There are three types of argument a man may make: that of principle, that of policy, and that of politics. Principle, of course, deals with the philosophy of a thing, and whether it is right or wrong to consider pursuing a course of action. Policy deals with the methodology of a course of action. Politics, however, deals with the egos and lower thoughts of men. I succumbed to a political discussion earlier, and it was ill-founded.

As for the rest…

First, I did not mention “transparency” in my discussion for a reason. The idea that men would wish to be transparent is a noble sentiment, but ridiculous to expect. Would you wish to broadcast your ideas and motivations for each major decision you are forced to make in your life? Heavens no! We wish to make a decision, argue only in support of it, and then leave it alone. To expect more of our politicians is absurd.

“Transparency” is produced only when it benefits men to reveal certain information about the other. A senator will not reveal his corporate ties unless they are used against him by an opponent. Likewise, if two opponents have both received unsavory corporate contributions, they will not reveal the other’s – this is an understood ideal scenario of game theory. Julian Assange has nothing to lose by revealing the Afghan War Diaries – and, as he probably disagrees with the war, everything to gain. On the contrary, the U.S. government has everything to lose from transparency and nothing to gain.

Mr. Scoville argues that classified documents should always remain classified in the interest of troop safety. Were that the case, the torture at Abu Ghraib in violation of U.S. and international law as well as the questionable behavior of the Blackwater organization. The argument that war crimes are an unfortunate accident of war has been used time and time again. When they are committed by the victor, they can be ignored. When they are committed by our enemy, they must be condemned. We can go back and forth on this.

The fact of the matter is that Wikileaks has not posted any information it has received regarding the war over the past seven months. Any information released to the New York Times (and others) is old news on the front, but new news to the American public. Were Mr. Assange to release documents from the past month, even the past six months, he would draw my condemnation as well. But this is not the case.

Though I have referenced him here, it is also noted that I did not mention Mr. Assange by name anywhere in the article except in the meta-tag. I have no doubt that Mr. Assange no doubt thinks too highly of himself. I also believe that he injects his own opinions into the information, not to his credit. Yet to say that the only information he has posted were the things critical to the U.S. is entirely false. That, of course, is his most recent release. I think that you will find that it is not his only release, and that his fire has been directed against most everyone.

Mr. Scoville’s final point (except for the one about playing piano in fourth grade – which we shall address later) asks “since when did hunting down Osama bin Laden become an issue of political popularity?” This, of course, may be perhaps the heart of the issue. I do not believe Osama bin Laden is behind our involvement in Afghanistan any more. We have plenty of evidence to suggest that he is at least inactive or ineffective (if not dead), and perhaps more to suggest that our funds might be better spent cleaning up our intelligence community.

And yet, in summation, I cannot argue that the concerns about safety would be invalid had Mr. Assange simply delayed release of these documents until the day after the troops were sent home. Mr. Assange has provided no proof that anything occurred in Afghanistan outside the expected. Nor did he uncover anything comparable to Abu Ghraib that existed outside the realm of military strategy. While I believe that Wikileaks is a necessary counterbalance to that which would attempt to remain secret (regardless of its motivations), the organization made a questionable judgment call in timing. This cannot be disputed, and it was not appropriately discussed by myself or Mr. Scoville. For myself, I attempted to deflect criticism about timing. For Mr. Scoville, he attempted to criticize timing while ignoring the positive impact of a Wikileaks in the world. We are but men.

All this being said, it is most interesting to me that Mr. Scoville played piano in fourth grade while the other kids played football. I believe I was getting fitted for glasses in the fourth grade that would never be replaced by contacts – thus dooming me to a life of nerd. We also would both grow up to listen to Phish. Perhaps this says something about us, which we leave to your consideration.

There were several excerpts in that post that left my skin crawling.

• “I am a 100% supporter of Wikileaks.org.” 100%, huh? Not one single question about their motives, or what’s at stake? “Transparency” is the new political buzzword to accompany the advent of globally-networked technologies in the 21st century, in much the same way that “independence from foreign oil” has been a buzzword since the days of the Nixon Administration, when Saudi Arabia took charge of OPEC, and oil prices skyrocketed – note that not in 40 years has America actually found that independence. It is designed to alleviate fears – not to become a manifest reality of political life.
• “…I have yet to see any direct proof that it [has compromised American troops on active duty].” Aside from the fact that you fail to recognize that we classify information to protect our human and physical assets in the first place, exactly what constitutes “proof?” How many bodies do you need to see? How many coffins with American flags draped over them before you realize what a categorically bad idea Wikileaks is?
• “In April, Wikileaks released video of a U.S. helicopter attack on civilians.” And according to this Benjamin Friedman piece from CATO @ LIBERTY, Julian Assange is playing politics with the war in Afghanistan, calling the video “Collateral Murder” despite the pilots’ obvious attempts to comply with the rules of engagement:

My problem with WikiLeaks is its practice of stamping its politics on its leaked documents. For example, in April, when it released that gruesome video of U.S. Apache helicopter pilots in Iraq enthusiastically killing civilians that they mistook for insurgents, WikiLeaks titled the video “Collateral Murder,” despite the obvious efforts of the pilots to comply with the rules of engagement.

Now rather than simply put its documents on the web and let people draw their own conclusions, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange holds a self-congratulatory press conference where he declares “it is our experience that courage is contagious” and compares the document release not just to the leak of Pentagon Papers but to the opening of the Stasi archive in East Germany. Certainly U.S. forces in Afghanistan have committed war crimes (it would be hard to run a war of this scale and avoid them completely) and spun the war’s progress. If these documents reveal more of those doings, that’s a good thing. But even the harshest critic of the war’s conduct ought to be able distinguish it from the activities of a Stalinist secret police force. I bet that the Stasi, faced with a similar leak problem, would have found a way to plug it by now.

Grandiosity is also evident in Assange’s recent response to transparency advocate Steve Aftergood’s critique of WikiLeaks seeming lack of privacy standards. In one paragraph, Assange irrelevantly brags that he spoke before European parliamentarians, asserts that “WikiLeaks not only follows the rule of law, WikiLeaks is involved in creating the law,” announces its opposition to “plutocrats and cashed-up special interests” (not secrecy?), and then claims to have inspired Senate legislation to make Congressional Research Service reports public, even though bills to that effect predate his organization’s existence by nearly a decade.

• “This has bad news written all over it for the President choosing to continue the Afghan war, but it doesn’t mean much better for the Republican party.” You’ve already fallen for the political gamesmanship angle, without considering the consequences for the men and women on the ground!

I come from a long line of military veterans. My father, in fact, did classified work for the US Air Force (when he wasn’t caring for the fighting force as a staff cardiologist). His stint in missile launch command has since been declassified, and so I can talk about it here. Many of the military’s successes are also classified. Why? Because if you find a tactic that is successful, you don’t want information about its execution falling into the wrong hands, lest it be exploited.

"Classified" is NOT subject to interpretation!

Has nobody stopped to think that the only classified information Wikileaks has divulged has reflected poorly on the United States? Has nobody considered the political motivations? I’m guessing Joe The Prophet hasn’t, since he writes of the organization he supports 100%, “The organization has grown in popularity/notoriety, and the U.S. government doesn’t know if it’s a mere fad organization that got lucky, or the start of a trend that would be devastating to government secrecy.” The government has – in many cases, particularly relating to national security – very compelling reasons for keeping secrets! And when did hunting down Osama bin Laden become an issue of political popularity? Is Joe The Prophet advocating mob rule? If so, let him defend it!

Not since the 4th grade when I took piano lessons while the rest of middle school played football have I liked fighting. I do not like war, and I wish that we, as a nation, weren’t eyeballs deep in two of them. But to herald Julian Assange and Wikileaks as some sort of courageous and heroic raconteur of the evils of the American Empire is reckless.

That being said, the recent release of the Afghan War Diaries has raised some serious questions. The White House isn’t quite sure how it wants to play the papers: sometimes saying that they aren’t a big deal while at other times saying they “have the potential to be very harmful” to the U.S. Both the Democrats and Republicans have every reason to be a bit nervous about Wikileaks. For obvious reasons, the papers affect the Democratic administration trying to continue to sell a war that just became a lot more unpopular. Yet the Republicans should not forget that the majority of the papers deal with the war under President Bush, and they can be brought up again.

To be sure, the Afghan War Diaries are not a “smoking gun” in any sense of the word. But they do represent the next stage in the organization. In April, Wikileaks released video of a U.S. helicopter attack on civilians. Now, with the War Diaries, the game has stepped up. The organization has grown in popularity/notoriety, and the U.S. government doesn’t know if it’s a mere fad organization that got lucky, or the start of a trend that would be devastating to government secrecy.

This has bad news written all over it for the President choosing to continue the Afghan war, but it doesn’t mean much better for the Republican party. Their recent past / prospective presidential candidates have been McCain (hawk), Palin (hawk), Gingrich (hawk) and Romney (hawk). Meanwhile, the Tea Party is beginning to muster. One of their choice speakers (Paul) is a notable non-hawk. I won’t say a dove, but he is outspokenly in favor of withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan.

I will be watching with intent the discussions held in the wake of the War Diaries leaks. I will be watching more the progress of Wikileaks – for now, the next level of revelations could be far beyond some mixed communications reports from the front.

Remember when Michelle Obama told us we had too many fatties running around?

From a joint effort of the folks at the DNC and MyBO:

George –

Every year, our family tries to come up with a fun way to wish Barack a happy birthday.

And this August 4th, when he turns 49, I have something new in mind.

This has been a big — and hectic — year for him. After signing the Affordable Care Act and Wall Street reform into law — and completing his first year as president — I think it’s safe to say we will remember it for a long time.

And I know full well how much he credits this movement, and the work of supporters like you, for the change that we’ve accomplished.

So I’m putting together a birthday card that I would like you to sign. Together with supporters — and me, Malia, Sasha, and Bo — we’ll wish him a happy birthday and let him know that we’re ready to take on the year ahead alongside him.

Will you wish Barack a happy birthday with me?

This year also brought a lot of surprises — some good and some bad.

Supporters like you have helped him make the best of it — by contacting Congress to help push stalled legislation forward, by re-engaging supporters in the political process, by giving back with service projects across the country, and so much more.

And while we can’t know what the coming year will bring, all of us, working together, will continue pushing forward for change.

Will you help make this a memorable birthday for Barack and wish him a happy 49th?

Thanks so much,

Michelle Obama

I don’t know about you, but I think the First Lady has an awful lot of gumption asking me to sign the president’s birthday card after telling America it has had too much cake.

I hear these are actually made of vegetable pulp and corrugated boxes.

Cross-posted at Liberty Pundits.

I’m not a cameraman, but you can view (well, hear really) Pence’s speech in its entirety at my Qik profile.

Cross-posted at Liberty Pundits and The Next Right.

Everything I’ve heard about this Disneyland-for-adults is true: neon, sparkles, bells & whistles, herds (and hordes) of people, STAR WARS slot machines (pictures later)…I will definitely have to come back here one day for purposes other than business. My friend Jon Henke (@JonHenke) and I flew from DC yesterday by way of Newark, NJ and didn’t even land in Vegas until 1am PT…it was a long day, and I slept in a bit. It was easy to do in my posh suite at the Venetian, with my sunken living room and remote-controlled drapes! Life is hard.

The first panel I attended today featured Todd Thurman (@toddthurman) of the Heritage Foundation, Brian Faughnan (@brianfaughnan) of Liberty Central, and Alexa Moutevelis (@alexashrugged) of the RNC, all moderated by my Liberty Pundits co-blogger Melissa Clouthier (@melissatweets). The panel focused on connecting grassroots activists in the field to policy shops in DC – like Heritage, Cato, or other think tanks – as well as to communications resources and activism training like those offered by FreedomWorks or the Leadership Institute.

Probably one of the better bits of information passed along during the discussion was the notion that activists in the field shouldn’t be shy about engaging DC-based resources. Yes, DC is busy. Yes, DC occasionally has a heightened, over-inflated sense of self. But DC is also sitting on piles of your cash, looking for a way to return value back to you. So don’t be shy about sending emails or picking up the phones to ask for help.

But more than just connecting grassroots activists to DC to get talking points and policy papers to support candidates back home, the panel focused on connecting activist to activist using technology – that means Twitter, Facebook, the blogosphere, and other online resources.

The RNC announced some nascent, new API and they are transitioning all of their online tools to an open-source platform…the API is apparently already available for developers…more on this later. Despite this move to make RNC resources more available to more people, there was some grumbling in the audience that the RNC fails (on occasion) to return voter vaults back to activists on the ground once they pull out of town following a race. This makes people currently involved with components of the Tea Party movement a bit reticent to cooperate with the RNC in Washington.

After a few questions, and after some dancing around the issue, I asked the panel: is there a sense, going into this November’s elections (and subsequently in 2012) that the Right should be worried about the Left exploiting a growing rift between conservatives and libertarians? If so, how can we, or more appropriately, should we be doing anything differently than the suggestions you’ve all made here today to, strengthen the coalition between these two groups?

The consensus from the panel seemed to be that there’s not really any danger this year – libertarians and conservatives agree in principle that the prevailing issue of this election is the economy, stupid. Throwing the bums out is priority #1 in 2010. But the funnel of candidates is currently full, and the new Congressional primary begins, effectively, on November 3 – it is possible that infighting on the Right might get nastier in 2011 and 2012.

Todd Thurman told me after the panel “We just need to make sure we’re talking, and that we’re sticking together in areas where we agree.” I agree in principle with this strategy, but only inasmuch as it’s a first step. Because there is potential for infighting to become nastier on the Right as we approach 2012, it’s important to talk about areas where we disagree too – libertarians remain (rightly) mistrustful of the Big Government GOP – the same GOP that is trying to ride the Tea Party Tiger into new majorities this fall. Ignoring our differences now can be our foil later.

Cross-posted at Liberty Pundits and The Next Right.

I doubt very much that I’ll actually play much poker over the next few days – not in this economy anyway (never play with what you can’t afford to lose – seriously, if you think you have a problem, contact the Gamblers Anonymous toll-free hotline, 1-888-GA-HELPS, or 1-888-424-3577). Though I make an effort to take one big casino trip per year, I’m headed to Glitter Gulch today for RightOnline 2010, an Internet activism conference for the center-right and right, designed by Americans for Prosperity to mirror the DailyKos’ Netroots Nation, which will also take place in Vegas this weekend.

But I did used to play quite a bit of poker back in my early twenties, back around the time when fellow Tennessean Chris Moneymaker became an overnight celebrity by winning the main event at the 2003 World Series of Poker, after starting his run for poker’s most prestigious championship event at a $40 sit-and-go tournament on Poker Stars.

All the memories of monster bluffs and bad beats, of laughs and friendships created (and alliances forged…) that have flooded back as I prepared for this trip have given me an opportunity to wax nostalgiac quite a bit about my early twenties (the parts I remember, anyway). But today’s post isn’t about my war stories and fisherman’s tales about gambling – it’s about Vegas, baby – Vegas and politics. But not Harry Reid vs. Sharron Angle – I mean poker. And gambling. And what the Hell the government is doing to screw with people’s private lives.

The Poker Players Alliance is a non-profit, membership-based advocacy organization that sprung up in the wake of the passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (UIGEA), and aims to help turn back the tide of state and federal government crackdowns on social and commercial games of chance. They believe (as I do) that poker doesn’t even categorically fit the description; poker is a skill game. And just in case the clip above of no-name (at the time) Chris Moneymaker leveling a tournament-altering blow against poker pro Sammy Farha didn’t convince you, here’s Mike McDermott (Matt Damon, Rounders) on sitting down to play against poker pro legend Johnny Chan:

Okay, okay – Rounders isn’t real. But poker skills are, and there’s a line in the movie that goes something to the effect of “Why do you think the same people wind up at the final table at the World Series of Poker every year? What, are they the luckiest people on the planet?” If any of you out there are poker players, and you’re on Twitter, give the Poker Players Alliance a follow (@ppapoker). From their Mission Statement:

The Poker Players Alliance (PPA) is a non-profit membership organization comprised of online and offline poker players. Our membership consists of enthusiasts from around the United States who have joined together to speak with one voice to promote the game and protect the right to play poker in all its forms.

The PPA’s mission is to establish favorable laws that provide poker players with a secure, safe and regulated place to play. Through education and awareness the PPA will keep this game of skill, one of America’s oldest recreational activities, free from egregious government intervention and misguided laws.

The PPA is committed to defending the rights of poker players. On behalf of our broad membership, we will promote and protect poker through advocacy work in Washington, D.C., and throughout the nation. The Poker Players Alliance will work with key lawmakers to ensure a thoughtful and productive dialogue that represents everyone who enjoys and wants to protect the game.

When I used PPA’s online resources to email my Congressman, Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN 5th), a couple years ago to ask him to use time in the 110th Congress to support a repeal of UIGEA, his staff wrote back and said “Get bent.”

Okay, maybe not, but they may as well have.

Ace-King: the Texas Hold 'Em starting hand known around the felt as "Big Slick." I prefer to call it the "Anna Kournikova;" no matter how good it looks, it rarely performs.

There’s nothing more fundamental or essential to the American system of government than the protection of people’s rights to their private property, which they have acquired through labor (usually now in the form of an income, as opposed to a share of land), and their rights to dispose of that property as they see fit. This has been explored exhaustively by great philosophers and game theorists alike. There are certainly social conservative arguments against gambling (of all forms, not just online gambling) – largely out-dated, out-moded traditionalist and absolutist moral arguments about the lasciviousness of a lawless, old West gambler’s lifestyle (booze, loose women, etc.).

Former Democratic President Bill Clinton, too – who I’d hardly call a member of the Religious Right or moral majority – supported a 4 percent federal income tax on all gambling wins. His thinking suggested basically that, if deadbeat dads were going to gamble their paychecks in a casino instead of paying child support, the federal government would assert its prerogative to levy a Pigouvian tax to force deadbeats to internalize the social costs of their behavior, which ostensibly resulted in externalities impacting child welfare:

[Then-candidate Hillary] Clinton’s history with gaming goes back at least to 1994, when President Bill Clinton suggested a 4 percent federal tax on all gaming receipts to help fund the administration’s health care and welfare reforms. The idea did not get very far before 30 governors convinced the administration that the states depended on gaming revenue for their own budgets, and the administration dropped the idea. But it prompted commercial casinos to organize a political action committee to permanently represent their interests in Washington, DC.

Back to my Congressman, Jim Cooper, who has helped the Obama Administration pass landmark vote-buys like health care reform. Other Lefties (mostly self-proclaimed socialists and other progressives) look at gambling as a tax on the poor – “…a highly regressive form of taxation that thrives by inducing false hopes among the financially destitute.” But Coop is a member of the Blue Dog Coalition, representing the Protestant Vatican, and he would no doubt would reject Clinton’s idealism and levying of a tax on gambling, despite the indignation of some of the Music City’s more progressive voices, because of the effect this would have on Nashvillians who have to travel 4 hours by car to the nearest casino resort town to have a little grown-up fun.

No, Jim Cooper the Spineless Statist that everyone seems to hate (but continues to send back to Congress – good luck to Jeff Hartline) thinks that telling me what I can and can’t do with my money – regardless of the fact that I have no estranged children or alimony to pay, and am not financially destitute (although by no accounts wealthy) – is the best course of action. Once again, the prohibition on gambling is another manifestation of the government presuming providence over all income in America, and what people can and can’t do with their earnings…much less hold people accountable for their decisions to wager income on games in which the odds are methodically and deliberately stacked against them, because they choose to view it as a get-rich-quick scheme. Before anyone calls me a hypocrite, I don’t gamble to make money – I pay for entertainment, and I don’t go over the figures I budget ahead of time. I have, of course, “lost it all” before, but by and large I break even or come close to it – that’s a win in my book. And besides – my freedom to do what I want with my money is more important to me than the money itself.

Former Cato scholar and now Senior Editor for Reason Magazine Radley Balko (who, by the way, recently moved to Nashville) is currently participating in an interesting debate over the legalization of gambling at The Economist website – and if anything I’ve said so far in this blog has been of interest, you’ll be riveted by what Radley is doing over there. After all – Tennessee finally made the lottery legal after prohibiting games of chance in the state constitution over 200 years beforehand.

I’ll try to blog as often as I can from RightOnline this weekend – and I’ll try to cross-post here and at my blog at Liberty Pundits. There may also be some good tactical/strategic discussions and panels, and I’ll try to reserve those for my blog at The Next Right. I encourage any and all of you to follow me on Twitter (@stackiii) for more instantaneous (and likely less-filtered, more hilarious) updates.

I’m about to hop on a plane, so until tomorrow…

Cross-posted at Liberty Pundits.

More potato-y goodness!

Let’s just talk turkey here for a second, or rather, potato. The economic potato, if you will. I mentioned first that the first portion of the potato involved a refocusing of the government away from haphazard bailouts and an endless injection of liquidity into the system.

Let me also say that I believe governments can appropriately stimulate the economy, in a statement that will be a departure from conservative orthodoxy. There are certain industries whose grip over the economy is so strong that a small amount of funding has a large economic multiplier. These industries generally have use in every sector of the economy, but it is a rare meeting of the right industry with the right stimulus.

Next week, the House of Representatives is about to start discussing a portion of the Pickens Plan for energy independence. Specifically, they will be debating the merits of a $64,000 tax credit for trucking firms to buy rigs that run on natural gas. I support this plan.

The $64,000 tax credit can be used toward the acquisition of trucks. However, companies would still be held responsible for installing the refueling infrastructure necessary to fuel these rigs at their own expense. The trucks are useless without refueling stations, and it is questionable that any trucking company wants to buy natural gas trucks without also investing in the infrastructure to power them.

As such, it seems logical to me that trucking companies would first wish to upgrade the infrastructure in areas where their trucks can easily return to a base. For instance, the East Coast may see a new wave of fueling station upgrades as firms strategically install the minimum number of stations needed to make the trek from one key area to another. In a purely hypothetical situation, trains may cart goods from Baltimore to Boston, then natural gas trucks would transport certain goods to the Massachusetts area while standard gasoline trucks were used for the trips into Maine.

As businesses continued to realize cost savings from the natural gas machines, it would then behoove them to expand their infrastructure while foregoing purchases of diesel engines in exchange for the natural gas engines. Diesel engines would eventually be retired and trucking companies would maintain natural gas pumps at the necessary places.

Look what I did: I just stimulated the economy with a temporary $64,000 tax break on natural gas engines. But more than that – I gave us a long term direction.

Two things drove the U.S. economy from 2001 to 2008: war and egregious consumer spending driven by cheap credit. We are now tired of war, and credit is difficult to find. As such, we have no economy; we have no purpose. If we are going to rip out of this recession, the economy needs a leader.

I believe investment in alternative energy is the natural (no pun intended) leader for an improved economy. But infrastructure plays are not cheap, and the technology is not quite ready for a full roll-out. But is it possible that we have mis-judged alternative energy because we are thinking too big?

When I was in D.C., I noticed many public trash cans had solar panels on top. These panels powered a trash compactor within the can. Such was their purpose. High tech trash cans. I also regularly utilize a program at work called “PlanetSaver” which should really be called “Save the Company Money by Installing this Software That Turns Off Your Unused Monitor.” Little Windows scripting and suddenly BAM!, the firm is saving electricity costs. These are alternative energy plays. They are simple, and they work.

Quite frankly, wind farms are ugly. They also generally fail to produce the sheer amount of energy needed. But what if we stopped trying to make them do everything? What if we could sell a farmer a windmill at a reasonable price that would power his irrigation, and that was it?

I believe that for decades, innovation and economic growth valued the new and shiny rather than the efficient. By this, I mean that we have valued the computer for its capabilities to do more, rather than its ability to save time doing stuff we already did. As such, conservation (not only of funds, but of time or labor) as an economic engine has fallen out of favor. Yet there are signs that tell me it may be back.

Groupon, an application that promotes saving via coupon clipping, has recently received a $1 billion valuation. That is HUGE for a company that just sells coupons. Alternative energy may find its way as well when it can speak to companies about its cost-saving benefits. Also, you’ll have to make sure that you don’t have any liberals on the sales team that talk about saving the planet. That can backfire.

I believe cost-cutting will begin to be an economy-driver in and of itself, especially if epic inflation kicks in via the Federal Reserve. Time will tell.

And when we have found a way to distill alternative fuels from potatoes, then you shall have all the more reason to call me Prophet.

The economic potato. See below

All of you need to get your act together, stat. Many of you are still operating in a sort of “pissed at Obama” mode that clouds judgment. You sit there, eating the finest of crabcakes and lobster from the East Coast, unaware that the powers that be have every intention of ripping even the lobster from your mouth. Either you take things too seriously or not seriously enough, or both.

The grand exit from this recession, desired by many, is not going to come in the way that the politicos, economists and financial planners believe it will. They (and many of you) are watching things like housing numbers, consumer spending, etc. for clues to the end of this situation. At the same time, they are decrying Obama “job-killing policies” and saying that mess like “austerity” will somehow fix us.

Idiots. If anyone thinks that austerity is some sort of magic pill that’s going to pull us out of the recession at a rapid-fire pace, they are, in a word, wrong. Austerity has all the possibility of throwing us into Great Recession Round 2, if not approached with the appropriate style. I only endorse austerity as the current Administration (and its enemy Republicans) have no notion of how to use stimulus of any sort.

Clearly, everyone has forgotten what makes successful economies happen. Successful economies occur when gentlemen with large brains see some way of capitalizing on gaps in the market and exploit them. We enter epic economic booms when the world is revolutionized, as was witnessed in the technology bubble of the ’90s. Investors, economists, politicians, etc. are so concerned about bubbles that they have forgotten the benefits of the Internet investment cycle. You are reading this post as a result of those investors and innovators alike. You will see it tweeted later today. The Internet has become so commonplace today that investors have forgotten the risks needed to put it in place.

The 2000s was not an investment cycle like the Internet cycle. We, as a country, did not do anything new. We built and upgraded many houses using styles familiar to architects of the 1990s. We purchased many consumer goods from China. And we patted ourselves on the back as we transitioned to a “service” economy.

I have no issue with a service economy in principle. However, if the economy can be compared to a baked potato, we have forgotten to cook the actual potato out in favor of making amazing butter for it.

When I state that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans understand stimulus, I am talking about potatoes. Democrats have decided to pursue a course of adding salt to the uncooked potato with poorly directed stimulus funding – in essence, by randomly injecting liquidity into the system. Republicans, on the other hand, scream “tax cuts” or “bacon bits” for the potato. Tax cuts for whom? Bush-era tax cuts seem to indicate that unconditional tax cuts do not spur real economic growth in a risk-averse populace.

Before I draw the fire of the conservative types that accidentally read this blog because of George, bear in mind that I am not unilaterally opposed to stimulus or tax cuts. I’m merely saying that neither party seems to be able to do it right. Neither one is cooking the potato.

Thus, I condone the use of austerity, so long as spending reductions outpace any sort of tax cuts. I am not in favor of false austerity, where spending is cut only marginally. If we’re going to do it, we must go big – and here’s why.

1. There are reasonable long-term concerns about the deficit if we are expected to take charge of world growth again. Europe’s debt situation sucks, in a word. China’s looking like its growth may be a little long in the tooth. Latin America doesn’t seem to have the special sauce. So, if it is to be us to take up the economic torch, deficit-reduction plans should be in place.
2. It would be far easier to negotiate currency terms with China if we didn’t need them to buy so much of our debt. Asking China to keep buying our debt and loosen the peg on the yuan is a mutually exclusive request.
3. It would send the message to our corporate overlords that there are no more bailouts coming. Why should any company invest any more? If you wait long enough, Congressional Democrats will inevitably throw a bone out there. So far, they’ve covered the financial sector, the health care sector, the automobile sector, and probably the state governments next. The risk of spending your own money is a fool’s gamble when there’s money flying out of Washington.

While the first is a concern, the second and third bullet points deal with the heart of why austerity must be done with a purpose instead of half-assed. Austerity only works if we intend to send a message. Otherwise, long live record low interest rates and epic amounts of government debt.

There are two parts to this potato. This merely discusses the first – that austerity must become a part of the economy in tandem with the second half of the potato. I shall discuss the second half of the potato in my next post.

She’s constantly making headlines – people like her. She’s an effective fundraiser, edgy speaker, and potential 2012 presidential candidate.

I'm sorry, folks. I'm educated. I want an educated person representing me in the White House.

I wonder: did she quit spelling class as quickly as she quit the governorship of Alaska?

Update:

Apparently Governor Palin was embarrassed about the flap, and has since deleted the tweet. So, basically, the hyperlink above doesn’t take you anywhere anymore.

If my last post intrigued you, and you said “hey, why don’t I learn a little programming, as a hobby of sorts” – this post is for you.

Let me again sell the merits of VBA, from a coding perspective.

1. You can “program” with no code at all, or use the Macro Recorder as a testing tool. If you want to do something but don’t know how to code it, use the Macro Recorder to do it first. Or, if you just don’t want to take the time to code, you can use the Macro Recorder for that.
2. VBA was designed as a teaching language. It’s called “BASIC” for a reason. It’s so easy a caveman can do it, metaphorically speaking.
3. The same syntax is used for every Office application. Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Access, Visio, etc., etc. all use VBA in its standard form. Obviously, certain programming “objects” are different depending on the program (Excel deals with cells while Word uses paragraphs), but the style remains consistent.
4. Intellisense. Like predictive text for your phone, the VB Editor attempts to divine what you’re trying to do. You don’t have to remember a specific object or property – the Editor will attempt to help you through that. Crucial for those who don’t want to have print-outs of programming vocabulary.
5. VBA scripts can be automated or called on demand. Say, for instance, that I want a specific format to be applied to a word. Let’s say that every time I type “government,” I want it highlighted in red and black with devil ears on the side. I can have the program do that formatting every time it sees “government,” or I can have that program called at the press of a button. Your call.

If you’re looking to start with VBA for Word, look here for more.

If you’re looking to start with VBA for Excel, look here for more.

If you’re looking to start with VBA for Outlook, look here for more.

If you’re looking to start with PowerPoint or Access, don’t. While they work just the same, PPT and Access are not as easy to code given their nature. Word, Excel or Outlook would be better for first attempts.

Enjoy…

"Aux armes!" (French for "To arms!")

On July 14, 1789, French revolutionists, identifiable by their red head coverings – also known as the red cap of liberty – stormed the Bastille prison, freeing all 7 of its prisoners. This seems silly, but storming the Bastille Prison would be akin to, say, toppling the IRS headquarters on Constitution Avenue in Washington, DC – at night, when 7 janitors were emptying wastepaper baskets.

Okay, okay – stop laughing and be serious: it was a symbolic strike against tyrannical power in Paris. The toppling of the prison paved the way for the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, a political/legal and philosophical/metaphysical document that established first principles for man’s freedom, equality, and duty to others (liberté, égalité, fraternité).

Washington correspondent for Agence France-Presse (AFP) Olivier Knox (@OKnox on Twitter, and one among 50 journalists that Craft Media/Digital recommends following) passes along this clip from the American film Casablanca – a stirring rendition of La Marseillaise (the French national anthem), sung in Rick’s café to drown out the Nazis singing the Reich’s anthem:

Incidentally, this is one of only two films in history that showcases La Marseillaise in its entirety – I have blogged previously about the other film in which it appears.

Americans and Brits alike love to joke often about the French. We think they’re stuffy and snotty about their food (and ours), and unappreciative of the sacrifices we made on their behalf in World War II. And let’s face it – a lot of that stuff is frickin’ hilarious:

But today – Bastille Day – we shouldn’t laugh off the causes of personal liberty and economic freedom. Culturally, the French behave to each other’s faces the way Americans behave in the political blogosphere (read: often behind a veil of anonymity or geospatial distance – kind of makes us seem a bit cowardly in our political discourse) – and despite their hostile disagreements, they are still, at the end of the day, proud to be French and proud to be free. Today, we should all don the red cap of liberty, and celebrate the independence of our quirky cousins, the French.

Plenty of noise has been made in the past few weeks about the abrupt resignation/firing of Dave Weigel from the Washington Post blog “Right Now.” I have been a defender of Weigel’s, in large part because I think people’s expectations of Weigel were too high – and that’s not to disparage Weigel at all, whose work I have followed for a couple of years. The problem was, in my view, that lots of activists expected him to counter Ezra Klein’s “Wonk Book” with an editorial style, using his platform at the Post to propel the Tea Party to the revery where so many believed it belonged. Another part of the problem is that, as Dan Gainor at the Media Research Center notes, the Post was never clear about why it had hired Weigel in the first place. Reporting? Check. Opinion? Maybe? I still think Weigel does a good job of reporting, and if he’s guilty of anything, it’s a preoccupation with man-bites-dog narratives. Aside from all that, I don’t have much to add to the gallons of punditry sloshing around the Internet about Weigel-gate.

The reason I bring Weigel’s short-lived stint at the Post back up for discussion is that the reaction from the activist community to Weigel’s resignation – particularly on Twitter – was pretty vicious, with lots of “Good riddance” and “we told you so.” Then came the announcement that Weigel would be a paid MSNBC contributor on Countdown with Keith Olbermann – and activists were once again a-Twitter with disgust. Thankfully there was an equivalent outpouring of support for Weigel. I disagree with Keith Olbermann frequently, particularly when it comes to his sneering punditry and progressive worldview. I appreciate that he was the first (and for a long time only) mainstream media personality to cover the devastating flooding in my hometown of Nashville earlier this year, and he and I share in New York Yankees fan-dom. But why the Weigel witch-hunt on the Right?

And then it hit me: the Right and center-right are still obsessed with (plagued by?) litmus tests that, unchecked, can be impossible to pass. And not normal litmus tests either – sure, nobody wants to see another John McCain presidential campaign – I mean the conservative base is so energized right now that it has become bloodthirsty, and it’s beginning to feed on itself. Long-time allies to conservatives – the libertarians – have begun to take notice.

I urge everyone to check out this written exchange between Cato Institute’s Brink Lindsey, AEI/National Review Online’s Jonah Goldberg, and FreedomWorks’ Matt Kibbe, a debate on where libertarians belong on the 21st century ideological spectrum, and how they can, should, and might play in the activist/political component of the Tea Party movement. Romantic libertarians like yours truly hope wistfully one day to inform a more rigorous social policy agenda – one that actually gets government out of people’s lives, including their marriages and sex lives – to complement existing tenets of economic freedom upon which, for the most part, everyone right-of-center seems to reaching consensus. But because of these purity tests, many libertarians worry that the emergence of centrist rhetoric at Tea Party rallies is nothing more than a ruse to grab handfuls of votes on Election Day 2010 and 2012, and then Big Government conservatism does us all in – again.

Remember: if the base were 100% correct, they'd be in power, and would never have to relinquish that power because they'd always be right.

I am sympathetic to Brink Lindsey’s point in this respect. Libertarians – who often sacrifice opportunities to “get involved” in lieu of safeguarding transcendent philosophical values for the sake of practical virtue – should not compromise their core beliefs just because Sarah Palin said we need less government and more personal responsibility. But I also think Matt Kibbe makes great points – the Tea Party movement is as fascinating a paradigm shift in American politics as I will likely ever see in my lifetime. It has unbundled the Left almost completely, who has tried to use every tool at its disposal – from race-baiting in formal media outlets to unscientific opinion polling – to couch the Tea Party movement as garden-variety Republican, and quintessentially racist, xenophobic, and homophobic. Kibbe insists that many Tea Partiers don’t know where to place themselves on an ideological scale, and notes that many have never been involved in political discourse before now. This groundswell provides libertarians with that romantic opportunity to inform the policy debate – especially issues like gay marriage, which Tea Party groups support, and like Kibbe, I think it’s hasty to accept Lindsey’s premise with open arms. So Lindsey’s libertarian protectionism can be just as dangerous and self-defeating as the Gainor conservative witch-hunts.

The Tea Party movement is still today very fragile, despite the noise the movement has made and the support it has drummed up. If libertarians and conservatives can agree about anything, it’s opposition to power-drunk Democrats; it’s probably best that everyone focus on that for now, instead of running rampant and reckless with purity tests – and when Republicans win, it will be up to them to follow through on promises they’re making to people getting involved for the first time. Those people don’t know where they lie on the ideological spectrum, but they know that the government is screwing them.

Cross-posted at TheNextRight.com.

Below, in referencing the sage analysis of Mr. Rajan, I mused that education will continue to have a disproportionate effect on the job prospects of many Americans as we continue to drift toward a service economy.  I believe that many service workers will benefit from having programming knowledge of any sort. My reasons are as follows:

1. We are increasingly a computer-based economy. Few (to no) offices are computer-less, and most tasks that were done manually are now keyed into a computer. You know all this, so let’s move on.
2. Programming demonstrates a control over a computer far beyond that of the average employee. If you and I have equal communication skills, are equally well-liked by our co-workers, have comparable intelligence but I can control my work tool better, who has a stronger set of skills? It’s the difference between using a hammer or using a nail gun, if we have an equal knowledge of architecture.
3. Programming might just get you out of having to go into the office. Let us say that you demonstrate epic productivity in the office, via well-executed programming skills. Who is better positioned to apply to work from home – you, or your co-worker who always looks like he’s struggling to stay afloat? You, of course. Which leads me to my next point..
4. Programming can help you eliminate stress. Let us say that you periodically receive an email with invoices from a supplier. And let us say that you always have to save these invoices to a certain folder before processing. What if you could program your email application to just pull the attachments out and save them without you having to deal with it? Wouldn’t that save you, say, 15 seconds an email? If you’re getting 40 of those a week, every week – that’s a lot of seconds saved. Clearly, you can come up with your own ideas here.

The typical stigma is that someone who knows how to program must be a special kind of computer geek who prefers to sit in a lab and not talk to anyone all day. Yet, everyone respects said computer geek because he churns out a fine product and makes all the stuff work around the office. THEREFORE, if you could combine his skill-set with your innate ability to win friends and influence people – well then, you have won yourself a promotion.

“But Prophet!” say thee. “How would I learn to program? I cannot go back to school right now and I don’t have time after work to learn this myself.”

“FEAR NOT,” say I. “Learn VBA instead.”

VBA is a programming language built into Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook – the entire Office suite. This language can only be fully utilized by individuals running Windows and MS Office – which I imagine is most of your corporate lives. For the rest of you, sorry. You can learn something else.

VBA stands for “Visual BASIC for Applications.” It was initially designed as a training language for new programmers, but has since been fully integrated into Office as a customization tool. Allow me to get you started..

1. Open Word or Excel. Type a phrase for some dummy text. Then find your “Macro Editor,” which will be in a different place if you’re using Office 2003 or 2007.
2. Click Record Macro. Then, do something to the text. Highlight it, bold it, delete it. Go crazy. Then Stop Recording.
3. Make some more dummy text. Then go to Macros, and run your Macro. BAM. It will repeat the exact same stuff you just recorded, automatically. “HOLY CRAP,” you say. “I JUST PROGRAMMED.”
4. Then you say “wait, Prophet. I thought programming was all codes and variables and suchlike.” Well, you see, it is. Microsoft just created the code for you.
5. Hit Alt+F11 on your keyboard, and the VBA Editor will pop up. Then you shall see your mystical “code.” Voila. You have programme.

Granted, these are only the most basic (pun?) examples. Office allows you to create those little automated fragments of code, but you can get into much greater detail if you learn the language. This is an area where I, being a generous man, will gladly start you off on the path. If you wish for further direction in these matters, say it in the comments.

Who knows? Maybe one day, your job will depend on it.

As much as I think it’s cool to be able to blog from my phone, live-blogging will probably be kept to a minimum for this. I will probably tweet more than blog in long form, because I’m interested to see where an activist, a journalist, and a think tank scholar believe libertarians can/will/should play in American politics. If you’re not on Twitter, you can click here and just refresh the page a lot.

Update 1

So I didn’t actually tweet a whole lot. Jonah Goldberg said something funny though…he said “For the record, I never really jived with George W. Bush’s philosophy, the whole ‘compassionate conservatism’ thing…My name is ‘Goldberg,’ I tend to be a little more Old Testament…I like my conservatism with a little more smite and wrath.”

Update 2

It doesn’t look like they have video of the event turned around and uploaded yet, but you can check back at either Reason’s YouTube channel (which is chock full of other good stuff), or Reason.TV. I’m sure the video will be up in another day or two.

I’ll summarize Mr. Rajan’s article:

1. Wages have been growing much faster for workers in the 90th percentile of the wage distribution than those in the 50th percentile. Technology has changed rapidly since then, and growth reached fever pitch in the ’90s. Those who had the necessary skills – or the education necessary to learn those skills – could advance. If all you had to offer the American economy was the strength of your back, your job got outsourced. Just look at the chart here. If you’ve got a professional degree, you only have a 2.3% chance of being unemployed. If you only have a high school degree, that’s 9.7%.
2. Rajan: “The everyday consequence for the middle class is a stagnant paycheck and growing job insecurity. Politicians feel their constituents’ pain, but it is hard to improve the quality of education, for improvement requires real and effective policy change in an area where too many vested interests favor the status quo. Moreover, any change will require years to take effect, and therefore will not address the electorate’s current anxiety.”
3. Thus, politicians opted instead to make credit easy to come by. Rather than the middle class utilizing the new credit facilities to go back to school, they bought houses. And keep in mind that the ease of credit was aided by Fannie and Freddie, but it can’t be blamed totally on them – Glass-Steagall had to be repealed as well.
4. Rajan: “The problem, as often is the case with government policies, was not intent. It rarely is. But when lots of easy money pushed by a deep-pocketed government comes into contact with the profit motive of a sophisticated, competitive, and amoral financial sector, matters get taken far beyond the government’s intent.”

Before all is said and done, we will witness the U.S. in decline in a global economy that knows how to educate its populace. Unless, of course, the government takes the steps to improve the long-term educational capabilities of our fine nation. And for all that Mr. Obama has done wrong, he at least has not wholesale supported the teachers’ union as I expected. Union-busting will help, but America had better be emotionally ready to stop “blaming the teacher” for everything that has gone wrong. The baby boomer generation supported lower expectations of their children at school and grade inflation – something that will need to go away as well.

Oh, and if you’re in the workforce now, you’d better start educating yourself on something you don’t know how to do. Chances are, your job will depend on it one day.

"Market sentiment"

Congratulations, good Republicans, you terrified the nation with talk of “deflation” and “1932″ and various things of that nature. All the while, your various and sundry discussions of market panic drove investors into things like Treasury bills and U.S. dollars, allowing the Good President Obama to continue his spending plans at any cost.

Let me tell you, sirs, that on a classical level, austerity should not result in anything but epic pain for investors. Yet, in a contradiction to my previous post, I am going to condone the use of austerity in the name of market sentiment.

In a move that doesn’t make any damn sense whatsoever, Americans are begging and pleading for less money. Indeed, I think many of them are willing to take personal hits to their own pension plans, provided that the unions take hits to theirs (granted, I would have thought that actually owning a company like GM would be an embarrassing enough hit, but whatever). I foresee, much in the same way that Democrats took Congress in 2006 after Mr. Bush had proven himself to be a fantastic jogger but not much of a president, that Republicans of the “Paul” variety will come into Congress in spades. Not that there will be enough of them to do foolish things like get rid of the Federal Reserve, but perhaps they shall make a stir.

After said Republicans offer a referendum on the Good President Obama’s fiscal policy, Mr. Obama will finally turn out to not be that bad of a president after all. Rather, I imagine he will turn out to actually be a true tight-budgeter, and will welcome the inevitable “corrections” to his earlier policies. Thus, Mr. Obama will be re-elected in 2012, just in time for the world to end.

He'll still be here. Don't worry.

All these things being said, I believe our most pressing issues in the economy can be solved with austerity. Our economy is run by right-leaning individuals with anger in their hearts (read: corporate CEOs and various smaller business leaders), while the government is run by political science majors who are quite sure they know what is best for the world. It is unfortunate, but the economy is currently being held hostage by pissed-off baby boomers who lack the requisite courage to stick their neck on the line and make some deals, Cornelius Vanderbilt style.

Unrelated.

If an austerity pitch injects confidence into business, then maybe our people will start putting some of that cash to work. It is good for the health of the country that consumers are paying down debt and not spending at the moment, but now it’s time to really give the people what they want. Britain’s doing it. Why can’t we?

Android phone saw the most significant growth in market share in May, up 4.0 percentage points to capture 13.0 percent of smartphone subscribers. Of course, despite Android’s gain, RIM and Apple dominated, with RIM taking 41.7 percent share of U.S. smartphone subscribers, followed by Apple with 24.4 percent share. Microsoft saw a 13.2 percent share and Palm rounded the top five out with a 4.8 percent share. In total, 49.1 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three months ending in May, up 8.1 percent from the corresponding February period.

IT’S A SIN TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD – Harper Lee’s hometown in Alabama holds a Boo-fest (that’s Boo Radley) to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the publish of To Kill A Mockingbird:

From July 8 to 11 they’ll give tours of the historic downtown, stage a marathon reading, and auction off a signed copy. They’ll do it all cautiously out of respect for (and maybe a little fear of) the town’s most famous resident: Nelle Harper Lee.

MERCY IS FOR THE WEAK…SEMPER FI, KOBRA KAI! – Some really smart people have figured out that human beings are more inclined to trample the weak for fear of losing posture than to challenge the strong for the glory:

The new study contradicts earlier research showing that when faced with a superior opponent in similar creative language tasks, people tend to work harder. But unlike the current study, which involved competition between ranked schools, the earlier studies did not involve a threat to the competitors’ preexisting real-world status. So an other motivating factor for the students in the new study could be the fact that performing worse than people of lower rank can mean a loss of status, says psychologist Naomi Ellemers of Leiden University in the Netherlands, who was not involved in the study.

STOP THE PRESSES – No wait, false alarm. NPR was just hopping on the train that the rest of the universe has been on for awhile:

NPR says it’s abbreviating the name it has used since its debut in 1971 because it’s more than radio these days. Its news, music and informational programming is heard over a variety of digital devices that aren’t radios; it also operates news and music Web sites. Hence: “NPR is more modern, streamlined,” says Vivian Schiller, NPR’s chief executive. She points to other “re-brandings” by media organizations, such as Cable News Network, which has been plain old CNN for years.

AND A STORY FROM NATIONAL PUB-…WAIT, “NPR” – Performance evaluations are bullshit. Maybe not, but I thought it would be funny to make a joke about how stupid NPR’s announcement is:

The problem with the practice, Culbert tells NPR’s Renee Montagne, is that periodic reviews create circumstances that help neither the employee nor the company to improve. As Culbert and his co-author, Larry Rout, write in their book, Get Rid of the Performance Review! annual reviews do not promote candid discussions about problems in the workplace — and their potential solutions. Instead, Culbert says, when workers undergo a review, “They’re going to talk about all their successes — it becomes total baloney.”

CARTOON OF THE DAY – And the public sector ones are the worst: SITTIN’ ON A F_CKIN’ GOLD MINE – “Hot Rod” Blagoevich and Joe F_cking Biden would probably be pals. This, from a reporter covering the trial, recounting the playing of phone tapes:

The governor, clearly on edge this Election Day, unleashes his frustrations toward the Illinois public. “Now is the time to put my f——children and my wife first for a change,” Blagojevich is heard saying. “I f—— busted my a– … I gave your f—— baby health care… What do I get for that? Only 13 percent of you think I’m doing a good job, so f— all of you.”

Seriously, if you’re on Twitter, and you’re not following @joefuckingbiden, you should be. WHAT DO YOU GET WHEN YOU CROSS ROGAINE WITH VIAGRA? – A Florida judge dismisses a defamation suit brought against ESPN by former boxing promoter Don King. If I had to guess, I’d probably say the judge laughed the enigmatic Vegas mogul right out of the court room:

The Court of Appeals affirmed on the basis that Don King had failed to present evidence that a genuine issue of fact existed which would allow a jury to find, by clear and convincing evidence, that ESPN had broadcast the subject statements about King with actual malice.  Don King Productions, Inc., et al, vs. The Walt Disney Company, et al. (No. 4D08-3704).

CIVICS LESSON OF THE DAY – On this day (July 8) in 1776, the Liberty Bell rang out from the Pennsylvania State House (now called Independence Hall) in Philadelphia to announce that a Declaration of Independence had been written and agreed to by all 13 colonies. The first public reading ensued:

Four days earlier, the historic document had been adopted by delegates to the Continental Congress, but the bell did not ring to announce the issuing of the document until the Declaration of Independence returned from the printer on July 8.

MY DAD IS BETTER THAN YOUR DAD – Because he’s a doctor AND he’s on Twitter AND Facebook:

But the docs at one Irving, Texas, OB-GYN practice have taken that ubiquitous display of cute kids into the 21st century. Their patients can post photos on the MacArthur OB/GYNFacebook page, where the doctors post news about their practice and the medical world at large. It has more than 600 fans. Jeff Livingston, who spearheaded the practice’s venture into social media, also manages the @ macobgynTwitter account, which has about 1,600 followers. He sees Facebook as an educational and, perhaps just as important, marketing tool. “People are looking for information online,” Livingston says. “I wanted them to look at our page.” But few doctors have embraced social media as enthusiastically as he has. Concerns about time and patient privacy have deterred many.

SHE’S A GOOD SHEILA, BRUCE, AND NOT AT ALL STUCK UP * – Queen Elizabeth II defies conventional attitudes about monarch’s privilege, and announces a tightening of the royal belt as the global economy continues to sag:

Financially ailing Britain is dramatically shifting away from an era of big government, entering a new age of austerity to fend off the same kind of fiscal crisis now gripping Greece. With her subjects facing a bare-bones budget and a bevy of higher taxes, Queen Elizabeth II has launched what some here describe as a preemptive strike against those who say this deeply indebted nation can no longer afford the gilded trappings of its monarchy. The queen is freezing salaries for royal servants and aides earning more than $73,500 and reviewing all vacant slots with an eye to reducing her staff of 1,400 — which includes a royal piper who plays under her window in the mornings and an official counter of swans. For the first time in her 58-year reign, the queen has also agreed to regular audits of royal expenditures by the same national agency that reviews education, defense and other types of government spending.

*Once again, bonus points if you get the reference. OBAMA IS GONNA NEED A LOT OF BEER FOR THE SUMMIT HE’LL NEED AFTER THIS – I don’t like Glenn Beck either, but I doubt very much that the Left will make any noise about these violent racists:

Tommy Christopher: What do you think about the rally that Glenn Beck plans to have on August 28, the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream speech,” at the Lincoln Memorial?…Are you aware of it? Malik Zulu Shabazz: I am aware of it, and that Glenn Beck should not be allowed to have this rally. Glenn Beck is a sneaky little devil, and he does sneaky things, and tries to portray that he’s really not the neo-racist that he really is. And for him to go and to secure the Lincoln Memorial on Dr. King’s birthday will meet not only opposition from civil rights leaders, but it’s going to meet direct opposition from the New Black Panther Party.

WAIT A MINUTE, EGON, I THOUGHT YOU SAID CROSSING THE STREAMS WAS BAD – Twitter’s new business model – using “promoted” tweets to generate revenue – has inadvertently pointed people to rival social media site Facebook:

As you can see when you click on the Promoted Topic, the top tweet is from the PredatorsMovie Twitter account. This promoted tweet reads, “They can hear you, smell you, and see you.#Predators in theaters Friday – http://bit.ly/amt8XE” — that bit.ly link takes you to a Facebook page where the trailer is located. So yes, Twitter is effectively promoting their rival Facebook thanks to this latest ad buy.

THEY’RE PART OF THE PROBLEM, GENIUS – The President has renewed the SAVE Award contest, wherein employees in the Executive branch submit money-saving ideas and then vote on them…somehow, I doubt anyone will say “cut the Federal workforce”:

The second annual SAVE Award will start accepting submissions at http://www.saveaward.gov from Thursday through July 22. Federal employees will be able to rank the submissions submitted by colleagues, and the general public will be able to vote on the top submissions later in the year. The contest winner earns a meeting with President Obama, who will include the winning idea in his fiscal 2012 budget proposal. … “The basic premise here is that many of the best ideas exist on the front line,” said Jeffrey Zients, OMB deputy director. “Those doing the work on the front lines have the best ideas on how to make changes. We want to reach out” to get them.

I’D LIKE TO DEBATE THAT – My friend and former Belmont University philosophy-and-political-science-double-major Ben Bryan doesn’t think debate is valuable:

The problem is that discourse dominated by debate produces people with an insubstantial approach to moral discourse. The deeper trouble is not that debates are shallow and narrow-minded, but that incessant engagement in them produces human beings who are shallow and narrow-minded.

MANUFACTURING ASSENT – Apparently this tactic is growing in popularity among Democrats – holding moderated town halls over the phone instead of meeting constituents face-to-face. It’s gutless, but hey – if I took the drubbing over health care that they did, and I was about to lose my job, I’d probably try it too:

Embattled Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-Pa.) — last seen suggesting that minorities are not “good American people” — offered a measure of candor on a local radio station in explaining why he was doing “tele-town halls” instead of traditional ones with his constitutents in the flesh: We’re going to do everything we can to get opinions from people, to meet with people, but I’m not going to set myself up for, you know, nuts to hit me with a camera and ask stupid questions.

PLEASE CONTINUE TO USE CONDOMS – Otherwise, Trojan stocks will crash, and I’m not sure the economy can handle that yet:

U.S. government scientists have discovered three powerful antibodies, the strongest of which neutralizes 91% of HIV strains, more than any AIDS antibody yet discovered. Looking closely at the strongest antibody, they have detailed exactly what part of the virus it targets and how it attacks that site. Together with recent research into how to make animals produce antibodies, the new findings constitute a significant step toward an AIDS vaccine.

NO WONDER THEY’RE WORRYING ABOUT SOCCER PHYSICS, WEBSITES, AND VIDEO GAMES – Maybe I’ve been a little tough on NASA over the last couple of days. After all, they do seem to be pretty rudderless:

Where [Obama's] critics have a point is in arguing that NASA lacks a clear mission. Without a directive and funding, talk of visiting Mars or an asteroid is grandiose but empty. Meanwhile, gauzy nostrums about inspiring children and international cooperation are creating political headaches. Last week, NASA administrator Charles Bolden touched off a storm when he told al Jazeera that the agency’s new mission was to “find a way to reach out to the Muslim world” — surely not what anybody had in mind.

BRILLIANT – I defy you to not laugh as hard as I did. See you in the morning – and maybe late night tonight!

BP is currently speaking to sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East and a few companies in Singapore. The company is worried that with market value severely depressed, another oil major will attempt to gobble them up. A sovereign wealth investment could fight that off. Sovereign wealth may reject the investment option, having been burned by Citigroup earlier. Or they may reject it and the stock price falls anyway – blocking a takeover that would force a premium price. Consider that Investment Risk #1, in the book of the Prophet.

Consider also that the well is still not capped. Investment Risk #2.

Consider that the relief well may fail. Investment Risk #3.

The fourth, and perhaps scariest risk, is that the seafloor is compromised beyond repair. If that’s the case, we might have to drill multiple relief wells in an attempt to cap the well. Worst case scenario – this Mount Everest of oil fields just has to empty into the Gulf. Investment Risk #4.

A special note on Investment Risk #4: Warren Buffett used to say that he wouldn’t invest in anything he didn’t understand. I don’t understand geology, and BP is restricting a lot of that information anyway.

I also have not forgotten the Administration’s earlier attempt at climate change legislation, via cap-and-trade and various alternative energy deals. Let’s face it: the BP oil spill is a great marketing tool for any sort of alternative energy plan. I also have complete faith in the Good President Obama’s skill to lampoon the British company with epic lawsuits, much in the same way they did with Goldman Sachs in the SEC case. These things are well within the scope of a Chicago politician. Thus, Investment Risk #5 is the ability of the federal government to make an example out of BP in order to promote its own ends.

In short, I consider the bankruptcy risks of BP to be more than I care to stomach. I prefer companies like RIG or HAL, if you wanted to get in on oil spill plays (/enjoy pure, unmitigated evil). But that’s all mere opinion.

The 43-year-old officer was killed at 3:48 p.m. at 61st and Racine, outside the old Englewood District police station that is now used by the department’s targeted response and gang enforcement units. At least one other officer shot the suspected robber in the chest, but he was not killed.

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WHO WOULD’VE THUNK IT? – Apparently Hugo Bucher has figured out that life on Earth rebounds much quicker after global natural disasters than paleontologists originally thought:

THE dinosaurs went out with a bang. Most palaeontologists agree that those creatures and much of the rest of Mesozoic life ended when the Earth collided with an asteroid or a comet 65m years ago. But the Mesozoic, too, began with a mass extinction. Some 251m years ago, the efluvia of Siberian volcanoes wiped out 95% of life in the seas, and almost as much on the land, in an episode known as the Great Dying. This was the end of the Permian period, and of the era of life called the Palaeozoic. The survivors regrouped, re-evolved and turned into the Mesozoic species that led eventually to the dinosaurs, pterosaurs, ammonites and belemnites that generations of fossil hunters are familiar with.

How that regrouping happened will be the topic of a presentation by Hugo Bucher, the director of the Palaeontological Institute at the University of Zurich, at the Third International Palaeontological Congress in London on July 3rd. According to Dr Bucher, it occurred faster than anyone had previously thought, but also stuttered on the way as the volcanic activity waxed and waned.

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BUT WEREN’T THEY JUST DUPED BY A RING OF RUSSIAN SPIES? – The NSA has a $100 million program in place to protect critical infrastructure using some kind of embedded network sensors:

The surveillance by the National Security Agency, the government’s chief eavesdropping agency, would rely on a set of sensors deployed in computer networks for critical infrastructure that would be triggered by unusual activity suggesting an impending cyber attack, though it wouldn’t persistently monitor the whole system, these people said.

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“I LOVE YOU.” “I KNOW.” – And she’d have to in order for me to have a cake like this at my wedding:

Spanish for "May the Force Be With You"...that or "Why, you stuck-up...half-witted...scruffy-looking...NERFHERDER!"

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STEP ASIDE, “MA’AM” – Taegan Goddard on tech tycoon Carly Fiorina’s chances of ousting Senator Barbara Boxer from her seat this fall:

A new Field Poll in California shows Sen. Barbara Boxer (D) leads challenger Carly Fiorina (R) by just three points, 47% to 44%.

Boxer’s job approval rating is among the lowest the pollster has measured for her since she was first elected to the Senate in 1992: 48% of likely voters disapprove of her performance while 42% approve.

Said pollster Mark DiCamillio: “She is vulnerable. This is very ominous for her.”

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I FIND YOUR LACK OF FAITH DISTURBING – 100 custom-painted Darth Vader helmets from the 30th Anniversary STAR WARS celebration in 2007 will be auctioned off today in Philadelphia, with a starting bid of $1,500:

The Freeman’s Auction House in Philadelphia is auctioning off 100 Darth Vader helmets this Saturday with an average starting price of $1,500.

Yeah, now we’re talking. And unlike Ford’s model-T, your choice of color is not restricted to black. Instead, every helmet has been customized by an underground artist who started with a full-size prop replica. The collection was completed in 2007 and has been on touring exhibition including appearances in Europe and Japan.

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BARACK OBAMA: GARDEN VARIETY POLITICIAN – “Hot Rod” Blagoevich may be too hot to handle for the Obama White House that tried to throw him under the bus:

Obama — who crusaded against government-by-crony — was dragged into the proceedings last week when a top Chicago labor official testified that Obama tapped him to talk to Blagojevich about the Senate seat.

That testimony – by Tom Balanoff of SEIU Local 1 – is the strongest challenge yet to a White House transition office timeline from December 2008 that lays out the Obama team’s discussions surrounding the efforts to fill the seat.

Balanoff told jurors that he answered Obama’s call on the eve of the presidential election and told the soon-to-be president that he would pitch Jarrett to Blagojevich – but that call isn’t mentioned in the transition team report, prepared by then-incoming White House counsel Greg Craig.

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GOOD LUCK WITH THAT – Yeah, this will probably never happen:

Two interest groups plan to spend as much as $15 million this year on a nationwide campaign in favor of new public-financing legislation aimed at limiting the influence of wealthy donors and large corporations in congressional races.

Common Cause and Public Campaign are making the push on behalf of the Fair Elections Now Act, which would allow lawmakers to qualify for public matching funds by raising money exclusively from small donors. On Thursday, the two groups plan to unveil details about the campaign, which will include TV ads targeting wavering lawmakers and grass-roots efforts in 24 states.

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NO MEANS NO – The President’s Administration sure is spending a lot of time trying to usurp the courts these days – so much for institutional design:

In a court filing late Tuesday, theInterior Department said that the six-month ban on drilling in more than 500 feet of water, imposed in late May, was necessary to allow time to adopt stricter safety and environmental regulation of deepwater wells.

The action has put hundreds of people who operate and service deepwater wells out of work and has brought long-term uncertainty to the Gulf Coast economy. Politicians all along the coast have called the moratorium a case of federal overkill that threatens the livelihood of the region.

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SHOCKER: ADMINISTRATION HIDING POLITICAL PAYOFFS – I made noise here some months back on the results of federal “stimulus” spending; I even gave a run-down of Rep. Jim Cooper’s pet projects (none of which help the middle class):

The website used to track stimulus spending does not meet the transparency requirements laid out by the administration last year, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

According to the 400-page report, only a quarter of the projects listed onRecovery.gov provide clear and complete information on the cost, schedule, purpose, location and status of stimulus-funded work. Most of the entries on the site provide some of that information, but 7 percent of the entries provide little to no information about how stimulus dollars are being spent, the report said. The study was conducted at the request of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

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See you this afternoon!

WAIT, WHO’S THROWING THE TANTRUM HERE? – Seems like Joe Scarborough acted like the professional here and walked away from Kos before things got too heated…and now here’s Moulitsas, on the wrong side of the fence, bitching about Scarborough…still:

Look, it’s been good for Daily Kos to have me on, but it’s not my favorite medium, I’m often uncomfortable, and part of me would be grateful if I never had to do a TV spot again. I did as much MSNBC as I did because I like and respect Keith Olbermann and Ed Schultz. If they decided they didn’t want me on anymore, I’d be perfectly okay with that. However, I do think it’s noteworthy when I’ve been booted from the network because of a Scarborough temper tantrum.

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LEADERSHIP FROM THE WISDOM HOLE – Yesterday, it was my girlfriend Emily who nailed my funny bone when I  needed it…today, it’s web cartoonist Scott Meyer:

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JOHN NASH, EAT YOUR HEART OUT…AND TAKE YOUR MEDS BEFORE YOU LOOK AT THIS – The newly-created U.S. Cyber Command (CYBERCOM), one of the unified combatant commands under the Joint Chiefs, designed to wage war on the Internet has a secret code embedded into its logo/crest…and Wired will give you a t-shirt if you can crack it:

The newly formed U.S. Cyber Command is supposed to centralize and focus the military’s ability to wage war over the internet, but so far it’s basically famous for brain-teasers. The command’s fancy logo contains a super-secret code in its inner gold ring: 9ec4c12949a4f31474f299058ce2b22a. Though some people noticed the code late last month, Wired’s Threat Level blog picked it up this morning and announced a contest, with a free t-shirt going to the first reader to crack the code open.

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FROM THE BUMP TO THE BUN – Washington DC sports fans now have someone other than Alexander Ovechkin to cheer – rookie phenom and Washington Nationals starting pitcher Stephen Strasburg, who boasted 14 K’s in his major league debut. Stras-mania has driven the creation of “Strasburgers” at many eateries in town, and Washingtonian Magazine has their mitts on who’s a straight fastball, and who’s a slider:

Just like everyone else with any business sense in Washington, restaurants are jumping on the Stephen Strasburg craze. But as Strasburgers flood the market, how can foodies tell the aces from the minor-leaguers? We visited three area restaurants to rate their burgers for taste, presentation, and creativity—also known as “Strasburgness.” In each category, we ranked them from 1 (bottom) to 14 (tops) in honor of the phenom’s debut game with 14 strikeouts.

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CELL PHONES GET CREEPIER EVERY DAY – If you thought geolocation data was a threat to privacy, read about this little phone that literally tracks your movement:

Engineers at Japan’s KDDI phone corporation have announced a new kind of mobile technology that tracks “even the tiniest movement” of users, according to the BBC. Strapped to your wrist, it would log every tiny detail of your arm’s movement and beam it back to a centralized command center. And we both know how your arm was moving around 11 p.m. when “Co-Ed Confidental” came on Cinemax.

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FILE UNDER “THINGS I WASN’T REALLY WONDERING ABOUT TODAY” – Scientific American pours praise on poop processing:

The point isn’t so much that what happens to our sewage reaches into every crevice of our culture. The point is that once you’re managing it instead of wishing it away, sewage turns out to be a pretty good thing.

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FAIR AND OPEN HYPOCRISY – Blogger, wonk, and Republican operative Michael Turk catches Free Press in some net neutrality astroturfing…I mean, did someone really say this would be a good strategy?

According to an article in The Daily Caller today, groups that Free Press listed as signatories to its pro-net neutrality agenda not only didn’t sign it, but had no recollection of ever being asked.

People working with groups like the Dr. Pepper Museum and Operation Catnip were asked why they support net neutrality. They could offer no explanation as to how their names, and those of their organizations came to be on the letter. This article comes on the heels of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation making a specific request to be removed from the letter after it found itself as an unwitting signatory.

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WELL, THIS ISN’T GOING TO WIN ME ANY FRIENDS – Yesterday I cited a Pew Research Center study on how the recession has impacted Americans. It found:

While nearly all Americans have been hurt in one way or another, some groups have suffered more than others. Blacks and Hispanics have borne a disproportionate share of both the job losses and the housing foreclosures.

Today, I find the New York Times reporting on another Pew Research Center study on mobile web use:

The image of the affluent and white cellphone owner as the prototypical mobile Web user seems to be a mistaken one, according to a report published Wednesday by the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Center.

The study found that African-Americans and Hispanics continue to be more likely to own cellphones than whites and more likely to use their phones for a greater range of activities.

…

Younger people and people living in households making less than $30,000 a year are increasing their mobile Web use at particularly fast rates, he said, and the African-American and Hispanic populations are younger and poorer relative to the white population.

Here’s the nasty part: liberals are often champions of poor minorities in the wealth disparity fight, and conservatives tend to tout personal responsibility as virtue, and favor equal opportunities to succeed over equal results of varying degrees of effort. So if Blacks and Hispanics have been most impacted by job losses (which nobody can really control), and housing foreclosures (the result of mortgage default, which Democrats blamed in 2008 and 2009 SOLELY on predatory lending, which exists), but they are also using web-capable phones, which indubitably include smart phones with expensive data plans and paid applications…whose fault is the wealth disparity?

Can a smartphone bill really have that much of an impact on a budgeted mortgage payment? It’s no secret that I have an HTC Incredible – I got it free with a New-Every-Two upgrade (that means I took the personal responsibility to suffer the BlackBerry Curve for two years so I wouldn’t have to pay for my next phone), but I pay about $140 per month – and I don’t use any paid applications. Really quick math says that a $150,000 home, which seems about right – correct me if you disagree – with a 30-year mortgage at 3% fixed (I know that’s very low and fixed mortgages aren’t a predatory practice) has somewhere around $500 per month payments…my phone bill would be a third of that. Someone earning $30,000 a year is taking home, at best, about $2,000 per month. My phone bill is almost a tenth of that.

I don’t know what the smart thing to say here is, so I’ll quit with the analogy. Like I said, that will probably be as unsettling for some to read as it was for me to write. I’m not making any causal arguments, but it’s something to think about.

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A LITTLE MORE CRISPY AND BUBBA, PLEASE – My Nashville Predators renew an agreement with FOX Sports Tennessee for another 4 years of coverage. Dirk Hoag at On The Forecheck raises an important point:

The big thing to keep an eye on this fall is to what extent HD broadcasts increase. The overall commitment to increase the number of games covered overall (from 55 last year, and 30 of those were HD) is excellent, however. Slowly but surely, we’re inching closer to 100% HD coverage of the Preds!

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O, COME ALL YE TEA-FUL – Conservative activism resource group FreedomWorks has announced a major blogger conference this coming September, which spans three days leading up to the Second Annual 9-12 Rally (the first was the brain child of FOX News host Glenn Beck):

FreedomWorks has worked hard to be a resource for activists, and we’re now trying to extend a hand to bloggers. There will be no registration fee this year, and it is open to all bloggers (and those who facilitate them). Feel free to pass along to blogger friends!

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WE’RE NOT REALLY LOOKING FOR A POLITICAL HOME; WE JUST WANT TO BE LEFT ALONE – All the same, the folks at Reason Magazine are hosting a debate on where libertarians “fit,” a debate that will no doubt showcase the oratory prowesses of the Cato Institute’s Brink Lindsey, National Review‘s Jonah Goldberg, and FreedomWorks’ Matt Kibbe…RSVP is required, so if you’re a libertarian or conservative (or just plain interested) inside the Beltway, make sure to register:

What: A “Where Do Libertarians Belong?” debate between Cato Institute Vice President Brink Lindsey, National Review Editor-at-Large and American Enterprise Institute Visiting Fellow Jonah Goldberg, and FreedomWorks President Matt Kibbe.

When: Monday, July 12, 6.30-8:30 pm

Where: Reason’s DC HQ, 1747 Connecticut Avenue NW, Washington DC 20009. (Two blocks north of Dupont Circle; take Red Line Metro to Dupont Circle North exit.)

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HARVARD vs. PRINCETON…YOU DECIDE – Harvard economist Greg Mankiw (a former advisor in the Dubya White House) gets his wonk on and takes Princeton economist Paul Krugman (a New York Times columnist and frequent contributor on Real Time with Bill Maher) to task for calling stimulus opponents “logically incoherent”:

A coherent objection to this line of argument might be the following: If the government borrowed the money to spend, it would need to eventually pay the money back. That means higher future taxes, on top of the future tax increases that President Obama already will need to impose to finance his spending plans. Higher future taxes reduce demand today for at least a couple reasons. First, there are Ricardian effects to the extent that consumers take future taxes into account when calculating their permanent income. Second, those future taxes are not likely to be lump-sum but will be distortionary; it is plausible that at least some of those future tax distortions may adversely affect the incentive to invest today.

That is, businesses may be reluctant to invest in an economy that they expect to be distorted by historically unprecedented levels of taxation in the future.  The more the government borrows, the higher taxes will need to go, the more distorted the future economy will be, and the less attractive is investment today.

I am pretty sure Paul would not find this line of argument persuasive.  As far as I can tell from reading his commentary over the years, he does not believe that the distortionary effects of taxes are particularly large and so they do not figure much into his policy analysis.  But many other economists (and I suspect many stimulus-skeptics like the tea-partiers) believe that taxes have significant incentive effects and can prevent the economy from reaching its full potential.  Their argument seems logically coherent, even if it relies on a different set of parameter values for the relevant elasticities than Paul believes to be true.

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IF I WAS EYEBALLS-DEEP IN COLOMBIAN PRIMO, I’D PROBABLY BE WEARING A DONKEY SUIT TOO – A Flickr gem from the US State Department:

Their caption: "Actors from the Andrés Carne de Res restaurant join the celebrations at the U.S. Independence Day “State Fair” Community Event at the U.S. Embassy Bogotá in Colombia, on July 2, 2010."

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COULD IT BE BECAUSE THEY SUCK EQUALLY? – Obama’s approval rating has tanked, but Democrats and Republicans are in a dead heat on the 2010 Generic Congressional Ballot:

The latest results are based on Gallup Daily tracking for the week ending July 4, with no interviewing on the Independence Day holiday. Gallup historical trends suggest that a slight Republican lead on the generic ballot among registered voters — or even a statistical tie — would translate into sizable Republican seat gains in Congress on Election Day, given their typical advantage in voter turnout.

Overall enthusiasm for voting in the 2010 midterm elections held steady in the latest weekly average, with 30% of registered voters saying they are very enthusiastic, although this is down from the higher enthusiasm levels of late March and April. Republicans continue to hold a significant edge on this potentially important indicator of voter turnout rates. The current 13 percentage-point GOP enthusiasm lead is similar to the average 17-point lead the party has held since March.

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That’s all for tonight, folks – keep the feedback coming!

GORE-FEST? MORE LIKE BORE-FEST – No, not former Vice President Al Gore – who has been lighting up the news in recent weeks – we’re talking about the running of the bulls in Pamplona, SPAIN. Nobody died this year, but 2 people were hospitalized:

An 18-year-old man from Melbourne, Australia, suffered an eye injury and a 20-year old Spaniard suffered multiple contusions, Navarra state government said on its web site. Both were hospitalized but their injuries were not considered serious. They were identified only by their initials.

WHEN PASSIONS BECOME OBSESSIONS – This guy must really have wanted a souvenir foul ball (or was it a home run ball? Or was he just drunk?):

A male fan fell from the second-deck club level and into the lower bowl at the Ballpark in Arlington in the fifth inning of the Rangers’ 12-1 win over the Indians on Tuesday. The incident delayed the game 16 minutes as ballpark personnel tended to him and four other injured fans.

The fan flipped over the railing before landing on his back in section 35, which is roughly a 30-foot drop.

ARABS HAVE BEEN BLOWING THE JEWS UP FOR A LONG TIME – Or, according to this story, at least for 100 years:

The Israel Antiquities Authority says workers doing restoration at the city’s historic stone walls were digging through crushed stone when they found a ”fist-sized chunk of metal.”

The antiquities agency said on Wednesday the workers concluded it was a grenade hidden there about 100 years ago.

THIS PROBABLY WON’T HELP THE OIL INDUSTRY’S CASE – So, if nobody is watching…are other ones leaking?

More than 27,000 abandoned oil and gas wells lurk in the hard rock beneath the Gulf of Mexico, an environmental minefield that has been ignored for decades. No one — not industry, not government — is checking to see if they are leaking, an Associated Press investigation shows.

TEHRAN WATERFALLS? THINK AGAIN – Iran’s culture ministry has outlawed “business up front, pleasure in the back” mullets:

Here in the U.S., however, the mullet lives on–even now, perhaps, as a new symbol of freedom.  MacGyver, Andre Agassi, Michael Bolton, Billy Ray Cyrus, and other mullet pioneers should all be proud.  The Chicago Tribune, meanwhile, has a posted a helpful slideshow documenting some of the more notable mullets of our time.

NO WONDER WE CAN’T AFFORD SHUTTLES – As if a new video game (yesterday’s Evening Reading) or a web site design (today’s Morning Reading) weren’t enough of a distraction, the folks at NASA have stopped to weigh in on the design of soccer balls being used in World Cup play:

The aerodynamics experts (at least we hope they’re experts) of the American space agency have said that the 440-gram ball becomes unpredictable when propelled at over 44mph, resulting in the unnatural swerves and deviations that have been plaguing footballers this year. So there you have it, England, Italy and France: a rock solid excuse to pin your lackadaisical exhibitions of mediocrity this year — it was the ball’s fault.

YOU INSOLENT LITTLE PRICK – Some asshat Colgate grad thinks a $40k insurance adjuster job is beneath him, in a recession era when 10 million Americans would probably trample him like an old lady at WalMart just to get an interview:

Rather than waste early years in dead-end work, he reasoned, he would hold out for a corporate position that would draw on his college training and put him, as he sees it, on the bottom rungs of a career ladder.

NEVERMIND, SCOTT NICHOLSON, I’M GONNA LET HANK AND BOBBY HILL FINISH YOU OFF – Conservative blogger Ben Domenech weighs in on arrogance and laziness vs. skid row:

This morning, I read in the New York Times about one of these Americans, Scott Nicholson — the difference with Mr. Nicholson being that he has never been employed, and in fact turned down a $40,000 a year job because he thought it beneath him. Mostly, the Colgate grad is unemployed because of lack of self-actualization.

Young Mr. Nicholson’s story brings to mind “The Texas Panhandler,” an episode of King of the Hill, wherein Hank’s son Bobby discovers that it’s much easier and more profitable to hang out with a group of lazy twentysomething hipsters “begging” on a street corner than it is to work in a real, and rather humiliating, job. But Bobby eventually discovers the value of hard work, and breaks the truth about the hipsters to the passing crowd.

FEAR LEADS TO ANGER, ANGER LEADS TO HATE, HATE LEADS TO SUFFERING – STAR WARS creator George Lucas should heed the prescient warnings of Jedi master Yoda and drop this petty charade:

George Lucas wants to force a laser company to stop making a new, high-powered product he says looks too much like the famous lightsaber from his classic sci-fi series. Lucasfilm Ltd. has sent a cease-and-desist letter to Hong Kong-based Wicked Lasers, threatening legal action if it doesn’t change its Pro Arctic Laser series or stop selling it altogether.

TALK ABOUT A GAME-CHANGER – Apparently sports finishes influence electoral outcomes:

The researchers looked at the election results from 20 years’ worth of presidential, senatorial and gubernatorial races. And they found that a home-team win before the election gave the incumbent a boost of almost two percentage points. The more beloved the team, the bigger the bounce.

WHAT KIND OF MICKEY MOUSE OPERATION ARE THEY RUNNING OVER THERE, ANYHOW? – Disney makes a splash in teaching English overseas:

The company told the Financial Times it sees its fledgling language schools— it has 11 in Shanghai and Beijing— as a way to garner $100 million in pre-tax profits over the next five years. It hopes to open almost 150 schools.

NOT WHAT CHRIST MEANT WHEN HE SAID “SUFFER THE LITTLE CHILDREN AND COME UNTO ME”* – His Holiness revises an edict on handling sexual abuse cases in the Catholic Church:

The revisions will double the statute of limitations on accused priests to 20 years from the alleged victim’s 18th birthday, the people said.

In addition, the revised decree will broaden the legal authority to Vatican officials to prosecute priests accused of abuse, the people said. The Vatican is expected to announce the revisions “within the next two weeks,” one person said.

The measures, which were reported Tuesday on the website of the National Catholic Reporter, represent the first legal shift to take place at the Vatican since the outbreak of abuse reports across Europe earlier this year.

*Bonus points to the reader who identifies the reference.

THE SKY IS THE LIMIT ON SOLAR – Check out this live-stream of a 24-hour solar-powered flight.

CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION IS SOOOOO 1960′S – Transparency is important, but classified is classified – and this little terd is getting exactly what he deserves:

Private Manning, who served with the Second Brigade of the 10th Mountain Division, based at Contingency Operating Station Hammer, was arrested in May and transferred to a military detention center in Kuwait after the military authorities said he had revealed his activities in online chats with a former computer hacker, who turned him in.

Private Manning now faces an Article 32 investigation, the military’s equivalent of a civilian grand jury, into charges that he mishandled classified information “with reason to believe the information could cause injury to the United States.”

That investigation could lead to administrative punishments or more likely, given the gravity of the charges, a court-martial.

Officially he has been charged with four counts of violating Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice for disobeying an order or regulation and eight counts of violating Article 134, a general charge for misconduct, which in this case involved breaking federal laws against disclosing classified information.

TIME TO STEP UP YOUR IT SECURITY, PENTAGON – Private Manning and Wikileaks aren’t solely to blame for the Pentagon’s lax security practices:

Among Robin’s social networking accomplishments: She scored connections with people in the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the CIO of the NSA, an intelligence director for the U.S. Marines, a chief of staff for the U.S. House of Representatives, and several Pentagon and DoD employees. The profiles also attracted defense contractors, such as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Booz Allen Hamilton.

Lockheed and other firms made job offers to Robin, some inviting her to dinner to discuss employment prospects. “I was surprised at how people in her same command friended her — people actually in the same command and the same building,” Ryan says.

SPEAKING OF TRANSPARENCY, THANKS FOR MESSING IT UP FOR THE REST OF US, ROLLING STONE – POLITICO has the memo from the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD, at the Pengaton), providing guidance on future military interaction with press.

DRUNKEN AUTO-PILOT? – Megan McArdle is on the case of technology making us dangerously lazy:

But as Tom Vanderbilt chronicled in his book,Traffic, (and at shorter length on his blog) you can sometimes actually reduce traffic accidents by making driving harder; people who feel uneasy are less likely to make inattentive mistakes.

IDEOLOGICAL CONSISTENCY – Conservative Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner backs conservative Rep. Thad McCotter’s proposal to scrap the Republican Policy Committee, and save the American taxpayers a few bucks…and to possibly set Boehner up for a Speakership this November:

Republican Policy Committee Chairman Thad McCotter’s plan to eliminate his own leadership office is viewed by some GOP sources as a proxy power play intended to strengthen Minority Leader John Boehner’s hand.

The Michigan Republican circulated to rank-and-file Republicans a treatise on the superfluity of his own job Tuesday, less than a week after surprising several top House Republicans by presenting the proposal at a leadership meeting.

In it, McCotter argues the RPC and its $360,000-a-year budget are a waste of taxpayer money, particularly because Boehner has “designated working groups, which have employed existing staff resources and proven quite successful.” The use of ad hoc advisory panels is a page out of the playbook former House Speaker Newt Gingrich used to consolidate power by going around existing committee structures.

DEATH AND – New legislation dropped just before July 4th recess wants to tax your Internet purchases:

Among the more controversial bills introduced was one offered by Rep. Bill Delahunt, D-Mass., that would address a long-standing concern from state and local officials about the loss of sales tax revenues from Internet sales. As a result of a 1992 Supreme Court ruling, retailers are not required to collect sales taxes from customers in states where they do not have a physical presence. While the ruling applied to catalog sales, it has since been extended to online sales.

Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., also introduced legislation last week that addresses online taxes, but his measure would bar states and local jurisdictions from imposing “multiple or discriminatory” taxes on the sale or use of digital goods and services, such as downloaded music or software, to ensure they are not treated differently than the same physical goods. Under the bill, taxes could only be imposed on the retail sale or use of digital goods or services.

Some online retailers have argued that requiring them to collect sales taxes from customers in states where they do not have a physical presence would pose a logistical burden for them, particularly small businesses who would be required to keep track of sales taxes in each state and locality.

COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATISM, UK-STYLE – British PM David Cameron has launched investigations into torture allegations made against British forces who have been coalition members in the War on Terror:

The prime minister had promised the inquiry during this year’s election campaign, saying it was needed to end the uncertainty around the country’s role in the alleged torture of British nationals since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

INDIES GIVETH, AND INDIES TAKETH AWAY – You could argue that swaying millennial independents in 2008 is precisely what propelled President Obama to victory…well, now less than half of them approve of the job he’s doing…music to my ears.

I WONDER IF I CAN TALK EMILY INTO LIVING BY THE SEA – In an effort to cut costs and help reduce the deficit (or budget over-runs…you know, whatever…po-tay-to, po-tah-to) the General Services Administration has put 11 lighthouses up for sale:

Though some of the government’s lighthouses still help guide ships in the night, others are no longer in operation, and a 2000 law requires the government to find suitable owners for the defunct structures.

I’M PRETTY SURE IT WAS “SUPERSTAR” AND NOT “PORN STAR” – This one should really drive the Religious Right batty:

The July issue of Playboy’s Portuguese edition features an unexpected figure on the cover: None other than Jesus Christ, who frolics with three different nude women within the pages of the magazine.

AND THE FIRST THING MEN DO IN THE MORNING IS DRAIN THE LIZARD – Mashable has a behavioral study on young women’s Internet habits:

Young women are becoming more and more dependent on social media and checking on their social networks, according to a new study released earlier today by Oxygen Media and Lightspeed Research. In fact, as many as one-third of women aged 18-34 check Facebook when they first wake up, even before they get to the bathroom.

AND HERE I THOUGHT THE INTERNET WAS JUST FOR TRASH-TALKING – The whizzes over at Pew Research find that the Internet really is changing our lives, in ways we may not readily notice:

The social benefits of internet use will far outweigh the negatives over the next decade, according to experts who responded to a survey about the future of the internet. They say this is because email, social networks, and other online tools offer ‘low-friction’ opportunities to create, enhance, and rediscover social ties that make a difference in people’s lives. The internet lowers traditional communications constraints of cost, geography, and time; and it supports the type of open information sharing that brings people together.

SHOCKER: BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS COOKS THE BOOKS ON UNEMPLOYMENT FIGURES – Quick! Somebody blame George W. Bush! After all, conservatism is dead! Right?…right?

Much of the coverage of the June labor market reportreleased on Friday focused on the drop in the unemployment rate, from 9.7 to 9.5 percent, or the 83,000 private-sector jobs created. But the headline numbers hid the reason for the dip in unemployment: not more jobs, but fewer workers. Walker, like 652,000 others across the country, is jobless and has not looked for a position during the past four weeks — and therefore has officially been reclassified as a “discouraged” worker, a person “marginally attached to the labor force,” rather than an unemployed one.

Facts are hard, aren’t they, Democrats?

GOOD THINGS HAPPEN WHEN THE FREE MARKET IS ALLOWED TO WORK – Wholesale giant Sam’s Club, a subsidiary of WalMart is entering the small business loan industry. Of course, in the eyes of the law, this will classify WalMart (at least in part) as a financial lending institution, and new financial reform legislation will make it subject to new statutory provisions…but I can’t see this as anything but a step in the right direction for the economy:

The loan program, which Sam’s Club calls the first of its type, is aimed at boosting business for a Wal-Mart unit that is trying to raise its profile among the small businesses that make up a good deal of its clientele.

BREAKING: LEWIS BLACK IS ANGRY ABOUT STUFF…IN OTHER NEWS, THE GRASS IS GREEN AND THE SKY IS BLUE

Thanks for your feedback on this new format for posts – see you before bedtime!

Our current objective, as a country, appears to be “growth.” It seems that we have the desire to “grow” our way out of this little meltdown and reach a place where we may all eat delicious cake, provided to us by willing Chinese folk.

Mushroom cake says "grow"

Yet I must clearly remind you individuals daily that the cake is a lie.

Oh, I know what you’re saying, good people. You’re saying “EXACTLY, good Prophet! It’s that durn Obammer gone take err jobs and give em to the illegals and give em free healthcare! All cuz uh them dam liberrulz.” I translate your vernacular, of course.

I agree that the Good President Obama is not pursuing the soundest course of action here. Yet, honestly, what would you have him do to stop outsourcing? A recent NYTimes article (cited here – you have to register to read it) stated that factories have job openings available but can’t find anyone with the technical know-how to work the machines. $30-$40K jobs here, and all you have to do is perform calculations on the level of ninth grade math. They can’t fill the job vacancies. The government can’t fix that in the time frame demanded. The government can’t create jobs at the level Americans seem to want.

And, as you will see in the comments, many people suggested that the factories should take the time to train those employees themselves. That costs money. Costs impact stock prices. Everybody wants their retirement portfolios to stay up. Therefore, no costs, and no training.

You must see what I’m driving at, good people. The nature of our existing society is to find the short-term fix. Patch it up. And, if there are any short-term consequences, “obviously” it was done wrong.

If you need further convincing of this, I refer you to this WSJ article from September 30, 2008. If you don’t remember that date specifically, it’s the day after the bailout failed. Yes – in case you forgot – the bailout failed before it was passed. I remember this time vividly, as I worked for an investment bank at the time. We got the news of the bailout’s failure and watched the stock market plunge 9.1%. Panic mode set in. Representatives had received phone calls from constituents on September 29 saying “don’t pass the bailout” and then received calls from those same constituents on September 30 saying “why didn’t you pass the bailout?!?!?! My retirement money is all gone!!!” We don’t do “long-term vision” very well.

If you want a short-term fix, you have to stimulate the economy with taxpayer dollars. If you want to stop patching things up, you’re going to have to rip them apart first.

This is what the Republicans don’t want to sell, for fear that it might hurt their re-election chances. Austerity is going to flipping hurt and in all the ways Republicans don’t want it to. Defense? 20% of the national budget. Medicare/Medicaid/CHIP? 21%. Social Security? 20%. (figures here) That sucks when older 2008 voters were more likely to vote Republican and the party platform is expressly in favor of Reagan-style military spending. And, while the Tea Party has claimed to support spending cuts, I have yet to see a unified front to cut spending on any one of those three items. We can’t be austere without attacking the largest parts of our budget.

I am in favor of austerity, as I believe it will result in a bright future for me and my kind. And, because I like shorting stocks. That’s what will need to be done when austerity drops the market “a few G’s”. A few lean years of pain, where Americans will have to tighten their belts and grit their teeth through it, and then we’ll be purged.

But, if you want your retirement portfolio to keep going up, I suggest you stop reading IntelligencePlease.com and go follow Mr. Krugman.

More to come. Why be austere without a plan afterward – which, of course, I have.

Cagle writes, "I think I understand the Twilight phenomenon now, as explained in my cartoon above. Twilight is disturbing - especially the parts that affirm little girls’ feelings of depression, obsession and thoughts of suicide. I’m no Twilight fan, but I have to admire how masterfully the books and movies play to their audience." I guess he has a point.

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TOO BAD HE CAN’T WIN THE PRIMARY IN 2012 – Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, a man with a libertarian streak as long as the Great Wall of China, and who is one of the only governors in the US currently running a budget surplus, sits down with Five Books to talk about the works that have influenced him most:

Hayek, when I thumb back through it and look at what I marked when I first read it, was the book that, to me, convincingly demonstrated what was already intuitive: namely, the utter futility, the illusion of government planning as a mechanism for uplifting those less fortunate. I read it together with dozens of other books, but the way he dissected and depicted the inexorable tendencies in statism to self-perpetuation of bureaucracies, matched what I thought was the evidence I saw around me.

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DO PEOPLE STILL TAKE THIS GUY SERIOUSLY? – Apparently the President still hasn’t filled all the top posts in his administration, and we’re almost to the halfway mark in his term:

Of the 369 jobs at these agencies tracked by The Washington Post’s Head Count, the White House has filled 88 percent (if those announced or formally nominated are included).

Still, some pretty good jobs are available. For example, there’s the assistant secretary for import administration at the Commerce Department. That’s the person who watches out for such things as illegal dumping of goods into this country. The job has been vacant since the beginning of the administration, and as recently as last month, Undersecretary Francisco Sanchez was saying that Commerce were still looking for someone.

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I STEP ON YOU COCKAROACHES! – Democrats are clamoring for something – anything – that might give them a competitive advantage this November…good luck with that:

In recent weeks, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has circulated information to local reporters about Republican candidates in close races. Among the claims:

– That Jim Renacci of Ohio once owed nearly $1.4 million in unpaid state taxes.

– That David Harmer of California received $160,000 in bonus and severance pay from a firm that got a federal bailout.

– That Jon Runyan of New Jersey got a legal break in property taxes for his 25-acre homestead by qualifying for a farmland assessment thanks to his four donkeys.

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A HOUSE DIVIDED WILL NOT STAND…GOOD – Barely a day after President Obama announced $795 million in broadband grants, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Montana) proposes a $600 million cut in broadband grants:

Baucus proposed cutting about $300 million from the Department of Commerce’s Broadband Technology Opportunity Program and $300 million from the Department of Agriculture’s Broadband Initiatives Program to fund extensions of unemployment benefits and various other stimulus programs. Feld writes that House Appropriations chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) has proposed similar cuts as part of the supplemental funding for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

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WE CHOOSE TO GO TO THE MOON…AND TO MAKE OUR WEBSITE PRETTY – NASA.gov gets a makeover. Whew, now I think I can sleep tonight:

Updates NASA made to the site include adding images to a box on its homepage called “What are people interested in?” that shows the most popular topics on the site, and a streamlining of “Share” options on the top of each site page from a list of hundreds to four, which then expand if a user is interested into the full list.NASA also added images to the pages and video it shares on Facebook to better illustrate what information is being shared on the social-networking site.

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THAT PROBABLY WASN’T A GOOD IDEA – Apparently the Senate decided to strip transparency language out of the financial reform conference report, language offered as an amendment to the passed House version by transparency advocate and ACORN-defunder Rep. Darrell Issa (R-California):

The amendment Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., offered would have required regulators to use a standard electronic format, such as Extensible Business Reporting Language, for collecting and publishing business information from the financial industry. A conference report overhauling the U.S. financial regulatory system passed the House on Wednesday — without the data transparency language.

“It’s deeply disappointing that bipartisan transparency provisions were removed from the conference report in a manner that couldn’t have been any less transparent,” said Issa spokesman Frederick R. Hill. XBRL, the most widely used standard for financial data, enables any computer to compare figures and ensures proper accounting by using a common set of data fields.

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BECAUSE HE KNOWS WHERE YOU LIVE – The New York Times dubs Congressman Issa the Obama White House’s “Annoyer-in-Chief”:

As a sign of the pride Representative Darrell Issa takes in annoying the Obama administration, consider his account of a recent exchange with Rahm Emanuel, a former congressman and now the White House chief of staff. In describing the episode — a chance encounter outside the House gym — Mr. Issa smirked and raised his middle finger.

…

Every Congress seems to produce a designated pest, adept at drawing attention to nuisance issues (and his nuisance self) while making trouble for the other party when it controls the White House. Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, played that role during the Bush administration, while Representative Dan Burton, Republican of Indiana, did it before him in the Clinton years.

Now comes Mr. Issa, 57, who was charged with two long-ago auto thefts before eventually making a fortune selling car alarms; his signature product, the Viper, features his own deep voice ordering would-be burglars to “please step away from the car.” Mr. Issa’s voice has become inescapable, and not just among car thieves. He has been shouting forth on matters high-profile (the administration’s response to the BP oil spill) and obscure (a possible conflict involving a member of the National Labor Relations Board).

Like Mr. Waxman and Mr. Burton before him, Mr. Issa (pronounced EYE-suh) is his party’s ranking member on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, a perch that can become particularly visible for a member of the opposition party. He is, depending on the point of view, an invaluable gadfly or an insufferable grandstander — terms not always mutually exclusive on Capitol Hill.

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DOLLARS TO PENNIES SAYS THERE WILL BE ZERO RIGHTEOUS INDIGNATION OVER THIS – Turns out the Citizens United v. FEC ruling actually was a boon for free speech (like I’ve said all along), as unions outspend corporations on political campaigns this year:

Labor unions have dominated spending on independent campaign ads so far this election season, despite a recent Supreme Court decision that freed spending by corporations, a Washington Post analysis shows.

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I THOUGHT IT WAS ABOUT THE KIDS? – Teachers unions dominate politics in Maryland:

IN MONTGOMERY COUNTY, candidates for public office who have received the teachers union’s endorsement ahead of this fall’s Democratic primaries must feel as if they’ve won the lottery. The union, with the help of highly unusual cash “contributions” from some of its anointed candidates, sends out glossy, targeted mailings on their behalf. It places advertisements and yard signs. And it distributes thousands of its “Apple Ballots,” listing endorsed candidates, to voters at polling stations on Election Day.

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Have a great day – see you tonight!

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YOU MIGHT START HEARING US HERE - Social media blog Mashable passes along the announcement that WordPress.com (the blogging platform that powers this site) now has a capability for users to phone in audio content to their sites:

The new feature is powered by Twilio, a cloud-based platform for building communication and voice applications.

The feature isn’t anything revolutionary — Livejournal has supported similar functionality for years. However, it should make for thousands of interesting, late-night posts in the near future.

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WE VOTE FOR LAND-LINE TELEPHONES - The folks at PC World have a countdown of 10 technologies that should be extinct (but aren’t).

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SHOCKER: LEFTIST DISSONANCE ON ECONOMY - Despite his eager bloviations back in 2009 that the Democrats should use reconciliation to pass a stimulus spending bill, the staff assistants of liberal blogger Ezra Klein of the Washington Post’s WONK BOOK report today that the stimulus, in fact, didn’t work…not even a little:

…the numbers depict a sluggish economy in which nearly 15 million people are out of work and job growth is mediocre. There is little evidence that a dip back into recession has begun. But the chances of a strong, self-sustaining expansion that can significantly improve the job market — which seemed a real possibility during the spring — are now slim.

…

The confused outlook is causing paralysis on Capitol Hill, since the recovery is neither strong enough to provoke a turn toward deficit reduction, nor weak enough to lend momentum to President Obama’s push for more economic stimulus. As Congress prepared to leave town for the week-long Fourth of July break, even funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was bogged down by the broader election-year squabble over spending.

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IS THERE AN ECHO IN HERE? – Noah Millman at The American Scene blog catches progressive Matt Yglesias of the Center for American Progress’s blog Think Progress (also Beltway butt-buddy of Ezra Klein) in a spot of more economic dissonance:

Your answer to our economic situation is that we need to ramp up government spending to stimulate consumer demand to increase employment. It’s not important to be efficient in how we deploy our stimulus money; it’s much more important just to get people buying stuff and making stuff for people to buy.

Your answer to the problem of climate change is that we need to substantially increase the price of carbon so that consumption patterns change and we all buy less stuff that is very carbon-intensive and either spend more of our income on non-carbon-intensive goods and services or simply live lives of greater overall leisure without so much emphasis on getting and spending. The government should do what it can to ease the economic pain of the transition, but some short-term economic pain is a reasonable price to pay for saving the planet.

I think the tension between these two positions should be obvious. I think Matt would reconcile that tension by saying that, no, he doesn’t really think that ramping up government spending on justanything is a good idea – he thinks we should ramp up spending on things that would help make the transition to a greener economy, even if this means sacrificing a bit of stimulus.

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COLOR ME SURPRISED – Just days after making a splash in the early goings of free agency, it appears as though Nashville Predators GM David Poile has inked talented-but-enigmatic right wing Sergei Kostitsyn (formerly of the Montreal Canadiens) to a one-year deal worth $550,000…which comes in just under the $575,000 obligation to heavyweight enforcer Wade Belak…for you hockey fans out there, Jeremy K. Gover has the goods.

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GREAT, SOMETHING ELSE TO KEEP UP WITH – Yahoo! has a new almost-constantly-streaming political blog, The Upshot! I think I’m going to start ending all my sentences with exclamation points so I can be like Yahoo! (see what I did there?)

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WHEN TWO WORLDS COLLIDE – In the aftermath of the shocking announcement that atheist author and Vanity Fair editor Christopher Hitchens is undergoing treatments for esophageal cancer, rabbinical author and speaker David Wolpe waxes philosophical and nostalgiac about his debate tours with Hitchens. An excellent read:

We began our acquaintance in New York in November 2008, when Temple Emanu-el, reputedly the largest synagogue in the world, invited us to debate each other. At a reception before the event, we were approached by someone who noted one of the blurbs on the back of my book: “Wolpe answers these challenges with such kindness and thoughtfulness that even Christopher Hitchens might find his heart warmed.” The man asked Hitchens: So, did it warm your heart?

“Oh, no,” Hitchens replied, holding the book up for skeptical inspection. “My heart is far too reptilian for that.”

Well, hello to you, too.

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WHAT CUTTING THE SHUTTLE PROGRAM GAVE US – NASA apparently has released a new PC game…because that’s important, right?

NASA’s latest endeavor to educate people on space exploration has taken them to the world of video games.

The space agency has released a new PC video game available through Valve Software’s Steam service called Moonbase Alpha.

The game, which features single-player and multiplayer components, places players inside an astronaut suit, as they must rebuild a lunar base crippled by a meteor strike.

To complete the objectives leading to the revival of the base, players will use a variety of tools include mobile robotic repair units and a lunar rover.

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SPEAKING OF STAYING ON IMPORTANT TASKS – Senator John Kerry takes a time-out from climate legislation and other sausage-making to hit up supporters for their votes to get Boston Red Sox infielder Kevin Youkilis from the MLB All-Star ballot to the AL roster.

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REMEMBER WHEN LIBERALS SAID THE TEA PARTY WAS A FRINGE MOVEMENT? – I guess all paradigm-shifting things start out as loony…because now that nearly 1/3 of Americans are sympathetic to the Tea Party, you can’t really call it “fringe” anymore. You have to accept that it’s mainstream:

According to a new USA Today/Gallup pollfinds three in 10 Americans describe themselves as Tea Party supporters. What’s less clear, the survey reports, is just what it means to support the Tea Party. The poll pretty much confirms what recent election results have proven about the Tea Party: It’s less an organized political party and more of a conservative ideological movement.

In many respects, the Gallup results show that the Tea Party is basically Republicanism operating under a different name. A majority of Tea Party supporters describe themselves as Republican—62 percent call themselves “conservative Republican” and 17 percent say they are a “moderate or liberal Republican.” Just 6 percent say they are independent, while 15 percent say they are Democrats.

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TEA PARTY, SCHMEA SCHMARTY – Republican obstructionism will help them win in 2010, notes liberal blogger Greg Sargent:

Poll after poll shows that majorities think the GOP is more interested in obstructing the Obama/Dem agenda than in reaching a good faith compromise. Yet amid all the gridlock Congress’s overallapproval is at historic lows, and the generalized anti-incumbent fervor is expected to hurt Dems in the midterms. Indeed, in recent months the GOP has tied or bested Dems in the generic Congressional matchup.

Republicans will argue that this shows that the public wants the GOP to stall the Dem agenda. But I think something else is going on: People don’t seem aware that the GOP, in addition to wanting to obstruct the Obama/Dem agenda, is successfully doing so in the Senate through the skillful application of fundamentally undemocratic procedural tricks. The press has largely failed to inform the public of of this fact, and when it does, people tune it out as so much Beltway white noise. Result: The GOP is paying no price whatsoever for obstructionism, and may well reap rewards from it.

It really has to suck to be a Democrat right now.

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BUT IT DOESN’T STOP THERE; TELL THEM WHAT ELSE THEY’VE WON, JOHNNY – Taegan Goddard prophesies that the GOP will win more gubernatorial races than in any election year in 90 years:

Smart Politics says the latest public opinion polls give Republicans the advantage in 28 of 37 states with gubernatorial races this November. If these results hold, the GOP would win more gubernatorial seats in 2010 than they have in any election cycle since 1920.

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PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN, WHERE AT LEAST I KNOW I’M FREE – This saddening, maddening, and horrific tale should mortify anyone with even a shred of emotive capacity:

The “mutilated torso” of Pasikali Kashusbe, who worked at Bishop Christopher Senyonjo‘s LGBT advocacy group Integrity Uganda, a group dedicated to mobilizing against homophobia, was found a half kilometer away from the farm where his head was found in a latrine pit, a week after he went missing. His torso was found without genitals.

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CONGRESSMEN ARE FROM MARS… – Because they don’t understand technology, say industry execs:

Some call it Capitol Hill’s own “digital divide” — the growing gap in understanding between lawmakers responsible for resolving the tech community’s most pressing issues and the industry leaders who first call attention to these issues.

The gap is all the more worrisome to tech industry leaders because of the speed with which new devices and practices are clashing with old ways of doing business.

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…TECH INDUSTRY EXECS ARE FROM VENUS – Because they don’t understand politics and policymaking, says Jim Harper at the Cato Institute:

It’s worth noting Tech’s thorough misapprehension of Washington, D.C. as well. Judging by how they act, most tech executives have all the insight they could pick up from Schoolhouse Rock. It seems cool and helpful to come to Washington and give money, so they do, encouraging the bears to rip open their cars looking for peanut butter.

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PRAISE BE TO FORD* – Stanford joins Berkeley in controversial gene testing of students:

This week, the University of California, Berkeley will mail saliva sample kits to every incoming freshman and transfer student. Students can choose to use the kits to submit their DNA for genetic analysis, as part of an orientation program on the topic of personalized medicine. But U.C. Berkeley isn’t the only university offering its students genetic testing. Stanford University’s summer session started two weeks ago, including a class on personal genomics that gives medical and graduate students the chance to sequence their genotypes and study the results.

* Bonus points to the reader who gets the reference.

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NO WONDER MY BATTERY KEEPS DYING – I must be in the 6%:

A significant percentage of U.S. smartphone users aren’t using data at all, while the top 6% of users are gobbling up half of all data consumed, according to Nielsen.Released this week, a study of 60,000 mobile phone bills found a huge disparity between heavy data users and the many smartphone owners who use their handsets almost exclusively just for voice calls and texting.

…

The study found that average data consumption jumped some 230% from about 90 MB a month in the first quarter of 2009 to 290 MB a month in the first quarter of 2010. More surprising is the finding that the percentage of smartphone owners using less than 1 MB a month actually decreased during the period. “That,” said Entner, “means about 20 million current smartphone users are hardly using data.”

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Barring breaking news, creative impulses, or something else pressing, I’ll see you bright and early!