A cold August. We have never had such a cool and comfortable August in my memory up here. Never used my A/C once this month.
"Organic" foods nothing more than a "lifestyle choice." Duh.
The terrible Calvo case and the dopey war on drugs. Bainbridge.
Marching boldly into the past: Chavez sees Cuba as a model. Morales is big on "change" too. "Change" means government running the businesses. Good luck, morons.
Accountability America is nuts. This is beyond hardball: It's like ACORN.
When the economy slows, retail pulls back. When the economy expands, they always overbuild.
Greenspan, via Mankiw:
It has become hard for democratic societies accustomed to prosperity to see it as anything other than the result of their deft political management. In reality, the past decade has seen mounting global forces (the international version of Adam Smith’s invisible hand) quietly displacing government control of economic affairs.... The danger is that some governments, bedevilled by emerging inflationary forces, will endeavour to reassert their grip on economic affairs. If that becomes widespread, globalisation could reverse – at awesome cost.
It's not all Russia's fault. CSM. Maybe not, but I underestimated their goals. They are taking over the country. Not trustworthy people, the Russians. Georgia headed back to Russian domination.
25 strangest fetishes
Wolfson: Edwards made Hillary lose. Probably true. What a strange world. Mark Penn had the best, if dishonest, strategy for Hillary: roots and values.
Worrisome signs for Obama. Politico. Related: Who wrote this for him? No doubt intended to make him look substantial. Related: It's OK to make jokes about Obama now. Related: slobbering acolyte says Obama is a movie star, not a rock star. Related: Dreams of a Denver nightmare. A quote from the latter:
As for the substance, the Speech can’t be yet another helping of the same frothy, over-the-top rhetorical junk food he has been serving up for eighteen months. The pundits could yawn, the McCain team could chuckle and the voters could well say “It’s that all he’s got?” More ocean adjustment and invocation of “the moment” would likely bring eye rolls and guffaws, and not much tingling even from the increasingly skeptical media cheerleaders. In short, he needs to say something new, non-cloying and substantive that will convince voters he’s more than the self-parody which he’s quickly becoming.
Related, from Why isn't Obama winning?
Hillary Clinton would have won this election. Joe Biden would have won this election. Bill Richardson would have won this election. Barack Obama just might lose this election. Has anybody noticed that, in this Year of the Democrat, Barack Obama is starting to choke? In a year when voters seem fed up with all things Republican, and poll after poll pitting a hypothetical Democrat against a hypothetical Republican shows the GOP candidate getting slaughtered, Barack Obama is in a dead heat with the oldest and least-inspiring man ever to run for the presidency. Is it time to start recognizing that...
Related: More Obama problems: His
definition of sin. It's not my definition. Which "values" is he referring to? Another problem:
List Obama's accomplishments.Brits in Basra now say: "While we had a strategy of evasion, the Americans just went in and addressed the problem.” Iraq The Model terms it a betrayal.
From Junk Science:
Global Warming, Global Myth - During the 20th century, the earth warmed 0.6 degree Celsius (1 degree Fahrenheit), but that warming has been wiped out in a single year with a drop of 0.63 degree C. (1.13 F.) in 2007. A single year does not constitute a trend reversal, but the magnitude of that temperature drop — equal to 100 years of warming — is noteworthy. Of course, it can also be argued that a mere 0.6 degree warming in a century is so tiny it should never have been considered a cause for alarm in the first place. But then how could the idea of global warming be sold to the public? In any case, global cooling has been evident for more than a single year. Global temperature has declined since 1998. Meanwhile, atmospheric carbon dioxide has gone in the other direction, increasing 15–20%. This divergence casts doubt on the validity of the greenhouse hypothesis, but that hasn't discouraged the global warming advocates. They have long been ignoring far greater evidence that the basic assumption of greenhouse warming from increases in carbon dioxide is false. (Edmund Contoski, Liberty)
Nevertheless, these bozos are already planning for big sea level rises. Better yet, just plan for extinction. Plan how?
Photo on top: Union Station, 1921, via Shorpy. It's a lot more fun now.
