Making health care more expensive

The House has passed the Mental Health Equity Act, which would require health insurance plans to cover mental health equally with physical health. To object to this is not to deny that mental problems can be a serious and sometimes can be treated (though it's worth consulting Thomas Szasz on such matters), but that this is yet another mandate designed to create gold-plated insurance plans. In the real world, the only way health insurance will be affordable to people who aren't affuent is if they allow companies to offer Kias as well as Rolls Royces. Here's the Register's editorial on the topic. You can be sure that if the government were ever to take over health care that it would be rationed, and not everybody would be happy with the formulas.

Bruins still worry me

I'm almost utterly elated that UCLA has won the Pac 10 outright and that most basketball supposed experts think the Pac 10 is the toughest conference in the country this year. And there's little question that these guys know how to fight through adversity. But I'm concerned that they seem to create their own adversity sometimes, and if they continue the pattern they might not get to the Final Four, let alone win it all.

Both of their victories last week were -- not exactly tainted, but at least somewhat questionable. Against Stanford on Thursday, it sure looked in replays as if, while there may have been mild body contact on Collison on the foul with 2.5 seconds left, the block itself was clean, all ball. Collison still had to sink the free throws to tie it, and the Bruins did dominate in overtime, but . . . And against Cal, it was unclear whether Josh Shipp's last shot went over the backboard, but it looked as if it was possible.

The really bothersome thing is that they were behind two teams they should have dominated -- well, maybe not dominated in the case of Stanford -- until the last few seconds. They played sloppily against Stanford in the first half and lethargically against Cal. I know this is nitpicking about a superb team, but if they don't see these games as a wake-up call they could come up very short of achieving their potential in the tournament.

Iraq costs $12 billion a month

The Iraq war now costs about three times as much as it did during the early days -- around $12 billion a month -- according to Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz, who has tried to keep track, and now argues that the cost of the war, which will at least $3 trillion before long, has contributed to the U.S. economic downturn. Even if we started withdrawing troops today, many of the costs would continue. Remember when poor old Larry Lindsey got fired for estimating that it might cost several hundred billion overall? The amazing thing is that those who were so wrong about Iraq are still listened to at all -- Bill Kristol got the plum New York Times columnist slot once occupied by William Safire.

Why Iraq could blow

Here's a piece by Patrick Cockburn, the conservative Cockburn who was an opponent of the Iraq invasion from the beginning and has spent considerable time reporting from Iraq for various British newspapers. He notes that while things are better in Baghdad compared to the really violent period in 2006. Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki, for example, visited an ice cream parlor recently to show how safe the neighborhood is. But before he made the little visit, a horde of soldiers, including colonels and generals, swept the neighnorhood and checked all the shops within proximity.

Thanks to the U.S. and its subsidies, the Sunnit now have armed, trained and "blooded" militias, to match those of the Shia and the Kurds. One may certainly hope the place stabilizes, but it's a long way from being a certainty. John McCain had better hope his prayers work.

Kenya: back from the brink?

Here's the Register's editorial on the tentative and tenuous truce in Kenya. The troubles there demonstrate that democracy is not always a good way to bring stability to a country. It also shows just how deep the roots of ethnic and tribal identity go. Almost everybody thought Kenya was reasonably stable and something of a success story. But the dominance of the Kikuyu over the Luo and other tribes, with roots in the colonial era, turned out to be much more widely resented than almost anybody realized. When the Kikuyu president stole an election, the place erupted in violence, and now hundreds of thousands of people have moved to tribal areas (some of whom have never actually lived there) to get away from it.

There's no core U.S. interest in Kenya, and U.S. activity has been pretty minimal. People of good will hope the truce holds and there's a modicum of reconciliation, but it will be up to Kenyans to figure it out.

Privacy in (more) danger

Here's a link to the Register's editorial on the latest abuses of the Patriot Act. The act allows National Security Letters, a non-warranted demand the FBI can issue without judicial oversight, demanding bank records, phone records and the like on suspected terrorists. But FBI Director Robert Mueller told Congress that a new report will show that FBI agents used them improperly again in 2006, after having done so in 2004 and 2005. Mueller says new controls are in place to make sure it doesn't happen again. I'm skeptical. When people have power, some of them will abuse it. Wouldn't be a bad idea to junk the Patriot Act, or at least modify it to reduce temptation. Suppose the Democratic Congress will do anything constructive? Wouldn't bet on it.

Democrats not much help beyond Iraq

Here's a link to the piece I did for Antiwar.com last week, complaining (as usual) that while either of the Democratic candididates might get us out of Iraq reasonably soon (though I'm not sure I'd even count on that), neither shows much inclination to rethink a U.S. foreign policy that sees the rest of the world as provinces of the U.S. that occasionally require intensive attention.

Venezuela and Colombia on the brink

Here's a link to the Register's editorial on the trouble brewing between Venezuela and Colombia, following a raid by Colombian forces into Ecuadoran territory to bomb a FARC guerrilla camp. What there wasn't space to discuss was the extent to which troubles in Colombia are exacerbated by the drug war. The 40-year civil war/insurrection/whatever was relatively quiescent until the drug war was ramped up following "success" in drug suppression in Peru and Bolivia, which shifted more coca production to Colombia. Both the FARC and the right-wing paramilitaries found they could finance their activities by protecting narcotraffickers and growers and taking a cut of the huge prohibition premiums.

Ironies in Turkey

Here's the Register's editorial on the end of the Turkish military boots-on-the-ground incursion into northern Iraq. Its's good that it was ended, but there are rich ironies, including having the power occupying Iraq and thereby thinning Iraqi sovereignty calling on Turkey to respect that pseudo-sovereignty.

Putin's successor anointed

Here is the Register's editorial on the Russian election, with Putin's anointed successor, Dmitri Medvedev, winning handily. The government probably didn't have to cheat and intimidate so blatantly to win this one, but it did so anyway. Really clumsy. After griping about the election irregularities a bit, the U.S. should accept the results and shut up for a while, then quietly start asking how Russia intends to see to it that Iran doesn't get nukes, and can we cooperate.

Recent blogging elsewhere

I've been blogging quite a bit the last few days on the Register's Orange Punch blog, discussing Putin, Pakistan, the stalled Israeli/Palestinian peace process (there's an evergreen headline) and the eco-terrorism in Seattle.

Big night for Hillary

I spent most of the evening blogging for the Register's Horserace'08 election blog, so if you're interested in my at-the-time thoughts, feel free to go there. But there's little question this was a big night for Hillary. Because of Texas' convooluted delegate allocation system she might not gain any ground in the delegate count (might even lose a couple). But she has plenty of reason to stay in it to the end now.

Hillary miscellaneous

I didn't see the original "60 Minutes" piece, but I finally saw a clip of Hillary Clinton saying "as far as I know" in response to a weird question about whether Barack Obama was a Muslim. It looked worse in print. In conversation it seemed more like an offhand, almost unconscious throw-in, after saying repeatedly that she had no reason to think he was Muslim. Seems like an innocent comment to me rather than some kind of sneaky calculation to keep the issue alive.

But Gloria Steinem really should be checked for operating brain cells. It wasn't just the implicit attack on McCain's POW experience (and in fact, though it was said more snarkily than you might like, it's true that being a POW is hardly a qualification for being president). But what kind of thinking is behind the suggestion that if it had been "Joan McCain" she would have been questioned and denigrated rather than being lauded? What universe does she live in?

One more thing. Andrew Sullivan pointed it out before I did, but I noticed too. In Jack Nicholson's ad for Hillary Clinton, every character shown in the clips from his old movies is a psychopath. I know that's the kind of character he plays best, but did he think about the subliminal message that might be sent?

Stupidity reigns on NAFTA

Hillary is going after Barack Obama on the rumor/story that Barack Obama's top economic adviser, Austan Goolsbee, visited the Canadian consulate and said, in effect, you might hear a lot of NAFTA-bashing on the campaign trail, but don't worry, it's only politics. Interesting in that the first couple of stories on Canadian TV, which they still defend as sourced from top people in the Canadian government, said some of Hillary's people had done something similar.

What's really appalling, however, is the fact that both candidates are peddling such an ignorant position, arguing in effect, that only bad things come of expanded trade. Anybody with an IQ in double digits knows this is false, and every study shows that NAFTA (which can be legitimately criticized as more like managed trade then genuinely free trade) has had a positive impact on the U.S., even in Ohio. But the two main Democratic candidates are engaged in an unrelenting pander-fest, catering to ignorance and jingoism.

Ahmadinejad in Baghdad

The visit to Iraq by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad highlights yet another bit of blowback from the Iraq war. I did a piece before the war that sketched Mesopotamian history and explained the ethnic/religious landscape, noting that the majority Shia had an affinity for and connections with Iran. Shortly thereafter any number of commentators noted that one impact of removing Saddam Hussein, Iran's mortal enemy, from power, was to increase the regional power and influence of Iran.

I don't think it's helpful to analysis to label certain regimes as "devil states." Every government has more than a bit of the devil in it. The Iranian regime is much more complicated than simply being an anti-American machine. But if one is concerned about Iran's growing regional influence, as is not unseemly, one would have hoped somebody among the geniuses touting war with Iraq in 2002 would have considered the likely impact of enhancing Iran's influence and power.

Dog over a cliff

Curious priorities we Americans have. The local L.A. news tonight (ABC affiliate) led with excerpts from this disturbing video of a couple of U.S. servicemen throwing a little puppy over a cliff (don't watch it if you're sqeamish about sudden puppy death). Not that I would minimize the needless cruelty here, but all the needless cruelty to human beings during the Iraq war doesn't seem to have inspired anything like such attention and outrage.

War, an enterprise that has as its purpose killing human beings, is an inherently coarsening activity. Should it surprise anybody that people who have killed others and seen their buddies die might get a bit casual about the value of life, perhaps even joking and lautghing about it?

McCain's real vulnerabilities

The New York Times may have done John McCain a favor with its Feb. 21 piece that led with the story about his campaign workers being worried that he might have been having an affair with an attractive young lobbyist (well, 30 years younger than he) back in 2000. That part of the story was thinly sourced, and the fact that it was the NYT caused numerous conservative knees to jerk and defend him. And hardly anybody has commented on the ambivalent relationship he has with lobbyists that was described in the rest of the long artricle.

The basic narrative is that after the Keating Five scandal back in 1989 he decided to reinvent himself as the soul of integrity, expressed in support for things like campaign finance deform, opposition to earmarks, and talk about the evil of special interests. But his self-confidence is such that he seems to think nothing he does could possibly be corrupt even though there may an appearance of conflct of interest. For example, in 2001 he founded the nonprofit Reform Institute and collected hundreds of thousands from companies with issues before the Commerce Committee, which he chaired at the time. His campaign manager is Rick Davis, who as a lobbyist represented companies before McCain's Senate panel and then went months without collecting a salary, which amounts to a gift from a lobbyist.

This Washington Post article, which ran the 22nd, got little publicity, but has more about McCain's close relationship with lobbyists. When he huddled with his top advisers at his cabin in Arizona, all four of them -- Charles Black, Rick Davis, Steve Schmidt, Mark McKinnon -- were lobbyists, some of them still active as lobbyists.

Soros bankrolls new drug law reform initiative

Liberal billionaire George Soros has given a million dollars toward a new ballot measure in California that would relax penalties for nonviolent drug offenses. The measure, which is already in circulatio, must collect 433,971 valid signatures by April 21 to qualify for thre November ballot. It would expand drug treatment programs for offenders who qualify, modify the parole system, and change possession of marijuana from a misdemeanor to an infraction, the legal equivalent of a traffic ticket.

I'm not much of a fan of George Soros' general political philosophy. To be sure, he's made a ton of money, so he must have some understanding of at least some markets, but I tried to read his major book, then had to read some other of his writings to be prepared for a seminar, and I found them somewhat incoherent. However, he understands the drug laws are unenforceable and socially corrosive, and he has put his money where his convictions are, for which I will always be grateful.

Virtual fence is virtually absurd

Wouldn't you know it? The first 28-mile experimental section of the "virtual fence" slated to be put together (I guess "built" isn't quite the right word) along the US-Mexican border, has run into glitches and has been delayed -- and of course it is over budget. The section in question is south of Phoenix, and has already cost $85 million. But more than halfway through they figured out they were using the wrong software. In 2006 the estimated the whole project would cost $7.6 billion, but you can bet it will be at least three times that if it ever gets done.

The whole idea of the fence is absurd, of course. Maybe it's cursed by the ghost of Emma Lazarus. Will it ever lead to figuring out that the problem is quotas that are too low, not a lack of fences?

Getting deeply into Beethoven

The Curtis Institute of Music is doing a fascinating bit of innovation this term. They have decided to build the curriculum around a single work: Beethoven's 11th string quartet in F minor (Op. 95). All the string players are playing it solo and in every kind of ensemble. History and literature are centered around biographies that mention the work and Beethoven's and others' letters written about it or at the time it was written. There's a strong effort to get all the students immersed into Vienna at that moment, to understand the cultural, political and musical scenes. The finale will be a string orchestra performance (there are several transcriptions extant). Most of the students are thrilled with the innovation -- though the wind players are feeling a little left out.

Freedom CEO makes case for Obama

This one has already made it around the blogosphere pretty well, and I think into a couple of news stories. Freedom Communications CEO Scott Flanders had a debate/discussion with the company's libertarian guru, Tibor Machan, on the voting choices this year. Tibor made a case for voting for a reasonably principled libertarian. Then Scott said the important things for him this year are getting out of Iraq, restoring separation of church and state, easing away from victimless crime laws like the drug laws, and the Patriot Act. He said the best chance for progress on those issues was -- Barack Obama (though he acknowledged he would probably increase spending and taxes, a tough trade-off).

That's Scott's personal opinion. As always, the Register and other Freedom Newspapers will not endorse any candidate (as I like to put it, it only encourages them). But Scott's opinion is interesting. Several older readers are very unhappy, as they've been eager to let me know. I'm just amused.

Register trying to survive

Here's an interview with Orange County Register publisher Terry Horne (brought in last September) about how the newspaper will try to survive during this time when all newspapers are struggling. When he came he described the "perfect storm" of increasing importance of the Internet, which no newspaper really understands yet, losing employment classified ads to Monster.com and lots of merchandise classified to Craigslist. We used to get multiple full-page ads a week from several department stores, but they've consolidated and are advertising less. Car dealers still advertise but not as heavily. None of those are coming back.

We'll be zoning to attract local advertisers who couldn't afford the full run, and will roll out several free community tabloids. Plus we're thinking Web-first, lots of blogs, lots of stuff exclusively on the Web. We'll see how it works. We had a small layoff in January and there's a lot of gallows humor. It seems as if Romanesko is announcing layoffs at some newspaper or another almost every day.

Jihadists lose big in Pakistan

Here's the piece I did last week for Antiwar.com, on Pakistan in the wake of the recent parliamentary elections. It noted that while the headline was the defeat of the pro-Musharraf party, perhaps the most encouraging news was the decline in support for Islamist or jihadist-sympathetic parties, including the defeat of a Taliban-like party that had actually won control of one province. Such parties had averaged 11 percent support last election and 4 percent in this one.

Now 4 percent of a population can wreak havoc with suicide bombings and the like, but the bogeyman of there being a great danger of jihadists getting control of the government and getting access to nukes, often used to justify the U.S. staying and subsidizing pretty much forever, is extremely unlikely. (There are already Taliban sympathizers in the military and the ISI secret police.)

It's also the case in Iraq, where the war whoopers talk about al-Qaida in Iraq taking control of the country if we leave -- McCain said it almost exactly that way in his recent long-distance campaign trail colloquy with Obama. Most unlikely. More likely is that without U.S. troops as a target it would be harder to recruit AQI members, and the Iraqis themselves would suppress it, probably more brutally and thoroughly than the U.S. would even think of doing.

Alyssia Finley on Obama

Last summer one of our interns was Alyssia Finley, a student at Stanford. She wrote a number of interesting columns for us on student life and political correctness at a prestige university today, and she still sends us a column from time to time. Here's her take on Obamania, noting that Obama's "inspiring" speeches are downers, describing problems in the U.S. as bigger and more serious than they really are, then casting himself as the only one who can fix things. Audacious, but a curious kind of "hoped."

Noonan and Judis on Buckley

Here are a couple of more pretty good appreciations of William F. Buckley. Peggy Noonan is such a graceful writer, and she usually finds a point or perspective nobody else has said quite the same way -- in this case the value to the country of people with broad and deep educations and wide-ranging curiosity. John Judis, still with the New Republic, is a liberal who wrote a pretty even-handed biography of Buckley, I think in the late 1980s. He describes Buckley as a rebel, but not a heretic.

Letting commerce flow

I could possibly have considered going the other way on this, but on balance, the Register editorialized, the Supreme Court's decision to immunize makers of medical devices who had fulfilled FDA requirements from lawsuits at the state level was correct. Of course my preference someday would be for the FDA to be abolished (its regulatory costs and delays have led to more deaths than saved lives), but if there are to be regulations, adding litigation to the mix simply facilitates the search for deep pockets. A case can be made that a society can rely on either the tort system or a regulatory scheme to create incentives for safety, but using both is overkil that raises prices and deters innovation.l

Movement on cocaine crack/powder sentencing disparity

Here's a link to the Register's editorial on House committee hearings on the crack/cocaine powder sentencing disparity. Drug law reformers -- talked to Ethan Nadelmann, Bill Piper and a few others -- think there's a pretty good chance of movement on the fact that back in the '80s Congress increased the sentence for crack so drastically that 5 grams of crack brings the same sentence as 500 grams of powder. Absurd. The U.S. Sentencing Commssion and Supreme Court agree that it's absurd, but Michael Mukasey (more sophisticated than Gonzales but far from sensible on this and other issues) disagrees.

Of course, I'd prefer no criminal penalties at all, but that's gonna happen this year.

There are about four different bills offering different levels of relief, and there's motion to get together on an approach that can be passed. Ethan said the reformers were surprised at how many congresscritters are there on this issue (including some Republicans), and the elected officials were surprised at the strength of support out there among the people.

Cross your fingers. And write your Senators and Congress members, if you do that sort of thing. Or maybe even if you don't usually.

More thoughts on Bill Buckley

Here's a link to the Register's editorial today on the death of Bill Buckley, and to a blog post that has some links to other comments. Dave Boaz at Cato did a quick piece that the Register will run on Sunday (at least it's on a page proof as of today, though sometimes things change) suggesting that the conservative movement Buckley was so influential in building died with him, taken over by Christian rightists and neocons, who are in a self-destructive mode themselves. While I'm at it, here's a roundup of comments from others, and a link to Tibor Machan's piece. Tibor came into the office yesterday and recorded a Webitorial as well. Maybe we overdid it a bit, but he was a writer who really had an impact on America.

Ron Paul looking good

I poked around the Web a bit today and did this post on how Ron Paul is doing for the Register's Horserace'08 blog. There's finally an independent public poll on Ron Paul's congressional primary race, and it shows Ron leading 63-30. Interestingly, he has a bigger lead among minorities than among whites. So it looks as if he'll be back on the presidential trail after March 4. Since he has a few pledged delegates, I expect him to stay in it until the convention, seek a speaking slot there, and make a good show at the convention. That would be a nice capstone to what is still looking like the most impressive pro-freedom mass movement in my lifetime. We'll see what the long-term impact is -- if all that enthusiasm can be channeled into something that helps to loosen up American society, or at least its political system, and eventually maybe its government.

26-3

That's the UCLA basketball team's record after beating Arizona State 70-49 tonight. I attribute it to me getting a UCLA cap on my head and a beer in my hand. Until about the 4:00 mark in the first half, it looked as if ASU just might make a game of it -- low-scoring and tied. But then Collison hit a couple of threes and they never looked back. Up by 11 at the half and then they turned it loose.

I think after watching a few more games that I'm even more impressed with Kevin Love (17-12 tonight, 17 double-doubles in 29 games). Of course he has to be in great shape just to play at this leve, but he doesn't have all that classically athletic a body. He's not fat but he has a big butt (which is probably not a bad thing for a center). But he really knows how to use his big body, and he's such a pretty passer!

Bill Buckley, RIP

Here's the post I did today for the Register's Orange Punch blog. I met Buckley a few times but not enough to get to know him. I did get to know Bill Rusher fairly well, and he was kind enough to do a blurb for my Ruby Ridge book.

February 27th, 2008 by abock
From Alan Bock
I parted ways with Buckleyite conservatism — too warlike, too inconsistent in support of limited government, on the wrong side of the civil rights movement (not that it didn’t have excesses), too willing to give up liberties in the name of fighting a communism destined to die of its own internal contradictions, too respectful of authority, etc., etc. — in the late 1960s. Nonetheless, I never ceased to have an affectionate place in my heart for Bill Buckley himself, who died this morning at his home in Stamford, CT at the age of 82. His way with words never failed him, and his affection for the language was infectious. He was almost always civil and witty, even as he was slicing and dicing an intellectual opponent. And there’s little doubt that he had an enormous impact on the history of this country and rightfully deserved the sobriquet of godfather of the modern conservative movement. For better and for worse.
From time to time he declared himself to be on the libertarian side of things, and he had some libertarian impulses, as befits somebody influenced in his youth by such giants as the quasi-anarchist essayist and raconteur Albert J. Nock and the brilliantly quirky individualist Frank Chodorov. His intellectual independence shone through from time to time, as in his early understanding that the drug war was unwinnable and socially corrosive, and his realization fairly early on that the Iraq war was a disaster, something the war-addled folks to whom he turned over National Review have yet to come to grips with. I don’t know whether it is a commentary on present-day conservatism or present-day cable news that it is difficult to imagine a program of civil discussion like “Firing Line” from the current batch of angry shouters and rude dealers in the ad hominem that pass for conservative (and most liberal) talkers today.
People talk of his graciousness, and I have no doubt it was usually the case. But his nasty and mean-spirited 1995 obituary of Murry Rothbard, an early ally who made the mistake of being too consistent a champion of individual freedom (if sometimes tactically erratic) was the antithesis of graciousness.
Bill Buckley was not perfect, but he was an accomplished, protean figure who usually had a twinkle in his eye. Condolences to his son Christopher and his brothers and sisters who survive him. RIP.

Lew Rockwell hopeful but worried

Here's Lew Rockwell's latest post on the Ron Paul congressional challenge. He says he hears from people who should know that Ron is a shoo-in, but by nature he's a worrier. Here's a link to the Paul congressional campaign Web site (which gives the updated donation total at $1.037 million). You can donate or volunteer through it if you're so inclined.

Ron Paul's congressional opponent

Ron Paul is back in Texas, defending his congressional seat against a primary challenge from one Chris Peden, a local city councilman whose sterling record in public office consists of trying and failing to have English made the official language of the city (named Friendswood). In January he issued an admiring statement about how he respects Ron Paul for standing by principles even when it's politically difficult. Shortly thereafter he declared against him.

Here's a piece by Tom Woods that goes into some of the background. And here's a piece by a Houston native who says Peden is a consummate opportunist, and he's assisted by a devoted Establishment Republican lady who doesn't even live in the district.

I'm not sure what to make of all this. The word is that Ron shifted his fundraising efforts to the congressional race (he can't use the money raised for the presidential race) and raised some $800,000 in a week or so, compared to Peden's $220,000, $150,000 of which he loaned his campaign from personal funds.

Roger Simon of Pajamas Media has joined exuberantly in the smearbund, and says polls (which must be internal to the Peden campaign because nobody has actually seen them) show Paul trailing Peden 43-32. What's striking to me is that neither Peden nor Simon can come cl,ose to describing Dr. Paul's positions accurately and explaining why they disagree. They just babble on about him being a 9/11 conspiracist (he isn't) and blaming the U.S. for the terrorist attacks.

I'll try to get more up-to-date information, but does anybody else out there know more? Should we be worried?

Pakistan before the election

Here's a link to the column I wrote for the Register a day or two before the election in Pakistan. I thought it summed up the situation fairly well. As to the American interest in Pakistan, I wrote that there are two -- making sure that Pakistan's nuclear weapons are secure and there's little or no danger that terrorists could grab one or gain control of them, and hoping that the resurgent Taliban and al-Qaida forces in the Northwest Provinces can be neutralized or contained. That doesn't require huge subsidies or U.S. troops or trainers. The election results show that jihadists in Pakistan command almost no support among the people, although small bands of determined people can certainly be mightily disruptive.

So over Nader

Here's a link to the Register's editorial on Ralph Nader's decision to run for president as a general aging maverick. In a word -- yawn.

Blogging the debate

I've been blogging the Democratic debate tonight over at the Register's Horserace'08 election blog. Not quite live-blogging, considering the train schedule, but more like Tivo-blogging. Please check it out if you're inclined to see my instant reactions to what the Hillster and Obamamessiah said when they said it.

Doing "Webitorials"

The Register has begun putting what we call Webitorials on its Web site -- consisting of having an editorial writer summarize a current editorial he has written on video for a couple of minutes. I've done them recently on the Pakistani election and on Ralph Nader's announcement that he is (sigh!) going to run for president again, further tarnishing his legacy.

Unwarranted surveillance and the Supremes

The Supreme Court has declined a case brought by the ACLU challenging the unwarranted surveillance Pres. Bush began in 2001, in apparent violation of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which set up a secret court to consider requests for warrant to do electronic surveillance of U.S. residents. The Register deplored the court's decision. I talked later with Roger Pilon at the Cato Institute, who has come close to accepting John Yoo's contentions that such surveillance is within the president's authority, and Congress didn't have constitutional authority to limit it by passing the FISA law (that's a minority opinion at Cato). I like and respect Roger, but I respectfully disagree. I think the Fourth Amendment limits both executive and legislative authority to do such unwarranted surveillance. In addition, even if the program is legal, it's bad policy and utterly unnecessary. If this program had really stymied some terrorist plans or led to neutralizing some of them, you can be sure they would have been bragging about it.

Campaign finance absurdities

There's been an interesting flap over whether Obama and McCain will accept only public financing for their general-election campaigns, as they seemed to promise to do last May. They've both been advocates of public (i.s., taxpayer) financing, but Obama especially has found he can raise a whole lot more money through voluntary contributions, and could be at a disadvantage -- or perhaps McCain would have a better shot, since Democrats have raised more money this year --with equal financing. McCain apparently used the implicit promise of taxpayer money into get a bank loan last fall. The absurdities here suggest we should get rid of taxpayer financing of elections. Why it ism considered "cleaner" or more "moral" for politicians to fund their nefarious activities through forced exactions from innocent taxpayers has always been beyond me.

Pakistan: provisional hope

Here's a link to the Register's editorial on the recent parliamentary election in Pakistan, where President Pervez Musharraf's party got trounced. Apparently the government understood that getting from 14% (Perv's party's poll standing) to 51% would be difficult and not a bit credible, so it didn't seem to try to fix the election. What's come out clearly since then has been that the Islamist parties lost support -- down to about 4% -- seriously. That demonstrates that the idea of the Islamists taking over Pakistan and getting access to nukes is something of a bogeyman. The U.S. really ought to reduce its presence in (and U.S. taxpayer support of) Pakistan. Don't expect to see serious improvement in Pakistan; some expect Perv to be impeached.

Big change unlikely in Cuba

Here's a link to the Register's editorial on Fidel Castro's decision to formally cede the presidency of Cuba to his younger brother Raul, who has been acting president since July 2006, when Fidel came down with a mysterious abdominal ailment that required surgery. Bottom line: don't expect much change any time soon. But we still should end the embargo.

Interesting chat with Roger Fontaine, who was on the Latin Amerrican desk at the NSC during the Reagan administration. He thinks (doesn't have definitive proof) that the surgery on Fidel was terribly botched, and he got to musing about the fact that dictators and presidents seem to get terrible medical care, though you might think they would get the best available in their societies. Mentioned Hitler and Stalin, FDR and JFK as examples. Is it because doctors tend to be intimidated by people with power? Or that dictators aren't accustomed to following orders, even doctors' orders?

Kosovan independence

Here's a link to the Register's editorial on Kosovo's declaration of independence from Serbia. We expressed some skepticism, noting that Kosovo remains a dependent of NATO. Didn't get nto the KLA's long connection with organized crime; now it will dominate the government. It's not that independence as such is a bad idea, but it's likely to unsettle things in a chronically unsettled part of the world. Russia, traditionally a Serbian ally, is opposed, partially also as a way to poke the West, and especially the U.S., in the eye. The Kosovan provinces along the border have fairly heavy Serbian populations, and could opt to be governed by Serbia if Serbia wants to be provocative. After a few demonstrations things seem to have settled a bit, but serious violence is still possible.

However, the decision in 1999 to bomb Serbia to protect it from Serbian domination (the charges of genocide were a bit overblown, though Serbia under Milosevic was hardly gentle). Once de facto independence, enforced by NATO troops, became the reality on the ground, formal independence was reasonably inevitable. When you intervene and create a dependent, you get yourself drawn into situations that have nothing to do with core interests, and even damage them.

Handicaps

Brought my computer back from sick bay, but it still needs some TLC before it's ready to rumble, so I'm blogging on a borrowed laptop -- which means with my thick fingers I'll probably be doing relatively short posts with links. On to a bit of catching up.

Harold Johnson your uncle?

I've been asked by a reader if my old colleague Harold Johnson might be his uncle. Based on the biographical information I've been provided I kinda doubt it, but here's my old colleague's biographical information post at the Pacific Legal Foundation. He graduated from Pomona College, though I'm not sure exactly when, and he did spend a year at Oxford. As far as I know, before getting his law degree (he was going to law school while he worked at the Register), he had only done newspaper work (LA Daily News, Rockt Moutain News) after college. He left the Register 8-10 years ago. I'm thinking he graduated Pomona in the early '80s, but don't hold me to it.

130-124 Lakers!

Pau Gasol was The Man down the stretch, ending up with 29, sometimes fed by Kobe (who had 41). Vujacic made the free throws when the Suns had to foul in the last few seconds. That puts the Lakers in first by virtue of winning the season series. And whether they go all the way this year or not, it looks as if they'll have a dominant team for several years to come.

Lakers-Suns game doesn't disappoint

It's 105-103 Lakers as I start, but that's sure to change before I'm finished. What an exciting game. In fact, the Suns just went up 106-105 with a free throw from Amare Soutemire, who has been exceptional.

Backstory for those who might not know (or care). Kobe Bryant and Shaqille O'Neal won two championships together but they clashed (spoiled immature jocks that they both are, whatever their skills, and finally Shaq was traded to Miami. Since then the Lakers haven't gotten deep into the playoffs, with the Phoenix Suns, led by runnin' gunnin' Steve Nash and perhaps the most exciting team in thre NBA to watch being their nemesis. It got so bad that last summer Kobe was saying he wanted to be traded unless the Lakers made a big trade move. Meantime the Suns haven't been able to get past Dallas or San Antonio to get to the championship round.

Anyway, the Lakers have been better than expected this year, with young Andrew Bynum coming into his own (he's injured now). Then a couple of weeks ago the Lakers traded for Pau Gasol, an exceptional 7-footer, and have gone 6-1 since acquiring him. Then the Suns traded for Shaq, who wouldn't seem to fit with such a fast-break-oriented team, but still can play and brings somethjing special when he's motivated. In fact, he's had the last 8 Suns points, and LA leads just 117-115 with 3:30 to go.

Naturally the Suns started the night one game ahead of the Lakers in the division. And both teams have played with enormous intensity. Fun to watch, which I'm going to do now for the last couple of clock minutes. Still 117-115.

Eclipse: Wow!!

Even though it has been drizzly and misty most of the day in Southern California, it was remarkably clear when it came time for the eclipse of the moon. It was spectacular! I saw it first from the bus on the way home, just coming out of the full eclipse with just a sliver of light on the upper right. By the time Jen and I were heading home from the bus stop it had started to turn a little orange, and didn't look like the moon at all but almost like a big balloon in the sky. We lso watched it for a while from the kitchen window at the house. What a beautiful phenomenon!

Back at the old stand

Did anybody miss me? I mentioned problems with the home computer in a sideways fashion earlier, and it turned out to be serious. The poor, sick thing is now in the Geek Squad infirmary, but I'm bringing the work computer home tonight so I'll try to catch up with things missed in the meantime.

On Ron Paul

Here's a link to the editorial the Register ran on Ron Paul recently. The Register doesn't endorse, but does write editorials when candidates come to visit. Ron hasn't made it to the Register for an editorial board yet (and who knows if he will now that the California primary is over; however there is still money he could raise with appearances in the state). He did get to the Freedom paper in Colorado Springs, however, and they did an editorial. We sometimes reprint theirs, as they do ours.

I keep promising myself I'll tabulate how Ron did on Tuesday, but haven't had time. Anybody know of a site out there that has done it? I'm sure there must be one.

As I was saying ...

. . . or writing, actually, before I was rudely interrupted by a computer (mine) going a little haywire (my tech savvy is such that my wife had to look it over and run the virus-catching program) last night, I put several items on the Register's Eye on on the Empire blog yesterday, about Gates declining to estimate closely how much the Iraq war might cost next year, the CIA admitting publicly that it waterboarded 3 al-Qaida detainees in 2002 and 2003 and more. Didn't have time to do it today because of Romney's CPAC speech withdrawing from the GOP presidential race, about which I had to write an editorial for tomorrow. Then one on waterboarding for Sunday. I like busy days, but there's so much out there that seems to invite comment just now and only so much time in a day.

Romney struck me as a businessman deciding to cut his losses. I'd be surprised if he doesn't have 2012 in mind, but I have no inside information. I was fascinated (though TV might not have given a fully accurate picture) at how this crowd of supposedly hard-core conservatives rolled over for McCain. My old colleague Harold Johnson used to say that Republicans love to "touch the purple." So if McCain is it, they'll prostrate themselves before power. Or even the prospect of power. It's not the monetary corruption that ruins a movement but the intellectual corruption. The leader-worship is almost Stalinesque.

Blogging the election

I had the assignment last night of blogging the Super Tuesday election for the Register's Horserace'08 blog, which you can see here if you're interested in my thoughts at the time, as well as a few morning-after ruminations. Briefly, Huckabee surprised me, and he may have sunk Romney. I don't know what the Huckster is auditioning for, but I hope he gets it and it pays well and he is never tempted to run for president again. It's not quite a done deal, but McCain is looking pretty inevitable.

It's intriguing on the Democratic side. I think I agree with Howie Kurtz at the WaPo that the TV "analysts" were too fascinated with Barack to give Hillary her due, at least until she won California (she'll only get 20 or 30 more delegates than Barack but it was still an impressive win, and made fools of Zogby and some other polling organizations. On the Republican side, because the GOP awarded 3 delegates foir each congressional district won whereas the Dems split them proportionally, McCain is slated -- subject to revision as some absentee ballot were still being counted today -- to get all but 6 of the 159 delegates chosen through CDs.).

I haven't finished tabulating Ron Paul's numbers, but although I saw some high teens and I think even a 21% in one of the caucus states, and he now has 10 delegates, I thought they were disappointing. Perhaps it's inevitable as the media focus (understandably and justifiably at this stage) on the frontrunners, but I would love to see him start scoring at least in the 'teens regularly. Even though the pundits and pollsters say the war is a secondary issue with voters now, I'd like to see him focus more intently there; it's his unique selling proposition, as the marketers used to put it, and it's frustrating to see Republicans who say they're antiwar voting for McCain the uber hawk. It will be difficult, but if he scores respectably in primaries to come there's just an outside chance that a GOP I think is destined to lose big in November will take his positions into account as it struggles to rebuild.

Kenya tribalism keeps violence going

Unfortunately, the Register's editorial last week on the mostly tribal-inspired violence in Kenya is still relevant. We lament that the most primitive of self-identification, tribalism, still has such power -- and it's hardly confined to Kenya. Plenty of U.S. politicians and movements encourage tribal-like feelings among Americans. How to encourage more people to see themselves primnarily as free individuals, with their tribe, ethnicity, etc. interesting facts but not necessarily dispositive?

Aside from one statement early on, Barack Obama has said little or nothing about Kenya. His father was a member of the Luo tribe, the tribe that has considered itself dissed by the Kikuyu, who have held political and business power since independence and before. He strikes me as being close to an individual first, his heritage and experience being so mixed, but I wonder if the violence is affecting him and what he thinks about it.

Reasons for caution in Iraq

Here's a link to the Register's editorial today critiquing Bush's characterization of the situation in Iraq in his State of the Union message. We conceded the decline in violence and reasons to feel more optimistic than in past years, but noted several potential problems.

The "Anbar Awakening" preceded the surge and could be transient, especially if the Sunni militias fighting al-Qaida and patrolling meighborhoods aren't integrated somehow in the Shia-dominated national government's security forces. Muqtada al-Sadr is getting pressure to end the cease-fire he imposed on his Mahdi Army last summer. And the Iraqi government has taken maybe 3 of the 18 steps defined as essential benchmarks a year or more ago. Even the de-Baathification program looks like less than meets the eye.

I ran across a WaPo piece today that suggests other reasons to be pessimistic. According to Thomas Ricks, Army commanders in Iraq see three wars going on or worth worrying about. One against al-Qaida in Iraq, two against the domestic Sunni insurgency, and "the third conflict, and perhaps the most vexing for U.S. commanders, is with Shiite extremist militias. All three enemies adapt quickly to changed U.S. tactics, finding ways to adapt and keep stirring things up, as by switching from car bombs to suicide bombers when better cvheckpoints made car bombs less easy to detonate.

It's hard enough to win against one insurgency when you're a foreign occupying power. Handling three at once won't be easy.

The Improbable Sen. McCain

Here's a link to the piece I wrote for Sunday's Register Commentary section on John McCain. Perhaps I'm fooling myself, but I somehow have the feeling that he might not be as inevitable now as I thought when I wrote it and as all the pundits seem to think. I think there's a chance Romney could realistically stay in the race after tomorrow -- not that he's any great prize. My utopian scenario might be that Ron Paul would start beating Huckabee (as he did in the Maine caucuses Saturday, pulling 19 percent to Huckabee's 6), but he was the only one besides Romney-and-surrogates who even went to Maine; the others conceded it to Romney -- neighboring state and all) and begin to approach the Romney-McCain numbers and establish his supporters as people whose views must be considered. What I'm afraid of is that with the media focusing on the two frontrunners so intently, people who might have considered voting for Paul will start thinking of it as a "wasted vote."

Hmmm. Maybe it would be better for McCain to clinch it tomorrow. Perhaps then more potential Paul supporters would actually vote for him if they considered the issue decided already.

NFL spoils church parties

This to me is a real desk-pounder and, perhaps worse, strikes me as pretty stupid. The National Football League is cracking down on churches who have Super Bowl parties -- at least those that are too big or are shown on too big a screen. Seems some genius in the league office decided it was time to cracks down on that "for the private use of our audience. Any other use of this telecast, or any pictures ... is prohibited" clause.

Our church used to have Super Bowl parties in the parish hall, mainly for the fellowship. Apparently it's become quite popular with churches, which find them fun and a way to get teenagers and others who might be on the cusp of being churchgoers to set foot on a church property and maybe figure it might not be too bad to return for a service. But the NFL bans "public exhibitions" of games on screens larger than 55 inches (with an exemption for sports bars), and with larger congregations large screens are often part of the facilities already, for projecting words of hymns and such. Last year the NFL went after a church in Indianapolis, so this year lots of churches have gotten the word.

I think it's a really stupid thing for the NFL to do, potentially alienating people rather than protecting the franchise. Anyone else have an opinion?

Romney Ed Board

Here's a link to the Register's editorial that came from the brief 20-minute conversation the Register editorial board had with Mitt Romney on Thursday. It's not as easy to judge somebody over the phone as it is face-to-face. When I did that much earlier this year with a question about Iraq based on what he thought was a misrepresentation of his position -- it was a disagreement about facts -- he got quite huffy. In the phone conversation he was gracious and responsive -- though we couldn't bait him into saying anything negative about John McCain's fabled temperament. He did have some other criticisms though.

If he didn't look so transparent in the desire to be all things to all people, or whatever he thinks it will take to get elected, or whatever, I might like him better. He is bright, he certainly has been successful in business and there's little doubt that he was the key to pulling off the Salt Lake Olympics after a scandal-ridden and disorganized beginning. And maybe he's been a conservative all along but ony played a liberal to get elected governor in Massachusetts. Or maybe he has few deep convictions. I just don't know.

Ron Paul doing fine

Having dispensed all that realism in the previous post, I shopuld mention that despite not having as much opportunity to talk as he should have been given, Ron Paul did fine with the few opportunities that were afforded him. He is much more polished than last May, when the first GOP debate occurred. I was proud that he is still forthright on the war and roeign policy, because I believe the sentiment that the United States shoold rethink being policeman of the world is fairly widespread among thoughtful Americans, including many who don't think of themselves as libertarian and aren't. Just his being in the race and making the case for a non-interventionist foreign policy will pay dividends in policy in years to come, I believe. As the Iraq war winds down (it has to some day, doesn't it?) people should be ready to think seriously about the kinds of assumptions about the U.S. role in the world that got us into that mess. One consequence of Ron Paul running and becoming the phenomenon his campaign has made him, is that a non-interventionist approach is more likely to receive serious discussion.

I had a chance to talk with Dr. Paul briefly, as I did in New Hampshire (he's the only candidate who ventured into the Spin Room himself; the others all sent surrogates). He was mobbed by reportgers and did several TV interviews, though I couldn't tell with whom; might have been foreign. We did a brief interview that should be on the Register Web site tomorrow, so I'll link to it when it goes up. He is in very good spirits and plans to see the campaign through to the end. He hasn't had as grueling a schedule as some candidates, but it has been very demanding; he seems to be holding up well.

Blogging the GOP

I covered the GOP debate or panel discussion or whatever it was in Simi Valley last night, including the Giuliani endorsement of McCain, which took place in the Spin room at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley. I live-blogged it for the Register's Horserace'08 blog, so if you want to see the impressions I had while it was going on, you can go here. (You'll have to scroll down a bit, though I would note that the entries above the debate blogging, hardly any by me, are worth reading.) But after a day I do have a few overall impressions.

Let's face it, McCain has become the frontrunner, though Romney could still take it, especially if he's willing to dip further into his childrens' inheritance (he told our editorial board on a phone interview this morning that he's authorized a "seven figure" ad buy in the Feb. 5 states, but wouldn't be more specific than that). Huckabee has proved to have little appeal beyond evangelical Christians. I'm pleased as punch that Ron Paul is one of the Final Four, and I hope and believe he will stay in it through the convention, because he's saying important things that I believe will resonate and have the potential to change the country for the better beyond this election, but so far the lightning he would need hasn't struck.

Dave Boaz at Cato has written extensively about political science studies that estimate that anywhere from about 8 to 20 percent of American voters could be described as roughly libertarian if you use a fairly inclusionary definition. He also notes that under the Bush administration many of those libertarian-inclined voters have moved toward the Democrats, and even argues that libertarian-inclined voters, especially those frustrated about the war but also about civil liberties and Bush's big-government, big-spending approach, played a key role in the Democratic takeover of Congress in 2006.

That means that quite a few such voters (some of whom don't self-identify as libertarians), are fed up with the Republican Party, so even though independents have been able to vote in some GOP primaries, like New Hampshire, Ron Paul has to appeal to residual libertarian sentiment among those willing to vote as Republicans. I can't cite the exact poll, but something like 70-plus percent of self-identified Republicans still support Bush and his policies, which is why all the candidates except Dr. Paul, while not invoking Bush as a model (to put it mildly; they don't mention his name), have been reluctant to criticize him directly.

What Ron Paul has accomplished in intensity of support and fundraising, is remarkable and gives me great hope for the future of this country. But if the percentage of the electorate likely to respond to his views is 20 percent in all parties, the odds don't favor him winning many GOP primaries. I'm not yet willing to say it's impossible, but the odds are long, especially when the dominant media of almost every stripe treat him as marginal or ignore him (that's improving, but consider how few questions he or Huckabee got now that the pundits are focusing on two frontrunners; I didn't think it was fair, but I can see the rationale).

I thought Romney would have to do something dramatic to overcome McCain's perceived status as frontrunner. I think he tried, and did well in dealing with the obvious McCain misrepresentation on a timetable for troop withdrawal -- sad to say, he's almost as bellicose as McCain. But I don't think he did enough. It's possible to overstate the importance of the debates since they're not all that widely watched, but those who pay some attention can get impressions, even from inadequate news stories. I thought I saw McCain visibly control himself to make sure his famous temper didn't spill over on national television, but he did control himself and landed a few blows of his own. I'm afraid he's looking inevitable -- though it's worth remembering that Hillary was seen as even more inevitable not so long ago.

Blogging from Reagan Library

I'm at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, for the final GOP debate before SuperDuper Tuesday. My main assignment here is to write posts for the Register's Horserace'08 blog, and I will be live-blogging the debate there when it begins at 5:00. (Might have time for a post or two here, but probably not until afterward.)

Was in the Spin Room (they don't bother to put quote marks around the term any more, it has become so institutionalized) a few minutes ago when Rudy Giuliani announced he was withdrawing and supporting John McCain. He was gracious, of course, calling McCain a hero whose life of service had prepared him to meet the challenges of the time, etc., etc. I couldn't tell for sure if he was bitter or somewhat relieved. McCain vowed to unite the party and the country and defeat Islamic terrorism. If it hadn't been for all the cameras and media people with notebooks, and little cameras, the testosterone in the room would probably have been palpable

Off to Simi Valley

On Wednesday I'll be headed to Simi Valley, the Reagan Library, for the final GOP candidates' debate before the SuperDuper Tuesday primary Feb. 5. I'll be blogging for the Register's Horserace'08 blog, and I should be able to get a few items posted in this blog as well. I went to the first GOP forum at the Reagan Library back in March or April, and of course to the debates in New Hampshire. The advantage of going in person is the opportunity to listen to the candidates' spokespeople in the Spin Room afterward (Jazmine Graza, one of our interns, will go also to shoot video for the Register, and I might give a digital audio recorder another try after failing with it in New Hampshire). Steve Greenhut from the opinion pages will be covering the Democratic debate on Thursday, though I'll probably watch and have a few comments as well.

Obama wins in South Carolina

Here's the post I did for the Registers Horserace'08 blog on Saturday night after Barack Obama trounced Hillary Clinton, getting an absolute majority. I also have to say that listening to his victory speech almost made me appreciate Obama as an orator, which quite frankly had eluded me until then. But his speech had a cadence and rythm, a sense of when to pause and when to continue, that almost made one believe that this was the guy to bring about change (although the nature of the change was still kinda vague.

Andrew Sullivan, who confesses that he's rather enchanted with Barack, wrote that he had listened to dozens of Obama speeches, and this was the best he's heard. Well, maybe that's it, I found myself somewhat impressed by the best. But still only somewhat impressed. I think most pundits have pretty low standards for public speaking. Barack is good, but he's not that good.

I do think it's interesting that Ted Kennedy has endorsed Obama, along with Caroline. It suggests sttrongly that plenty of Democrats are fed up with Billary, and that there is a Democratic tradition that preceded the Clintons that they'd like to preserve. Fascinating that so many Demcrats and liberals are letting loose on the Clintons (Frank Rich at the NYT is almost apoplectic, though that's hardly untypical) now that they've seen Bubba exercising his campaign skills on a Democrat instead of on Republicans

More immunity for feds

Here's the Register's editorial on the Supreme Court decision last week that extended (as I read the law, the majority of justices obviously disagreed) the range of federal employees who are immune from lawsuits for their misconduct and/or crimes done as part of their duties. The case involved a Muslim in federal prison who was transferred from one facility to another, and when his belongings arrived he discovered his religious items, including two copies of the Quran, were missing. He sued.

The high court chose to interpret a 1946 law whose main purpose was to open government employees to liability, to make the thieves who stole his stuff immune from lawsuits. The old law had some exceptions, including customs officers who misplaced stuff they were inspecting or had confiscated, but included the phrase "any other federal law enforcement officer." I would read that as any law enforcement officer who was performing customs-related duties at the time, but the court said it applied to "any" law enforcement officer, in effect giving all of them blanket protection from lawsuits for misconduct. Outrageous!

If it were up to me, of course, no government employee or official would be immune from liability for actions performed under color of authority. Nor would there be such a concept as "sovereign immunity," which protects the government itself from lawsuits. If personal responsibility is desirable, and I believe it is, everybody in society should be personally responsible for their actions, especially those who work for the instrument of coercion and are constantly subject to the temptation to abuse their authority.

Register rates the candidates

The Register does not endorse candidates, as is explained at some length in the introduction. But we do pay attention to candidates and hold them up against a libertarian worldview. As you might suppose, few get much of a seal of approval, except for Ron Paul. But I thought the measuring the candidates feature Sunday, to which all three of us editorial writers contributed, was pretty good, in that it offered readers a fairly good glimpse at the presidential candidates, outlined some of their most important views (which sometimes weren't all that easy to find amid all the campaign verbiage), and explained succinctly but civilly where we agreed and disagreed with them. Commen6ts welcome, on the Register site or here.

Carl Karcher remembered

Before he had business reverses and then got sick, Carl Karcher, founder of the Carl's Jr. fast-food chain, was a fixture at social, philanthropic and political events in Orange County. He was always outgoing and cheerful, with a booming voice and a manner that made you think he was really happy to see you again. And his hot-dog-stand-to-international-chain story was a classic American Dream story. Here's how the Register remembered him after he died at 90.

Martin Luther King remembered

Here's a link to the Register's editorial on the Monday celebrated as Martin Luther King Day, which managed to get itself into the presidential race.

Hair of the economic dog that bit you

It looks as if we'll get some kind of economic "stimulus" program from Washington. The effect few are considering is that even if it softens recessionary blows a bit, it will postpone the time when the economy corrects itself from the housing bubble, and perhaps introduce new distortions into the marketplace. Let's see, now. I'm far from the only one to note that the housing bubble was fed by loose-money policies at the Fed, creating a moral hazard few could resist. So it's going to be fixed by making the money even looser? Sure. That'll work.

Here's how the Register viewed things yesterday, hoping beyond hope that Congress and the president wouldn't be able to get together on a package.

More border stupidity

The Homeland Security Agency has shown its arrogance by announcing it will require passports or other more extensive ID for both Americans and Canadians along the Canadian border. This is in spite of Congress passing legislation to postpone the move a few years because it will cause disruption, cost money, and it's unclear whether the passport office can handle the demand that will be created for new passports. The Register deplored it. I don't know yet if Congress will do anything to stop it (Schumer and others are dismayed). It just came out in a court case how skilfully jihadist sympathizers are using the Web to make contacts and plan stuff, making traditional controls like ID tightening at the border somewhat superfluous. It's been 6 years and they still haven't done much that indicates a real understanding of how al-Qaida and its sympathizers and satellites operate.

UCLA football could be great

A commenter noted that UCLA is looking as if it has good potential as a football school, with Rick Neuheisel as head coach. And he talked DeWayne Walker into staying as defensive coordinator and got Norm Chow (!) as offensive coordinator. I haven't yet allowed myself to consider the possibilities too heavily for fear of hurting myself in the excitement. It often takes a new coach a year or two to establish himself, but I can see the Bruins being pretty formidable this year. They had some good games last year but had a tendency to play to the level of the competition and lost games they should have won. I don't think Neuheisel/Walker/Chow will let that happen very often.

A gutcheck game

That kind of game is why I still like watching college sports. Having lost (and fallen apart at the end) to USC Saturday, the Bruins had to travel to Oregon to play a very good team. For a while there late in the second half I didn't think they were going to get it done (down by 7). MacArthur Court is a tough place for a road team and the Ducks were playing well. And M'Bah a' Moute and Mata-Real were out with concussions. Kevin Love, traveling home (he grew up in Oregon) to shouts of "traitor" from the crowd took over the game (26 points, 18 boards) and Darren Collison had a career-high 22, 6 assists, 1 turnover. Keefe, Aboya and Dragovic didn't score much but they played good D. A classic statement game.

De-Baathification -- or not

Here's a link to the Register's editorial on the Iraqi government's revision of the de-Baathfication edict handed down by then US Proconsul J. Paul Bremer in 2003, which forbade present or former members of Saddam's Ba'ath Party in the top four levels (of six) from holding any Iraqi government position. The decree threw a lot of midlevel bureaucrats who knew something about the infrastructure out of work and a lot of armed men with a greivance and no visible means of support into the arms of the insurgency.

(Did I ever tell you what a retired diplomat of my acquaintance said when Bremer was appointed to head the Coalition Provisional Authority in 2003? "Ah, Jerry Bremer. He's almost as smart as he thinks he is.")

Anyway, the more I looked into this revision of the law, which was supposed to increase the number of former Ba'athists (generally Sunni) able to apply for government jobs and thus be a step toward reconciliation, the less reconciliatory it looks. If I get the fine print right, it prevents these former Ba'athists from being in the security forces, which could throw the whole Anbar American strategy of integrating those Sunni anti-al-Qaida fighters into a truly national military and police force, into a tailspin.

Race and identity politics

Here's a link to the piece I did for the Register's Sunday Commentary section on the unwelcome but probably inevitable entrance of race and identity politics into the Democratic presidential contest. The more I think about it, the more I think it was a calculated move by the Clintons. Hillary and Obama played lovey-dovey in Las Vegas, but their competitive spirit and obvious dislike for one another came through. I'm sure it's more an entitlement thing than anything remotely resembling a racial thing with the Clintons, but they'll use whatever they think will work.

UCLA loses -- to USC!!

None of the USC graduates who work in our office took me up on my offer to put a little money on the UCLA-USC basketball game, even though I explained that USC had a talented team that was taking a while to put things together and would be very good once they did. Well, they put it together Saturday night -- or UCLA played complacently, figuring they could put together a run at the end, as they had done several times this year. I can't figure out which. Anyway, USC won and did so rather decisively, and congratulations to them.

I don't live and die with sports exactly, but I didn't take that loss well. I'm preferring to think it will be a reminder that they aren't invulnerable, giving them motivation to come out with more intensity and discipline for many games to come. But we'll see, won't we?

Bush's Middle East futility

Here's a link to the Register's editorial on Bush's silly trip to the Middle East. It's almost a cliche by now that an outgoing U.S. president has to take one last stab at settling the Israel-Palestine situation before leaving office. I doubt Bush even comprehends it but the trip neatly highlights how disastrously the Iraq invasion has turned out. It enhanced Iran's status as a regional power and emboldened the Ahmadinejads of this world, so now he has to try to cobble together an anti-Iran coalition of countries who have lost (if they ever had) all confidence in U.S. leadership. Pathetic.

Too little too late in Afghanistan

Here's a link to the Register's editorial on the decision to send 3,200 Marines to Afghanistan. It at least reflects some understanding that the locus of al-Qaida regeneration is in Afghanistan and Pakistan rather than in Iraq, and things aren't going well for the U.S. It's likely to be too little too late -- and of course no official would consider one effective way to undermine the Taliban: decriminalizing opium and its derivatives. Ah, well!

Ron Paul a closet racist?

This may take several posts as there are different aspects to the question, but the short answer is surely no. Valid questions can be raised about his judgment, his due diligence, and perhaps his strategic thinking. But there's no evidence beyond some over-the-edge slurs (in my view) in some newsletters published over five years or so (out of 30 during which Dr. Paul published newsletters). I've done some blogging on this over at the Register's "Horserace '08" blog, and I have more I want to say, probably tomorrow.

To refresh, if you haven't been following. Jamie Kirchick at the New Republic posted a piece Jan. 8 quoting old Ron Paul newsletters that had some veering-on-racist comments and at least insenstive anti-gay stuff as well. I was too busy to read the piece until yesterday. I have little doubt the quotes are genuine, though some could use more context. The question is who wrote them and how much supervision Ron exercised over material that was going out over his name and was a source of revenue at a time when he was practicing medicine, trying to make sure his five kids had a good start in life, and in the last couple of years considering a political comeback. Reason has done a good piece and Jacob Sullum has written a good column.

The short version is that after Dr. Paul's poor showing as the LP candidate in 1988, Lew Rockwell and Murray Rothbard started developing an approach to advancing liberty they dubbed "paleolibertarianism," combining anti-statism and conservative cultural values (family, religion, respect for tradition, impatience with weirdos, hippies, disturbers of the peace). It was conceived as an outreach to the restless right. It got tied to Pat Buchanan for a while, the divorce coming as Pat moved increasingly toward "economic nationalism." It's likely though not nailed down that Lew wrote much of the stuff in question, in an effort to talk the language of the target audience. It wasn't the craziest thing libertarians have done to try to reach out to other groups with which they share some values or affinities, but it didn't pan out that well.

Several people have noted that in 35 years of public life nobody has reported hearing even faintly racist remarks drop from Ron Paul's lips. My contact with Ron Paul has been sporadic over the years, but it began when he was first elected to Congress, I was living in DC, and was assigned by Conservative Digest magazine (long defunct) to do a profile of him. He strikes me as an individualist to the core, who sincerely believes, as he told Wolf Blitzer that it's impossible to be a libertarian racist, because he judges people as individuals and understands that a free society will function best when most people do so as well. As Ayn Rand put it (paraphrasing), racism is the lowest form of collectivism. And I've never heard anything faintly racist come from his mouth.

Anyway, I don't think Dr. Paul or the campaign have dealt adequately with this issue yet. It was a hit piece that tells us something ugly about how Marty Peretz views libertarians, but there was enough "there" there to warrant enough details to put the issue to rest.

Pleading for some substance

Here's a link to the article I did last week for Antiwar.com, deploring the fact that the war has receded to such an extent as a live issue in the presidential campaign. I'm frankly not sure just what to do about it. The Democrats seem to get all they need on the issue by criticizing the war and Bush and not going into much detail beyond that. And the Republlicans (except for Ron Paul, of course) vie to top one another in bellicosity. They need an incentive to do much more than that, but the political landscape has tilted toward domestic concerns.

Plus ca change!

Here's a link to the piece I did for the Register's Sunday Commentary section yesterday on the mantra of change in the presidential marathon. I hope I got a little deeper than simply deploring the use of an essentially empty slogan, given that change means little without a hinto or two as to what direction the proposed change is going. I discuss Andrew Sullivan's thought-provoking article in the December Atlantic, but conclude it's a bit pollyannish. The interests that control the two parties are still dominant, although we may be in a transition to different issues than those that have fascinated the baby boomers. But when it comes to real change, it will come from the private and independent sectors, and the politicians will deplore it or take credit for it, depending on their disposition (or how it affects their most cherished interest groups).

Political violence in Kenya

Here's a link to the Register's editorial on the recent political violence in Kenya. It is to some extent true that there's an ethnic/tribal aspect to the violence in that mostly members of the long-dominant Kikuyu tribe have been targeted, but it is more accurate to call it political violence. What one article I read call "political entrepreneurs" are often skilled at stirring up identity crises and identity politics among people who have lived side by side and, as in Kenya, intermarried without uncommon tension. But when somebody wants to hang onto or seize political power (by democratic means in Kenya) they stir up latent identity/tribal feelings. It's happened recently in Bosnia, Kosovo, Albania, former Czechoslovakia, Iraq, Pakistan and too many otherplaces to count. I'm not saying that without the struggle for state power different races and ethnic groups would get along without any tension, but the friction would be notably less.

Whenever I don't blog for a little while it's usually because things are so busy in a good way that it's tough to find the time. So be happy for me.

And be happy that Canada's federal courts are protecting the rights of medical marijuana users. A federal court just ruled that the Canadian government's policy of having the federal government be the only legal supplier to more than one patient at a time deserved to be struck down. The federal government's policy has been that patients could grow their own or have somebody else do it, but nobody could be the grower/supplier for more than one patient. The court says that policy was arbitrary and unconstitutional (not sure on what grounds. I hadn't seen coverage of this story (I could have missed it over the weekend) south of the border in what Dick Cowan likes to call DEALand.

In some ways Canada is ahead of the United States in recognizing on a countrywide basis the value of madical cannabis, but their otherwise enlightened policies have been stymied by the government's Nanny-State instincts. The government is acting as if it believes patients are running grave risks using a substance that has not killed anyone, so they need tight supervision by enlightened bureaucrats who are only doing it for their own good. Fortunately, the courts are allowing challenges to such nonsense.

Below the level of the Supreme Court, which seems to be still in thrall to the War on Drugs and has made two particularly boneheaded decisions on medical cannabis, both state and federal courts are open to well-crafted challenges to arbitrary restrictions on patients in states with medical marijuana laws, so all is not lost here.

Why in South Carolina?

I have to admit that I haven't heard the official explanation yet to the obvious question. Why was Ron Paul excluded from the Fox-sponsored Republican debate (OK, they called it a "forum") in New Hampshire on Sunday but included in the Fox-sponsored Republican debate in South Carolina tonight? Did they get enough complaints that they decided to change their policy? The idea that he did well enough in New Hampshire to warrant inclusion along with Thompson, who came in at 1 percent, doesn't really wash given that he got 10 percent in Iowa and only 8 percent in New Hampshire.

The only explanation that makes sense to me is that they feared he might make a breakthrough in the "Live Free or Die" state and wanted to do whatever little bit might be in their power to prevent that from happening, but they figured he wasn't going to do all that well in South Carolina anyway, and perhaps exposing his views to more South Caolinians might actually hurt him (he came in last in Frank Luntz's focus group). As it happened, Ron Paul would probably have done quite well in the somewhat more relaxed (almost chummy) environment Chris Wallace provided in New Hampshire, but I have my doubts whether that one event would have helped him all that much (the foofaraw over the exclusion might have helped him). As Ron's New Hampshire office manager told me election night, he did almost exactly what the pollsters said he would do, as did almost all the other GOP candidates.

Keep it going

Here's a link to the Register's final pre-New Hampshire editorial, hoping the election isn't resolved too quickly so there can be a more extensive debate/discussion on the future of the country. I have a love/hate relationship with electoral politics (I don't participate myself except as an observer/commentator), and I ordinarily consider politics grubby and undesirable. But things may be a little different this year. I hope the major parties' choices are not resolved too early.

Hope in New Hampshire

A couple of aspects of my trip to New Hampshire have given me some hope for the future. The first was spending time at the Free State Project's Liberty Forum over the weekend. The Free State Project has urged libertarian-minded individuals to move to New Hampshire to have a long-term impact on the state's already independence-minded political climate. The numbers to date -- a bit more than 500 officially registered, though there are probably a few hundred more who haven't registered-- aren't as impressive as one might like, but they're growing steadily and the level of enthusiasm and activism is almost breathtaking.

These people really think they have the key to freedom in their lifetime and they're willing to work hard for it. There were about 350 registered attendees and some 20 exhibitors, from gun rights advocates to constitutionalists to the Fully Informed Jury Association to drug law reformers. Attendance for Ron Paul's speech Sunday (go here for a longer summary) was around 700 vocally enthusiastic freedom lovers. I talked to some of Ron Paul's campaign staffers later, and they said he was just blown away by the response.

The second was my visit last night to Ron Paul's state headquarters in Concord. People manned (personned?) the 35 or so phones constantly and groups were sent out to canvass in person, even on the night before the election. There were hordes of mostly young people there, from Texas, California, North Carolina, Virginia, Illinois, Pennsylvania and elsewhere, all eager to help. The most common phrase I heard was "what can I do next?" I don't know where all that enthusiasm will go if Ron doesn't get the nomination, but it's bound to have an impact throughout the country.

Need answers on CIA tape destruction

Here's a link to the Register's editorial on the Justice Department's decision to convert the inquiry into the destruction of videotapes of the interrogations of two al-Qaida suspects into a criminal inquiry. That doesn't necessarily mean indictments will be forthcoming, but at least they brought a purportedly independent federal prosecutor from Connectict into the case rather than leaving it to the Northern Virginia prosecutors who deal with other CIA-related cases. I hope Congress continues to investigate the situation aggressively (though the fact the Justice Department is doing so also could create complications). I suspect strongly that the CIA destroyed the tapes because it didn't want such tangible evidence of torture, which suggests a guilty conscience, but we may never know for sure. The important thing is for us to learn as much as possible about what the government is doing with our money and in our name.

More substance, please

Here's a link to the Register's editorial Sunday in anticipation of the coming primaries, calling for more substance from candidates. It begins a theme I suspect we'll develop further as the weeks go on, that in the wake of the disastrous Bush presidency both major parties are engaged in a messy and sometimes confusing process of rethinking and perhaps reconstituting themselves. The Democrats' New Deal coalition fell apart in the Reagan era, though Clinton was able to succed by trangulating. The Republicans' Reagan coalition is in trouble and there's no new Reagan on the horizon, leaving many Republican voters disrpirited.

Links to Ron Paul's New Hampshire Town Hall

Here are links to Ron Paul's Town Hall meeting, broadcast on New Hampshire public-access TV this evening.

Here's Part 1.

And here's Part 2.

It was especially interesting to me that Barry Goldwater Jr. (who looks more and more like his old man as he gets older) is traveling with Ron Paul, saying he was getting tired of all the Republican candidates saying they were Goldwater conservatives, when the closest thing to a genuine Goldwater Republican in the race is Ron Paul (with whom he served in Congress in the 1970s). He appears early in Part 2.

The race is on

Here's a link to the piece I did for the Register's Sunday Commentary section today on the presidential race. On the Democratic side, in the wake of Iowa Hillary is looking much less inevitable, while Huckabee's win has put the Republican race into a certain amount of confusion, although Giuliani's strategy of focusing on Florida and beyond just might work. Having been in New Hampshire for a couple of days, I expect Obama to win here, and McCain on the Republican side. I expect Ron Paul to do better here than the 10 percent he pulled in Iowa, but the race is really up in the air. Local TV stations report that their polls show 39 percent of Democrats and 40 percent of Republicans are either undecided or open to changing their minds between now and Tuesday. Plus 40 percent of New Hampshire voters are registered Independent and they can vote in either primary.

Ron Paul on Jay Leno Monday night

I learned today from Kent Snyder, one of Ron Paul's national campaign coordinators, that Ron Paul will be on Jay Leno Monday night, the night before the New Hampshire primary. Hey, it worked for Huckabee in Iowa, when a number of pundits predicted it would hurt him. Of course, Ron isn't the frontrunner in New Hampshire, as Huckabee was in Iowa. In fact, the polls are all over the place, with Paul getting anywhere from 6 to 11 percent in various polls (as of today). It does look as if he'll beat Thompson.

Kent also told me that their phone canvassing -- trends based on hundreds and hundreds of phone calls over several days -- that they're finding voters wrestling between whether to support Paul or Obama, or Paul or Huckabee, or Paul or (of all people!) Giuliani.

Having a great time in New Hampshire

I've been in New Hampshire since Friday night, and I've been having a great time. I attended parts of the Free State Project's Liberty Forum, and was impressed with the incredible enthusiasm of these libertarian-minded people who have decided to move to New Hampshire to influence the political climate of the state. I also attended the ABC News/Facebook debates at Saint Anselm College Saturday night and blogged real-time incessantly throughout the debates. Went to Ron Paul's speech at the Free State Project today, which got an incredibly enthusiastic response.

I'll put up a few more posts on specific aspects of my trip, but if you want a fairly complete picture, go to the Register's Horserace'08 blog. Be sure to hit the "more" button if you want to see all the posts. I've been a busy boy!

Franking abuse

Here's a link to the Register's editorial on abuse of the franking privilege -- Congresscritters being able to send mail out with their signature instead of paying for a stamp. In the election year of 2006 they nicked the taxpayers for $20.3 million for mostly blatantly self-promotional material. There are rules against blatant "vote for me" mailings, but they aren't strict enough. This built-in advantage for incumbents is yet one more reason campaign finance regulations are ill-advised. Maybe they should mhave to personally sign mass mailings instead of having their signature printed. That would be fun.

Pakistan digging out

Here's a link to the Register's editorial this week on the rioting in Pakistan that finally has seemed to settle down a little in the wake of the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. Poor Pakistan, which some have called an essentially ungovernable country (not necessarily a bad thing, but in Pakistan's case it is). The significant U.S. interest is that Pakistan's nuclear weapons remain secure. It has been reported that U.S. special forces are standing by to grab Pakistan's nukes in the event the government falls or a civil war erupts. Not a bad use of those forces, though opne naturally hopes they won't be needed for that mission.

Link to Horserace'08

Here's the link I neglected to put into my previous post to the Register's Horserace '08 blog, where I'll be posting observations on New Hampshire in general and the Saturday night debate. The blog also features writers from around the Freedom chain, as well as Tibor Machan. We're also excited the Lew Rockwell has agreed to write an occasional post for us. He (and his contributors) are about as closely attuned to the Ron Paul campaign and background to the movement as almost anyone.

Iowa reactions

Here's a link to the Register's editorial on the Iowa caucuses. I'll warrant we were almost the only outlet to note that this demonstrated (as often happens in real-life politics) that money is not always decisive in politics, as those who want the government to keep regulating campaign contributions would like us to think. It also noted that Iowa voters (or caucusers) seem ready for change, although "change" as such is an utterly empty political slogan. The question is what kind of change does the candidate or office-holder want, and it might not be coincidental that those who mouth the slogam seldom get much more specific. If they told us what they really wanted it might just frighten us.

Christmas thoughts

We’ve been in Las Vegas, staying with Tom and Steve, since late Christmas Eve. Christmas morning was very relaxed and pleasant. In addition to an I-Pod (which I promise myself to master; already have lots of music formatted for it on my home computer) I now have the machines needed to convert both vinyl and tape to digital form, suitable for i-pods, MP3s, CDs and the like. Doing it all should be a good retirement project.

I may have been in a more receptive mood than usual, but I thought I detected a certain intensity in the usual Christmastide messages from prominent religious leaders, from the Pope to local rabbis and imams, for progress toward peace, or something resembling it. Whether that’s borne of desperation or inspiration is difficult to tell. It may reflect simple war-weariness, which is not necessarily a bad thing. You could make a case that more wars end because of simple war-weariness than from decisive battles or skillful diplomacy. Constant war is simply not healthy for human beings, and normal human beings get tired of having to live with it. The most eager war-whoopers tend to be people beyond the age of military service, and a great many who have never served in the military and so haven’t seen the business end of war. Those who experience it at that level seldom see much glory, even though they may see and do acts of notable courage and persistence.

In New Hampshire

Well, it's been a little while. I'll post one that I wrote in Las Vegas over the Christmas-New Year holiday but couldn't get up there because the wireless on the laptop wasn't working. After vacation it was time to get ready to go to New Hampshire to blog for the Register and cover at least a bit of the days leading up to the primary on Tuesday. Making sure I remembered everything and packed everything while trying to leave behind an editorial or two for the Register and a column for Sunday pretty much took all my time.

I'll be at the debate tomorrow night -- tonight, really, I guess, at least New Hampshire time -- at St. Anselm's College, where those still standing (or limping) after Iowa from both parties will debate. I'm planning to live-blog as much of the debate as possible, for the Register's HorseRace '08 blog, and will put a few soundbites from the spin room onto the blog as well. I'll try to slip a few observations into this blog as well, but if you want it in something resembling real time go to the Register's blog (I know who pays me). I'll also attend at least some of the FreeState convention scheduled for tomorrow and Sunday (with Ron Paul as featured speaker).

A lot has happened -- assassinations in Pakistan, riots in Kenya, violence in Iraq, bombings in Turkey -- that I hope to discuss. Then there was Huckabee surprising (well, maybe not after the Des Moines Register poll) and Ron Paul getting into double digits, which I told phone callers who asked was possible, but I wasn't all that confident. The MSM can't ignore him or treat him merely as a novelty. Of course, the money, something that actually impresses the media, played a big role as well, but actually getting into double-digits validates his appeal.