The International House of Bacon

The end of Eliot Spitzer’s career comes to a close about 11 years too late. While many are wondering what might have been, I’m quite excited to see the end of what has been a really horrible time from a human being who should have never gotten as close to any position of authority as he did, let alone attorney general or governor. His Judge Dredd (”I AM the law!”), cavalier attitude toward those he was supposed to protect is something that should be villified, not praised.

The lives he actively harmed were in the thousands, the amount of money lost by both corporations and individuals in the tens of billions. Alan Reynolds, who writes for Cato’s blog, shared a speech regarding Spitzer’s tactics yesterday (an absolute must read if you care even a bit about government power and overreach), and it’s eye-opening - a 1921 law in the New York state books, the Martin Act, allows for the sort of cavalier attitude that Spitzer brought to the office by giving the AG of New York unprecedented, overbearing power to question companies for any reason without counsel, using the press to posit theories that companies cannot realistically defend by law, and then extort settlements from these companies as stock prices plummet and ruin the lives of many involved. You don’t have to take Reynolds’s (or my) word for it - take a look at the record in areas such as the Marsh & McClellan suit or the Dick Grasso harassment, and then tell me with a straight face that Spitzer was doing his job ethically, and doing it well.

Thomas Sowell ultimately said it best, as he’s prone to do: “What Eliot Spitzer did was not out of character. It was completely in character for someone with the hubris that comes with the ability to misuse his power to make or break innocent people.” That Spitzer got nailed by an unjust law (prostitution) via unjust means (the monitoring of financial transactions of an arbitrary amount that presumes guilt as opposed to innocence) is a shame, until you consider exactly how many times he used the same types (if not exactly the same) unjust laws to ruin the lives of countless people. That’s what ultimately makes it different than the Vitters or Craigs of the world - they, too, are hypocrites, but at least Vitter wasn’t prosecuting the same prostitutes he was meeting, nor was Craig arresting homosexuals in the next stall over.

Good riddance, and New York should take the opportunity now to right a wrong. Those companies can’t get their money back, and perhaps some of them don’t deserve it. But to step up to the plate and weaken the power of the attorney general is an absolute must - if they don’t, it won’t be a question of if another Spitzer will roll around, but when.

More good articles on Spitzenfreude: Reason on why Spitzer’s hypocrisy is worse than you think, The Wall Street Journal on the press enabling Spitzer’s reign of terror (and QandO has more on this), and the betrayal of human rights groups.

* 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.

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?

* 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.

I’m not going to go as far as to say that the wheels are coming off after one spectacularly bad press conference, but if this is what we can expect of Obama when he’s faced with tough (and not even hard) questions from a largely local press contingent, what’s going to happen when he faces some significant questions from a national media?

Some of the spin I’m reading goes along the line of “but he answered 8 questions about it!? What more do you want from the guy?” The problem isn’t the appearance of brevity in the conference - he may have answered a typical amount of questions, maybe even more than usual. The problem is his handling of the only two blemishes that have been thrown on his record so far - the Rezko flap and the NAFTA one. That the media isn’t trusting the Obama campaign’s statements - or the Canadian embassy’s for that matter - on the meeting between Obama’s advisor regarding the NAFTA comment is significant on a number of levels - it indicates the end of taking Obama’s words at face value, and, more importantly, the Obama bait-and-switch tactic we’ve gotten so used to didn’t work, leaving a number of questions on the table about it that Obama didn’t touch.

The Rezko questioning didn’t go much better. That Obama felt he had answered the questions locally two years ago doesn’t much matter today, as the news is back out and is a big deal. Yes, the media is latching onto it because it’s a “hot story,” as Obama says - that’s the story of your campaign!

It will ultimately be interesting to see how Obama handles this going forward. Indications are that he’s going to lose big in Ohio today (still a shock to me considering his pandering on NAFTA) and if he wins in Texas, it won’t be by a significant margin. This means a month more of campaigning, probably another debate, and more questions that he’s not going to want to answer. Will he be a little more poised next time, or have a minor tantrum whenever someone takes the eye off the ball Obama’s placed in front of us for so long?

* 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.

As some of you know, I occasionally blog over at Heretical Ideas, a team blog that an old friend of mine, Tom, has blogged at for a number of years. In partial response to my Obama posts here, he wrote a piece about tactics and the campaign that’s worth your time to read.

To boil down the argument he’s making as I understand it, my position that the more substantive voting bloc should be bothered by Obama’s (at that point) nondescript campaign isn’t really a good one, largely due to the flaws in the primary system and partly because it’s the only way he can say consistent with his self-portrayal as an outsider.

I don’t really disagree with that in theory - I do know why Obama’s run the campaign like he has, and it’s obviously worked for him so far. With that said, there’s something to be said about the essential bait and switch he’s pulling as well, and campaigning on active deception may be a good tactic in a primary candidacy where the scrutiny can be distributed among numerous candidates, but at some point the chickens have to come home to roost.

I’ve spent a not-insignificant amount of time thus far pointing out how that veneer is fading away quickly, where what he says simply fails to match up with what he does. It doesn’t end there, though: He’s hyper-partisan when he claims to be above politics, he’s barely bipartisan when it would allegedly matter most even though he claims an ability to reach across the aisle, etc - when Obama is reaching out to these disenchanted voters by attempting to appeal to them through these sorts of high-minded ideals that he can’t even reach, what happens when the truth comes out?

The problem is compounded by the way Obama phrases issues. Stephen Hayes over at The Wall Street Journal does a great job demonstrating this:

His rhetorical gimmick is simple. When he addresses a contentious issue, Mr. Obama almost always begins his answer with a respectful nod in the direction of the view he is rejecting — a line or two that suggests he understands or perhaps even sympathizes with the concerns of a conservative.

At Cornell College on Dec. 5, for example, a student asked Mr. Obama how his administration would view the Second Amendment. He replied: “There’s a Supreme Court case that’s going to be decided fairly soon about what the Second Amendment means. I taught Constitutional Law for 10 years, so I’ve got my opinion. And my opinion is that the Second Amendment is probably — it is an individual right and not just a right of the militia. That’s what I expect the Supreme Court to rule. I think that’s a fair reading of the text of the Constitution. And so I respect the right of lawful gun owners to hunt, fish, protect their families.”

Then came the pivot:

“Like all rights, though, they are constrained and bound by the needs of the community . . . So when I look at Chicago and 34 Chicago public school students gunned down in a single school year, then I don’t think the Second Amendment prohibits us from taking action and making sure that, for example, ATF can share tracing information about illegal handguns that are used on the streets and track them to the gun dealers to find out — what are you doing?”

In conclusion:

“There is a tradition of gun ownership in this country that can be respected that is not mutually exclusive with making sure that we are shutting down gun traffic that is killing kids on our streets. The argument I have with the NRA is not whether people have the right to bear arms. The problem is they believe any constraint or regulation whatsoever is something that they have to beat back. And I don’t think that’s how most lawful firearms owners think.”

Hayes compares it to the perception of Reagan, but I don’t know if that’s accurate - Obama’s setting up where he wants you to believe his position is - in this case, a respect of the the second amendment - but, in reality, doesn’t really buy into the rights wholesale. When you read Obama’s speeches like this, you see it happen time and time again, and it works great - even I’ve been hoodwinked once or twice by the slight of hand. At what point, however, does someone who’s thinking A but realizing B act on that disconnect.

I think this is where the “policy geeks” should be very concerned. If you’re a policy geek for Obama, it’s because you buy into what he wants to do, or at least think he’ll do it better than the alternatives. Right now, the reason your horse is leading the pack is not because Obama’s got those positions, however - it’s because his rhetorical flourish is exciting people who don’t know about his economic plans or may think he’s actually strong on gun rights. McCain isn’t going to let that slide if he’s a smart campaigner, and I believe he is. If you’re inspired by Obama as a bipartisan reformer, are you going to buy into the bill of goods that Obama can’t reach when that comes out, or the solid and well-known record of McCain that can be easily demonstrated.

When you hitch your apple wagon to a star, there’s a really good chance you’ll get burned. At this point, it might be too late for the policy geeks with Obama.

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.

Non-political in nature.

1) Rock on, Red Sox. I’m a big Francona fan at this point - hell, he’s only 8-0 in the World Series - and I think he’s the best guy to run what is essentially a very difficult team in a very difficult market. This is where Rick chimes in with Francona’s record in Philly or the 2006 All-Injury All-Stars or something, but I don’t care much. 3 trips to the playoffs with 2 World Series trophies is enough for me to want to see him handed a blank check.

2) ABC plans to air the Wizard’s First Rule television series starting this fall. Talk about weird - the rumors of a television something based around Goodkind’s novels have been floating since at least 2005, and Sam Raimi got involved, and this is apparently a go - 22 episodes based on the first book in the series. I’m a little stunned by it, frankly, and I can’t imagine how they plan on translating what’s essentially 100 pages of S&M into a syndicated program (believe it or not, it’s somewhat important to the plot), but hey. I just hope with Raimi involved, it won’t be too cheesy, but fantasy on film can go so wrong so quickly…

3) So I ended up popping for Team Fortress 2 on PC so I could play with extra maps and not be monopolizing the television 24/7 when I need my fix. I have to say, while being able to use the 360 controller with it works wonders, I still suck. I’m usually pretty good on the 360 matches, but I’m just consistently destroyed by people on the PC. It’s crazy. I do need to get my headset to work better, though. The drivers didn’t make the mic pick up sound any easier, but I’ll figure it out.

More later on.

* 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.

Kirk Watson is a Democratic Senator from Texas who has worked with Obama over the last year and is an enthusiastic enough Obama supporter to be on the live feed on Hardball for Obama. Another reasonable question, another answer filled with nothing. And he’s a Senator!

Matthews certainly hasn’t been hard on Obama up to this point, and it’s high time he’s gotten around to this. Of course, Chris Matthews doesn’t actually hate everyone, and doesn’t think you’re an idiot. Neither do I, contrary to the implications in the commentary I’ve had to put up with whenever I bring up this point about Obama and his supporters. But if you think it’s bad now, when Obama’s not officially the nominee, it’s going to get multiple times worse when he is the nominee, and he’s going to have to answer some hard questions, which will force many of his supporters to do the same. The media can only be soft on Obama for so long.

This is reality. Time to get used to it.

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.

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 type waiting in the wings to steer the Republican Party back to what made them worthwhile in the first place.

* Stanley Kurtz over at the National Review presents an interesting theory about the electorate as it stands, namely that the right missed the boat. It’s a little more hysterical and inflammatory than it needs to be, but the gist of it is that the education system has moved left with no real significant response from the other side, thus churning out people who have no serious insight into the other side of things. Hell, I went to private Catholic schools and can largely speak to that. It’s interesting to see if this holds water long-term.

* Linked everywhere, Right Wing News interviews Thomas Sowell. Sowell’s the most important intellectual on the right today, and, IMO, is proof positive that you can make a charismatic case for wonkish views. The Vision of the Anointed should be required reading for anyone with even a cursory interest in politics.

* Finally, if you haven’t been keeping up with the Drew Carey Project at Reason’s video site, you’re missing out on some pretty good stuff. His latest is on the middle class, and how the assumption that we’re getting squeezed doesn’t really hold water. It fits in well with Reason’s piece on the middle class from last year as well as the fact that the middle class is disappearing because they’re getting richer.

This video spoke to me in a different way, though - for those of us in the middle class (and Ann & I fit into the lower middle class by most accounts), it is a lot about choices. Our savings rate isn’t quite what we might want it to be, and some weeks may feel harder than others, but a lot of that has had to do with the choices we’ve made - we chose to buy a house and have a mortgage as opposed to rent for less. I bought a newer car because I felt a car payment now would work out better in the long run. We go out to eat once a week, we try to catch a movie, we go to Red Sox games. The important part? We’re happy.

This isn’t to say that luck or outside influences aren’t occasionally a factor - we’re certainly lucky we haven’t had medical catastrophes or that my employment issues didn’t hurt us long term the way that they do for other people - but that the concept of a “middle class squeeze” is largely a bizarre manifestation, and one we can probably blame on the Lou Dobbses and the John Edwardses of the world.

Let’s see how much of this backlog I can sift out. By the way, R.E.M. tour this spring with Modest Mouse, and the Boston date is Friday the 13th of June at the Tweeter Center. On one hand, it’s friggin’ odd because they couldn’t sell out the Tweeter Center last time. On the other hand, that’s essentially a guarantee that I’ll be able to go. I already put in for the day off, hah.

* Big news of the day is the executive order by Bush on earmarks. Two questions: where was this six years ago, and why didn’t he do this last year and possibly save the Republican congress? It’ll be interesting to see how this works out.

* Hey, John McCain, are you for good judges or against good judges? I knew my discomfort came from someplace legitimate - I can’t see how McCain can adequately escape this, but, then again, he might not have to if he ends up with the Republican nomination. Patrick Ruffini reprinted a telling article about McCain last month that’s really worth reading. I can’t believe I was getting suckered in by him.

* The best news out of Massachusetts in ages. Go Jim Go!

* Who didn’t see this coming? Massachusetts health debacle plan is slated to be nearly $250m over the projected budget next year. And to think the guy who signed this monstrousity wants to be President.

* Okay, so let me get this straight: Chris Dodd wants the federal government to buy bad mortgages, thus taking the private risk and instead making it a public one? Huh?

* Interesting set of posts from Cafe Hayek. A question: how many people do you think are making minimum wage or less? If you guessed more than 5%, you’re wrong! I was wrong, too: read more here and the follow up post here.

* I’m about 3/4ths of the way through Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism, which is turning out to be a much more important book than I could have ever anticipated. Check out his truncated Daily Show appearance, and cross your fingers that we get to see the original uncut version.

* I’m glad that Alexander Hamilton’s legacy is being questioned in some ways, finally. I personally consider him one of the more embarrassing founders (and that’s before I learned last week that he had to lie to his constituents to get to Philadelphia in the first place - a lone bright spot in an uneven Unruly Americans and the Origin of the Constitution). The sooner we disavow Hamilton, the better off we’ll be.

* Fun nostalgia for me: Mormon PSAs. Growing up Catholic, I always found it odd to see the LDS advertising on all my favorite shows - after all, the Catholics didn’t do that. I know more now, which makes these an interesting trip down the lane for me.

* An interesting view from Commentary regarding the post-1960s legacy of the United States, specifically revolving around our social history.

* The Skeptical Optimist helps slay the savage “stagnant wages” beast. If you’re a conservative and not reading his blog, you should add it to your reader of choice. If you’re a moderate or liberal and not reading his blog, you should give it a shot - his perspectives on debt and growth in particular are eye-opening.

* Somewhat related to the above, is the middle class really being squeezed?

‘Tis all for now.