Dave Friedman's Soul of Wit

National Organization of Whiners

NOW--which apparently stands for the National Organization of Whiners--had a convention in Albany:

Some gals are young at 40. Not NOW. It's not that NOW is less radical than younger organizations -- she isn't. Every resolution was relentlessly hammered out until there was no possible way that LGBT people (LGBT stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) could feel excluded; there was an "equal marriage" pretend-wedding reception with punch and cake. A resolution calling for an "independent" investigation of 9/11 -- you know, because all the other 9/11 investigations weren't truly "independent" -- was adopted.

Still, NOW felt just a bit...tired. Whatever you think of the feminist movement -- and I happen to deplore most of it -- the women who got it started were forces of nature, interesting people with strong personalities. They seemed to be riding the wave of history (or "herstory," as they called it). But now that the wave has crested, the current crop of NOW leaders seem less colorful than their foremothers. The issues are not new. I heard no interesting discussions, not one word of disagreement. In place of argument, there was only dogmatic insistence on inclusivity.

The quality of the "breakout sessions" radiated tiredness. The panelists were often ill-prepared, their presentations disjointed. A session on Wal-Mart drew about 40 angry women and one angry man in a purple NOW T-shirt and matching shorts. I gleaned the startling information that the "merchant of shame" -- i.e., Wal-Mart -- "seeks to dominate the retail industry through customer acquisition." That did sound nefarious! Wal-Mart's health-insurance policies and pay scale were condemned, of course. And plans were begun to test its policy on the morning-after pill (a matter of ideological, if not actual, interest to many women at the conference). Later I asked a young woman sporting an "I Prefer Girls" button if Wal-Mart might be a good issue to bring new blood into NOW. She thought not. Young and less affluent women, she explained, rely on Wal-Mart's low prices.

For me, the most memorable session was the one entitled "Feminist Media Reform." Although two NOW employees spoke, along with Kathy Bonk, a well-known feminist media specialist, the star of the session was Bree Williamson, who plays Jessica on the ABC day-time soap opera "One Life to Live." (She has also guest-starred on a Toronto-based show called "Mutant X.") Ms. Williamson, who went all pouty face when somebody noted that TV heroines tend to be blue-eyed blondes, had a message: Write letters to producers telling them what you want to see. Talk about empowerment! If viewers of "One Life" start to see Jessica battling the patriarchy, they'll know why. But one panelist implicitly questioned the effectiveness of such campaigns, lamenting that NOW failed to save Geena Davis's series "Commander in Chief." I don't know what it means that I heard more about an imaginary female president than about Hillary during the course of the weekend.

Being one of the oppressive males which NOW seems to view with bemused contempt, it is rather presumptuous of me to tell women where to spend their time. But I suspect the Independent Women's Forum is a better place than NOW.

Science and Cash are My Religions

The New York Times has a long, and important, article about the differences between twenty-first century Man and nineteenth-century man. Among the most interesting differences: twenty-first century man is, on average, much taller, heavier, and longer-lived (healthy) than nineteenth-century man:

New research from around the world has begun to reveal a picture of humans today that is so different from what it was in the past that scientists say they are startled. Over the past 100 years, says one researcher, Robert W. Fogel of the University of Chicago, humans in the industrialized world have undergone “a form of evolution that is unique not only to humankind, but unique among the 7,000 or so generations of humans who have ever inhabited the earth.”

The difference does not involve changes in genes, as far as is known, but changes in the human form. It shows up in several ways, from those that are well known and almost taken for granted, like greater heights and longer lives, to ones that are emerging only from comparisons of health records.

The biggest surprise emerging from the new studies is that many chronic ailments like heart disease, lung disease and arthritis are occurring an average of 10 to 25 years later than they used to. There is also less disability among older people today, according to a federal study that directly measures it. And that is not just because medical treatments like cataract surgery keep people functioning. Human bodies are simply not breaking down the way they did before.

Even the human mind seems improved. The average I.Q. has been increasing for decades, and at least one study found that a person’s chances of having dementia in old age appeared to have fallen in recent years.

The proposed reasons are as unexpected as the changes themselves. Improved medical care is only part of the explanation; studies suggest that the effects seem to have been set in motion by events early in life, even in the womb, that show up in middle and old age.

One thing the article neglects to mention: this increase in man's well-being is directly attributable to science and capitalism. Over the past two hundred years, many advances in medical science, and trillions of dollars in wealth, have created a population of males that is both healthier and wealthier than any group in the entire history of man.

It should be noted that none of these advances can be ascribed to religion. Praying will not save man; advancing science and creating wealth will. Jonas Salk and Gordon Moore are far better men than any religious figure, for they have contributed to science and the creation of wealth, respectively*. The benefits of their work (and countless other men and women) redound to us daily.

*Some would argue that the very fact that I am blogging to the world about the deprivations that religion visits upon man would indicate that Moore, a co-founder of Intel, has brought much scientific knowledge to man, and that would be correct. But for all the benefits that microprocessor technology has brought to man, of at least equal importance, is the wealth that Moore and his colleagues have generated for thousands of Intel shareholders.

One of the more incomprehensible claims made in the article:

Craig and Sandy Keller had all the advantages of middle-class Americans of their age: childhood vaccines, plenty of food, antibiotics when they fell ill. Now, wanting to stay healthy, they walk in the evenings, try to eat well and rely on their strong faith, which, they say, makes a big difference to their health. And they enjoy life.

(Emphasis mine.)

The problem with this kind of argument is that, to the critical (non-religious) mind, it simply makes no sense: nineteenth-century man was no less religious than twenty-first century man, and yet, health problems felled nineteenth-century man decades before his twenty-first century counterpart.

No, the deprivations wrought by religious belief are incalculable; religiosity has nothing to do with one's propensity to enjoy retirement. Science and capitalism are the only things that can explain lengthening lives. (If capitalism were not a cause of long lives, then it should follow that the life expectancy of a Russian male would be equal to that of an America or Japanese male.)

Old People Should Not Drive

There are few things more irrational than the notion that prohibiting old people from driving is "discriminatory" or "infringes on their rights."

Old people should not be driving cars:

An elderly man drove a car onto a patio at a Starbucks on Friday night, injuring 10 people, two of them critically, authorities said.

The driver, who was believed to be 80 or 81, was trying to park in a handicapped spot just after 9 p.m. when the car surged forward and hit the customers sitting on the patio, said police Lt. William Fetner.

Old people, for some reason, are construed by sentimentalists as either wiser than the rest of us, or else as living on a higher moral plane; for those reasons, we are not to condemn their actions but rather to pity them.

Who is going to pity the people hurt by incompetent drivers?

I Want to Be the Paint...

I want to be the paint.

(Not safe for work.)

"As an economist, I often find myself defending 'bad guys' "

Greg Mankiw explains what he does for a living.

Sounds a hell of a lot better than Stanley Fish.

Fish v. Althouse

Althouse has been banging the drum about 9/11 "denialist" Kevin Barrett for some time now, and Stanley Fish, a literature professor and darling of the multi-culti intellectual left, takes her on:

But in fact, academic freedom has nothing to do with content. It is not a subset of the general freedom of Americans to say anything they like (so long as it is not an incitement to violence or is treasonous or libelous). Rather, academic freedom is the freedom of academics to study anything they like; the freedom, that is, to subject any body of material, however unpromising it might seem, to academic interrogation and analysis....

In short, whether something is an appropriate object of academic study is a matter not of its content — a crackpot theory may have had a history of influence that well rewards scholarly scrutiny — but of its availability to serious analysis. This point was missed by the author of a comment posted to the blog of a University of Wisconsin law professor, Ann Althouse: “When is the University of Wisconsin hiring a professor of astrology?” The question is obviously sarcastic; its intention is to equate the 9/11-inside-job theory with believing in the predictive power of astrology, and to imply that since the university wouldn’t think of hiring someone to teach the one, it should have known better than to hire someone to teach the other.

Althouse responds, here:

So my problem is that belief in this conspiracy theory reveals such a defective mind that the teacher cannot be trusted, and that the factual truth of the conspiracy theory isn't properly taught in a course about Islam. That many Muslims believe the theory could be part of the course, but the inquiry should be into why they would be drawn into such beliefs, and a teacher who thinks the beliefs are true would not seem to have much grasp of the topic.

Althouse, it need not be said, is exactly correct here: the content is not the issue but rather the sanity, or capability of a man so obviously deluded is. It is one thing to elucidate why Muslims (or, indeed, any religious person) is suscpetible to belief in illogical myth; it is quite another to assert that one who accepts without question that such a myth is veritable truth is capable of explaining man's propensity to superstition and religion.

What we are witnessing in Fish's writing is a epistemological relativism all too common among leftist professors. As I explained in an email to my father, who has commented on Althouse's blog in befuddlement:

What you're seeing in Fish's writing is the kind of relativism and subjectivity all too prevalent in the social "sciences," in which competing interpretations are subject to open debate, not empirical inquiry. In fact, much of literature, sociology, psychology, philosophy, and "women's studies" professors have the same epistemological framework as do intelligent design advocates: they care little about empirical evidence and more about rhetorical sleight of hand.

Thus, in the argot of epistemological relativism, water is not formed from hydrogen and oxygen but is made of "whatever metaphorical or poetic description I can use to conceive of 'water' ".

That this is all rather stupid and beside the point is, of course, obvious.

As always, I blame the French. Specifically, Derrida and Foucault.

See also the Sokal Affair, for a good introduction to one scientist's usurpation of the relativists' rhetorical sleight of hand.

Huh?

A sentence that makes no sense:

Abstraction made of esthetical reservations when the wearer is not exactly model material, some find it stimulating and reason 'If you've got it, flaunt it', while others find it offensive - in some conservative circles any woman ever spotted in a G-string is 'branded' a slut for life, any male wearer an exhibitionist, and in certain jurisdictions it may even be illegal; as a rule it's a question of knowing where and when it is appropiate or socially less acceptable: usually OK in beach and swimming areas, not in places of worship etc.

Pushing My Buttons

Pushing buttons is considered work by Orthodox Jews and therefore a group of such Jews living in a co-op in the Bronx want one of their building's elevators to automatically stop on every floor during the Sabbath.

That this is asinine is apparently beside the point because, hey, it's religion, and how dare we question or criticize religious belief?

Never has there been a greater folly perpetrated upon Man than religion: the caloric expenditure of pushing an elevator button is so inconsequential as to hardly merit the description "play," let alone "work." When it comes to all matters religious, Man jettisons reason and logic in favor of vacuous faith.

A shame.

Orwell, Spinning, in His Grave

New York City's residential real estate industry is as insular and incestuous as the industry to which it is often properly compared, namely, porn, and it is therefore appropriate to refer to the industry as a sort of microcosm.

But it doesn't follow from that the appropriate word to use to describe the vacancy rate of rental apartments in Manhattan is "microcosmic":

Vacancy rates stand at a microcosmic 0.56 percent, and the number of apartments for which the owner pays the broker’s fee has dwindled.

Friedman Theorem Number 2884382, or, My Application of Orwell's Politicis and the English Language: Journalists ought to avoid using words of Latin or Greek derivation, as such words often imply a complexity and precision at odds with the limitations of journalistic prose.

America is Pro Israel

Interesting analysis of why public criticism of Israel's military endeavors by Americans has been rather muted:

First, the U.S. itself now is directly engaged in its own war on terrorism. That has produced more sympathy for Israel, which is seen as the ultimate target of many Islamic and Palestinian terror groups. And while there also is a great deal of sympathy for the Lebanese government, Americans now are more likely to share Israel's desire to bust up the Islamic militants of Hezbollah, who form a kind of state within a state in Lebanon.

Second, Israel has helped itself by having unilaterally pulled its troops out of southern Lebanon and Gaza in recent years. That has bolstered the feeling among Americans that it has taken steps for its part to end the confrontation with Arabs around it. Never mind that critics see the withdrawals as a way for Israel to impose its version of peace unilaterally.

Third, Israel benefits in American eyes because it was seen as having tried to offer a mutually acceptable negotiated peace to Palestinians in the waning days of the Clinton administration, in peace talks at Camp David. And the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is seen as being the one who rejected it.

Finally, though it's little discussed, Christian conservatives, a powerful constituency within Mr. Bush's Republican party, have become a potent pro-Israel force on the political front in recent years. That matters to this White House.

Critics fear the president and his team are too supportive of Israel to have much effect brokering an end to the violence. But if the president's instinctive reaction is to support Israel, the public reaction at home isn't doing much to force him to alter it.

"When he turned around and saw my pistol, he threw the knife away, put his hands up and got on the ground"

A man with a pistol stops a person with a knife.

Think gun control is a good idea?

What if any of the victims of this guy had had guns with which to protect themselves?

Bromide: outlaw guns and only outlaws have guns.

In Which the New York Times Glorifies a Murderer

In which the New York Times glorifies a murderer.

Nativists Apoplectic

Well, it had to happen. Salma Hayek, more appropriately referred to as "the body" than Elle MacPherson, is bringning a telenovela (Spanish-language soap opera) to ABC.

Oh, and for the immigrant-bashers out there, the star of the show is someone named America Ferrara. Not too American, I am sure.

Nativists everywhere are said to be having fits of apoplexy over such apostasy.

Stem Cells

So the President is pandering to scientific illiterates (i.e., the religious) in vetoing the Senate's stem cell bill.

I don't see the BFD: no scientist is claiming it is impossible to get funding; polls show most Americans support the research; the action paints the religious as clueless morons.

Whoever figures out stem cells will have a billion dollar business on his hands; the highest moral good is to create wealth. The second highest moral good is to save lives.

Stem cells are not "lives." People with, say, Alzheimer's are lives. But the religious don't seem to care about that.

You Reap What You Sow

A professor from the University of Haifa argues that the Lebanese have only themselves to blame for electing Hezbollah thugs to government:

And here is a sad, third clearheaded point: Democracy, in the Middle East as elsewhere, is not just about universal suffrage. The Palestinians brought Hamas to power, and Hezbollah is a coalition partner in the Lebanese government. Please reflect on this, dear Western lovers of democracy: Is majority vote truly the sole gist of it all? Here is a painful truth: Israel is killing civilians -- inadvertently, though arguably too freely -- as it targets militants in Gaza and Lebanon. Yet the hair-raising aspect of it is that many of those civilians voted Hamas, and some voted Hezbollah, into their own governments. Democratically elected, these groups care little for the lives of their own citizens, even less for the Israeli Arabs they have bombed and killed in recent days, and null for Israeli civilians. Yet their voters keep applauding. Gazan and Lebanese children are innocent victims of this policy, and many Israelis -- I must assert this even in the face of disbelief -- truly grieve for them.

California Topography

For the stupid: California is a mountainous state.

Greenland represents one of the largely unrecognized paradoxes of global warming. In former Vice President Al Gore's recent film "An Inconvenient Truth," the melting of Greenland's ice cap, along with a similar cap in the Antarctic, is portrayed as one of the greatest threats of global warming. If the layers of ice and snow holding billions of tons of water were to melt, scientists warn that global sea levels would rise by 40 feet, submerging lower Manhattan, the Netherlands and much of California.

Phoenix in NYC

But for the humidity, the weather here in NYC is like Phoenix. Heat index over 105 degrees:

A New Yorker on the Material Girl on Bush

Want to leave the "quasi-fundamentalist Christian[s] with socially conservative views" of Plano, TX scratching their heads?

Show them this, in which a motley crew of New Yorkers opines on the Material Girl.

Most surprising statement of all:

She put a bad taste in everyone’s mouths when she insulted George Bush. I want her to realize that people are out there fighting for democracy!

My blog post regarding New Yorkers' reaction to Charlie Daniels' patriotism here.

New Favorite Word

Contumacious.

As in, "I'm one contumacious guy."

Poverty

Bloomberg convenes a panel aimed at elucidating the nature of poverty in an effort to eradicate it.

Color me skeptical.

Understatement of the Year

Posner:

The achievement lag of Hispanic males may be a transitional phenomenon; they may still be adjusting to an American male culture that is quite different from the "macho" culture of Latin America, which is not conducive to vocational achievement under modern American conditions.

Lebanon is a Sovereign Nation and Therefore is a Military Target

Michael Totten argues, ignorantly:

I sympathize one hundred percent with what Israel is trying to do here. But they aren't going about it the right way, and they're punishing far too many of the wrong people. Lord knows I could be wrong, and the situation is rapidly changing, but at this particular moment it looks bad for Israel, bad for Lebanon, bad for the United States, good for Syria, and good for Iran.

There is no alternate universe where the Lebanese government could have disarmed an Iranian-trained terrorist/guerilla militia that even the Israelis could not defeat in years of grinding war. There is no alternate universe where it was in Lebanon's interest to restart the civil war on Israel's behalf, to burn down their country all over again right at the moment where they finally had hope after 30 years of convulsive conflict and Baath Party overlordship.

The Lebanese government should have asked for more help from the international community. The Lebanese government should have been far less reactionary in its attitude toward the Israelis. They made more mistakes than just two, but I'd say these are the principal ones.

What should the Israelis have done instead? They should have treated Hezbollahland as a country, which it basically is, and attacked it. They should have treated Lebanon as a separate country, which it basically is, and left it alone. Mainstream Lebanese have no problem when Israel hammers Hezbollah in its little enclave. Somebody has to do it, and it cannot be them. If you want to embolden Lebanese to work with Israelis against Hezbollah, or at least move in to Hezbollah's bombed out positions, don't attack all of Lebanon.

Except, "Hezbollahland" is not a separate country any more than Taliban-occupied Afghanistan was a separate country, or Nazi-occupied France was a separate country. Lebanon is a sovereign nation and its failure to reign in its domestic terrorists is the fault of all its people; they are not, unfortunately, therefore immune to Israeli airstrikes. To the extent that the Lebanese government has failed to quell the influence of radical Islam in its midst, it is a legitimate military target, as is Kabul, Tehran, etc.

It may well be that most Lebanese are pro-west and friendly toward Israel (the few Lebanese people I have met have been avowedly western and secular in their outlook). But it does not follow from any of this that Lebanon is therefore immune from Israeli airstrikes. Consider a hypothetical situation in which a group of terrorists based in Toronto started lobbing missiles at Detroit (admittedly, Detroit has few targets of any value*, so such attacks would be more symbolic than anything). Were Canada to fail to reign in its missile throwing terrorists, would anyone doubt America's right to raid Toronto and bomb it into submission? Only the ignorant and morally capricious would argue that America had no right to defend itself. Only the stupid would claim that America should "isolate" "terrorist Toronto" from civilian Toronto (how the hell do you make that distinction?)

*Note: Ford and GM plants and headquarters are emphatically not "valuable" targets.

Saudi Arabia Denounces Hezbollah?

Maybe Riyadh is coming to its senses.

According to this article, the various Arab nations met in Cairo. Predictably they are calling on the ever-impotent UN to do something about the Israel-Hezbolla conflict, but Saudia Arabia pulls no punches in placing blame on Hezbollah:

Arab foreign ministers, meeting in Cairo, adopted a resolution calling for U.N. Security Council intervention. But moderates led by Saudi Arabia, bickering with Syria and other backers of Hezbollah, denounced the Lebanese guerrilla group's actions in provoking the latest conflict.

Frankly I find that rather stunning and can't quite trust it. Because, of course, it is true that Hezbollah has provoked the most recent conflict.

Michael Totten, who has reported extensively from Beirut (and other places in the Middle East) over the past several months, has posts here and here.

Also, though I can't find a link for it, there is a pro-Israel rally at the UN at 12PM on Monday June 17th.

The Nuclear Option

No, this is not about Jerusalem getting wise and dropping a nuke on Tehran (though that would be a good thing).

It is, rather, about the New York Times Magazine cover article:

The Nuclear Option

Nuclear power could help combat global warming. It could lessen our dependence on air-polluting fossil fuels. But will it ever be...not scary?

Ignore for a moment the blather about global warming, which, as I have explained, repeatedly, is not necessarily a real occurrence.

The paper of record for liberals evidently sees the advantages of nuclear power. Let's nuke this country.

Information on pebble bed reactors here.

Information from the Nuclear Energy Institute on safety and regulatory issues here.

The only good environmentalist is a nuked environmentalist.

Another Theorem

Tyler Cowen encapsulates France.

Theorem: A country's economic success is inversely proportional to the amount of philosophy degrees awarded to its shopkeepers. What else could account for France's abysmal economic record of the past 600 years?

The Friedman Theorem, Or, I Do Tendentiousness

There is a general theorem of cultural relativity by which we can all set our clocks: if it is popular there is a greater than average chance that David Friedman will not like it because popularity is generally inversely proportional to quality. (I.e. the masses wouldn't know aesthetic pleasure if Matisse tripped them in the street.)

To wit, Lisa Nova, enfant terrible of YouTube.

Sure she's easy on the eyes. Sure, some see in her success the destruction of Hollywood (no bad thing in my estimation).

But it's such trite shit, so poorly done.

That said, Lynne & Tessa are pretty cool. Their stuff is trite, as well, but they don't have any pretension about what they are doing--they're just two kids having fun with a web cam and karoake.

Frequent Flyer Miles

So I'm at home today, listening to a radio station from Munich, Germany streamed over the web.

A friend of mine in Boston called me on his speakerphone at work.

The guy sitting in the cubicle next to him was on the phone with a colleague in Tokyo.

The guy in Tokyo apparently heard via my friend's speakerphone speaker, the Guns n Roses song being broadcast from Munich.

How amazing is technology?

Scientific Evangelism

If ever there were a paradox, it would be the notion of scientific evangelism, wherein an insular community of scientists reinforces each others' opinions, to the detriment of data and empirical fact.

Well, it appears that a group of statisticians* have unearthed a claque of climatological evangelists; that is, a group of climatologists who claim, despite faulty statistical methodologies, that the evidence for global warming is abolsute:

Mr. Wegman brings to bear a technique called social-network analysis to examine the community of climate researchers. His conclusion is that the coterie of most frequently published climatologists is so insular and close-knit that no effective independent review of the work of Mr. Mann is likely. "As analyzed in our social network," Mr. Wegman writes, "there is a tightly knit group of individuals who passionately believe in their thesis." He continues: "However, our perception is that this group has a self-reinforcing feedback mechanism and, moreover, the work has been sufficiently politicized that they can hardly reassess their public positions without losing credibility."

In other words, climate research often more closely resembles a mutual-admiration society than a competitive and open-minded search for scientific knowledge. And Mr. Wegman's social-network graphs suggest that Mr. Mann himself -- and his hockey stick -- is at the center of that network.

Mr. Wegman's report was initially requested by the House Energy Committee because some lawmakers were concerned that major decisions about our economy could be made on the basis of the dubious research embodied in the hockey stick. Some of the more partisan scientists and journalists howled that this was an attempt at intimidation. But as Mr. Wegman's paper shows, Congress was right to worry; his conclusions make "consensus" look more like group-think. And the dismissive reaction of the climate-research establishment to the McIntyre-McKitrick critique of the hockey stick confirms that impression.

*I'm fully aware that, if it is possible for a group of climatologists to be insular, it is equally possible for a group of statisticians to be insular.

In Which I Seethe With Contempt for Humanity

Stupid woman calls 911 because she thinks a cop is "cute."

Who's the Idiot?

Displaying a lack of logic so complete as to make Kim Jung Il appear to be a master rhetorician, some commenter on Althouse's blog concludes that, due to my derogation of American cars, not only do I "hate" America, but, as well, I am a "fucking idiot."

Good News

Israel is kicking the shit out of Lebanon.

Tornadoes in New York

Tornadoes in New York.

Oh, and we get earthquakes, too. Just in case you were wondering.

Rant

I have come up with a new phrase, "drinking the stupid water," in an attempt to make sense of the complete and utter thoughtlessness and foolishness with which tourists navigate our subway system.

To wit: during rush hour, some corn-fed moron from Iowa started snapping pictures of her family buying tickets at the vending machine. She was standing in front of one of the turnstiles. During rush hour.

To wit: during rush hour, another corn-fed moron from Iowa started snapping pictures of her family sitting on the subway car. She was standing in the middle of the doorway, and it was open. And it was rush hour.

Not for nothing does Iowa stand for idiots out walking about.

"Justice"

So, you want to kill a kid and dismember him, but not be sentenced to death or life without parole? How does a mere 45 years in prison sound for murder?

Those that fail to condemn murderers to death have only themselves to blame for the money wasted on murderers' sustenance.

Kill The IRS

So, it appears that the government is flush with revenues...because of the tax cuts of 2003.

The Wall St. Journal has an editorial in tomorrow's edition which, given the import of the economic lesson implicit in such a happy turn of events, is worth quoting in its entirety:

Yesterday's political flurry over the falling budget deficit shows that even Washington can't avoid the obvious forever: to wit, the gusher of revenues flowing into the Treasury in the wake of the 2003 tax cuts. The trend has been obvious for more than a year (see our May 23, 2005, editorial, "Revenues Rising"), but now it's so large that Republicans are trying to take credit while Democrats explain it away.

Republicans do deserve some credit, though not exactly the way they're claiming. Democrats are right that the White House February estimate of a $423 billion budget deficit in Fiscal Year 2006 was inflated, perhaps to be able to claim progress later this election year. Also not very important is the White House claim that it has already met its second-term goal of "cutting the deficit in half." That was always a minor and political ambition.

The real news, and where the policy credit belongs, is with the 2003 tax cuts. They've succeeded even beyond Art Laffer's dreams, if that's possible. In the nine quarters preceding that cut on dividend and capital gains rates and in marginal income-tax rates, economic growth averaged an annual 1.1%. In the 12 quarters -- three full years -- since the tax cut passed, growth has averaged a remarkable 4%. Monetary policy has also fueled this expansion, but the tax cuts were perfectly targeted to improve the incentives to take risks among businesses shell-shocked by the dot-com collapse, 9/11 and Sarbanes-Oxley.

This growth in turn has produced a record flood of tax revenues, just as the most ebullient supply-siders predicted. In the first nine months of fiscal 2006, tax revenues have climbed by $206 billion, or nearly 13%. As the Congressional Budget Office recently noted, "That increase represents the second-highest rate of growth for that nine-month period in the past 25 years" -- exceeded only by the year before. For all of fiscal 2005, revenues rose by $274 billion, or 15%. We should add that CBO itself failed to anticipate this revenue boom, as the nearby table shows. Maybe its economists should rethink their models.

Remember the folks who said the tax cuts would "blow a hole in the deficit?" Well, revenues as a share of the economy are now expected to rise this year to 18.3%, slightly above the modern historical average of 18.2%. The remaining budget deficit of a little under $300 billion will be about 2.3% of GDP, which is smaller than in 17 of the previous 25 years. Throw in the surpluses rolling into the states, and the overall U.S. "fiscal deficit" is now economically trivial.

This would all seem to be good news, but some folks are never happy. The same crowd that said the tax cuts wouldn't work, and predicted fiscal doom, are now harrumphing that the revenues reflect a windfall for "the rich." We suppose that's right if by rich they mean the millions of Americans moving into higher tax brackets because their paychecks are increasing.

Individual income tax payments are up 14.1% this year, and "nonwithheld" individual tax payments (reflecting capital gains, among other things) are up 20%. Because of the tax cuts, the still highly progressive U.S. tax code is soaking the rich. Since when do liberals object to a windfall for the government?

The other favorite line of critics yesterday was summed up by North Dakota Democrat Kent Conrad, who said the deficit would still "explode" in the long term because of the "coming retirement of the baby boom generation." But this is a political bait-and-switch. When Senator Conrad had the chance to do something about the "long term" by reforming Social Security in 2005, he refused. But now that the tax cuts he opposed are reducing the short-term deficit, he's back to fretting about the long term. At least Mr. Conrad is consistent in wanting a tax increase.

There surely is a long-term budget problem, driven largely by fast-growing entitlements for seniors. Federal spending is still climbing by 8.6% this year, with Medicare alone growing at an astonishing rate of 15.5%, or $33 billion in the first nine months of this fiscal year (which ends September 30). Thank the GOP prescription drug benefit for that future taxpayer burden. The only solution to the entitlement problem, short or long term, is to reform both Medicare and Social Security.

As for the 2003 tax cuts, the current revenue boom is one more argument for making them permanent. They are now set to expire in 2010, and, even if they are extended, federal revenues will continue to climb as a share of GDP as more taxpayers earn higher incomes and move into higher tax brackets. If liberal Democrats are really determined to soak the rich -- and we don't doubt it for a second -- they'll also vote to make the tax cuts permanent.

Imagine the economic growth--and, by implication, wealth--that would be created if we were to adopt a flat tax. Hell, we'd become like Estonia. That Estonia, a former Soviet bloc country, adopted a flat tax scheme while we have not, is to our eternal shame.

Althouse Demonstrates Why I Have Little Respect for Professors

Ann Althouse, through no fault of her own, has demonstrated to me why professors are suspect people.

To wit, her public denunciation of 9/11 "denialist" (Althouse's neologism) Kevin Barrett.

Unfortunately, for every sane and cogent professor such as Althouse, there appear to be dozens of loons, be they radical apparatchiks of the left, or religious zealots on the right.

The American Government is Incompetent

I'm surprised that this story has not garnered more attention:

The State Department is recovering from large-scale computer break-ins worldwide over the past several weeks that appeared to target its headquarters and offices dealing with China and North Korea, The Associated Press has learned.

Investigators believe hackers stole sensitive U.S. information and passwords and implanted backdoors in unclassified government computers to allow them to return at will, said U.S. officials familiar with the hacking.

This is, in a word, unacceptable. What kind of third-rate bureaucracy leaves their network vulnerable to computer hackers?

Heads should roll; they won't.

Information security needs to be integrated into every government agency at their highest levels, just as corporations need to have their security heads report directly the CEO. My guess is that companies have long since rejiggered the reporting lines between their security chiefs and their CEOs. Government agencies evidently have not.

Do you trust this government to respond well to terrorist attacks when it can't even guarantee the sanctity of its communications infrastructure?

The New York Times is Incompetent

No, this blog post has nothing to do with the latest hubbub over some indigintiy Michelle Coulter or Ann Malkin see in the Times' reporting on Iraq/gay marriage/abortion/immigration. Rather, this has to do with the failure of the Times to acknowledge the identity of the people who they quote.

The stupid, lazy bastards at the New York Times have the temerity to quote yours truly without attribution:

Others took issue with the hockey reference. "Given all the padding that hockey players wear, being punched by an opponent hardly is more significant than being hit by a toddler," one said.

That "one" would be me, and the quote is a comment left at Althouse's blog on this post of hers about John Roberts' writing style; specifically, his penchant for introducing sports references into his writing.

Althouse, it should be noted, noticed the reference to her blog in the Times and saw that I, and a number of people were quoted, without attribution. She, being a rather normal person, decided to fill in the details the Times left out (they can leak issues of national security but cannot cite the source of their quotes?!)

I Need a Lawyer...

Though I don't see the resemblance, my grandmother insists that I look like Pete Sampras and my aunt claims I look like Clive Owen (that neither of them look like the other is best left unsaid).

Nonetheless, due to my apparent similarity to these (presumably) wealthy men, I will sue them.

Via Overlawyered.

Short Circuit City Stock?

So I tried to log on to Circuit City's web site and got this lame message:

Sorry, but in this day and age, any company who can't keep its web site up while updating its inventory is rather pathetic. Time to short their stock? They clearly don't have their shit together.

Some Obvious Problems With the "Reduce Fossile Fuels" Argument

An email to an advocate of the idea that man causes global warming, and that such is occurring:

Another point about global warming which bears mentioning, and which is utterly absent from most advocates' arguments is this:

Assume global warming is (1) occurring, and (2) it is occurring due to human use of carbon-based fuels.

How the hell does an anti-global warming platform plan to persuade the 2 billion people in India and China to refrain from using carbon fuels over the next century? It is very easy for the more reasonable environmentalists to insist that Europe and America invest in nuclear power--all things being equal, even in the absence of global warming, nuclear power is a good strategic idea, if only to stick it to Chavez and Mohammed.

But the enviros insist on reducing carbon use without considering how that will happen in the two quickest growing large economies in the world. Reducing America and Europe's reliance on oil will achieve nothing if it is not met with a similar effort in India and China. No one has proposed how to get those countries, which are desperate to catch up to Western standards of development and wealth, to wean themselves from oil. Recall that developing a national infrastructure of nuclear power over a country the size of either India or China costs tens of billions in capital--capital which is likely better spent, in the view of their leaders, on education, attracting foreign investment, and promoting their countries to the rest of the world. It is one thing to argue that the world's two $12 trillion economies--America and the E.U.--should invest tens of billions in nuclear power to meet future energy needs. It is quite another to argue that India and China each commit a similar chunk of change to national network of nuclear power stations.

It's possible to argue that, with the advent of widespread adoption of nuclear power in America and Europe, the costs associated with building new nuclear power plants and bringing them online will drop over the decades, and, at such point, other nuclear power plants could be deployed relatively cheaply throughout the world. But that is a wildly impossible thing to predict, and basing an energy policy on such an inherently unknowable thing as the future costs associated with building nuclear power plants is a rather stupid way to conceive of energy policy.

As with most such proponents, this person resolutely refuses to consider the economic issues surrounding the idea of reducing use carbon-based fuels.

The 4th

Happy Independence Day.

It is, of course, via the events which Independence Day symbolizes, that we have to deal with assholes like Jews for Jesus.

Alas, is this a great country or what?

Blacks for the KKK?

Blacks for the KKK, er, Jews for Jesus, descend upon New York City.

Up next: Marxists for Wall Street.