JustOneMinute

Gotcha!

From the March 15 NY Times story about wary Republican support for embattled Tom DeLay:

The position of the White House can also be a barometer. When he came under fire for racially charged comments in 2000, Trent Lott was partly undone as Senate majority leader when President Bush appeared to open the door to a replacement.

Well, it was December 2002.  I'm curious to see how long the Times takes to run a correction on a pure typo.

UPDATE:  Saturday, March 19.  And the correction is appended to the original story, in the new NY Times.

North Korea - Losing The Culture War?

The NY Times tells us that more cracks are developing in the North Korean totalitarian state.  The proximate causes?  Cell phones and videotapes.

The construction of cellular relay stations last fall along the Chinese side of the border has allowed some North Koreans in border towns to use prepaid Chinese cellphones to call relatives and reporters in South Korea, defectors from North Korea say. And after DVD players swept northern China two years ago, entrepreneurs collected castoff videocassette recorders and peddled them in North Korea. Now tapes of South Korean soap operas are so popular that state television in Pyongyang, North Korea's capital, is campaigning against South Korean hairstyles, clothing and slang, visitors and defectors have said.

"In the 1960's in the Soviet Union, it was cool to wear blue jeans and listen to rock and roll," said Andrei Lankov, a Russian exchange student in the North at Kim Il Sung University in 1985, who now teaches about North Korea at Kookmin University here in the South. "Today, it is cool for North Koreans to look and behave South Korean, as they do in the television serials. That does not bode well for the long-term survival of the regime."

...While Chinese cellphones only work a few miles inside North Korea, the videocassette phenomenon has reportedly spread throughout the nation, reaching into every area where there is electricity.

"They are within the reach of the average family," said Dr. Lankov, who regularly interviews recent defectors. "They watch, almost exclusively, smuggled and copied South Korean movies and drama. Only a few weeks after airing here, they will go throughout North Korea."

More than showing middle-class family lifestyles, which can be staged in a studio, the soap operas also provide images of a modern Seoul - the forest of high-rise buildings, the huge traffic jams, the late-model cars.

With such images showing a stark contrast with primitive conditions in North Korea, Mr. Kim ordered the formation of a special prosecutor's office last November to arrest people who deal in South Korean goods, largely videotapes, or who use South Korean expressions or slang, analysts in South Korea say.

..."They are gradually learning about South Korean prosperity," Dr. Lankov said. "This is a death sentence to the regime. North Korea's claim to legitimacy is based on its ability to deliver the worker's paradise now. What if everyone sees that it is not delivering?"

Rebecca MacKinnon obsesses on this; more links here, at FreeNorthKorea.commie (KIDDING!  They are a ".net"), and at NKZone.org. 

The Ranting Prof: "A population tolerates starvation more easily when it's actually convinced it's one of the richest countries on the planet."

Benjamin Jones wants to keep radios in the mix, and has this good link to a Times article on that subject.

Free Korea: "North Korea is losing--indeed, has probably lost--what Mao termed "the political struggle."

And I deserve a big "I told you so" from Ed, who pretty much told me so in comments to this not-lacking-in-ambition post.

Economics Makes Strange Bedfellows

In discussing the bankruptcy bill, Noam Scheiber finds himself  on the same side of the economic issue as deputy White House spokeperson Trent Duffy.  We will let Mr. Duffy speak first:

"The administration supports the passage of bankruptcy reform because ultimately this will lead to more accessibility to credit for more Americans, particularly lower-income workers," said Trent D. Duffy, a deputy White House spokesman.

Stricter bankruptcy laws promote greater availability to credit, and move us away from the days when the old saw was that banks only lend money to people who don't need it.  But maybe that is a bad thing - here is Mr. Scheiber:

The front page of today's Wall Street Journal has an interesting article about bankruptcy laws. The basic idea is that there's a moral hazard problem associated with lending money: If a credit card company knows that strict bankruptcy laws will help it recover money lent to bad credit risks, it faces little incentive to avoid extending them credit. By tightening the nation's bankruptcy laws, the bankruptcy bill about to pass Congress could have the perverse effect of creating even more bankruptcies, because there will be a smaller disincentive to lend to un-creditworthy people. (Or is that credit-unworthy?)

Well, yes, as Mr. Duffy noted - lending to the less credit-worthy becomes more attractive if bankruptcy laws are made more strict.  And the key qualifier in Mr. Scheiber's summary is "help" - stricter laws won't squeeze water from a stone, and the proposed changes in this law won't affect most filers, if Prof. Zywicki's numbers are accurate.

Now, it may be that Democrats generally would prefer to see less lending to lower-income groups.  However, that is a bit counter-intuitive, and somewhat at odds with their positioning on issues such as credit redlining.   

In fact, Sen. Carl Levin wrote about credit card redlining in 2000, and seemed to be worried about "the problem of unequal credit opportunity."

Perhaps, per Mr. Scheiber, the position of the Democratic Party has changed.  Or (my guess), perhaps opponents of stricter bankruptcy laws would prefer that credit be made available to low-income folks by means of Congressional intercession and jawboning.

I can't find the results of the Federal Reserve Bank study that Sen. Levin wanted to fund; since this bill failed, perhaps the study was never done, but I would think someone has looked at this.

MORE:  The DOJ from 2001 offers this advice to lenders, including credit card lenders:

Those who develop and use credit scoring models should take care to determine whether individual credit scoring factors or the overall systems have a disparate adverse impact on minority and other borrowers in protected classes and, if they do, whether other factors or formulations with lesser impact can be used with similar capability to predict creditworthiness.

The report also cites several enforcement actions.  A possible inference - it is safer to lend than to be sued by the Feds.

Let's note - the caution applies to "disparate impact".  So, even if the credit scoring model is color-blind, if a bank rejects "too many" black people on the basis of low income, they may have a problem.

Cracks In The Facade

On the bankruptcy debate, a small amount of light is beginning to shine on a position held dearly by the "Reality Based Community".

Jon Chait, LA Times:  "The more likely explanation [for the increase in bankruptcy filings] is that the rise in health insurance costs has driven more people into bankruptcy. A recent Harvard study found that half of Americans who declared bankruptcy did so because of illness or medical bills."

E. J. Dionne, Washington Post: "[Harvard law professor Elizabeth] Warren and her colleagues surveyed Americans in bankruptcy courts and found that half said illness or medical bills drove them to bankruptcy."

Paul Krugman, NY Times: "One recent study found that more than half of bankruptcies are the result of medical emergencies."

Noam Scheiber, TNR: "As Paul Krugman pointed out today, the bill makes no exceptions for families wiped out by medical expenses (which make up more than half of all bankruptcies)..."

NY Times story: "A recent study by bankruptcy and medical experts at Harvard University found that more than half of the 1,771 personal bankruptcy filers in five federal courts cited medical bills as a primary reason they filed."

Could all of these sources be wrong?  Law professors Todd Zywicki and Gail Heriot critiqued this study a while back.  Professor Warren of Harvard has been guest-blogging on the bankruptcy bill at Josh Marshall's site, and does not seem to have responded to either Zywicki or Heriot (and isn't it great for Googlers that the rebuttals were not offered by Professors Johnson and Smith?).

And finally, reality is beginning to seep in to some of the bastions of the Reality Based Community.  The NY Times Week in Review discussed the bankruptcy bill, and provided this:

Elizabeth Warren, a law professor at Harvard, is the co-author of a study arguing that more than half of all bankruptcies are linked to medical costs (the study is controversial in part because its trigger for medical expenses is just $1,000). In Senate testimony, she said, "Most debtors are filing for bankruptcy not because they had too many Rolex watches and Gameboys, but because they have no choice."

But Todd J. Zywicki, a professor at George Mason University School of Law, said that financial distress cannot explain the surge in personal bankruptcies in the 1990's. They were not preceded, he said, by equally steep increases in unemployment, divorce or health-care costs.

Professor Zywicki has a number of theories on why bankruptcies have increased, but if asked to rank them, he said that the No. 1 would be "the generosity of the bankruptcy code - it makes it so easy."

And the Washington Post ran a belated response from Gail Heriot which read, in part:

In "A Bill Bankrupt of Pity," E.J. Dionne [op-ed, March 1] claims that a recent study on bankruptcy found that half of bankruptcy debtors "said illness or medical bills drove them to bankruptcy." In fact, the study, "Illness and Injury as Contributors to Bankruptcy," found no such thing. The number of actual debtors who said that illness or injury was even a significant cause of their bankruptcy was much smaller (28.3 percent). And many of those had quite modest medical bills and missed very little work.

To be able to claim that half of all bankruptcies had a medical cause, the authors had to include a number of dubious case categories, including bankruptcies caused by chronic gambling, alcohol and drug addiction, and birth or adoption, as well as all cases in which the debtor had paid more than $1,000 in medical bills over the two years leading up to the bankruptcy.

Our Currency, Your Problem

Niall Ferguson writes in the Sunday Times magazine about the twin deficits, and the outlook for the US dollar.  His point - the Asian central banks are not supporting the dollar because of their kind hearts; rather, their support is based on a keen understanding of their long term self-interest:

Why are the Chinese monetary authorities so willing to underwrite American profligacy? Not out of altruism. The principal reason is that if they don't keep on buying dollars and dollar-based securities as fast as the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury can print them, the dollar could slide substantially against the Chinese renminbi, much as it has declined against the euro over the past three years. Knowing the importance of the U.S. market to their export industries, the Chinese authorities dread such a dollar slide. The effect would be to raise the price, and hence reduce the appeal, of Chinese goods to American consumers -- and that includes everything from my snowproof hiking boots to the modem on my desk. A fall in exports would almost certainly translate into job losses in China at a time when millions of migrants from the countryside are pouring into the country's manufacturing sector.

OK, That Stings A Bit

My traffic meter shows me getting hits from this search.  Ouch.

Make The Shark Show Its Teeth

Although many liberal and conservatives are opposed to the bankruptcy bill moving to the House of Representatives, there are philosophical differences underlying their objections. Proper liberals seem to be concerned about “predatory” lending, where credit card companies make exorbitant profits at the expense of hapless consumers helpless to resist their promotional material. Free-marketers (OK, that includes me) have a bit more confidence in the ability of adults to manage their own affairs.

This difference in views probably cannot be bridged, although a possible analogy can be drawn to the liquor or gaming industries. Most people can enjoy a drink or buy a lottery ticket without allowing it to ruin their life; some cannot. Perhaps (I say, “Perhaps”), the credit industry is in some respects similar.

With that thought, and guided by the notion that sunlight is the best disinfectant, here is a simple suggestion that left and right ought to be able to accept, if not lovingly embrace: require credit card issuers and consumer lenders to prominently disclose information about (a) penalty rates and fees, and (b) the proportion of clients currently paying those fees.

For example, suppose the next letter you received saying “You are Pre-Approved” also told you, on the front of the envelope, that the penalty rate was 30%, that monthly late fees were $35, and that 8% of current card-holders paid late fees or penalty interest at some point in the last three months. Suddenly, that tired old financial planning advice to be near a wastebasket when you go through the mail sounds very sensible. 

And for the credit card issuers with a “kinder, gentler” marketing strategy, there will be an incentive to waive a few fees, and to be a bit less aggressive in collecting penalties, if the benefit will be monthly numbers with better consumer appeal.

Some reasons to support this proposal include:

- It is simple and inexpensive;

- It is frightfully reasonable;

- Listening to flacks for the credit card industry explain why it is a terrible idea would be wildly entertaining;

- Folks who mocked the warning labels on wine and beer will get big belly laughs from this.

Now, unless this proposal becomes a killer amendment forcing a House-Senate conference it won’t stop the bill, and as a Yankee fan, I am not normally interested in moral victories. However, stopping the bill is a tremendous longshot – if bloggers can actually step in and influence legislation (especially after the Times failed!) that would be quite an accomplishment.

MORE: Does this suggestion require legislation, or would it fall in the power of bank regulators or the FTC to simply impose it? I am blogging from a secure remote location with a slow connection, so I can’t research this point.

Check with Politology.US for more on the bankruptcy scuffle; I still think Jane Galt's post was fab (and follow her links to Todd Zywicki to hear from a table-pounding supporter of the bill).

Good News - It Won't Make You Blind

Better news - done regularly, it may improve your eyesight.  Who knew?

If A Tree Falls In The Woods...

If a tree fell on a Klansmen in the woods and there was no one around to hear it, would it make a sound?

Where The Boys Are

The new BlogAds survey of blog readers is out.  I say the lead is this - 75% of the 30,081 respondents were men; last year, 79% of the 17,146 respondents were men.

Now, I don't know what sites provided referrals to the survey, so there is a possible bias there.  However, the question of "where are the female bloggers" (or Susan Estrich's related question, where are the female op-ed writers) gets a bit of an answer - if 75% of blog readers are male, what proportion of male blog writers might we expect?

MORE:  Am I answering a question with a question?  What does it look like?

Andrew Sullivan has more, and notes the Estrich connection as well.

CNN Runs A Puffer On Joe Wilson

CNN runs a puff piece on Joe Wilson - wait until they get a look at the Senate Intelligence Committee Report, summarized by Susan Schmidt of the WaPo (or this hit piece).

And why is CNN running this now?  Is some corporate synergist promoting a television appearance, or a new book, or is the Ambassador simply "in the news"?  I have no idea - yet, anyway.

A Uniter, Not A Divider (Darn It!)

The NY Times salutes George Bush for his ability to reach across the aisle and achieve broad bipartisan support for his agenda.

WRONG AGAIN!

The NY Times hands their space to the Tinfoil Democrats, who whine that Bush and the Republicans are able to find support amongst moderate Dems.

On the bankruptcy bill, the Times was amongst the losers.

Long article excerpt below:

Hillary's Plan Crystalizes

The NY Post explains the political strategy motivating Bill Clinton to snuggle up to Georges I and II - it's all about Hillary! (we knew that by default; it is always about Hillary!):

So there was Bill Clinton at Bush's side, volunteering that Iraq's elections "went better than anyone could have imagined" and warning against any demand that Bush set an exit timetable for Iraq — points sure to enrage liberal Dems.

Given Bill Clinton's political savvy, it's hard to imagine this was accidental.

Sure, he was going to be gracious as he showed up with Bush's dad to report on tsunami aid — but he didn't have to all but endorse Bush's Iraq strategy.

And it nicely meshes with Hillary Clinton's sashays toward the center on issues like abortion, Iraq and even teaming up with Republican conservative Sens. Rick Santorum and Sam Brownback to seek a study of how electronic media impacts kids.

The theory, some Dem strategists say, is that liberals are sure Hillary Clinton is one of their own so she can move to the center now without running much risk of challenge from the left in 2008 primaries. But that may be wrong.

Because word from the grass roots is that liberals — now in control of the Democratic National Committee machinery with Howard Dean as DNC chair — are getting pretty riled by Hillary Clinton's move to the center.

"I dread the prospect of a Clinton run," said New York Times columnist Paul Krugman — who speaks for the George Soros-Michael Moore wing of Democratic Bush-haters — on "Meet the Press" last Sunday.

Why? Because he fears a return to "the politics of the '90s" and Clinton-style triangulation. And other Democratic activists say he's not alone — a growing number of left-wingers are edging toward an "anybody but Hillary".

Pity poor Hillary! as she navigates the 2008 primaries - she may be forced to position herself as a calming voice-of-reason centrist in order to tussle with whomever wins the nod of the Tinfoil Dems to wave the banner of "Loudest And Craziest Screamer".

That forced moderation will really hurt her in the general election, too, when the Reps will start foaming at the mouth.

C'mon folks, get to work - we have four years to practice feeling good about Hillary! in the White House, and then four (eight???) years to put that practice to good use.

Smile.  Say "Hillary!"  Smile again.  Stay with it.  Plenty of time.

UPDATE:  It is never too soon to care!  Decision '08 tells us why Hillary is the one.

Don't Be Negative

As Michael Powell leaves the FCC, we offer him some free advice - don't be negative.  Especially, don't be triple negative.  From his farewell interview, we learn that he liked the challenge of the job (or maybe he didn't):

"I never didn't want to get up and not come to work here."

He has tighter message discipline when discussing the ongoing challenges:

"I don't think I could pick a time when you couldn't say there was something else to be done. There's always something else to be done."

Yeah, yeah.

Judge Lefkow Case - A Major Break

The Chicago Tribune has a major story taking the Judge Lefkow case in a new direction:

Lefkow tie to suicide is probed

Published March 10, 2005

A man who shot himself in the head after a traffic stop in Wisconsin on Wednesday was found wearing a suicide note that included an admission that he shot Judge Joan Lefkow's husband and mother, investigators handling the case said.

After-Action: The Bankruptcy Of The Blogosphere

The bankruptcy bill is set to clear the Senate, and is expected to sail through the House shortly, despite widespread opposition in the blogosphere that spanned the political spectrum.  How widespread?  In one "Can't tell the players without a scorecard" post, we actually find Atrios pointing approvingly to a Free Republic post and calling the leaders of his Democratic party "morons".

Yet the unusual alliance of Atrios, Josh Marshall, Kevin Drum, the Daily Kos, Glenn Reynolds, Jane Galt, John Cole, and many more seems to have had zero impact.  In the Last Alliance, Trent Lott was cast down - what happened here?

A few things.  First, time was against us - per the Feb 18 NY Times, the Senate took this bill up and moved it quickly.  They were able to do so because the issue has been kicked around Congress for years, and a similar bill passed both houses in 2000 (only to be pocket-vetoed by Clinton).

Secondly, the blogosphere was caught napping - Atrios did not post until March 6; Kevin Drum seems to have his first post on March 4; Josh Marshall took up the issue on March 6.  Where were the canaries in the coal mine?  (And if anyone wants to volunteer a link to their early warning, sing out in the comments below).

The big media were no better - the first NY Times hand-wringer was on March 3, too late to slow this freight train.  [E. J. Dionne of the WaPo wrote on March 1].

One possible explanation - too many stories.  Social Security, Lebanon, the Pope, and the residue of the Guckert debacle may have been distractions.  But isn't the blogosphere supposed to multi-process?

Another view - opponents of this bill adopted an "embrace your destiny" attitude.  The bill was voted out of the Senate Finance committee with three Democrats (Biden, Feinstein, Kohl) joining nine Republicans in a 12-5 vote.  With this sort of bipartisan support, and given the bill's past history, opponents may have chosen not to work their contacts at the NY Times and amongst the usual suspects.

Third, some of the arguments offered by bill opponents were, hmm, phoney.  The NY Times, Paul Krugman, and many others cited a Harvard bankruptcy study showing, per Krugman, that "One recent study found that more than half of bankruptcies are the result of medical emergencies".  Nonsense.  Or, per Todd Zywicki, "that conclusion cannot be based on this article that is published in Health Affairs".  Jane Galt does a good job of presenting the issues (and repeats another phoney argument that we attributed to Kevin Drum.  Say it ain't so, Jane!)

Fourth (First?  First, Second, and Third?), money talks, as explained by the Daily Kos, Glenn Reynolds (click on "Why, indeed"), and, over the years, many others.

There will be other days.  A hint to the canaries - the Feb 18 Times story tells us this:

In addition to completing bankruptcy legislation, the [business lobbyists] face their biggest test over two other tort revisions. One would sharply limit damage awards in medical malpractice lawsuits. Another would overhaul the way courts dispose of asbestos cases, but that has become bogged down in negotiations among trial lawyers, unions, manufacturers and insurers.

Forewarned.

MORE:  Shameless Self-Promotion Alert: Please, leave links to useful commentary in the comments.

UPDATE:  Undaunted!  Glenn Reynolds links to Politology, a group that wants to carry the fight to the House.  The CW is that this bill can not be stopped in the House, but they only say that because it's never been done.  Besides, an e-mail doesn't even cost 37 cents.

Folks who plan to fight on (don't rush me) ought to check something - where is Rush Limbaugh positioned on this bill?  Could he be re-positioned?

And picking up the NRO could help - Google does not show them pounding the table one way or another (Hey, correct me!).  They hated the press coverage in 2001, but that is a different point.

Last point - I am not going to instruct activists in how to boil water for coffee, but - is there a House committee this bill needs to clear?  Are there Congressman who might be swayed by phone calls, e-mail, and a letter campaign to their home-town newspapers?  Who are the targets?

MORE:  "Last Alliance"?  What about opposition to FEC regulation of blogs?  Well obviously, "Last Alliance" refers to ancient history.  Obviously.

Call The Lawyers (Again)

A blogger is being threatened with legal action for (a) a statement made on his blog which could be viewed as defamatory, and (b) violating copyright by re-printing an e-mail.  How will the blogosphere react?

How indeed?  Given the personalities involved, it is an interesting guess.  The blogger in question is Don Luskin, who has been contacted by the publisher of Paul Krugman's textbook.

Here is the allegedly defamatory post, from last December.

Briefly, Luskin mocks the process by which a Prof. Gail Hoyt of the University of Kentucky adopted Krugman's new textbook for her classroom, suggesting that an opportunity to win a $200 Amazon gift certificate may have been part of her decision.

The attorney for Krugman's publisher then argues that Luskin violated copyright by re-printing what looks like a mass e-mailing without permission, and defamed Prof. Hoyt by suggesting that she had been bought off.  In fact, we learn, she has not adopted the textbook.

The attorney says that:

Frankly, I am mystified as to how you could have drawn the conclusion that the $200 prize was a reward for adopting Professor Krugman's book from the Charlie Van Wagner letter you reprint in your post as "evidence" of your allegation.   There's nothing in the letter that even remotely supports such a claim, making it hard to resist the conclusion that you made the allegation up out of whole cloth to support what I understand to be your ideological crusade against Professor Krugman.

Frankly, I am mystified by the attorney's inability, or unwillingness, to read the e-mail Luskin posted (which is, after all, evidence in both allegations).  The lead sentence is this:

If you responded to my email and provided feedback for ranking factors that affect your adoption decision, I just wanted to let you know how much we at Worth Publishers appreciate it.

Emphasis added.  In light of the new information, I will grant that the phrase "factors that affect your adoption decision" does not have to mean that a decision was in fact made to adopt the book.  But that interpretation hardly seems to have been made up out of whole cloth. 

And what else does Paul Sleven, the attorney for Worth Publishers, tell us?

The allegation that Worth would pay and Professor Hoyt would accept in effect a bribe to influence her selection of her class's economics text defames both Worth and Professor Hoyt.

Please - get me the marketing department of Worth Publishers on the phone (or, if need be, the witness stand).  Why would they have the promotional conferences, the free drawings, and the free sample textbooks if not to influence the adoption decision?  That is not a bug, it's a feature! 

If the attorney for Worth Publishers chooses to characterize the activities of their own marketing department as "in effect a bribe", I would suggest that it is Worth that is defaming the many people who purchase their products. [More here].

Just to save people a link, here is what Luskin wrote last December:

It seems that the "adoption decision" is influenced by lottery prizes associated with filling out surveys with respect to the "adoption decision" itself.

Bold words!

Of course, there is a huge, ghastly backstory to all this (Did you guess?).  Back in 2003, Krugman claimed that he was being stalked intellectually.  Then, on Hannity and Colmes, he upgraded that with this famous quote:

Krugman: PoorandStupid.com [Don Luskin's website]. That's a stalker. That's a guy who actually stalks me on the Web and once stalked me personally.

The difference between "literal" and "figurative" did catch people's eye as they contemplated Krugman's arguably defamatory allegation. 

There was an uproar in the blogosphere: Luskin made some noises, asked Atrios to remove a repetition of the defamatory comment, Luskin involved some lawyers, and folks went mad.

Dan Drezner has lots of links to the uproar; from right to left, NRO to Atrios, the reaction was, waddya, nuts?  (I was in a contrary mood, and what are the odds, so I rallied as much of a defense for Luskin as I could).

So, what will happen today?  My guess - from the left, silence for reasons good and poor.  This is ardent righty Don Luskin we are talking about, and the "victim" is a once-obscure University professor rather than a fellow blogger, so the cases will be seen as clearly different.  The e-mail copyright issue will be ignored.

From the right, time will tell.  If bloggers can't cheap-shot university professors, what's next?  Can we say what we really think about reporters?  Where is the line?

And does anyone think that it is Prof. Gail Hoyt driving this lawsuit?  At the risk of defaming her, I will guess that the real impetus can be found elsewhere.

In any case it is clear that Luskin ought to update his original post to note the non-adoption.  Whether he needs to apologize to anyone under threat of a lawsuit remains to be seen.  I'll say this - if it were me, I would fold up like a cheap suitcase - the attorneys would find me whimpering in the back part of my closet where I normally agonize about filing my taxes (and yes, I recently cleared that space to get ready for my own "March madness").

But Don is made of sterner stuff!

Now, there is an obvious caveat to this - if the two sides have been exchanging e-mails for a while and this is the culminating eruption, Don Luskin ought to let us know.

However, he assures me by e-mail (which I dare not reprint) that his first contact with this issue was by means of the threatening letter.  That being so, let's just say that the attorney for Krugman's publisher is being ridiculous.

MORE:  At the risk of defaming him, the question of why the publisher's attorney is having such a hard time reading the e-mail and seeing how Luskin derived his false inference is explained by Krugman, below.

Is This Karl's Plan?

The bankruptcy bill has received a quick flurry of attention, and now looks to be set for finalpassage in the Senate.  This "stealth" approach was also followed with the class-action reform last month - we all scream about Social Security, and suddenly an unrelated bill catches people's attention three minutes before final passage.

Might this be a plan?  Currently, the Reps control the Executive Branch, and both houses of Congress.  At the Congressional level, that means they have more staffers on each of the permanent committees.

The Dems, meanwhile, have a minority level of Congressional staffing, and warm bodies scattered in a Dem diaspora throughout various think-tanks and universites.

But the balance of manpower favors the Reps, who may simply have decided to engage the Dems on as many fronts as possible.  In this view, Social Security is the stalking goat drawing Democratic fire, while other important bills fly through under the radar.  (Wow -  my German-made Metaphor Mangler is on the fritz, and the French-designed back up is broken - how galling.)

Well, the blogosphere scored a success with McCain-Feingold, anyway.  Hands off!

The Winning Edge

The NY Times explains how John McCain needs to create a special, shadowy group to raise money, promote his ideas, and keep his loyalists gainfully employed, all while decrying the existence of such groups.

Whatever - campaign finance reform is a whirling mess (although bloggers got good news from Senators Feingold and McCain!).

Our real fun from the article was this paragraph, presumably planted by a hacker from The Onion:

Mr. McCain's allies say that is no hindrance to a politician of his stature. They say his national fame has allowed him to carve out a leading role on an assortment of issues including advocating a national boxing commission, deploring steroid use in professional sports and promoting a movie based on his biography.

Boxing and baseball and movies, oh my.

Something v. Nothing

Who said this about the matchup pitting the Party of New Ideas against the Party of No Ideas:

"We ask progressives to consider, why have the Republicans not crashed and burned?"

"Why has the public not taken out their anger on the congressional Republicans and the president?" ... "We think the answer lies with voters' deeper feelings about the Democrats who appear to lack direction, conviction, values, advocacy or a larger public purpose."

(a) Andrew Sullivan

(b) David Brooks

(c) Jacques Chirac

(d) James Carville and Stan Greenberg

Hmm, I suppose I could have offered (e) Glenn Reynolds, who seems to have hit some of the same points as the chaps in (d), and as Harold Ickes, who, we are told, "said that without a plan of their own, Democrats risk GOP inroads among younger voters...".

.

Gun Buyer's Rights V. War On Terror

The Dems have a crafty bill linking gun control with the war on terror.  And it is being introduced by Sen. Frank Lautenberg of NJ, who (we imagine) fears no backlash since he will be 117 years old when he comes up for re-election.

Now, what Lautenberg is proposing makes sense to me, but we will see what the NRA makes of it.

UPDATE:  And we will see what the NY Times editors make of it!  TigerHawk takes them down for arguing that the civil rights of folks on a Federal watch list should be reduced.

Frequently Unasked Questions: if someone on the Fed's terrorist watch list were denied a seat on an airplane, what would the Times say?

And a commenter at Tigerhawk makes an astute point - the Times is hand-wringing about the easy access to guns enjoyed by terror suspects (and the rest of us).  Although it is separate from the Lautenberg proposal to change our record-keeping, if the Times apparent notion of denying arms sales to terror suspects came into effect, wouldn't Al Qaeda operatives find this to be an easy way to see if they were on the watch list?  Go to a gun store, try to buy a gun, see if you are turned down.

How Phony Is the Social Security Trust Fund? Pretty Phony, Says The Times

The NY Times debunks some widespread myths about the Social Security Trust Fund, in an article that they admit spins favorably for Bush.

You can not imagine my surprise and delight.

Some excerpts:

Meanwhile, Back At The Grassy Knoll

Following in the trail blazed by Sidney Blumenthal and Hillary Clinton, Garance Franke-Ruta probes the latest machinations and manipulations of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy (Blogger Subdivision).

This is breakthrough stuff, folks.  Here we go:

Not only are most bloggers not journalists; increasingly they are also partisan operatives whose agendas are as ideological as they come. Using the cover of anonymity (many bloggers use pseudonyms), the cacophony of the relatively new medium, and the easily inflamed passions of the Web, these partisan political operatives are becoming experts at stirring up hornets’ nests of angry e-mails to editors, mounting campaigns to force advertisers to pull out of news shows, and, most disturbingly, spreading outright false information.

Hmm, her link to "false" information requires registration, but somehow, I suspect she is not guiding us to this myth put out by the Lost Kos and picked up by the NY Times.

Ms. Franke-Ruta explains that Eason Jordan of CNN "was brought down not by outraged citizen-bloggers but by a mix of GOP operatives and military conservatives."  How this taxonomy covers Jeff Jarvis, Rep. Barney Frank, and Sen. Chris Dodd is left unclear.  But no worries!  The NY Times never mentioned the role played by Sen. Dodd either, so perhaps her readers will not notice the oversight.

Lefties, Get Rich Quick!

In the post below, I sidle up to the issue of bankruptcy reform and the credit card industry.  A major concern - high late fees and penalty interest are clobbering hapless or down-on-their luck consumers. 

Where others see a problem, I see an opportunity.  In this case, the opportunity would be a Debt Management Cooperative.

Just Make Stuff Up

Kevin Drum has a new time-management technique which, we expect, will bolster his productivity - rather than research a topic, he just makes stuff up.

On the subject of credit card debt and bankruptcy reform he links to this WaPo article, and tells us this:

Bottom line: credit card companies now make half their profits from penalties and late fees.

And his source is what?  Well, he excerpts the WaPo article, which tells us this:

According to R.K. Hammer Investment Bankers, a California credit card consulting firm, banks collected $14.8 billion in penalty fees last year, or 10.9 percent of revenue, up from $10.7 billion, or 9 percent of revenue, in 2002, the first year the firm began to track penalty fees.

Hmm, $14.8 billion is 11% of revenue, but is it really half of profits?  What, one wonders are total profits, and what sort of costs are associated with producing the $14.8 billion? 

Per CardTrak, we find this deceptive chart designed to mislead folks in a hurry.  The story is dated Feb 2004, the text refers to profits in 2003, but the colorful graphic refers to total profits in 2004 of $30 billion.  Well, $14.8 billion is half of $30 billion - maybe someone thinks that there are no costs associated with that revenue, and that it simply drops to the bottom line.

CardTrak has a discussion of 2004 credit card profitability here, giving us all sort of details but no dollar figure.  However, we can get a hint by comparing that with the recently released results for MBNA and Citigroup - MBNA's profits rose from $2.34 billion to $2.68 billion, which we will estimate to be a 12% increase.

Bit of a dead end - is there any way that $14.8 billion could be "half" of an industry profit figure that may have grown to $35 billion?

Fortunately, there is another avenue: this 2004 USA Today article tells us that:

Credit card fees become cash cow

...Last year the industry took in $43 billion in fee income, up from $39 billion in 2002, according to R.K. Hammer Investment Bankers. Fees accounted for 35% of industry income last year, up from 18% six years ago.

A major source of income, of course, is simply the interest charged on balances.  But what are fees?  Well, USA Today cites late fees, over-limit fees, and fees for balance transfers and cash advances.

CardTrak has more detail here - apparently, fees paid by merchants is a big part of the total presented by R. K. Hammer, who estimates that penalty fees in 2004 were $14.8 billion out of total fees of $50.8 billion (so, penalties were roughly 30% of the total). 

Well.  If total fees were 35% of industry income in 2003, and penalty fees were about 30% of total fees in 2004, what are the odds that penalty fees were "half" of total profit in 2004?

I think that what we are seeing here is "Reality based accounting" for the "Reality based community".

MORE:  While we are at it, and although I scarcely have the courage to ask, what, if anything, is the source for the next bit of Drum's "bottom line", which was:

[Credit card companies] actively seek out customers who are likely to miss payments and end up in a penalty fee spiral.

Emphasis added.  Perhaps he has access to a marketing strategy memo which he would like to share with the rest of us.  Or perhaps the same common sense that led to the "half of profits" claim led to that conclusion as well.

LAST BIT:  Can't argue with John Cole.  More background on late fees here.  And a huge round-up at the InstaPundit.

Catching Up Slowly

We don't cover yesterday's news at this blog!  No, sir, we are still working through the Sunday Times.  Andrew Samwick and the VodkaPundit praise Tom Friedman's thoughts on EU arms sales to China.

My contribution to the discussion will be to add that if you pronounce "EU" as "eeee uuuu", it sort of captures the mood they inspire on this subject.  I have a bit more here.

Ve Haf Vays...

Ryan of the Dead Parrots tells us that the US government is studying the development of weapons that could inflict pain from as much as two miles away.

In a follow-up, he charts their progress.

Looks Like Bafflegab To Me

The Dead Parrot grapples with Brad DeLong.

However, he gives the Prof a pass on this:

The main reason that I'm really cranky is that I just got off the phone after spending an hour with a reporter who read Mankiw, Forbes, and Rosen (2005), "Three Questions About Social Security" (Washington: CEA), and took it seriously, particularly this paragraph:

Although short-run movements in growth can affect stock market returns, there is no necessary connection between stock returns and economic growth in the long run. Long run economic growth is determined by productivity growth and labor force growth here in the United States, while stock market returns are determined by the overall cost of capital in the global economy and by the return investors require to bear the risk that comes with equity ownership. There is no reason to believe that slowing population growth in the United States would significantly lower the cost of capital, as set by increasingly globalized capital markets, or the premium required by stock investors...

So I had to walk him through the issue. I had to point out that the implied claim that there is no connection between economic growth and asset returns is true only for small open economies with fixed exchange rates whose products and assets are close substitutes for those of other countries--and that the U.S. economy is neither small, nor completely open, nor has a fixed exchange rate, nor makes goods and issues assets that are perfect substitutes for those of other countries.

I had to point out to the reporter that while Mankiw, Forbes, and Rosen imply that slower growth is unconnected with lower returns by stating that they are determined by different factors, total growth is made up of productivity growth and population growth, and that Mankiw, Forbes, and Rosen are--deliberately--silent on the issue of whether slower productivity growth is likely to bring with it lower asset returns (it is). All they dare say explicitly is that slower population growth does not bring with it lower asset returns. And I had to further point out that even that smaller claim is true only in a restricted class of growth models--representative agent models with perfect familial altruism, in which you treat other family members past and present as you would treat yourself.

Well.  On a better day, I may come back to this with more energy, but let me try for a few quick points:

More On Larry Summers

Andrew Samwick and Betsy Newmark carry the ball on the Larry Summers saga.  Let's hear from Ms. Newmark:

I work with some very opinionated women, some are of whom are liberal and some who are conservative. I think any of these women would be ashamed to retreat from an argument with some cowardly claim that a man was intimidating them or bullying them by the arguments he was using. Maybe, I'm naive, but I think most women are so beyond that sort of posturing. The feminists should catch up with real women who are quite willing to argue positions rather than posing as delicate flowers threatened by the bullying of their male bosses. I know that the teenage girls I teach range from the very shy to the quite outspoken. But most of them seem quite convinced of one thing: the innate superiority of girls to guys. If anything, it is the boys who seem more intimidated and bullied than the girls.

I don't have the nerve to disagree...

MORE:  While we are on the subject (what subject?), let's put the Howard Kurtz column on the Susan Estrich - Michael Kinsley dispute into the mix.  And here is the not-to-be missed take-down of Susan Estrich by Heather MacDonald.  Just a taste:

Estrich’s insane ravings against the Times cap a month that left one wondering whether the entry of women into the intellectual and political arena has been an unqualified boon.

Then Ms. MacDonald tells us what she really thinks.

Read My Lips... Uhh, Hold On A Moment...

My dental fillings are tingling as I await a transmission from KR.

Golly, it seems like only yesterday I was casting about for a towel to throw in, but actually, it was last Friday, twice hidden after the conclusions, and I cited a post from Nov 2003.

Hurry up, KR. 

Now It's The AP Mocking 'Atrios'

Yesterday, it was Peter Beinart that failed to parrot the party line, thereby earning a "Wanker du Jour" from Atrios (I am not sure what that is, but he has one every day).

Here is what Beinart said at a NY Times round table discussion:

BEINART. I think one of the great problems in the debates about abortion and gay rights is the perception that liberals are illiberal and nondemocratic. It's remarkable to me how many people still mention the fact that [the anti-abortion Pennsylvania governor] Bob Casey was denied the right to speak at the 1992 Democratic convention. That was an illiberal thing the party did. And there is an important debate for liberals to have about the role of the courts in pushing social change. Finally, I don't think you can separate these questions from people's larger concerns about the culture. Liberals should believe in free speech, of course, but there is no reason that liberals need to believe that everything that comes out of an unregulated free market is good culturally.

The calm and measured response from Atrios:

The people who still "mention the fact" are Republican hacks who like to perpetuate the myth that liberals are "illiberal and non-democratic." Casey wasn't denied the opportunity to speak because he was anti-choice, he was denied the opportunity to speak because he refused to endorse the Clinton/Gore ticket. 

The link leads to a Media Matters spin effort.  And do remember, in their world, their spin is correct; your spin is vicious hackery.

Who Are These Mysterious Men?

The NY Times tells us about black church leaders who are torn between the two parties.

We note this mainly to goad (again) Michael Tomasky of TAP, who said in a NY Times Book Review round table that:

One of the Democratic Party's problems is that it doesn't have enough contact with its rank and file. Right-wing people in this country have a place to meet and talk politics -- their churches, increasingly the megachurches in the exurbs. There's not a meeting place like that for liberals and for Democrats.

If he happens to read this Times piece, we can just imagine his puzzlement - who are these "black clergy members" of whom the Times speaks, where are they meeting, and why can't Democrats and liberals do anything like that?

Resistance Is Futile

It's Hillary.  It's Hillary in 2006, it's Hillary in 2008, it's Hillary.

Relax.  Are you over it yet?  Get over it.

Rep. Peter King (R, NY) explains the problem:

Mr. King also said that Mrs. Clinton had been anything but the liberal extremist that her conservative critics accused her of being. "I'm not going to vote for her and probably disagree with her on 70 percent of the issues," he said. "But I think that too many Republicans who criticize Hillary Clinton sound like Michael Moore criticizing George Bush.

We do, we will, it won't help, we can't stop.

Maybe Brad DeLong can help.  Or Dan Drezner.

Nah.  Resistance is futile.

Fear Lent Her Wings (Or Keystrokes)

From a hypothetical fortune cookie:  You are never as attentive as when you are looking over your shoulder.

A Tom Wolfe Fan

Tim Graham of the Corner mocks the WaPo's very own Tom Shales for his review of the HBO series "Deadwood", telling us that "Shales is even giddy at the oh-so-realistic constant profanity in the series" and excerpting this:

"Deadwood" is magnificently gritty in appearance and poetically obscene in language. No one ever says something as simple as "I'm hungry" without a notorious gerund between the first word and the third. But you get used to it, and it actually becomes kind of lyrical.

Uh huh.  Then I bet Tom Shales will effing love "I Am Charlotte Simmons".

Interesting News From Iraq

Rich Lowry points us to this AP story from Iraq:

March 5, 2005 -- BAGHDAD — As more people lose loved ones to the relentless terrorism, Iraqis are becoming increasingly angry at the rebels, even staging public demonstrations condemning them.

... Yesterday, hostility to the insurgency boiled over into bloodshed in Wihda, 25 miles south of Baghdad. Townsmen attacked militants thought to be planning a raid on the town and killed seven of them, police Capt. Hamadi al-Zubeidy reported.

Per Google News, this story got reasonable play nationally in the local press.  We note the Chicago Tribune and the Houston Chronicle, but we are not holding our breath waiting for the fresh perspective offered by the Times, the WaPO, or the LA Times - they are no doubt devoting their resources to the Robert Byrd story.

As to what the incident means?  It is one more encouraging straw in the wind (IIRC, a similar incident occurred a few weeks back) - the US cannot outlast the insurgents, but the good people of Iraq can.

Weekend Reading [We Wack Tomasky Of TAP]

The NY Times Book Review presents a roundtable discussion:

Left Behind

Peter Beinart, the editor of The New Republic; Michael Tomasky, the executive editor of The American Prospect; and Katrina vanden Heuvel, the editor of The Nation, are three leading voices for liberalism today. Now, following the re-election of George W. Bush, and with the continuing dominance of Republicans in Congress, the politics they stand for is arguably more embattled than at any time since 1933 and Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. Barry Gewen, an editor at the Book Review, asked the three editors to discuss and debate the present state of liberalism in America, and its future.

One more thing to get to.

UPDATE:  Judges, the envelopes, please:

"See You In November":  Michael Tomasky overcame stiff competition to manage the most daft comment of the roundtable:

TOMASKY. One of the Democratic Party's problems is that it doesn't have enough contact with its rank and file. Right-wing people in this country have a place to meet and talk politics -- their churches, increasingly the megachurches in the exurbs. There's not a meeting place like that for liberals and for Democrats.

Hmm, let me try to break this to him slowly... Let's see, when folks read phrases like "The Rev. Al Sharpton", what do they suppose that mysterious "Rev." stands for? 

When Bill Clinton or John Kerry speak in black churches, to whom might they be speaking - empty pews, Republicans, what?

When John Kerry's strategists fret about competing for "the Catholic vote", whatever are they going on about?

This CNN exit poll data suggests that roughly 20% of Kerry's votes came from (spoiler alert) African-Americans.  47% of Catholics went for Kerry, including 43% of Catholics who attend church weekly (or at least have enough respect for their faith to lie about it to a pollster).

My very modest suggestion - Mr. Tomasky might want to get over his white-collar urban-media-liberal elitism and recognize that Democrats come in a variety of colors and religious intensities.  It is their party too, or might be.

Well.  We have another prize.  Our "Hmm, this ice got awfully thin awfully quickly" awkward moment award goes to Katrina vanden Heuvel for her quick incursion into foreign policy:

VANDEN HEUVEL. I think you are ignoring the legitimate grievances in the Middle East. You cannot ignore the role of the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. And I think that is a very difficult one for the Democratic Party to address.

Yes, very difficult, which is probably why this NY Times transcript does not address it.  However, the secret they dare not share is this - the proper progressive position is pro-Palestinian.  Naturally, this does not mean that progressives are anti-Semitic; they are simply anti-Israel.  Nor does it mean that they are soft on terror; a proper pro-Palestinian progressive simply understands (while deploring) the legitimate concerns of the Palestinian freedom fighters. 

Larry Summers of Harvard kicked this around a few years ago; naturally, the issue of academic freedom comes into play as well.  Here is the Palestine Solidarity Movement mourning Arafat, and presenting their conference schedule.

Given the circumstances, we hope that Mr. Beinart carries with pride his "Give That Man Another Bowl Of Oatmeal" trophy for coming off as the most sensible of the bunch.

MORE:  Via Memeorandum, we see interesting reactions (essentially, fear and loathing) from our friends on the left.

Now, maybe this is an easy one - when did this interview take place?  The intro says it was after the election, but a lot of water has passed under the bridge since then (or been passed elsewhere).  And Beinart's comment that "There is no question that the war [in Iraq] is going very, very badly" seems a bit dated.  Well, I hope he thinks it seems dated...

Cue The Theme Music

Republicans and Democrats made their cases to address the Social Security puzzle, and the NY Times was there:

SOUTH BEND, Ind., March 4 - Stepping into a rapidly escalating battle for public support, President Bush tried to jumpstart his uphill drive for personal Social Security accounts on Friday, asserting that the retirement system requires a drastic change and challenging skeptics to put their own ideas forward. Despite widespread evidence that the public is wary of changes to the benefits system, Mr. Bush did not retreat from his plan to divert some payroll taxes into individual accounts.

"Jumpstart"?  Don't you hate it when writers pass on a chance to use the word "revivify"?  But we are heartened by the bold talk of "did not retreat"!  Stand tall, George!

The Times continues the "Stand tall, even if you stand alone" theme here:

Mr. Bush appeared to relish confronting his opponents head-on, as he has in past political fights. He promised to keep telling voters Social Security is headed for disaster "until it sinks in."

"I'm going to keep saying it all around the country," he told an audience of hundreds of supporters at the New Jersey Army National Guard Armory in Westfield. "I like doing this, by the way - I like going around the country, saying, 'Folks, we have got a problem.' "

Later, at a similar event at the University of Notre Dame, a site that signified the White House plans to capture support for this program among younger voters, Mr. Bush expressed even more bravado. "Someone said, 'It's a steep hill to climb, Mr. President,' " Mr. Bush said. "Well my attitude is, the steeper the better. Because when you get to the top, you realize you've left a significant contribution behind."

Was the Times reporter hearing the music from "Rocky" during the event?  Might the White House be able to re-market this as George Bush, the battling underdog, against the entrenched forces of the status quo?  Dems would have to be pretty stupid to let that happen (so we can't rule it out...).

Meanwhile, we can feel the energy rocking the joint at the Dem presentation:

On Friday, Democrats pressed that case again.

"If we did nothing with Social Security," said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, at a highly publicized event in New York with many leading Democrats, "Social Security would pay 100 percent of benefits for the next 50 years."

There's a compelling message!  And I'm sure it's especially reassuring to twenty- and thirty-somethings.

But wait, there's more:

At their event in New York, Democratic senators acknowledged that the retirement system faced deficits in the longer run, but their only solution, suggested by Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, was to scrap scheduled income tax cuts for wealthier Americans.

"If you take privatization off the table, we'll be happy to sit down and talk about the future," Mr. Reid said.

"The bottom line is, Bush says it's a crisis," Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York said. "We're saying, it can take a little study."

I bet that brought the crowd to it feet!

Day One (or whatever - please tell me it's Day Fifty Nine) seems, at least in Timesworld, to have tipped for Bush.

UPDATE:  Via Memeorandum, we sense a rare moment of bipartisan accord - Josh Marshall loathes the Times coverage as well.  And "Bamboozlepalooza" is pretty good.

Rich Lowry at The Corner likes Bush's decision to accentuate the degree of difficulty he is facing, so I guess we are both on board with the marketing theme.

Nobody Likes An "I Told You So"

But how do we feel about an "I told you the opposite"?

The NY Times, Jan 12:

Facing Facts About Iraq's Election

When the United States was debating whether to invade Iraq, there was one outcome that everyone agreed had to be avoided at all costs: a civil war between Sunni and Shiite Muslims that would create instability throughout the Middle East and give terrorists a new, ungoverned region that they could use as a base of operations. The coming elections - long touted as the beginning of a new, democratic Iraq - are looking more and more like the beginning of that worst-case scenario.

It's time to talk about postponing the elections.

And here is the much-discussed NY Times editorial from March 1:

Mideast Climate Change

It's not even spring yet, but a long-frozen political order seems to be cracking all over the Middle East. Cautious hopes for something new and better are stirring along the Tigris and the Nile, the elegant boulevards of Beirut, and the impoverished towns of the Gaza Strip. It is far too soon for any certainties about ultimate outcomes. In Iraq, a brutal insurgency still competes for headlines with post-election democratic maneuvering. Yesterday a suicide bomber plowed into a crowd of Iraqi police and Army recruits, killing at least 122 people - the largest death toll in a single such bombing since the American invasion nearly two years ago. And the Palestinian terrorists who blew up a Tel Aviv nightclub last Friday underscored the continuing fragility of what has now been almost two months of steady political and diplomatic progress between Israelis and Palestinians.

Still, this has so far been a year of heartening surprises - each one remarkable in itself, and taken together truly astonishing. The Bush administration is entitled to claim a healthy share of the credit for many of these advances. It boldly proclaimed the cause of Middle East democracy at a time when few in the West thought it had any realistic chance. And for all the negative consequences that flowed from the American invasion of Iraq, there could have been no democratic elections there this January if Saddam Hussein had still been in power. Washington's challenge now lies in finding ways to nurture and encourage these still fragile trends without smothering them in a triumphalist embrace.

From the paper of impressive track record.

Can't Spell "Rocks In Head" Without D KOS

Wow - props to the Karl Rove mole who climbed the ladder at the Lost Kos, and is now attempting to topple the structure from within - which bright light wants to mount a smear campaign on Alan Greenspan and his wife, Andrea Mitchell?  Is there even a hint of a media strategy here, or do they just figure, the more enemies they make, the better they are doing?  Do they really think the Daily (Kos) Show will have more impact after mainstream journalists rally to Andrea and abandon them?  Do they really think that, after the Guckert fiasco, this is the best way forward?

Well, actually, no - a quick scan through the comments thread shows lots of resistance and skepticism, so let's not conclude that everyone at the Lost Kos Komedy Klub is there to entertain the rest of us.  The bright light behind this venture is DavidNYC; his being a maroon is not proof that all of his readers are.

For example, we heartily endorse this comment:  [This] is a freeper's dream post.

John Cole and Jeff Goldstein have more.  FWIW, I half-hope the DKos Crowd goes full speed ahead, and continues the unrelenting auto-marginalization they so ably began with their hunt for James Guckert's body parts.

But I half-hope, for the sake of the blogosphere and the few kindred blogging spirits that may be flickering over there, that reason and judgment prevail.

A Sultry Sheherazade Scenario

On the subject of Lebanon, mine will not be the most insightful post you read today, or even in the next 45 seconds, but I'll say something you may not have read elsewhere - a photographer has found some Beirut Babes that rock.

I suspect if you actually read Glenn's post and follow the links, you will gain deeper understanding of the events of the day, even while we are distracted by more timeless truths.

And yes, our excuse is that it's Friday night.

UPDATE:  Well, if I were a young lefty (I am twice disqualifed) who could not get to Beirut, here is a blogger a bit closer to home.

A Caveat - I know exactly what game is being played here.

OK, our current excuse is that it is Saturday night.

Even more here.

I TOTALLY Endorse This

Roger Simon is a genius on the subject of possible FEC regulation of the blogosphere.  However, I dispute one small point - his challenge to the FEC commissioners is "Bring it on".  My suggested taunt to these jokers - "Send in the Clowns".

MORE:  Yes, calling for the clowns did not work well last time. Second time lucky!

UPDATE:  Finally, someone gets it!  The Medium Lobster understands that "free speech" was always intended to mean "free as long as no one is listening".  Once a person exposes the rest of us to the risk that he or she will actually be heard, the government must step in with appropriate regulation.

Oh, Just Flip This Off

Some Brits tell the BBC that finger length can predict aggression.  Yeah, well how long is this one, jack?

MORE:  Yes!  It is 12:30, so we are doing the Friday afternoon thing here.  Memorandum has more.

Happy Anniversary To Paul Krugman

Almost exclusively because we have a Dark Heart, we want to get a head start on  preparations for the second anniversary of Paul Krugman's bold interest forecast.  Roll the tape from March 11, 2003, please; his lead:

With war looming, it's time to be prepared. So last week I switched to a fixed-rate mortgage. It means higher monthly payments, but I'm terrified about what will happen to interest rates once financial markets wake up to the implications of skyrocketing budget deficits.

Well.  Per the Federal Reserve, I see that mortgage rates were  5.67% on March 7, and 5.61% on March 14, 2003.

Today, despite the war, financial markets continue to slumber - as of March 3, 2005, the Federal Reserve tells me that fixed rate mortgages were at 5.79%.  Robert Samuelson puzzled over this a few days back.

Perhaps the Earnest Prof is a bit stronger when forecasting equities?  Let's check his stock market call of June 20, 2003; with the S&P 500 closing at 994.7 on June 19, 2003, Krugman wrote this:

The big rise in the stock market is definitely telling us something. Bulls think it says the economy is about to take off. But I think it's a sign that America is still blowing bubbles — that a three-year bear market and the biggest corporate scandals in history haven't cured investors of irrational exuberance yet.

Or, to put it another way: it's hard to find any real news to justify the market's leap. Instead, investors seem to be buying stocks because they are rising — which is pretty much the definition of a bubble.

As of this writing on March 4, 2005, the S&P is at 1221, up 11 on a good jobs report.

Hmm, did I mention jobs?  That calls for a link to Mickey's "Krugman Gotcha Contest" from the fall of 2003.  I appear with a late entry, citing Krugman's Bold Assertion, from July 25, 2003, that:

There is very little evidence in the data for a strong recovery ready to break out. As far as I can make out, Mr. Greenspan's optimism is entirely based on models predicting that tax cuts and low interest rates will get the economy moving.

Let's put in some numbers from Economagic:  here is quarterly GDP growth, on an annual basis, starting with the third quarter of 2003:

2003 Q3 - 7.4%;  2003 Q4 - 4.2%

For 2004, the quarterly growth figures were 4.5%, 3.3%, 4.0%, and 3.8%.

Total non-farm employment, July 2003: 129,857,000; as of Jan, 2005 it was 132,573,000.  That is an average of 150,000 new jobs per month.  The latest jobs report, showing 262,000 new jobs (and with small upward revisions to the past few months) will improve that average.

Since this is my lucky day, I will drag in Paul Krugman's column from Aug 15, 2003, where he instructed us that "Just to keep up with population growth, the U.S. needs to add about 110,000 jobs per month".

We remain confident that all of these forecasts were based on his professional opinion, and were not influenced by his political views.

MORE:  We mocked his stock market forecast, and a few others, back in June 2003; we identified the Key Krug-Rule in this post (and glumly conceded the probability of higher taxes in the comments section, driven wailing before the iron lash of Brad Delong.)

UPDATE:  We are all in agreement, then - Paul Krugman admits "my forecasting record is not great."

Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc

Paul Krugman makes economics simple!  Here he goes again, in his latest tirade:

And don't forget that President Clinton's 1993 tax increase ushered in an economic boom.

Do tell.  Ardent lefties will be intrigued by Brad DeLong's somewhat more nuanced view, which we excerpt here:

Hence Bill Clinton rejected the Social Democracy strategy in favor of the second possibility--call it the "Eisenhower Republican" strategy. Make economic growth the first priority. Attempt to get the Federal Reserve to be dovish on interest rates in exchange for seriously reducing the deficit. Take other steps, like trade liberalization, to try to boost growth. Reform rather than expand the social insurance state so that you can argue that taxpayers are getting good government value for what they are buying. Hope that these policies will boost the flow of spending into investment, and make the Clinton expansion a high-investment high-productivity growth expansion. And hope that in 1997 or 2001 a decade of relatively rapid productivity and salary growth coupled with a resolution of the deficit problem would create an expanded set of politically-realizable possibilities.

Tax hikes, spending restraint, NAFTA, welfare reform - does the Prof mention Newt Gingrich's push for a balanced budget, or the importance of Republican votes on everything except the tax hikes?  (No!)  And what was the impact?

The Clinton-era economic policies that Rubin played such a large role in devising certainly contributed substantially to the economic boom of the 1990s, and we economists do and will argue about whether they deserve 20%, 40%, or 60% of the credit.

Post hoc, ergo propter hoc - I am going to name my next child, or at least, one of the members of the next litter of kittens, after Ed Kilgore.  I think John Cole is with me on this.

UPDATE:  Vigorous dissension in the comments - what does "ushered in" really mean - is it simply "preceded", or can it be used to imply causation?  And is Krugman saying that Clinton's tax hikes caused the boom, or just didn't derail it?  Hmm, are lefties now abandoning the notion that those tax hikes caused, or helped to cause, the boom?  And what effect on prosperity did the 1990 Bush I tax hike have?

Well, I happen to have Marshall McLuhan right here, but that's not important.  I also have Bill Clinton, who will be delighted to take a moment to both discuss the factors that led to the 90's boom and illustrate the use of the phrase "ushered in".  This is from 1999:

Vice President Gore and I came into office determined to change all that with a new economic strategy focused on fiscal discipline, expanded trade, investment in our people.  The strategy has worked.  In the past six and a half years, it has produced lower interest rates and ushered in the longest peacetime expansion in our history, with more than 19 million new jobs, rising wages, the lowest unemployment in a generation, and record-breaking levels of home ownership. 

MORE:  We have more fun in mind for Paul Krugman - in fact, we want to wish him a Happy Anniversary! And to pre-empt some of the critics, yes, I am gloomily resigned to tax hikes down the road, probably under President Hillary!  But Dems need to win an election first.

Sound Bite Management

Treasury Secretary John Snow signals the Administration's new desperation flexibility on Social Security, as reported by Richard Stevenson of the NY Times.

We want to help with this promotion of the promotional tour:

Mr. Snow, speaking at a briefing for a group of reporters, also said that he, Mr. Bush and other administration officials would spend much of the next two months traveling the nation in a campaign called "60 Stops in 60 Days" to convince Americans that Social Security's projected financial problems require acting now and that the solution should include individual investment accounts.

"60 Stops"?  Who the heck is stopping?  We are Moving Forward, dammit, Full Speed Ahead!

Suggested name: "60 Starts in 60 Days".

MORE:  NO, we reject and deplore "Gone In 60 Days".

Let's Sweep The Board

Buoyed by the exciting developments in Lebanon and the rest of the Middle East, I am going to dust off an old idea for bringing regime change to North Korea. 

The basis for the proposal is a Wall Street Journal editorial from January 2003, excerpted here.  The essence of the proposal for regime change is simple - the US should offer a substantial number of green cards (one million? half a million?) to refugees who flee North Korea.

From the WSJ:

The historical model here is East Germany in 1989. Hungary permitted tens of thousands of East German refugees to pass through its borders en route to the West, contributing to the fall of communism in Eastern Europe.

Now, there are plenty of questions.  The population of North Korea is estimated at 23 million.  Could one million green cards do the trick?  How about half that?  Could the "tens of thousands" that brought down East Germany be enough here?

And what about the rest of the region?  Would China object to the whole exercise as hopelessly destabilizing?  Might a sensible US response be, "destabilizing compared to what?"  South Korea, Japan, and Australia will also want to be heard (as will everyone else).

How much might this cost?  At $100,000 per refugee, the US is "out of pocket" $50  to $100 billion.  Since the war in Iraq has cost $200 billion (and counting) ,that might seem to be a bargain.  But is there any basis for the $100,000 number?  No, and we are open to suggestions.

Could the US handle one million immigrants from North Korea, or even half that?  Well, the experience following the collapse of South Vietnam in 1975 suggests it would be a stretch.  (More here).

Well, that may just mean this concept needs to be tweaked.  Could we subsidize the settlement of refugees in other countries?  If the North Korean government collapses, could we simply repatriate the refugees and have the US contribute to the rebuilding of North Korea?

It is not as if there is a surfeit of good ideas on how to resolve the North Korean situation.  We are throwing out an idea here, and remember - anyone can find objections; the goal is solutions.

Read Our Lips - No EU Arms Sales To China

George Bush, Sen. Richard Lugar, and Sen. Joe Biden find some common ground:

Washington, March 1 - Senior members of Congress from both parties emerged from a meeting with President Bush on Tuesday warning Europe that if it lifts its ban on arms sales to China, the United States may retaliate with severe restrictions on technology sales to European companies.

The warning came after Mr. Bush, on his trip to Europe last week, twice cautioned the Europeans not to lift the restrictions, in place for 15 years. His insistence was based, at least in part, on a new American intelligence assessment that Beijing is rapidly becoming better equipped to carry out a sophisticated invasion of Taiwan and to counter any effort by the United States to react to such an attack, administration officials and intelligence analysts say.

After the White House meeting on Tuesday, Senator Richard G. Lugar, the Indiana Republican who is chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said that if the ban is lifted - as European leaders have said they plan to do in coming months - Congress could react with "a prohibition on a great number of technical skills and materials, or products, being available to Europeans." The ranking Democrat on the committee, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, called a lifting of the ban "a nonstarter with Congress."

The Administration is also engaging in selective leaks of new intelligence reports to make the case against arm sales to China.  The Times is troubled by this - are they being duped, and why won't some Dem leak to them the real story, we hear them asking plaintively - but they report what they've got.

This is easy positioning for everyone, as noted previously: Bush gets to show he can work with the Democrats, and the Democrats get to show they are as ready as anyone to deliver some size 11 motivation into the rear of the Euro-zone. 

MORE:  Hmm, some are querying "Size 11 motivation...".  Hey, go and and get your own "Phrase Polisher".  Mine works like a charm - just type in "kick Euro-ass", and look what comes out!

A Deadly Lapse In Judgement?

Jodi Wilgoren of the NY Times may have committed a deadly lapse of judgment in her moving account of execution-style slaying of the husband and mother of a Federal judge.

The gist of the story is this:

For Joan Humphrey Lefkow, the nightmare began shortly after her appointment as a federal judge in 2000, when an Oregon group's lawsuit to block white supremacists from using a name it had trademarked, World Church of the Creator, landed in her lap.

Soon, Judge Lefkow found her home address and family photographs posted along with violent threats on hate-filled Web sites. Last April, one of the Aryan movement's most notorious leaders was convicted of plotting her murder.

On Tuesday, Judge Lefkow was under armed federal guard in an undisclosed place, mourning the deaths of Michael F. Lefkow, her husband of 30 years, and Donna Humphrey, her 89-year-old mother, whom she found dead of gunshots to the head in their basement the evening before.

"I think she's very upset with herself, maybe, for being a judge and putting her family in this danger," said Laura Lefkow, 20, the third of the judge's five daughters, "but there's no way she should have known."

Local and federal law enforcement officials said on Tuesday they were investigating possible connections between the double killing and Matthew Hale, the white supremacist now in federal prison awaiting sentencing for soliciting Judge Lefkow's assassination, or his many sympathizers. Federal officials in Washington said agents were reviewing Judge Lefkow's caseload in search of suspects, with the main thrust on the hate groups that had focused on her before.

Now, the potentially deadly lapse in judgment is this: Ms. Wilgoren reports the name, age, and college of Laura Lefkow, who was quoted above.  That information is not clearly available by way of "Google", nor do any major news services other than those syndicating the Times story seem to be reporting it.

And why the Times would report this detail in a story suggesting that hate groups may be targeting a judge's family is beyond me.

Now, it is possible that the Times is, knowingly or not, presenting disinformation.  It is also possible that the proper authorities, such as the Federal Marshalls charged with protecting Judge Lefkow, have been alerted to this possible breach in their security.

And it is possible that more publicity is not the antidote to this unfortunate publicity.  Maybe the hate groups (if they are truly involved with this) missed the Times story, but will pick it up on the blogs.  I am at sea as to what the right thing is to do.

However, I am hoping that this post will call this point to the attention of the proper authorities.  I would also be delighted and reassured if some Net-Sleuths could track down the Lefkow daughters by other means.  I could not make a connection with Google, but even Google does not cover everything; perhaps these family details are more widely known than Google realizes.

Thanks for the help.

And Ms. Wilgoren did get a beautiful, moving quote from the daughter - is there a father anywhere who would not be proud to have this as his epitaph:

Mr. Lefkow met his future wife in the library of Wheaton College, where she was an undergraduate. "She was doing a paper on Indonesia, and he was doing a paper on Indonesia, and she had all his books," Laura Lefkow recounted of her parents' first encounter. "He used to say he was rich in daughters and not much else," she laughed. "He was just an optimist about everything, to the point where it was like, 'Oh, my gosh, Dad, come on,' and he would be like, 'It'll be fine,' and it was. It was always fine."

I would not want something to happen to this young woman as a result of this Times story.

MORE:  Other reactions at Memeorandum.

UPDATE: I am assured in the comments that (a) the daughter is not at school, but home for the funeral, and under protection; (b) the school sent an e-mail to the student body discussing the situation.  Based on (b), it seems fair to presume that any plans for the ongoing security for family members would incorporate the idea that her presence on campus and connection to the judge was not any kind of secret.

And I have no idea what to make of this, but Bill Keller, Exec Editor at the Times, is a Pomona alum and sits on their Board of Trustees.  Well, if this is eventually deemed to have been a faux pas, he will hear of it.

Mostly Dead Is Partly Alive

Sen. Majority Leader Bill Frist may not have put the final nail in the coffin of Bush's Social Security reform, but he sure was handing out hammers yesterday.  Here is Mickey:

It may be too early to declare Bush's plan dead, but it's not too early to stop declaring it's too early to declare Bush's plan dead. It's almost dead. If it were in a hospital the ACLU would be suing to have its feeding tube removed.

Well, mostly dead is partly alive.  However, Miracle Max is on the other side of this debate.  Troubling.

UPDATE:  Glenn is kind enough to link, and asks a question - what is Bush's game?

Since it is springtime, here is a topical answer - his game is baseball, and George Bush is not afraid to swing hard in case he hits it.

As every student of the game knows, the best hitters fail more often than not.  There are also plenty of Hall of Famers and great sluggers among the hitters who are career leaders in strikeouts.

So, "W" is playing for the long ball.  He is not going to look back, twenty years from now, and have to endure criticism about "the vision thing".  He is not going to have to wonder whether he should have pushed for something more ambitious than school uniforms.

Now, let's agree - if (I am still saying "if") this Social Security effort ultimately results only in lost time and an emboldened opposition, Bush may have to wonder whether he achieved too little by attempting too much.  But he will have time to think about that as he walks back to the dugout shaking his head.

And as Glenn points out, in the long run, being the leader of the Party of Ideas against the Party of the Status Quo may be good positioning.  Odd positioning for the erstwhile  "conservatives", maybe, but good.

MORE:  However this Social Security debate turns out, we will never, ever make the "post hoc, ergo propter hoc" mistake of thinking that the "rhetorical enchantment" of Josh Marshall's blog had anything at all to do with this.  It will literally never cross my mind, and I know Ed Kilgore will agree.

That said, other blogs may occur to me.