Now that American Airlines has in-flight WiFi, it has become de rigueur to write at least one blog post while in flight. Well, here’s mine, at 35000 feet over, well, some state on the route from Denver to Dallas.

That’s it.  ..bruce w..

In the first part of this three-part series, I briefly outlined the parallels between developing software and crafting legislation, while pointing out the great risks and issues in the latter. I also indicated what I felt were some of the general structural flaws  in HR 3200, the House bill on health care reform — not criticizing any actual proposals, but rather highlighting some of the design and implementation problems that make it hard to understand HR 3200 and even harder to predict its consequences.

Here in Part II, I’ll talk about some of the well-established maxims and heuristics of complex systems development, and how they apply to legislation in general and to HR 3200 in particular. (More after the jump.)

Gall

As far as I can tell, John Gall — in his out-of-print book Systemantics (1976)– was the first to observe in print that

A complex system that works is found to have invariably evolved from a simple system that worked. (p. 80, 1978 paperback edition).

Immediately after, he observes that:

A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be made to work. You have to started over,  beginning with a working simple system.

My co-blogger (over at ASIP) Bruce Henderson puts this another way:

Start out stupid, and work up from there.

There is large room for differing arguments here as to just where HR 3200 fits in, for several reasons.

First, HR 3200 isn’t “designed from scratch.” As noted in Part I, many sections of HR 3200 are modifying various existing laws and regulations, such as the Internal Revenue Code, the Public Health Service Act, Employee Retirement Income Security Act, the Social Security Act, and the United States Code.

However, leveraging upon and modifying several existing systems is not the same as building a “simple system that works” and evolving it into a complex system that works. I can create a large, complex piece of software that calls upon and even modifies existing systems and libraries — but that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m evolving something from a “small, simple system that works”. This is especially true when I’m pulling together from several disjoint or unrelated systems (such as those listed above).

Second, legislation is more robust than software, for exactly the differences outlined in part I, namely that legislation is executed by people rather than machines and operating systems. If I create an ill-formed piece of software, there’s a good chance it won’t even compile (or interpret); if it does, then it may run into linking or integration errors; and if it gets past those, it may crash, lock up, or behave bizarrely upon execution.

If, however, I create an ill-formed piece of legislation, it can be (and often is!) be put into practice, with various human either officially or unofficially working around the defects to make it “work”. Of course, that ‘deployment’ of the legislation may end up drifting or even veering sharply from the stated or actual intent of the legislation. (In a way, this is reminiscent of the early PL/1 compilers that would, upon encountering a syntax error, make a best guess as to what you might have meant to write and compile that instead.)

Courts can shift this ‘deployment’ in both directions. They may “find” meaning or functionality in the law never contemplated or even explicitly disavowed by those who crafted and voted for the legislation, or they may prohibit some portion of explicit functionality due to conflicts with the Constitution, prior judicial rulings, or simply their own judgment.  As noted in Part I, judges don’t always agree with one another, either, so whether a given piece of legislation (or a subportion thereof) is upheld, modified, or rejected entirely depends upon which courts or individual judges end up reviewing it.

Third, there are serious and compelling arguments as to how well the current government health care programs (such as Medicare and the VA hospital system) work, not to mention the government systems modified and relied upon by HR 3200 (such as the IRS and Social Security). While you may argue with Gall’s maxims above, I know of no serious systems designer who will state that it is possible to build a large, complex system that works from complex systems that work poorly, if at all. The quality of your original and leveraged systems provides an upper bound on the quality of your final system. To believe otherwise is to succumb to wishful thinking.

Maier and Rechtin

In The Art of Systems Architecting by Mark W. Maier and Eberhardt Rechtin (2002), the authors take a cross-discipline approach to systems architecting, including talking specifically about social systems in Chapter 5. The following passage from that chapter is of particular relevance to the overall purpose of HR 3200 (all emphasis in the original):

The first insight, which might be called the four whos, asks four questions that need to be answered as a self-consistent set if the system is to succeed economically; namely, who benefits? who pays? who provides? and, as appropriate, who loses?

The political arguments raging over HR 3200 are exactly over those four questions. In fact, Maier and Rechtin themselves foresaw those arguments, since they go on to use health care as an example:

Example: serious debates over the nature of their public health services are underway in many countries, triggered in large part by the technological advances of the last few decades. These advances have made it possible for humanity to live longer and in better health, but the investments in those gains are considerable. The answer to the four whos are at the crux of the debate. Who benefits — everyone equally at all levels of health? Who pays — regardless of personal health or based on need and ability to pay? Who provides — and determines cost to the user? Who loses — anyone out of work or above some risk level, and who determines who loses?

The problem with HR 3200 and with the arguments put forth to date on its behalf is that they have not systematically and credibly addressed those four questions. In fact, those arguing in support of HR 3200 and health care reform in general have often given contradictory answers to those four questions, undermining their own credibility, given ammo to their opposition, and (justifiably) undermining public support for HR 3200.

Along those lines, the authors also note that in architecting social systems, you face not just the constraints of normal system design — risk, performance, schedule, and cost — but two more: perception vs. facts. They go on to say:

Social systems have generated a painful design heuristic: it’s not the facts, it’s the perception that counts. Some real-world examples: . . .

• One of the reasons that health insurance is so expensive is that health care is perceived by employees as nearly “free” because almost all its costs are paid for either by the the employee’s company or the government. The facts are that the costs are either passed on to the consumer, subtracted from wages and salary, taken as a business deduction against taxes, or all of the above. There is no free lunch.

Again, with great relevance to the current debate over HR 3200 and the whole approach of the House over health care reform, the authors state:

Like it or not, the architect must understand that perceptions can be just as real as facts, just as important in defining the system architecture, and just as critical in determining success. As one heuristic states: the phrase, ‘I hate it’, is direction. There have even been times when, in retrospect, perceptions were “truer” than facts which changed with observer, circumstance, technology, and better direction. . . . In the end, it is a matter of achieving a balance of perceived values. The architect’s task is to search out that area of common agreement that can result in a desirable, feasible system.

Maier and Rechtin end Chapter 5 with some heuristics they consider specific to social systems. Several are those already cited above, but here are a few additional ones (my comments are in brackets):

Success is the eye of the beholder [i.e., the US public] (not the architect [i.e., Congress]).

Don’t assume that the original statement of the problem [e.g., "45 million uninsured"] is necessarily the best, or even the right one. (Most customers would agree.)

In social systems, how you do something may be more important than what you do. (A sometimes bitter lesson for technologists [and Congress] to learn.)

It’s easier to change the technical elements of a social system than the human ones (enough said).

Maier and Rechtin have an entire appendix at the end of the book on heuristics for system-level architecting. Most of these are intended for software and hardware architecting; however, several have bearing for HR 3200 and the general effort for health care reform.

Plan to throw one away; you will anyway.

This comes from Fred Brooks’ classic work, The Mythical Man-Month, and appears to be highly relevant to what’s going on right now in Congress, where both conservative Democrats and Republicans are suggesting that the best approach right now would be to start over again.

In architecting a new [software] program all the serious mistakes are made in the first day.

As someone who has been dealing since 1995 with failed or troubled IT projects, I find that this is the maxim I keep coming back to. I think that the Obama Administration and the Democratic leadership in Congress badly miscalculated public support for rushing sweeping (and unexamined) health care reform into law given the profound economic problems facing the country (not to mention the massive Federal deficits).

Given a successful organization or system with valid criteria for success, there are some things it cannot do — or at least not do well. Don’t force it!

As noted in Part I, HR 3200 is “kitchen sink” legislation, trying to accomplish a variety of changes that are not necessarily related or dependent. I suspect that Obama and Congress would have been far more successful with a series of small, focused bills that had clear goals and clear limits. The problem with HR 3200 is that by trying to cover so much ground, it merely increases the overall size of the opposition — people with objections to a specific portion of HR 3200 find themselves uniting (directly or indirectly) with those objecting to other portions of HR 3200. By recasting HR 3200 into smaller, well-defined chunks, the opposition to any given chunk becomes smaller as well, increasing that bill’s chances of passage.

Group elements that are strongly related to each other, separate elements that are unrelated.

The shorthard version of this in software design is “high cohesion within a module, loose coupling between modules”. This is another argument for breaking up health care reform into smaller, well-defined and clearly-focused chunks.

If you don’t understand the existing system, you can’t be sure you’re re-architecting a better one.

And, I might add, if you don’t understand the proposed system, you can’t be sure it’s a better one. It is unclear that most of the members of Congress who are pushing HR 3200 understand either the current US health care system or HR 3200 itself (and all its implications).

I could include many more maxims here, but you are better off getting Maier and Rechtin’s book and reading it for yourself.

Part III will suggest a different approach to health care legislation using good practices from systems development and software engineering.

ITEM: My co-blogger, Bruce Henderson, has a post over at the New Ledger about the proposed legislation to give the President “emergency control of the Internet”:

S773 makes no attempt to outline and describe what form of emergency would trigger the use of these broad new powers to limit communication, nor any means by which it could be reviewed by anyone outside the executive branch. The bill also proscribes that the executive branch will perform periodic mapping” of private networks deemed to be critical, and those companies “shall share” requested information with the federal government.

Translation: the US government bureaucracy will be spending your tax dollars to figure out private networks, find choke points and places where they can control the flow of communication. Furthermore, companies (such as your ISP) are going to be required, by law, to supply the federal bureaucrats with whatever network, account, usage and history information they deem appropriate. All in the name of cyber safety, you see.

Read the whole thing. I propose that we label S773 “the stupid Rockefeller bill“, just as an earlier idiotic piece of legislation by (now former) Senator Fritz Hollings to require all computers to have controls to block digital copying became known on the Hill as “the stupid Hollings bill”. The stupid Hollings bill eventually died; let’s work to ensure that the stupid Rockefeller bill dies as well.

ITEM: It’s passe now, but guess what? Van Jones did not fill out the infamous 63-question form that the White House was requiring for background checks. No word on whether the FBI ran the usual mandatory background check on Jones and, if so, just what they reported to the White House. Meanwhile, the mainstream media is saying, “Who? What happened? Was it important?”

ITEM: Maybe it’s just as well that Van Jones, the White House’s “Green Jobs czar” is gone. Doesn’t look as though those “green jobs” are materializing all that well.

ITEM: Speaking of clueless journalists, Sandra and I fly out tomorrow (Wednesday) to DC for the 9/12 March on the Capitol. Estimates of the expected protest crowd for Saturday have doubled, from 25,000 to 50,000. Anyone want to lay bets on how much actual coverage this gets in the mainstream media? ..bruce w..

The Onion is doing some of the best video satire around. Hat tip to Randy Barnett over at the Volokh Conspiracy. ..bruce w..

In interesting and complex story is unfolding, centered on Goldman Sachs, the large and highly profitable company that we all worked so hard to fund with bail out dollars. The story started as a small, throw-away technical story about a former Goldman employee named Sergey Aleynikov, who left the firm and was accused of taking source code with him. From a Reuters story on the subject from earlier this month:

That wealth is generated on computer systems that can handle greater trading volumes at ever increasing speeds. These platforms often rely on algorithms — a sequence of instructions used for calculation and data processing — that can spot unseen opportunities in the market and give their users a huge advantage measured in milliseconds.

Sergey created highly reactive real time trading code that likely was looking for “pockets of predictability” in the somewhat noisy sea of trades that happen every day. These are transient opportunities to make a small amount of money on trades that last for only a few moments to less than a day. On their own they are very small, but when orchestrated by high speed computer and constantly running, they can represent a substantial and steady stream of income for the firm or trader that is running them.

Where this starts to get strange is what Goldman did next, and how federal law enforcement became involved. This except from Zero Hedge:

Sergey Aleynikov was arrested at Newark airport by FBI agents, as he was coming back from a trip to Chicago, on what are basically industrial espionage charges. Sergey, or Serge as his Linked-In account identifies him, was VP of equity strategy.

In the 5 days immediately preceeding his departure from “Financial Institution” (potentially GS), Sergey allegedly downloaded 32 megs of ultra top-secret quant trading proprietary code, that, according to Special Agent McSwain’s affidavit, he then proceeded to encrypt and upload to a website in Germany, with a UK owner.

From the affidavit: “certain features of the [code], such as speed and efficiency by which it obtains and processes market data, gives the Financial Institution a competitive advantage among other firms that also engage in high-volume automated trading.The Financial Institution further believes that, if competing firms were to obtain the [code] and use its features, the Financial Institution's ability to profit from the [code]'s speed and efficiency would be significantly diminished."

Let me clarify - in the matter of a few days, Goldman Sachs was able to get federal law enforcement to arrest a programmer that had left its employ to work for one of its competitors. Those familiar with the workings of our justice system might be surprised at the speed at which this went from "we think he is up to no good" to "enjoy your jail cell, Serge". Since when does the FBI take marching orders from Goldman Sachs?

This becomes important because in the present day program trading (under the control of machines running programs like this) account for as much as 49% of all trades on the NYSE, with Goldman's programs taking up at least 60% of that volume according to Zero Hedge.

A few days later Bloomberg weighs in wanting to know just exactly what Goldman's code was doing that could so manipulate the markets? The video says, “It is amazing within one day of Goldman calling they had FBI agents at his driveway doing surveillance. The next day they arrested him…”

Last but not least, in the tin foil hat area of this evoloving puzzle is a set of wild speculation that was posted first on the daily KOS and later re-cycled via Denninger's market ticker, including such charges as:

...GS, through access to the system as a result of their special gov't perks, was/is able to read the data on trades before it's committed, and place their own buys or sells accordingly in that brief moment, thus allowing them to essentially steal buttloads of money every day from the rest of the punters world.

It would mean that Goldman was able to "see" transaction order flow - bid, offer, and execute messages - before they were committed in the transaction stream. Such a "SNIFF" would be COMPLETELY UNDETECTABLE by the sender or recipient of the message.

The implication of this would be that they would be able to front-run any transaction where the data was visible to them, thereby effectively "stealing pennies" from each transaction they were able to front-run.

Which are very heavy charges indeed. There is something strange wrapped inside this story, and if we are all lucky it will emerge over time. With this now a legal matter, this may end up unfolding in a direction that powerful forces such as Goldman and the NYSE would rather not have it go. Within the court system, much of what Sergey knows in relationship to this matter is now discoverable and available to be cross examined. All it would take would be for some enterprising legal mind to start pulling this thread and a great many interesting facts may come to light.

We may find that our hard earned tax money that did not go to send us back to the moon instead went to help firms like Goldman Sachs further loot and launder what is left of our shattered economy, all the while keeping their government cronies on warm standby to beat down anyone who might spill the beans.

Gee, Maw, tell me again: how does this stimulate the economy?

[For those of you coming in from Ace of Spades HQ, here's the Atlas Shrugged review.]

AFTERNOON LINKS

ITEM: Visualization is always a good thing. The Heritage Foundation graphically illustrates the minuscule nature of Obama’s proposed  — and far from realized — cuts (hat tip to Instapundit):

MORNING LINKS — things are heating up a bit.

ITEM: The stimulus ain’t stimulating fast enough. Actually, I have serious concerns as to whether the stimulus can truly “stimulate” the economy (as opposed to distorting it, followed by a crash — kind of like drinking three Red Bulls on an empty stomach). And here’s the key reveal: ” The reports do not say how many jobs have been created.” I wonder why.

ITEM: Creeping socialism/fascism alert — “U.S. to put conditions on TARP repayment“:

Strong banks will be allowed to repay federal bailout funds, but only if such a move passes a test to determine whether it is in the national economic interest, the Financial Times reported on Sunday, citing a senior U.S. administration official.

The report said banks that had plenty of capital and demonstrated an ability to raise fresh capital from the market should, in principle, be able to repay government funds.

But the judgment would be made in the context of the wider economic interest, the report said.

Stop and think about that for a moment: strong banks that have received bailout funds will be allowed to repay those funds — our tax money, present and future — only if the government decides it’s “in the national interest.”

ITEM: In the meantime — and completely unrelated to the half-million people who gathered in tea parties nationwide last week — Obama orders $100 million in budget cuts! Big whoop;  we face a $1.7 trillion deficit this year alone. Imagine being overdrawn by $17,000, and then trying to find ways to reduce the amount by $1. This clip immediately came to mind:

ITEM: Sun, having botched its acquisition by IBM, has agreed to be acquired by Oracle. Frankly, I think that IBM would have been a better fit for Sun technology and culture, and I think IBM was foolish to let Oracle (its arch competitor in the database market) get its hands on Sun. On the other hand, it’s a big win for Oracle; kudos to them.

ITEM: Only 13% of CIA personnel speak another language. What makes this item funny is that last Friday, I was driving home (here in the Denver area) and flipping through radio channels. I settled on a Spanish-language music station to practice my listening comprehension. In the middle of a commercial break came a recruiting ad for the CIA. The really funny part: the ad was in English. That makes sense, actually — you want your recruits to be bilingual — but it was certainly weird.

ITEM: Obama will hold his first cabinet meeting today with “the most diverse Cabinet in history.” I’m more concerned about their ethics, their competency, and their ideology.

ITEM: Jackson Diehl cites the key challenge in Obama’s foreign policy efforts:

Now comes the interesting part: when it starts to become evident that Bush did not create rogue states, terrorist movements, Middle Eastern blood feuds or Russian belligerence — and that shake-ups in U.S. diplomacy, however enlightened, might not have much impact on them. . . .

Obama is not the first president to discover that facile changes in U.S. policy don’t crack long-standing problems. Some of his new strategies may produce results with time. Yet the real test of an administration is what it does once it realizes that the quick fixes aren’t working — that, say, North Korea and Iran have no intention of giving up their nuclear programs, with or without dialogue, while Russia remains determined to restore its dominion over Georgia. In other words, what happens when it’s no longer George W. Bush’s fault? That’s what the next 100 days will tell us.

ITEM: Meanwhile, Robert Samuelson — always worth reading — questions our obsession with the Great Depression, but in the end hedges his own bets:

Some indicators now imply that the present decline is ebbing (“glimmers of hope,” says President Obama). China shows similar signs of improvement. All this diminishes the dreary comparisons with the Depression. But if these omens prove false, a more somber conclusion could emerge.

The mistakes of the Depression were rooted in prevailing economic orthodoxies, which had been overtaken by new realities. The present policies likewise reflect today’s orthodoxies. But what if they, too, turn out to be misguided because the world has moved on in ways that become obvious mostly in retrospect?

OVERNIGHT LINKS

ITEM: Yeah, I know it’s been a few days, but between attending the Denver Tea Party and reading Atlas Shrugged (as well as Alas, Babylon — what a fun week!), I’ve been busy. So shoot me.

ITEM: Speaking of Atlas Shrugged, the New York Times says that Obama is looking forward to a redefinition of capitalism. Which brings to mind this quote from Atlas Shrugged:

“My purpose,” said Orren Boyle, “is the preservation of a free economy. It’s generally conceded that free economy is now on trial. Unless it proves its social value and assumes its social responsibilities, the people won’t stand for it. If it doesn’t develop a public spirit, it’s done for, make no mistake about that.”   . . .  “The only justification of private property,” said Orren Boyle, “is public service.”

Hint: Orren Boyle isn’t one of the good guys.

ITEM: Yet more Atlas-Shrugged-in-real-life, this time up in Canada:

Indirect bureaucratic control proved to be a failure, filled with problems that rendered it unworkable and prone to disaster: wasteful investment decisions, pork barrel projects, clumsy redistribution programs and general failure to achieve objectives. “The planners,” says Prof. Ellman, “are often no more able by indirect levers, than they had previously been able by direct levers, to guide the enterprises to socially rational decisions.”

This is all very old news in economics, I know. But it seems not yet to have reached Canada’s National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, the federal government’s official advisor on how to bring the United Nation’s “sustainable development” model to Canada via major government economic intervention and control.

This week the NRTEE produced the latest report in its current mission, which is to turn Canada’s market-driven energy economy into a what Prof. Ellman would call a centrally planned indirectly bureaucratically controlled low-carbon economy.

Titled “Achieving 2050: A Carbon Pricing Policy for Canada,” the report adds hundreds more pages to the NRTEE’s existing volumes on carbon and climate issues. It also adds a fresh batch of horrifying economic ideas to a planning agenda that is already on the brink of parody.

Read the whole thing.

ITEM: Speaking of apocalypse, J. G. Ballard has died. His end-of-the-world SF novels — The Drowned World,  The Burning World– were staples of my high school reading years. But his greatest work (IMHO) was Empire of the Sun, based on his own experiences as a child caught up in the Japanese occupation of Singapore and sent to a Japanese POW camp.

ITEM: Memo to Microsoft: you know you really screwed up when a news article about the impeding release of Windows 7 is headlined, “Meet Microsoft’s antidote to Vista.”

ITEM: Speaking of not having a clue, DHS Sec’y Janet Napolitano is blaming “politicization” over the outrage about the “rightwing extremist” report. The real “politicization”, of course, is the report itself.

ITEM: More cluelessness: Obama says that the Republicans are “the party of no”, as if that’s a bad thing. “Just say no!” was one of the more popular chants at the Denver Tea Party last Wednesday, and with trillions of dollars in deficits projected for the next decade, we need to hear “No!” more often. Meanwhile, White House advisor David Axelrod thinks that dissent and demonstrations are “unhealthy”, at least when directed against his boss.

ITEM: And rounding up the Clueless Trifecta for the weekend: “White House: Releasing memos didn’t hurt national security.”And, of course, that’s immediately apparent and provable, isn’ t it? And not everyone agrees.

ITEM: Here’s this bonus assertion: “Obama: Cuban, Venezuelan outreach was ‘positive’.” For whom, Mr. President, for whom? There’s a reason all these statements were released on the weekend. Meanwhile, Victor Davis Hanson wonders what really goes on in Obama’s thoughts about the world at large. And when you have the Associated Press comparing you to Gorbachev (and not in a good way), it may be time to rethink your approach.

ITEM: Speaking of the former Soviet Union, here’s a news alert: Russia is not a democracy! It’s also not much of a world power any more. And for all my mocking tone, this is truly tragic. I had high hopes for Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union — it has tremendous natural resources and a brilliant, friendly, well-educated population. Sandra and I visited there in 1998, and our daughter Heather spent 18 months there doing missionary work (and went on to graduate with a BA in Russian from BYU); her husband, Michael, did two years of missionary work there as well.  They love Russia and its people, but are quite frank about just how disfunctional both the government and the society are.

ITEM: As much as I snipe at the New York Times, I give them major props for running what could be, in retrospect, their own obituary: “Newspaper Ad Revenue Could Fall as Much as 30%“:

Publishers will start to report first-quarter results this week, but people who follow the industry and have had a glimpse of the 2009 numbers say it is clear that once again, even the most pessimistic predictions were not dark enough. They are expecting declines sharp enough to wipe out profit margins at many papers that, despite two years of battering, had stayed comfortably in the black, and to push already-weak publishers closer to bankruptcy, perhaps even closure. “I think over all we’re going to see a decline somewhere in the mid-20s” compared to the first quarter of last year, said Edward Atorino, a media analyst at the Benchmark Company, a research firm. “There have been a lot of signals that things have gotten much worse in the last couple of months — the furloughs, the pay cuts, the layoffs.”

I am a great fan of newspapers and have no particular desire to see them die. During the 6 years (1999-2005) I lived in Washington DC, I faithfully read both the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal every morning starting around 6 am. But when we moved here in Parker, Colorado, I found that the Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News just weren’t the Washington Post, and I could only get the Wall Street Journal via afternoon mail (and it didn’t always show up then). I cancelled my WSJ subscription and cut back my Rocky Mountain News subscription to weekends only. When I realized that I was primarily using the News to help light fires in our woodburning stove, I cancelled it altogether.

ITEM: “After you!” “No, after you!” “No, I insist — you first.” In the greenhouse gas follies, the great dispute is over which countries should go first at limiting greenhouse gasses. Since everyone realizes that such an effort spells economic disaster, nobody is eager to actually do something.

Maybe some more links this afternoon.  ..bruce w..

Time to get up and moving....

MORNING LINKS — get ‘em while they’re fresh

ITEM:  “Should war be a game?“ is the fatuous subhead of the day, from an article talking about a new videogame recreating the battle for Fallujah (Iraq). The reporter shows no awareness that wargames have been around for centuries and that most of them do indeed “use actual events as a backdrop” and “follow a historical timeline.” In fact, once you set aside abstract wargames such as go and chess (and specialty wargames, such as those with a contrafactual, science fiction or fantasy setting), that’s what the majority of wargames are intended to do.

ITEM: There are no mulligans on the Internet — once you publish something out there publicly, you’ve largely lost control of it. Between Google caches, screen captures, and the Wayback Machine, it’s hard to “recall” a public posting.

ITEM: Will Collier quotes Michael Kinsley with approval on the decline and fall of print newspapers. Key quote from Kinsley: “You may love the morning ritual of the paper and coffee, as I do, but do you seriously think that this deserves a subsidy?”

ITEM: TOTUS comments on David Axelrod’s rants on the Sunday morning talk circuit: “Axelrod decided that instead of explaining Big O’s performance, he’d just spend time ripping into former Vice President Dick Cheney.”

ITEMS: Courtesy of Rachael Lucas, here are two stories that reaffirm why I love dogs: Jasmine the rescue dog (who acts as surrogate mother for wildlife); and Sophie Tucker, the Robinson Crusoe of dogs.

OVERNIGHT LINKS — it’s a brand new week, folks!

The near-daily what-if-Bush/McCain-had-done-this item comes courtesy of Ace of Spades:

“There’s a lot of — I don’t know what the term is in Austrian — wheeling and dealing, and people are pursuing their interests, and everybody has their own particular issues and their own particular politics,” [Obama] said in response to an Austrian reporter’s question.

Austrian? This from a Columbia/Yale Law grad? I’d argue jet lag, but he’s been over there for what, a week?

ITEM: Y’know, given how much Sun has been struggling for the past several years, and after the whole Microsoft-Yahoo debacle, it probably wasn’t a wise move for Sun’s board to get fussy about what IBM was offering, particularly when that offer was apparently quite well above Sun’s current stock price. Sun is now likely to find itself in Yahoo’s position: stock price continuing to decline and no more suitors.

ITEM: Obama is losing…some African-Americans. But not very many.

ITEM: Obama lost Reason pretty soon after his inauguration, but they keep firing away anyway.

ITEM: Obama is losing…Republicans! No, really!

ITEM: In a bold, critical move at a time of crisis, the Obama Administration wants to limit…tourism to Antarctica. Because, you know, those 5 million square miles of (mostly) ice are in serious danger of being damaged by the 30,000 or so visitors each year (most of whom are on cruise ships).

ITEM: Creeping socialism/fascism update: Geithner warns that executives in other industries receiving bailout money could be replaced as well. Even Robert Reich seems a bit ambivalent about this possibility.

ITEM: Creeping…something…update: An effort to replace the Electoral College with a popular vote total for the Presidency — without actually amending the Constitution — is gaining ground. I’m personally appalled.

ITEM: An interesting analysis of the current financial crunch vs. previous popped bubbles (e.g., the dot.com bust):

What we’ve offered in our discussion of this crisis is the back story to Mr. Bernanke’s analysis of the Depression. Why does one crash cause minimal damage to the financial system, so that the economy can pick itself up quickly, while another crash leaves a devastated financial sector in the wreckage? The hypothesis we propose is that a financial crisis that originates in consumer debt, especially consumer debt concentrated at the low end of the wealth and income distribution, can be transmitted quickly and forcefully into the financial system. It appears that we’re witnessing the second great consumer debt crash, the end of a massive consumption binge.

That’s the closing paragraph, but the whole article is worth a read to see how the authors reached that conclusion.

ITEM: Speaking of boom and bust — the IT sector is queuing up at the “stimulus” trough.

ITEM: And I thought the US was the one with the crumbling, inadequate infrastructure. Actually, I suspect the US has the best infrastructure in the world, especially given the vast expanse of the US (#3 or 4 in the world) and the relatively low population density (hint: the US is #177 on the list).

ITEM: As my old boss Tony Gibson likes to say, when times get tough, cash is king:

Andy Beal, a 56-year-old, poker-playing college dropout, is a one-man toxic-asset eater–without a shred of government assistance. Beal plays his cards patiently. For three long years, from 2004 to 2007, he virtually stopped making or buying loans. While the credit markets were roaring and lenders were raking in billions, Beal shrank his bank’s assets because he thought the loans were going to blow up. He cut his staff in half and killed time playing backgammon or racing cars. He took long lunches with friends, carping to them about “stupid loans.” His odd behavior puzzled regulators, credit agencies and even his own board. They wondered why he was seemingly shutting the bank down, resisting the huge profits the nation’s big banks were making. One director asked him: “Are we a dinosaur?”

Now, while many of those banks struggle to dig out from under a mountain of bad debt, Beal is acquiring assets. He is buying bonds backed by commercial planes, IOUs to power plants in the South, a mortgage on an office building in Ohio, debt backed by a Houston refinery and home loans from Alaska to Florida. In the last 15 months Beal has put $5 billion to work, tripling Beal Bank’s assets to $7 billion, while such banks as Citigroup and Morgan Stanley  shrink and gobble up billions in taxpayer bailouts.

ITEM: In terms of actual coverage and editorial criticism of the Obama Administration, the Washington Post is eating the New York Times‘ lunch. It makes me wish I were living back in DC just so I could subscribe to the WaPo’s print edition. In the meantime, the blogosphere’s own Ed Whelen takes AG Holder and the Obama Justice Department to the woodshed.

ITEM: Mark Liberman over at Language Log dissects another media (mis)reporting of a scientific study.

ITEM: Speaking of scientific insight — increased CO2 means more plants grow and produce more oxygen! Who could have foreseen that? Maybe, oh, most junior high students? And speaking of global warming….

ITEM: Finally, if there can be “cool spells in a warming world“, doesn’t that likewise mean there can be warm spells in a cooling world?

ITEM: I think that the Japanese plan for dealing with their declining population is just to replace themselves with robots.

ITEM: Scary product idea of the day. (I like Gerard’s name for it: the “Sigorney”.)

ITEM: Also courtesy of American Digest, a European equivalent of “Improv Everywhere”. I dare you to watch this and not just grin:

More links during the day, maybe.  ..bruce w..

We all need a bit of entertainment.

MORNING LINKS (Gotta post!)

ITEM: Hey, “Earth Hour” is tonight, another blip of self-congratulatory, feel-good environmental idiocy and irrelevance. Here’s how I think we should really celebrate Earth Hour (from Lucifer’s Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle; and if you haven’t read it lately, why the hell not?):

Be the First In Your Block to Help Blow Out the Electric Power Network of the Northeast

East Village Other is proud to announce the first annual blackout of the Werewolves which is fixed for 3 p.m. on Wednesday, August 19, 1970. Once more let me put the system to the test. Help the companies producing and distributing electric power to improve their balance sheets by consuming as much as you can; and even then find some way of using a bit more. In particular, switch on electric heaters, toasters, air conditioning, and any other apparatus with a high consumption. Refrigerators turned up to the maximum, with their doors left open, can cool down a large apartment in an amusing way. After an afternoon’s consumption spree we will meet in Central Park to bay at the moon.

TUNE IN! PLUG IN! BLOW OUT!

Hospitals and other emergency services are hereby warned, and invited to make necessary precautions.

The East Village Other (an underground paper), July 1970

Hey, it’s stimulus, isn’t it?

Then once you’ve done this, if you’re in the northern half of the US, go outside and see something truly amazing: the International Space Station passing overhead. Its brightness has jumped dramatically because of the new solar panels added.

ITEM: Here’s a headline to strike fear in the hearts of anyone over a certain age: BAM CHANNELS LJB. As Ralph Peters puts it, “The only LBJ touch that BHO lacked was the word ‘escalation.’” Given that my nephew Darren (USMC) is heading over to Afghanistan shortly, and my son Jon (USMC, recently returned from Iraq) may be heading over there in a few months, I sure as hell hope that Commander-in-Chief Obama has better plans for Afghanistan than “I’m sending more troops and more money.”

ITEM: On the other hand, the WaPo editorial board thinks that Obama does have a better plan. Meanwhile, the Economist is taking a wait-and-see approach.

ITEM: Nice to see someone calling Obama on his profound illogic, though I’d rather it be the WaPo and the New York Times than the NH Union Leader:

Speaking of his $3.6 trillion budget, President Obama asserted on Tuesday, “This budget is inseparable from this recovery. It is what lays the foundation for a secure and lasting prosperity.”

The first sentence is an impossibility. The second is a non sequitur.

First, the President would have us believe that only his budget can pull the economy out of recession. If it is not passed, there can be no recovery. That is the meaning of “inseparable.”

Does anyone on earth, even the President, actually believe that?

ITEM: Speaking of missing the cluetrain: “Weeks of Obama’s budget sales pitch and support still slips.” Maybe the sales pitch is what’s causing the support to slip.

ITEM: Speaking of newspapers, the LA Times has obviously overshot on its layoffs and needs to hire a few people back. Look closely at all the headlines on the left-hand side, as well as the caption under Matt Lauer.

ITEM: Consumer spending up for the 2nd month in a row. God bless our materialistic society, out there buying stuff even in the face of economic collapse. Madison Avenue must really be on a roll.

ITEM: On the other hand, the idiotic moves by Congress and the Obama Administration continue to have ripple effects: “Venture capitalists fear closer government scrutiny and higher taxes.” Now there’s a way to permanently cripple our economy.

ITEM: Creeping socialism/fascism update, part 1: “Tea Party” protest canceled by local government out of fear too many people would show up. Are we starting to get into “unlawful assembly” territory here?

ITEM: Creeping socialism/fascism update, part 2: New directive from the Obama Adminstration :

Under the directive, which began going into effect this week, agency officials are required to begin meetings about stimulus funding for projects by asking whether any party to the conversation is a lobbyist.

“If so, the lobbyist may not attend or participate in the telephonic or in-person contact, but may submit a communication in writing,” reads Obama’s memo, which requires the agencies to post lobbyists’ written communications online.

ITEM: “Obama to CEOs: Show some restraint!” Isn’t that what we’d like him to do?

ITEM: OK, I think these are the most idiotic paragraphs I’ve read in a major news story in some time:

GRAND JUNCTION — When Stefan Martin-Urban drove into a tranquil cul-de-sac on a Saturday morning in October, pulled a pistol from behind his back and methodically shot strangers, his behavior was eerily similar to characters in the video games he played obsessively. …

Like the thugs in “Grand Theft Auto” and warlocks in “World of Warcraft,” Martin-Urban showed no emotion as he fatally shot dentist Terry Fine, 61, while Fine held out a hand in greeting to the young stranger.

Does this mean mandatory changes to video games to make the player’s character show remorse, conflict, or hesitancy as it kills other characters? Of course, hysteria over games corrupting our children is nothing new. By the way: none of this should be taken as an endorsement of “Grand Theft Auto” (which I think truly is a vile game), but I don’t think that Martin-Urban started killing strangers because he played the game; I think he played the game because he liked the idea of killing strangers.

ITEM: Maryland refuses to check on illegal immigrant status for those applying for drivers licenses. Maryland has a high rate of drivers licence fraud. Unlike the “video games cause random murders” meme above, I think it’s safe to say this is not just correlation but actual cause-and-effect. Any questions?

ITEM: Speaking of cause-and-effect and un-thought-through consequences: more problems with those annoying fluorescent bulbs we’re all supposed to buy.

ITEM: And yet more consequences from the Obama Administration, though it’s hard to tell if these are unintended or not.

ITEM: On the other hand, these are some really unintended consequences (hat tip to Dave Barry).

ITEM: I’m glad someone is prospering under Obama. Other than Sen. Chris Dodd (D-$$), that is.

ITEM: Video of the day: laid-off SEIU staffers picketing SEIU (big union, big Obama contributor, in case you don’t know):

“How do you spell ‘hypocrisy’? “S-E-I-U!”  Heh.

OK, back to work. See you on Monday. ..bruce w..

That's funny, the damage doesn't look as bad from out here.

MORNING LINKS.

ITEM: That didn’t take long: President Obama apologizes for his “Special Olympics” remark on the Tonight Show last night. In the meantime, the New York Times beclowns itself (hat tip to Strategy Memo at Real Clear Politics) by saying: “In his appearance with Mr. Leno, Mr. Obama walked a tightrope between projecting good humor and projecting a presidential air.” Yeah, joking about handicapped people falls under “projecting good humor”. Oh, and the NY Times article quotes almost every Obama clip except the Special Olympics one. No selective reporting there. Philip Klein (The American Spectator) notes that CNN gave Obama a pass as well. The LA Times did cover it, but only at the very end of a long story.

ITEM: Remind us again why Barack Obama was a better choice than Sarah Palin?

ITEM: Also from Philip Klein: “8 of 10 Americans happy with their health care”. So why exactly are we looking at spending over a trillion dollars on “health care reform”? Also, Philip Klein (man keeps popping up, doesn’t he?) addresses the myth of the 46 million Americans without health insurance.

ITEM: From the I-am-not-making-this-up Department: Countrywide sues AIG. May they both lose.

ITEM: Speaking of the New York Times and clowns, the NYT managed to run an extensive profile of Sen. Chris Dodd (D-PMA) and his various troubles without once mentioning that he’s a Democrat.

ITEM: Not only are most Americans happy with their health care, a majority now values economic growth over environmental protection for the first time ever. Yeah, when you’re unemployed and facing foreclosure it’s hard to care about a hypothetical 3-foot rise in sea levels 100 years from now.

ITEM: Speaking of environmentalism: urbanization is a good thing, while moving out to the countryside damages that which we strive to preserve.

ITEM: The law of unintended consequences continues to trip up good (or bad) intentions: Will bonus fix slow recovery? Furthermore, will the idiotic legislation passed by Congress damage the companies that the US Government is now buying up? As Noam Scheiber at TNR says, “There are third-world juntas that would think twice before doing this.”

ITEM: xkcd weighs in with a plea for journalistic honesty:

Now let’s talk about the difference between a million and a trillion.

Hail to the Chip!

ITEM: If you’re not reading this blog, you should be.

ITEM: Also, that dawn-of-a-new-era Obama outreach to countries such as Iran? How’s that working out?

ITEM: Oh, and that “[lobbyists] won’t find a job in my White House” pledge? How’s that working out?

ITEM: And then there’s the “most open and transparent Administration in history” pledge. How’s that working out?

ITEM: The Rasmussen Obama Approval Index dropped 3 points back to its lowest level ever, +4. What’s most telling is the slow erosion of the “Strongly Approve” and “Total Approve” numbers, which are both at their lowest points ever (35% and 55%, respectively). The glow of the One appears to be fading a bit.

ITEM: Speaking of which: as Drew over at Ace of Spades notes, this is “about the only thing John McCain got right last year”:

ITEM: I never thought I’d see the day when the European Union demonstrates more financial wisdom than the US.

ITEM: Morning headline: “More people in love than previously thought”. Than who previously thought?

ITEM: There are a number of editorials and articles that are beginning to echo the fundamental question, “What the hell is happening in America?” Here’s one from our Neighbors to the North:

Helicopter Ben Bernanke’s Federal Reserve is dropping trillions of fresh paper dollars on the world economy, the President of the United States is cracking jokes on late-night comedy shows, his energy minister is threatening a trade war over carbon emissions, his treasury secretary is dithering over a banking reform program amid rising concerns over his competence and a monumentally dysfunctional U. S. Congress is launching another public jihad against corporations and bankers.

As an aghast world — from China to Chicago and Chihuahua — watches, the circus-like U. S. political system seems to be declining into near chaos. Through it all, stock and financial markets are paralyzed. The more the policy regime does, the worse the outlook gets. The multi-ringed spectacle raises a disturbing question in many minds: Is this the end of America?

As they say, read the whole thing.

ITEM: In the meantime, the “Throw Geithner Under The Bus” clock keeps ticking. This is not the sort of article you want to read about yourself on the web (the writer even mentions the C-word):

I used to think that it would be a long, long, long time before I would witness a Cabinet official make as spectacular a mockery of himself as Alberto Gonzales did when he was at the Department of Justice.

Then, Timothy Geithner came along. . . .

Now, after two months on the job, Barack Obama has had to come out and tell people that he has every confidence in Geithner’s ability to serve. As just about everyone in Washington knows, once the President has to express confidence in the abilities of a Cabinet officer, that Cabinet officer is under a deathwatch.

And here’s another one from the editorial board of the Los Angeles Times, that great bastion of retrenched conservatism:

But as the debacle over the American International Group bonuses has made clear, Geithner’s knowledge about Wall Street is matched by his ignorance about the political culture of Washington. And the blunders committed by Geithner (and others, including the Federal Reserve and previous Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson) could undermine key elements of President Obama’s economic recovery plan.

ITEM: In the meantime, the Financial Times — another publication that has lurched to the left in recent years (probably due to Bush disapproval) and to which I subscribed in years past — stands athwart the current overheated populism and clears its throat:

Capitalism has been wounded by the global recession, which unfortunately will get worse before it gets better. As governments continue to determine how many restrictions to place on markets, especially financial markets, the destruction of wealth from the recession should be placed in the context of the enormous creation of wealth and improved well-being during the past three decades. Financial and other reforms must not risk destroying the source of these gains in prosperity. . . .

Partly owing to the collapse of the housing and stock markets, hostility to business people and capitalism has grown sharply again. Yet a world that is mainly capitalistic is the “only game in town” that can deliver further large increases in wealth and health to poor as well as rich nations. We hope our leaders do not deviate far from a market-oriented global economic system. To do so would risk damaging a system that has served us well for 30 years.

ITEM: The number of voices speaking out against the punative (and quite possibly unconstitutional) actions of Congress continues to increase. Here are a few: the (UK) Daily News; the Economist; Michael Lewis at Bloomberg.com; and Charles Krauthammer. In the last case, you can almost hear Krauthammer’s quiet yet pungent voice:

A $14 trillion economy hangs by a thread composed of (a) a comically cynical, pitchfork-wielding Congress, (b) a hopelessly understaffed, stumbling Obama administration, and (c) $165 million. . . .

And there is such a thing as law. The way to break a contract legally is Chapter 11. Short of that, a contract is a contract. The AIG bonuses were agreed to before the government takeover and are perfectly legal. Is the rule now that when public anger is kindled, Congress summarily cancels contracts?

Even worse are the clever schemes now being cooked up in Congress to retrieve the money by means of some retroactive confiscatory tax. The common law is pretty clear about the impermissibility of ex post facto legislation and bills of attainder. They also happen to be specifically prohibited by the Constitution. We’re going to overturn that for $165 million?

Nor has the president behaved much better. He too has been out there trying to lead the mob. But it’s a losing game. His own congressional Democrats will out-demagogue him and heap the blame on the hapless Timothy Geithner.

ITEM: Doug Johnson thinks that yes, indeed, March 9th may have represented the bottom of the bear market. While I truly hope he’s right, all I can say is:

ITEM: We all need a reason to laugh, and this is one of the funniest and most amazing stunts I’ve seen in some time (hat tip to Rachel Lucas):

OVERNIGHT LINKS. I stay up late so that you can wake up early.

ITEM: Congress seem determined to prove Mark Twain right: “No man’s life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session.” And speaking of which — “When they came for the Merrill Lynch bonus recipients, I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a wealthy Wall Street trader.” You know the rest.

ITEM: Meanwhile, Obama appears on the Tonight Show and indicates that he’s trying to get ahead of the backlash backlash. Smart man; he must have watched the Congressional hearings involving AIG.

ITEM: On the other hand, Obama made a joke about the Special Olympics and his lack of bowling skills. If Bush had done that, ten national organizations would have been up in arms, and it would have dominated the mainstream media for at least 72 hours, with the clip being played over and over. Obama’s teleprompter has issued a statement disclaiming all responsibility. Meanwhile, Jim Treacher has come up other suggested witticisms that Obama could use.

ITEM: On the other hand, I’m not sure having your aides tell the press how much President Obama has been in the dark about critical and controversial issues is a winning strategy. In the end, the choices boil down to appearing ignorant (and thus incompetent) or dishonest.

ITEM: When will Barack Obama stop campaigning and actually govern the United States?

ITEM: Obama appears to be losing Peggy Noonan. I’m just not sure most Republicans want her back.

ITEM: The fascist overtones of Obama and Congress in berating AIG executives as individuals have real-world consequences (read the whole thing):

The A.I.G. executive who was nicknamed “Jackpot Jimmy” by a New York tabloid walked up the driveway toward his bay-windowed house in Fairfield, Conn., on Thursday afternoon. “How do I feel?” said the executive, James Haas, repeating the question he had just been asked. “I feel horrible. This has been a complete invasion of privacy.”

Mr. Haas walked on, his pink shirt a burst of color on a slate-gray afternoon. The words came haltingly. “You have to understand,” he said, “there are kids involved, there have been death threats. …” His voice trailed off. It looked as if he was fighting back tears.

“I didn’t have anything to do with those credit problems,” said Mr. Haas, 47. “I told Mr. Liddy” — Edward M. Liddy, the chief executive of A.I.G., the insurance giant — “I would rescind my retention contract.”

He ended the conversation with a request: “Leave my neighbors alone.”

And here’s more.

ITEM: Give credit where credit is due: AG Eric Holder is making the right move in changing the US Government’s basic attitude towards Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Gee, I’m so used to seeing bad moves (deliberate or erroneous) out of the Obama Administration that I feel downright giddy seeing one I like and thoroughly approve.

ITEM: And now I can say the same thing about Congress: Rep. John Conyers (D-Moon) is actually calling for hearings about ACORN’s various criminal and quasi-criminal activities. However, the other Democrats on the committee are suddenly finding all sorts of reasons why ACORN shouldn’t be investigated:

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, New York Democrat and chairman of the Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution, civil rights and civil liberties that hosted Thursday’s hearing, suggested there was not enough “credible evidence” to warrant a hearing focused exclusively on ACORN.

Rep. Melvin Watt said he would concede that ACORN and some of its members engaged in voter fraud. But he said voter fraud was already covered by existing law and Congress has not further role in the matter. “I’m not coming to a hearing to have a trial on ACORN. That’s not my job,” the North Carolina Democrat said

Not enough “credible evidence” about ACORN? Give me a break.

ITEM: Like it or not — and whether China likes it or not — we’re in bed together.

ITEM: Hey, let’s bail out newspapers! Talk about burying the lede — you have to get halfway through this very long article before you get to this key suggestion:

Going backward is not an option; nor is it desirable. The old corporate media system choked on its own excess. We should not seek to restore or re-create it. We have to move forward to a system that creates a journalism far superior to that of the recent past. We can do exactly that–but only if we recognize and embrace the necessity of government intervention. Only government can implement policies and subsidies to provide an institutional framework for quality journalism. We understand that this is a controversial position.

Help us, Oba-ma Kenobi! You’re our only hope!

ITEM: But just don’t ask him for DVDs. Yes, that’s write, the “25 Classic American Films” that Pres. Obama so generously gave the visually-impaired UK PM Gordon Brown won’t even work in Brown’s DVD player. Wrong region. Cheap and incompetent — just what we like to see in a President and his staff.

That’s it for now; I’ll post some updates in the morning.  ..bruce w..

First off, don’t miss Henderson’s analysis of the pending missile shot by the North Koreans.

Opposition within Congress to the cram-it-through legislative approach of the Democratic leadership:

“The process by which these changes have been forced upon this body is so deeply offensive to me, and so deeply undemocratic, that it puts the omnibus appropriations package in jeopardy, in spite of all the other tremendously important funding that this bill would provide,” the enraged son of Cuban immigrants said last week on the Senate floor. Menendez even slapped a hold on a pair of Obama nominees to draw attention to the issue.

Oh, by the way, Sen. Robert Menendez is a Democrat.

Gideon Rachman at the Financial Times has praise for the Obama Administration’s display of respect to other nations. Has Mr. Rachman talked to British PM Gordon Brown lately? And the Obama-snub of Britain couldn’t come at a worse time.

Here’s a list of the next ten newspapers that will cease publishing (going digital or folding altogether).  And speaking of folds — more links after the fold.

The Obama Administration has caused at least one positive boom: an upsurge in ratings for conservative media. Now if the Republicans in Congress can just not misplace their brains and spines again. . . .

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (remember her?) picks an activist female judge for the AK Supreme Court. Not bad for a self-hating conservative troglodyte.

Speaking of which: website-you-should-be-reading-of-the-day is Top of the Ticket. Yes, some good can come out of the LA Times, though don’t tell Patterico.

Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-WV) has largely managed to stay out of the press despite ongoing investigations. But like a bad penny, he keeps on turning up.

How to sharpen a pocket knife, from the ever-informative and entertaining The Art of Manliness.

Hillary Clinton indulges in moral equivalency (“We all have room for improvement”), something she knows well about.

As for Arnold, I had such hopes for him back when he first ran for Governor and even sent him money, as did Mark Steyn.

Reversing the George W. Bush Bill Clinton ban on stem cell research.

Left-leaning foundations and non-profits Are Not Amused by the proposed changes to income tax deductions.

I love getting my daily random proverb from contemplate.us, but I remain suspicious of some of the specific proverbs and claimed origins.

Nationalizing CitiBank may not be as easy or clean as some people think.

Yet another move from journalism into politics.

Meryl Yourish weighs in on the curious silence of the mainstream media over the Chas Freeman appointment to the NIC.

The 2nd Amendment still stands.

You know, if Obama is losing Howard Fineman at Newsweek, he’s in real trouble.

Never be too busy sawing to stop and sharpen the saw.

The Sun is blank again, i.e., no sunspots. One tried to form a few days ago, but gave up and went away.

Break’s over; back on my head.  ..bruce w..