known around tech circles and the types of philosophies he pushes garner quite a bit of enthusiasm. Then again, he could be the next Ron Paul.

* Gov. Lynch makes his case against re-election in November. God, if I didn’t know of Deval Patrick, I’d say that New Hampshire has one of the dumber governors in the nation.

* What does it say about me that I’m seriously considering this for myself?

* This is an interesting wrinkle: If the Supreme Court somehow rules against individual gun rights this spring, it’ll break a compact with Montana. That’s crazy stuff.

* I agree with this.

* Mark Cuban is awesome.

‘Tis all for now.

Someday, I hope to catch up with everything. Someday.

* Behind the scenes of the superdelegate courting. With Obama winning handily last night, this may be a moot point, but yeah.

* A possibly leaked memo from CNN to the newsfolk about how to handle the Castro resignation news. Good to know they, uh, have their priorities straight.

* QandO provides a link dump of a building backlash against Paul Krugman. Where the hell have they been the last 8 years?

* Newsweek profiles Students for Concealed Carry, an advocacy group forming in response to the campus shootings we’ve had this past year. I still think the “Gun Free Zones” that were in place for most of these shootings are a lawsuit waiting to happen, but kudos to this group for making some attempts at an inroad. The group’s website.

* Overlawyered profiles how the AP chose to handle the Supreme Court’s Katrina insurance case. Kind of ridiculous.

* Reason talks about how Palm Beach is trying to ban “formula restaurants.” Again - the mind boggles.

* Remember the Baltimore cop who went off on the skateboarders? It wasn’t the first time.

Quickies:

* Solid gains in how homosexual/transgender kids are treated by their peers, contrary to what the Matthew Shepard Hate Crime Bill proponents would like to paint. We still have a ways to go, of course, but I liked reading this today.

* So, Senator Obama, when it turns out that one of your predictions turned out to be false, what do you do with the publication: Admit you were incorrect, or send it down the memory hole and hope no one notices? I’m sure not surprised by the answer.

* Interesting news story #1 this week is the Declaration of Independence by Kosovo. It’s causing Europe some minor fits, but I’m in favor of it - secession is often necessary, unfortunately.

* Interesting news story #2 is Fidel Castro stepping down. I don’t expect much change from Fidel to Raul, but even the outside chance that this can cause some reform in terms of normalizing relations and getting Cuba moved somewhere close to the 21st century is good enough for the moment.

* Interesting news story #3: Pakistan’s Musharrif appears to be on his way out. This is probably a more important story than Iraq in terms of the 2008 election, especially seeing as we have a candidate who isn’t all that interested in Pakistani autonomy attempting to run the show.

* Idiotic, unhelpful regulation at work.

* An interesting piece reprinted at Cato regarding global warming data and urban heat.

* The possibility of finding life on other planets in my lifetime may have gotten a step closer this week, as a study released suggests that there are a number of stars of similar stature to our own Sun, and that there could be a very large amount of Earth-like planets rotating them, or being formed. Cool stuff.

* Howard Kurtz contrasts the media treatment given to Hillary Clinton as opposed to Obama.

* One thing I’m not impressed by is the “Obama plagiarized Deval Patrick” smear attempt. When you base your campaign on ideas and platitudes, you’re going to sound like other people who do the same thing. I’m also not impressed at all by the “I did coke and had gay sex with Obama in 1999” smear that’s floating around the blogosphere right now - it’s completely ridiculous and ultimately a sickening prospect. What I am impressed by is that Obama only considers hanging a Che Guevara flag “inappropriate” while not demanding that his volunteers take it down. While I’m glad he’s said it’s inappropriate, you’d think he’d take the moment to focus on why it’s inappropriate as opposed to simply glossing over it and saying that it’s “offensive to Cuban-Americans.” I mean, he says that Guevara and he don’t share ideas, but his economic policy seems to be trying to send us in the same direction. It’ll be interesting to see if this story ever truly dies off.

Good times. I have a ton of stuff piled up - I wish I could say I was busy this weekend, but I won’t lie - I spent most of it playing Blue Dragon. If you’re reading on the LJ side, I’m getting intermittent comment notifications, so if I haven’t replied to your comments from earlier, it’s because I only saw them about 20 minutes ago.

* The closest thing to zombies of late. Personally, I’d consider myself blessed in a few ways.

* The rumored number two porn collection in the world doesn’t actually exist. One less reason to visit Cambridge University, I suppose.

* Reason covers the Hugo Chavez disaster. To me, the Chavez situation continues to be one of the great disasters of the world currently - not nearly as bad as the situations in Africa and the Middle East, but a horrible situation that should really get more honest coverage.

* Attention, Democratic voters who subscribe to the “the world hates us because Bush’s diplomacy sucks” meme: claiming that a world leader lacks a soul isn’t going to repair that. And I don’t especially care if she’s right (because I’m inclined to believe she is) - that’s not how you deal with it.

* A fun link for video game fans, especially those with any fond memories of the Ultima series: The Many Deaths of Lord British.

* Larry Kudlow reminds us that if a recession really is coming, it ain’t there yet. Expect the media to continue to push the issue regardless, however - they haven’t been honest about the economy in years, so why start now?

* A great story about the guy who moved into a homeless shelter with $25, and came out a year later with an apartment and $5000 in cash.

* Cato demonstrates the reality surrounding part of Hillary Clinton’s health care plan. Oops!

* England floats a smoking permit. The mind reels.

* I hate the Dolphins because I’m a Patriots fan, but I’ve always liked Zach Thomas. He’s set to meet with the Pats this week, and the thought of it excites me to see him in a New England uniform.

* Sometime last year, you’ll remember a video circulating from 1994 about Dick Cheney’s position about war in Iraq. Namely, that he was against it for reasons many believe actually occurred during the last few years. Of course, it’ll be interesting to see people spin the video of Bill “I was always against the Administration’s war” Clinton making the case Bush should have made. Video here. If we did it right the first time, or if Clinton actually acted as he should have in 1998, it’d be very interesting to see where we’d be today, 10 years later.

* A great spring training prank by the Phillies.

Dunno if I’ll get another post out today, but who knows.

Things apparently got away from me this week.

* I’m a week late on this, but an interesting piece in The Washington Post about how exorcisms are making a comeback.Not shocking, this sort of thing regained prominence under John Paul II. Someday, I’ll have to go into detail as to why I’m not a big JPII fan.

* A “so sad, it’s funny” story: Chairman Mao offered Henry Kissinger 10 million Chinese women in 1973. Perhaps more shocking is that Kissinger didn’t take the offer privately…

* When I first saw this video, it had around 400 views. We’re now past the 300k mark (I told you things got away from me), and it’s a great video. Next time you wonder why I generally don’t trust the police, show them this lunacy:

The kicker is at the end, where he becomes concerned of it getting on the internet. The good news is that he’s been suspended pending investigation, but I expect him to be fully exonerated, because that’s what happens.

* Move that Doomsday Clock minute hand: we may have our first LOLcat marriage proposal.

* A funny e-mail to Jonah Goldberg: Is Barack Obama Angel’s Jasmine? If you don’t get the reference, rent the last few seasons of Angel and get back to me. If you’ve forgotten, Jasmine was the goddess played by Gina Torres, who essentially mesmerized everyone with her demoness wiles. For the record, very uncanny.

* Check out this post at Reason regarding SpeechNow and their attempts to organize as a 527, and then tell me with a straight face that our campaign rules make sense. I dare you.

‘Tis all for now.

Since there’s not much more to say at this point about Obama’s ridiculous campaign, perhaps it’s time to start shining a light on some of the ideas he’s trotting out there, either as a Senator or as a possible action as President. Here’s one to get the ball rolling:

Meet the Patriot Corporation Act. This act, co-sponsored by Obama, is an interesting beast. The quick and dirty is this: Corporations will get tax breaks under this plan, as long as they meet a few requirements: namely that they do 90% of their production and employment in the United States while offering decent wages, health insurance, and other perks. Of course, these numbers aren’t defined by anything realistic - the wages are required to be “enough to keep a family of three out of poverty,” push for “neutrality” in worker organization drives (a clear shot across the bow at the reisstance to the elimination of the secret ballot in terms of organizing) and the employer needs to cover “at least 60% of each worker’s health care premiums.” Never mind that wages to “keep a family of three out of poverty” mean completely different things depending on where you are and what industry you’re in (not to mention that it sets some arbitrary standard as to what salary level constitutes being patriotic, but whatever) - the bill uses the census figures which fail to account for the broad standard of living deviances across the nation - but if any company attempted to actually reach this standard that didn’t already, the tax break that the company gets? The equivalent of 1% of the taxable income. That doesn’t come close to covering this nonsense.

This bill is really a great example of how Barack Obama simply doesn’t understand the problems that are facing this nation economically right now. Right now, the United States has some of the most uncompetitive corporate tax rates in the world. At 35% on the federal level alone (the rate can go north of 10 points higher when you factor in state and local taxes), that puts us 18th overall and nearly 8 points above the average, an average that is declining as Europe moves to a flat tax and places like Canada plan to drop their rate dramatically. General Motors continues to shed jobs because it costs so much to employ people in the United States compared to overseas markets. In the long term, the blunt reality is that the United States is moving away from a manufacturing economy and toward a service one, and part of that move is the recognition that globalization is here to stay.

Barack Obama mentions corporate taxation once on his website. His only plan to deal with the fact that we’re falling behind internationally is to try and close loopholes and try to govern where international corporations decide to set up shop. Instead of aggressively dealing with the problem in a way that keeps us productive and competitive - a sharp reduction in corporate tax rates, for a possible example - he goes for the Same Old Democratic Response: act as if the corporations and businesses in America are not doing enough for this nation, and saddle them with the extra costs, fees, and taxes that are causing them to close up shop and head elsewhere to begin with. Politics as usual. All Obama’s positions advocate are the further siphoning of jobs to lower-cost nations, and harm the economy in poor ways.

* Depending on who you talk to, the Boston Public Library DRM protest was either a complete flop or an interesting diversion. I’m still of the position that the old way of protesting (marching, waving signs, etc) is dead in a nation with a 24 hour news cycle and an up-to-the-moment blogosphere, but this was destined to fail to begin with. After all, do most people who use a library know what DRM is anyway? And if they do know, do they really care? Probably not.

* Go figure, the New York Times of all publications prints an interesting look at the American Middle Class.

* If there’s any evidence that regulatory measures have gone completely haywire, here’s a story about a topic dear to my heart: the right of Los Angeles vendors to sell hot dogs wrapped in bacon.

* At Cinematical, a cool collection of photographs celebrating Alfred Hitchcock films. I love stuff like this. Also, a while back, they posted Disney animated recreations which are pretty cool.

6 inches of sleet for me, a slate of links for you. None about Obama, so you’ll have to find something else to get angry about. d;-)

* GetReligion has a great entry up about the media missing the boat on Huckabee’s rhetoric. It’s a good exposure into the liberal media concept - it’s not necessarily that the media is going out of its way to be biased, but rather that the media’s makeup is generally Democratic, and there’s probably a bit of confirmation bias involved in the whole thing. Essentially, the media misses the boat with Huckabee often because the major orgs don’t have the type of diversity in the newsroom to catch these sorts of things when they come up. It’s an interesting framework to think about when discussing media biases - it’s not always right/left.

* Radley Balko posted at the Reason blog about the online gambling ban, which involved the US Trade Department making some concessions to work around some international treaties. The terms weren’t disclosed, and a Freedom of Information Act request was denied based on “national security” reasons. More at Cato and the links within the two posts, but how ridiculous.

* Also from the Cato blog, a new study about how non-smokers actually cost more for the health system than smokers do. A bit of a hole in the universal healthcare argument.

* Kudlow notes the strange coincedence that the stock market has plunged around the same time as the last few primary contests.

* OverLawyered notes that McCain’s big wins yesterday repudiate one of the main reasons for his campaign reform bill. Money doesn’t win elections, people. If they did, President Perot would have been quite the hoot.

* New England Republican gets it. The second half is worth reading for Democrats and liberals as well, just substitute “terror” with “Iraq” and the concept is the same - there’s more going on in the world that is ultimately more important. The problem, unfortunately, is that there isn’t a Goldwater or Reagan typ