Foreign Auto Companies Thrive in Southern USA

Mercedes-Benz, Tucaloosa, Ala. Plant

Foreign Makers, Settled in South, Pace Car Industry : "By most accounts, the United States auto industry is in deep trouble. But don't tell that to the newest workers here in Alabama, where foreign carmakers are redefining the auto industry in America.

"...a quarter of all cars and trucks built in the United States are now made in factories owned by foreign automakers producing foreign brands, up from 18 percent in 2000. The assembly plants alone employ nearly 60,000 people, and that number continues to grow.

"The employment at the American companies still dwarfs that of the newcomers. Automakers in Detroit employ four times the hourly workers - 250,000 - but that number is continuing to fall. Already, G.M. has announced that it plans to cut 25,000 of those workers by 2008.

Union jobs at the Big Three plants pay a dollar or two more an hour - about $26 an hour compared with $24 or $25 an hour for the nonunion jobs at the foreign plants. But compensation at the American automakers swells to an average of $55 an hour when health care, cost of living and other benefits are counted, compared with $48 an hour, on average, at Toyota.

Toyota gets more out of its workers. Its plants operate at about 107 percent of the manufacturing capacity, meaning that they are constantly running on overtime, according to Harbour & Associates, a consulting firm that tracks manufacturing. By contrast, G.M.'s plants are operating at only 75 percent of their capacity, Harbour found.

Among the companies adding jobs, no company is courted more than Toyota, the world's richest car company, which is gaining strength even as G.M. falters.

Toyota's impact on the nation's economy has been powerful. A study by the Center for Automotive Research, which has yet to be published, estimates that Toyota's investments in the United States had led to 386,600 American jobs as of last year - including jobs at suppliers and in surrounding communities.

That includes the 29,000 assembly workers at Toyota's plants, plus another 74,000 people employed by the automaker in its California headquarters, design and engineering centers and at its dealerships. And those figures do not include Toyota's expansion plans. In Texas alone, the study estimates, Toyota will help create another 9,000 jobs.

The impact helps explain why "states are falling all over themselves to land a car company," said James T. Bolte, a Toyota vice president in charge of the Alabama plant.

In a state where the average wage is $31,000 a year, according to the Commerce Department, Toyota's workers earn $45,000 on average, with overtime, plus a benefits package valued by the company at $10,000. Workers receive medical, dental and life insurance coverage; a traditional pension plan and a 401(k) plan; an allowance for child care; and an annual cash bonus, which was $3,850 a worker last year.

Unlike plants run by Detroit automakers, where a worker can spend 30 years screwing on the same parts, everyone on the Toyota line is taught to do every type of assembly job, so they can switch positions when needed to keep production flowing.

"It was hard," Mr. Herring said, "but it all had a purpose."

To many, the purpose is the stability of a job at Toyota, which earned $4.8 billion in 2004, as the Detroit companies struggled. "

Google Payment Corporation

Here is a bit more information concerning the earlier post.
Google Denies Attempt to Match PayPal Service: "Google Inc.'s chief executive Tuesday denied reports that the online search engine leader was gearing up to compete directly with EBay Inc.'s pioneering PayPal service, but acknowledged some kind of electronic payment product was in the works. Eric Schmidt did not give details about the project but said it wouldn't trespass on PayPal's turf. 'We do not intend to offer a person-to-person, stored-value payments system,' Schmidt said.

"That description fits PayPal, a service that creates "digital cash" by accepting credit card payments from its users and then delivering the payments to a designated recipient.

"As e-commerce thrived so did PayPal, growing from 24 test users in 1999 to 72 million account holders through March. Looking to profit from the fees that PayPal collects from completing online transactions, San Jose-based EBay bought the service for $1.3 billion in 2002... Google consistently declined to comment until Schmidt tried to set the record straight Tuesday.

"The Mountain View, Calif.-based company's recent incorporation of a subsidiary called Google Payment Corp. fed the perception that a battle with PayPal loomed. But Schmidt indicated that the project wouldn't stray far from its search engine. 'The payment services we are working on are a natural evolution of Google's existing online products and advertising,' he said without further elaboration..."

"Google E-Pay Could Target Content"

From Frank Barnako, MarketWatch email- Internet Daily Jun 22, 2005 :
"WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- A Forrester Research Inc. analyst thinks Google's plan to facilitate payments on the Internet may go much further than helping people sell stuff at virtual yard sales. Charlene Li wrote on her Web log that since Google Inc.'s AdSense service already puts links on Web pages, why not add micropayment processing?

"Google could offer a subscription 'pass' that grants users access to premium content on multiple sites, with each site getting a share of the payment based on usage," she wrote. Such an idea for bundled Web subscriptions was suggested several weeks ago by Martin Nisenholtz, senior vice president for Digital Operations at The New York Times.

The Forrester principal analyst reasons that with millions of producers of Web logs and podcasts wondering how to make some money, Google's payment services venture might be a solution. In remarks Tuesday, Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt, confirmed the company is working on payment services which are 'a natural evolution of Google's existing online products and advertising programs,' according to a report by the Los Angeles Times."
*************
For this daily report and much more sign up free at MarketWatch. I love wonderful, free, professional information sources.

UPDATE: See above post "Google Payment Corporation" for excerpts of the LA Times article and read further topic obfuscation from Google's CEO.

Ford Reacts to Markets

William Clay Ford, Jr.

Ford Plans to Cut 5% of Salaried Work Force: "While the challenges facing Ford are severe, it is still in a better position than General Motors, which has stopped giving earnings guidance for the year. This month, G.M. said it would eliminate more than 20 percent of its blue-collar work force over the next three years.

Though Ford is better off than G.M., the news Tuesday that it expects weaker earnings this year underscores the two largest automakers' struggles to remain profitable.

"The same thing has hit G.M., but a lot harder," said David Healy, an analyst with Burnham Securities. "But they're essentially in the same situation as G.M. They're producing a lot less gas-thirsty S.U.V.'s than they used to."

Mr. Healy said the elimination of 401(k) matching contributions and the planned job reductions were signals to Ford's largest union, the United Automobile Workers, that it should accept reductions in union employees' health care benefits, which cost the automaker billions each year. "This is firing a shot over the bow of Solidarity House," he said, referring to the U.A.W. headquarters in downtown Detroit."

TABOR in NC

The Stanly News & Press: "...John Locke Foundation's ...Center for Local Innovation director Chad Adams outlined Tax Payers Bill of Rights (TABOR), and the modified version some Republican legislators are proposing for North Carolina...

According to Adams, TABOR seeks to halt unessecary tax hikes and government spending without mandated cuts in core services. TABOR is based on using the equation “population plus inflation” as the only basis in budget increases. Any spending increases beyond “population plus inflation” would have to be passed by a vote.

In a pure TABOR system, (i.e. Colorado) any budget increase requires voter approval in a referendum. The TABOR system proposed in North Carolina requires a three-fifths majority in a government vote. The TABOR system mandates that any extra tax money left over is refunded to taxpayers. According to Adams, TABOR is “no spending without taxpayer approval. If North Carolina would have put TABOR in place in 1995, taxpayers would have received $1.4 billion in refunds in the past 10 years,” Adams said. “If you have spending beyond population plus inflation, you have a broken system. If you want a new program, you can cut programs that are inefficient and not doing anything, or you can have a referendum. Special interest groups don’t like it, and education lobbyists don’t like it.”

According to Adams, North Carolina’s tax system was put in place in the 1930s and needs reforms because it is designed for an agricultural instead of a service/technology-based economy. “North Carolina is one of the highest personal income tax states, property tax states and corporate income tax states in the nation because we have been fiscally irresponsible,” Adams said.

Supporters of the North Carolina TABOR proposal include Rep. David Almond, Sen. Smith, and Reps. Galley, Kiser and Brubaker, according to Adams. There are no Democratic supporters of NC TABOR at present.“This shouldn’t be a Democrat and Republican issue, this is a fiscal issue,” Adams said. "

Schwarzenegger Leads

From Peter du Pont in OpinionJournal - Outside the Box: "...California's Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose 19-month career[,] is easily the most visionary and strongest gubernatorial leadership performance in modern American history.

A week ago the governor called a special election for Nov. 8 to vote on three policy changes that the Democrat-controlled legislature has refused to consider: stronger state spending restraints, higher standards for public school teachers, and retired judges rather than legislators drawing legislative district boundaries.

Gov. Schwarzenegger has no illusion that California's über-liberal Democratic Party will support of his individualistic vision; it has always advocated higher taxes, greater spending, and more expansive government regulation. So his strategy is a straight-up challenge. As he said in February, Democratic legislators "can do whatever they want, but this train has left the station. They can jump on the train, they can stand behind and wave goodbye, or they can stand in front of the train . . . and you know what happens then."

Democratic state treasurer (and a likely Schwarzenegger 2006 opponent) Phil Angelides says, "This special election will be Arnold Schwarzenegger's Iraq." Most likely that means the Democratic Party will end up in the Saddam Hussein role, for when a man of strength and vision goes to war for propositions that will increase individual opportunity, he usually wins big. "

Secretary of State Speaking "Soft and Stark"

OpinionJournal - Featured Article: "'The Egyptian Government must fulfill the promise it has made to its people--and to the entire world--by giving its citizens the freedom to choose. Egypt's elections, including the Parliamentary elections, must meet objective standards that define every free election.'--Condoleezza Rice, speaking Monday at the American University, Cairo"

On Monday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice traveled to Cairo and then Riyadh and, in soft tones, delivered a stark message: America would no longer pursue "stability at the expense of democracy." The U.S. will now notice when peaceful Egyptian protestors are brutalized by government security goons, or when Saudi citizens are imprisoned for "peacefully petitioning the government"; and the future of both countries as American allies rests on the seriousness of their commitment to democratic reform.

"It is time to abandon the excuses that are made to avoid the hard work of democracy," said Ms. Rice.

Ms. Rice's speech strikes us as among the most important delivered by any recent Secretary of State, and for proof look no further than the reaction from the countries she was visiting. Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit, who shared the stage with her, dismissed her call for free and transparent elections as if it were a non-issue, as did Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal at a press conference in Riyadh later that day. "The row [over political reform] is really meaningless," he said.

It's hard to tell whether the nonchalance of Messrs. Gheit and Faisal is contrived, or whether they just don't get it. Whatever the case, both would do well to understand the Bush Administration's seriousness."

Conservatives Still Winning

From the authors of "The Right Nation: Conservative Power in America", John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, both writers for The Economist, in OpinionJournal :

"Indeed, the left has reached the same level of fury that the right reached in the 1960s--but with none of the intellectual inventiveness. On everything from Social Security to foreign policy to economic policy, it is reduced merely to opposing conservative ideas. This strategy may have punctured the Bush reforms on Social Security, but it has also bared a deeper weakness for the left. In the 1960s, the conservative movement coalesced around several simple propositions--lower taxes, more religion, an America-first foreign policy--that eventually revolutionized politics. The modern left is split on all these issues, between New Democrats and back-to-basics liberals.

The biggest advantage of all for conservatives is that they have a lock on the American dream. America is famously an idea more than a geographical expression, and that idea seems to be the province of the right. A recent Pew Research Center Survey, "Beyond Red Versus Blue," shows that the Republicans are more optimistic, convinced that the future will be better than the past and that they can determine their own futures. Democrats, on the other hand, have a European belief that "fate," or, in modern parlance, social circumstances, determines people's lot in life. (And judging by some recent series in newspapers on the subject, the party appears to have staunch allies in American newsrooms at least.)

If the American dream means anything, it means finding a plot of land where you can shape your destiny and raise your children. Those pragmatic dreamers look ever more Republican. Mr. Bush walloped Mr. Kerry among people who were married with children. He also carried 25 of the top 26 cities in terms of white fertility. Mr. Kerry carried the bottom 16. San Francisco, the citadel of liberalism, has the lowest proportion of people under 18 in the country (14.5%).

So cheer up conservatives. You have the country's most powerful political party on your side. You have control of the market for political ideas. You have the American dream. And, despite your bout of triste post coitum, you are still outbreeding your rivals. That counts for more than the odd setback in the Senate."

New Saturday Wall Street Journal

Wall Street Journal Plans Softer Edition for Saturdays: "Starting Sept. 17, The Journal will add a Saturday issue named Weekend Edition, with a new emphasis on softer features - entertainment, travel, sports, arts, books, real estate and, yes, recipes. The goal is to attract a more diverse base of advertising to pull The Journal out of its prolonged slump.

The Saturday paper, which will be delivered at no extra charge - at least initially - to subscribers, will have a more airy, more casual feel than its daily counterpart, but will still be instantly recognizable as The Wall Street Journal.

The Saturday issue, which was developed under the code name "Project Propel," inside The Journal's offices in Lower Manhattan, represents one of the biggest gambles in the paper's 116-year history. The Journal is betting that it can fluff up its editorial mix, capture the attention of its well-heeled readers and their families and attract consumer advertisers - all without cannibalizing its weekday editions and, more important, without diluting one of the most recognized and sharply defined franchises in all of journalism. "

US Deficit Shrinks

A vindication for tax cuts?: "...a surge in tax receipts has offered some encouragement. For the first eight months of this fiscal year, the government ran a deficit of $272 billion. That's down from the $346 billion deficit for the same months in fiscal 2004. Receipts were up 15 percent from last year.

While that revenue surprise won't cure the nation's overspending problem, it has set off a flurry of budget speculation. A number of economists are lowering substantially their estimates for this year's deficit. Ed McKelvey, an economist with Goldman Sachs, for example, revised his forecast of the fiscal 2005 deficit to $350 billion, down from $412 billion.

...Is this spring's revenue surprise the start of a supply-side surge? Supply-side economists certainly think so. They point out that, under Bush, top tax rates on dividends have been slashed from 30.6 to 15 percent and on capital gains from 20 to 15 percent. That should encourage more people to invest, they argue.

But others are skeptical that the Bush tax cuts do much besides giving a short-term boost to the economy."

Pubic Funding of Pro Sports

John Hood's Daily Journal: "...cities from San Diego to New York are putting up new sports venues for their professional football, baseball, or basketball teams.

...Charlotte has (in)famously begun work on a brand-new arena for its Bobcats NBA franchise, even though voters said 'no' to the idea in a previous referendum.

The new Bobcats arena in uptown Charlotte will reportedly cost $265 million. Taxpayers are slated to cover $170 million of that, while Bobcats owner Robert Johnson will chip in just $23 million. The team is supposed to absorb any cost overruns. Sure it will.

Let’s sum up, then: Charlotte has a higher-than-average tax burden, its high schools are disastrously ineffective, and it’s now officially more wasteful with sports subsidies than New York City."

FNC's Shepard Smith

Shepard Smith

An Anchor Who Is Never Heavy: "They call him the anti-anchor here in the Fox News building, the sometimes smirking man from Holly Springs, Miss., whom nobody would confuse with Bob Schieffer or Brian Williams. Smith presides over a breathless, mile-a-minute, graphics-laden, video-saturated program that careens from war to missing women to what Smith calls 'goofy things.'

The 41-year-old college dropout not only hogs the airtime, he uses slang-filled, stripped-down language that he likens to storytelling on Mississippi front porches. Smith's "smart-aleck" style helps to "puncture the pomposity" of news, says media analyst Andrew Tyndall. As for the pace of the program, Tyndall says, "The only place I've seen an equivalent velocity would be on the tabloid entertainment shows."

This has brought box office success. The show is drawing nearly 1.4 million viewers, up 62 percent from 2001 and beating CNN and MSNBC combined.

Google v. eBay's PayPal

Plan Rival to PayPal : "Google is preparing an online-payment system that would compete with PayPal, according to an online retailer who has been approached by Google to take part in the effort.
In addition to representing a direct challenge to eBay, which owns PayPal, the largest Internet payment system, the move signals Google's intention to become much more deeply involved in online commerce.

Google's flagship search engine and its Froogle shopping service are significant sources of customers for Internet stores. But so far, Google's only way to profit from its presence in online shopping is by selling advertisements that appear next to its search results and on Froogle pages.

Google has long been rumored to be developing a classified advertising service, one that would compete with eBay and with the popular free site Craigslist. A payment system would help Google bring into its marketplace individuals and small businesses who are not authorized to accept credit cards online."

Biden Running

Sen. Biden Says Intends to Seek Presidency: "``My intention now is to seek the nomination,'' Biden, of Delaware, said on CBS television's ``Face the Nation.'' He said he would explore his support and decide by the end of this year -- a sign the race may get off to an early and competitive start.

``If in fact I think I have a clear shot at winning the nomination, by this November or December, then I'm going to seek the nomination,'' he said."
***************
Might make dinner more interesting at the households of Senators Clinton, Kerry, Edwards, Gov. Richardson, President Clinton, and Howard Dean. Who am I forgetting and offending?

David Brooks on the Passionate Bill Frist

What Makes Bill Frist Run? - New York Times: "Many who've known him say it's hard to square the current on-message leader with the honest young man of [his memoir] 'Transplant,' the stiff, ideological politician with the beloved community leader who made such a mark on Nashville.

Sometimes in their quests to perform greater acts of service, people lose contact with their animating passion. And the irony is that the earlier Frist, the Tennessee Republican, the brilliant and passionate health care expert, is exactly the person the country could use. "

Michelle Wie in 2006 Masters?

U.S. Golf Association Tries to Play Through the Rough: "Michelle Wie became the first female player to qualify for an adult male U.S. Golf Association championship Tuesday, tying for first place in a 36-hole U.S. Amateur Public Links sectional qualifying tournament.
The 15-year-old star from Hawaii, second Sunday in the LPGA Championship at Bulle Rock in Maryland, matched Artie Fink Jr. of Altoona at 1-over 145 on the Cedarbrook Golf Course. Wie opened with a 1-under 71 and shot a 74 in the rain-delayed second round.
The Public Links winner has traditionally received a spot in the Masters."
**************
A personal note: I have been posting less recently as 1) I have been very busy with a number of business and personal issues the last couple of weeks all of which are good things, and 2) perhaps its just summer vacation time but so many things particularly national politics and the stock market seem to stuck on hold for now, I hope more is going on behind the scenes than I am seeing.

President Bush: Democrats' Philosophy of the Stop Sign

Remarks by the President at 2005 President's Dinner: "Political parties can take one of two approaches. One approach is to lead, to focus on the people's business, to take on the tough problems. And that is exactly what our party is doing.

The other approach is to simply do nothing -- to delay solutions, obstruct progress, refuse to take responsibility. Members of the other party have worked with us to achieve important reforms on some issues. Yet, too often, their leadership prefers to block the ideas of others. We hear 'no' to making tax relief permanent. We hear 'no' to Social Security reform. We hear 'no' to confirming federal judges. We hear 'no' to a highly qualified U.N. ambassador. We hear 'no' to medical liability reform. On issue after issue, they stand for nothing except obstruction, and this is not leadership. It is the philosophy of the stop sign, the agenda of the roadblock, and our country and our children deserve better.

Political parties that choose the path of obstruction will not gain the trust of the American people. If leaders of the other party have innovative ideas, let's hear them. But if they have no ideas or policies except obstruction, they should step aside and let others lead.

The United States has a special obligation, in my view, to work with freedom fighters all around the world, to stand squarely with the reformers. I believe it's important for generations to come, because I understand that democracies don't fight each other, that democracies are the way to defeat hatred, that democracies provide the best hope for men and women around the world. There's no doubt in my mind the policies that this administration has taken will make the world more peaceful for generations to come.

The American people have entrusted us with the leadership of this great country at an historic moment. We've set big goals, and they're not always easy to achieve. Otherwise they'd have been done already. But we're going to continue to be the party that sets the big goals, the party that's idealistic, the party of reform. We'll continue to lead, no matter how tough the challenge might be. You see, the American people have given us their trust. But the good news for the American people is, in our policies we trust them. We trust their values; we trust their judgment; we trust them with their own money. So long as we stay true to our values and our ideas, we will do what Americans have always done. We will build a better world for our children and our grandchildren. "

Suing Her Law School

Court Lets Law Graduate Sue GMU Over F: "When Carin Constantine flunked constitutional law after suffering a migraine during the final exam, she did what came naturally. She sued the professor. And the dean. And George Mason University.

Last year, a federal judge in Alexandria threw out Constantine's exercise in the real-life practice of law. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond decided in her favor Monday, saying Constantine met the requirements to sue under the Americans With Disabilities Act. The appeals court sent her case back to the district court for trial.

A three-judge panel did not rule on Constantine's claim but said that if indeed administrators had denied her a reexamination and a hearing, given her only three days' notice when they allowed her to retake the exam and determined her failing grade in advance, "such conduct would tend to chill a reasonable person's exercise of First Amendment rights." The court acknowledged it was viewing the lawsuit in the light "most favorable" to Constantine.

Constantine, who graduated from George Mason in 2003 with the F on her transcript, is studying to take the bar exam in Florida. She said the whole experience has been "a great lesson in how the system really works."

Jobs on Time

Apple's Jobs Tells Graduates About Dropout - New York Times: "Steve Jobs told Stanford University graduates Sunday that dropping out of college was one of the best decisions he ever made because it forced him to be innovative -- even when it came to finding enough money for dinner.

In an unusually candid commencement speech, Jobs also told the almost 5,000 graduates that his bout with a rare form of pancreatic cancer reemphasized the need to live each day to the fullest.
''Your time is limited so don't let it be wasted living someone else's life,'' Jobs said...

When he was diagnosed with cancer, Jobs said his doctor told him he only had three- to-six months to live. He later found out he had a rare, treatable form of the disease -- but he still learned a tough lesson.

''Remembering you are going to die is the best way to avoid the fear that you have something to lose,'' he said."

NR Editors on Global Warming

NR Editors on Global Warming on National Review Online: "The reality that few politicians like to talk about is this: The only way to stop whatever global warming might be caused by fossil fuels is to make these fuels so expensive at the margin that they would be largely abandoned. But the costs of doing so are utterly prohibitive, and would not be justified even by worst-case global-warming scenarios. Unfortunately, no one has the stomach to level with the public about this - so, instead, we get meaningless pledges like those that Schwarzenegger has issued. That may be annoying, but things could be worse."

WSJ's Henniger on the Medical Marijuana, Commerce, Federalism Case

OpinionJournal - Wonder Land: "Liberalism to cancer patients: Drop dead. Meanwhile, dissents on behalf of medical marijuana were written by Sandra Day O'Connor, a cancer survivor, and Clarence Thomas, whose nomination was fought by recreational pot users...

If the Court's four liberals had ruled in favor of state laws allowing medical marijuana, which federal law forbids, that precedent would have helped conservative efforts to reduce federal clout in other areas, such as environmental authority in the West. Thus Justice Stevens wrote that the Controlled Substances Act, a Nixon-era law, "is a valid exercise of federal power, even as applied to the troubling facts of this case." Liberals with cancer should take solace in knowing they will be vomiting to save the snail darter.

In his dissent, Justice Thomas, liberalism's archfiend, noted: "The majority prevents states like California from devising drug policies that they have concluded provide much-needed respite to the seriously ill." And: "Our federalist system, properly understood, allows California and a growing number of other states to decide for themselves how to safeguard the health and welfare of their citizens."

This is an abstruse but important legal debate about the Commerce Clause and federal legal power in the 21st century. Liberals, if they wanted to, could recognize that letting the states take the lead on controversial issues involving behavior among consenting adults--both personal and commercial--might abet their beliefs in this day and age. But they won't. Thus friends sick with cancer must choke down this decision.

Not all cancer patients are interested in the Hundred Years War underway between conservatives and liberals. They probably think common sense should allow Justice Thomas's "much-needed respite." The usual tangle of public policy makes that difficult."

From Thomas, Original Views

Justice Thomas: "Dope is cool."

Justice Scalia: "Let the cancer patients suffer."


If the headline writers characterized Supreme Court decisions the way many senators and most activists and lobbying groups do, that is how they would have characterized the Supreme Court decision this week on the use of medical marijuana in California...

From Thomas, Original Views: "The real question is never what judges decide but how they decide it. The Scalia-Thomas argument was not about concern for cancer patients, the utility of medical marijuana or the latitude individuals should have regarding what they ingest.

It was about what the Constitution's commerce clause permits and, even more abstractly, who decides what the commerce clause permits. To simplify only slightly, Antonin Scalia says: Supreme Court precedent. Clarence Thomas says: the Founders, as best we can interpret their original intent."

WSJ Takes NY A.G. Elliot Spitzer Down

OpinionJournal - Featured Article: "One lesson here is that juries, forced to make a decision about a defendant's fate, want to make sure that the alleged behavior is in fact criminal. Prosecution by press release won't do in court.

The Justice Department has understood this, and has built a record in business fraud cases that has held up in court on Enron, WorldCom and Adelphia. Mr. Spitzer, by contrast, has used New York's overbroad Martin Act to prosecute financial cases of dubious legal merit. Business fraud deserves to be prosecuted, but the criminalization of widely accepted business practices ex post facto is both unjust and offensive to the rule of law. Congratulations to Mr. Sihpol and his jury for reminding Eliot Spitzer that to be convicted of a crime in America you should first have to break the law"

Peggy Noonan: "Seeing Red"

Peggy Noonan is "Seeing Red - Hillary Clinton and Howard Dean rage against Republicans. It's not a winning approach."OpinionJournal - Peggy Noonan: "There is a tradition of political generosity that prevails among the normal people of America, a certain live-and-let-live-ness. That is why Little League games don't break out in fistfights, at least over politics. You don't shun people in the neighborhood because they're Democrats, and you don't inform the Republican in the next cubicle that he is evil, lazy and racist. That just doesn't play in America. There are breaches, exceptions, incidents. We are not angels. But by and large even though we disagree with each other, and even if we come to dislike each other, we maintain, for reasons both moral and practical, decorum. Civility. We keep a lid on it. We don't lower it to the level of invective. We don't by nature seek to divide...

The comportment of Hillary Clinton and Howard Dean is actually not worthy of America. Their statements suggest they are in no way equal to the country they seek to lead. And something tells me that sooner or later America is going to tell them. But in a generous, mature and fair-minded way. "

Milton Freidman on School Vouchers

WSJ-060905

OpinionJournal - Featured Article:"Little did I know when I published an article in 1955 on "The Role of Government in Education" that it would lead to my becoming an activist for a major reform in the organization of schooling...

What really led to increased interest in vouchers was the deterioration of schooling, dating in particular from 1965 when the National Education Association converted itself from a professional association to a trade union. Concern about the quality of education led to the establishment of the National Commission of Excellence in Education, whose final report, 'A Nation at Risk,' was published in 1983. It used the following quote from Paul Copperman to dramatize its own conclusion:
'Each generation of Americans has outstripped its parents in education, in literacy, and in economic attainment. For the first time in the history of our country, the educational skills of one generation will not surpass, will not equal, will not even approach, those of their parents.'

Throughout this long period, we have been repeatedly frustrated by the gulf between the clear and present need, the burning desire of parents to have more control over the schooling of their children, on the one hand, and the adamant and effective opposition of trade union leaders and educational administrators to any change that would in any way reduce their control of the educational system.

The good news is that, despite these setbacks, public interest in and support for vouchers and tax credits continues to grow. Legislative proposals to channel government funds directly to students rather than to schools are under consideration in something like 20 states. Sooner or later there will be a breakthrough; we shall get a universal voucher plan in one or more states. When we do, a competitive private educational market serving parents who are free to choose the school they believe best for each child will demonstrate how it can revolutionize schooling."

"School Choice, No Radical Idea"

John Locke Foundation School Choice, No Radical Idea: "There's nothing perfect about choice-based systems. Some students still fail to learn. Some teachers and schools survive despite lackluster performance. But you don't compare policy proposals to some perfect abstraction. You compare them to the real-world alternatives, which in North Carolina remain unacceptably mediocre and paltry. More than half of our African-American students fail to graduate from public high schools. And many of our graduates, whatever their race, are not really prepared for college, the workplace, or citizenship.

The value of customer choice, the virtue of competition, and the importance of individual responsibility are present in virtually every field of human endeavor. What is truly radical is to suggest that these principles should not also come into play in performing one of our most important tasks: teaching our children when they need to know to survive and succeed."

William F. Buckley Jr.: "The Court on High"

Medical Marijuana and the Supreme Court on National Review Online: "The Supreme Court did what conservative court-watchers should welcome. It looked the California situation in the face and said: If Congress doesn't like the law, let Congress change it, but don't look to the Supreme Court to improvise on the drug laws.

In his opinion, Justice Stevens hinted that there were two ways to address the deadlock. The first and most obvious, of course, is for Congress to revise the current statute to make the exception for medical marijuana. But there is another approach, namely for the Executive to reclassify marijuana for medical purposes.

How will these sentiments and inclinations fare?

[Poorly according to Mr. Buckley but read his eloquence, and he concludes:]
...the permissivists have an eloquent martyr, the late Peter McWilliams who ardently championed looser laws, who himself depended on marijuana for relief from the nausea caused by AIDS and who died during a period when he was under court scrutiny, pending sentencing, and had to do without the drug.

Taking marijuana when young is a stupid thing to do, but the young generation is not (yet) suffering from cancer and AIDS and other diseases from the ravages of which they might find relief, if they can dance through the congestion of laws and opinions that beset us."

Kerry and Bush at Yale

Kerry at Yale

Bush at Yale
Yale grades portray Kerry as a lackluster student - The Boston Globe :
"...Bush and Kerry had a virtually identical grade average at Yale University four decades ago. In 1999, The New Yorker published a transcript indicating that Bush had received a cumulative score of 77 for his first three years at Yale and a roughly similar average under a non-numerical rating system during his senior year.

Kerry, who graduated two years before Bush, got a cumulative 76 for his four years, according to a transcript that Kerry sent to the Navy when he was applying for officer training school. He received four D's in his freshman year out of 10 courses, but improved his average in later years...

The transcript shows that Kerry's freshman-year average was 71. He scored a 61 in geology, a 63 and 68 in two history classes, and a 69 in political science. His top score was a 79, in another political science course. Another of his strongest efforts, a 77, came in French class.

Under Yale's grading system in effect at the time, grades between 90 and 100 equaled an A, 80-89 a B, 70-79 a C, 60 to 69 a D, and anything below that was a failing grade. In addition to Kerry's four D's in his freshman year, he received one D in his sophomore year. He did not fail any courses.

''I always told my Dad that D stood for distinction," Kerry said yesterday in a written response to questions...

...Bush went to Yale from 1964 to 1968; his highest grades were 88s in anthropology, history, and philosophy, according to The New Yorker article. He received one D in his four years, a 69 in astronomy. Bush has said he was a C student.

Like Kerry, Bush reportedly suffered through a difficult freshman year and then pulled his grades up."

CAFTA and Big Sugar

A Bitter Pill for Sugar Beet Farmers: "The specter of CAFTA collapsing over sugar is particularly galling to economists who have long criticized federal restrictions on sugar imports. 'Sugar is a prototypical case of a policy that favors the few at the expense of the many,' wrote Kimberly A. Elliott, a research fellow at the Center for Global Development, in an analysis last month."

...Sugar growers and refiners gave $2.4 million in contributions to Democratic and Republican candidates in the 2003-04 election cycle, more than any other agricultural group, according to Political MoneyLine, an organization that tracks such data. The best-known donors are big sugar cane growers in Florida and Louisiana, especially the Fanjul brothers, who come from a family of sugar barons in Cuba (their holdings were expropriated by Fidel Castro) and now produce cane near the Everglades.

Jose "Pepe" Fanjul, president of Florida Crystals Corp., raised enough money for the Bush campaign to gain entry into the elite group of GOP "Rangers." His brother Alfonso, who specializes in contributions to Democrats, gained notoriety during President Bill Clinton's impeachment trial, when it emerged that Fanjul's phone call to the Oval Office had interrupted a presidential meeting with Monica Lewinsky...

...eliminating the distortions created by government policies in the United States, Europe and elsewhere could create 1 million jobs in developing countries that are more efficient sugar producers. And American consumers would benefit; workers in sugar-using industries might benefit, too.

High sugar prices have played a part in the exodus of American candymakers such as Brach's and Fannie May, and of Kraft Foods' Lifesavers plant, to countries such as Canada and Mexico. Although the sugar industry points out the those moves abroad were driven more by labor-cost than sugar-cost considerations, the plant closures have evoked bitterness in candymaking centers like Chicago."

Russell Simmons meets Ken Mehlman

New York Daily News - Home - Lloyd Grove's Lowdown: "DISSING DEAN: I hear that Hip Hop Summit honcho Russell Simmons, a loyal Democrat, met in Washington yesterday with Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman, but not with Democratic Party chief Howard Dean. 'When it comes to reaching out to poor people and minorities, I think there's no enthusiasm on Howard's part, while Ken shows a real willingness to listen,' Simmons told me."

Bush Addresses OAS

Bush Predicts Democracy In Cuba: "'Democracy is the rule rather than the exception among nations in the Americas,' Bush told foreign ministers and diplomats from 34 countries gathered here for the general assembly of the Organization of American States, but 'only one country in this hemisphere sits outside this society of democratic nations -- and one day, the tide of freedom will reach Cuba's shores as well.'
Bush, who since becoming president has increased pressure on the government of Cuban President Fidel Castro, quoted the 19th-century Cuban writer and revolutionary Jose Marti in calling liberty a birthright. 'La libertad no es negociable,' Bush said.

Bush's 13-minute speech also had some thinly veiled words for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a close ally of Castro who has become a hero in parts of Latin America by casting the United States as an imperialist power and who has stoked U.S. ire by nationalizing some businesses and stifling political dissent.

Bush said countries of the OAS have a stark choice between two competing visions: one that includes representative government, integration into world markets and a faith in freedom, and another that seeks to roll back democratic progress by "playing to fear, pitting neighbor against neighbor and blaming others for their own failures to provide for their people."

D-Day 61 Years Ago

Normandy Marks D - Day Landings : " On rain-whipped French beaches and in graveyards crowded with white crosses, aging Allied veterans on Monday quietly honored friends who fell 61 years ago during the D-Day landings that changed the course of World War II."
******
You may recall the numbers of Allied forces going into battle that day were greater than our total deployed in Iraq and the casualties of that battle were horrifically greater than our losses in the Iraq war to date.

Stanley Crouch: No Child Left Behind is starting to work

NY Daily News : "The United Federation of Teachers has said that No Child Left Behind is a measure that has been misapplied since it was enacted. But the recent spike in math and reading scores for states including Delaware, Ohio, Maryland, Illinois and yes, New York, says otherwise. ...For all of the screaming and hollering, however, No Child Left Behind, as recent figures and testimony have shown, is beginning to work because the bill takes the position that failure is no longer an acceptable option.

In capitalism, things change as often because of money as they do because of morality and deep thinking, so it is always smart to attach money to morality and vanguard conceptions. Then the choice of profit over deficit can bring about better results. Once the federal government made it clear that no funds would be forthcoming unless there were improvements in student performance - which meant improvements in teacher performance - things began to change.

We have now been freed from a debilitating illusion, which was that those children unfortunate enough to be born the wrong color or in the wrong class were just incapable of learning. When we get rid of that kind of hogwash, we get ever closer to realizing the potential of our richly diverse population and move closer to putting up a good fight for the world markets that places like China and India intend to take as many of as they can. "

Good Question

New York Daily News - Ideas & Opinions - Stanley Crouch: No Child Left Behind is starting to work: "Dan Rose, a businessman and philanthropist, recently visited China and became aware of the fact that the Chinese are now graduating 10 million high school students a year who cannot speak English, but who can read and write English. His question was, 'I wonder how long it will take the Chinese, at this rate, to end up with more people who can read and write English than we have in the United States?'"

Good News on Stem Cell Debate

Stem Cell Advances May Make Moral Issue Moot: "In recent months, a number of researchers have begun to assemble intriguing evidence that it is possible to generate embryonic stem cells without having to create or destroy new human embryos.
The research is still young and largely unpublished, and in some cases it is limited to animal cells. Scientists doing the work also emphasize their desire to have continued access to human embryos for now. It is largely by analyzing how nature makes stem cells, deep inside days-old embryos, that these researchers are learning how to make the cells themselves.
Yet the gathering consensus among biologists is that embryonic stem cells are made, not born -- and that embryos are not an essential ingredient. That means that today's heated debates over embryo rights could fade in the aftermath of technical advances allowing scientists to convert ordinary cells into embryonic stem cells.
'That would really get around all the moral and ethical concerns,' said James F. Battey, chief of the stem cell task force at the National Institutes of Health. The techniques under study qualify for federal grant support because embryos are not harmed, he noted. And eventually the work could boost the number of stem cell colonies, or lines, available for study by taxpayer-supported researchers."
********
Read it all; very encouraging.

Laptop Sales

Laptops Outsell Desktops for First Time: "In a sure sign that the era of mobile computing has arrived, notebooks have for the first time outsold desktops in the United States in a calendar month, the research firm Current Analysis says.

After tracking sales from a sampling of electronics retailers, Current Analysis says notebook sales accounted for 53 percent of the total personal computer market last month, up from 46 percent during the same period last year...Notebook prices fell 17 percent during the past year while desktop prices dipped only 4 percent.
Last year, 80 percent of notebooks offered wireless; this year, it's 95 percent, Current Analysis says.

"There used to be a time when people expected a reply to an e-mail within a couple of days. Now they expect a response within 24 hours. People want to stay connected wherever they are," said Bhavnani."

Rather Contrite

Variety.com - Journo's Rather contrite: "Rather admitted he had improperly defended the story after questions arose about the veracity of its documentation..."I was guilty of standing by and standing up for the story," he said. "I accept the panel's criticism that I shouldn't have done that."

The biggest lesson he learned, Rather said, was that the American people are "fair and fair-minded."

Rather, who choked up several times, received standing ovations at the start and end of his 45-minute appearance. He urged the journos to take their watchdog role seriously and said his biggest worry stems from the American public's "increasing lack of understanding" of the importance of First Amendment protections of the press.

He said his greatest surprise as a journalist came in 1968 when President Johnson said he wouldn't seek re-election, adding, "I wouldn't have been more surprised if Fidel Castro had come riding through on a giraffe."
***************
Note that Rather has yet to say the story was a fake CBS aired - he is just sorry he didn't back off quicker - contrite is not apologetic.

al Qaeda Rule 18: "You must claim you were tortured."

USNews.com: John Leo wonders about news that doesn't make the news, why the media ignore some stories (6/13/05): "Mainstream media have been reluctant, in all the coverage of treatment of detainees at Guantanamo, to mention that the al Qaeda training manual specifically instructs all of its agents to make false claims of torture. The New York Times seems to have mentioned the manual's torture reference only once, in a short report from Australia. Several other papers mentioned it as a one-line quote from a military spokesman who pointed it out. But until the Washington Times ran a front-page piece last week, a Nexis search could find no clear and pointed article in the U.S. press like the one by Alasdair Palmer in the London Sunday Telegraph, with the headline 'This is al Qaeda Rule 18: 'You must claim you were tortured.' ' He wrote that the manual doesn't prove 'that the Britons were not tortured in Guantanamo. But it ought to encourage some doubts about uncritically accepting that they were--which seems to be the attitude adopted by most of the media.' Amen to both points in that last sentence."
{HT: InstaPundit}

Amnesty International Recommends Seizure and Trial Of US Officials

USNews.com: John Leo wonders about news that doesn't make the news, why the media ignore some stories (6/13/05): "A different omission marred the reporting of Amnesty International's report charging torture in U.S. detainment camps. The group didn't just call Guantanamo a 'gulag,' an over-the-top remark that was universally reported. In a press release that most reporters ignored, the group also invited foreign governments to snatch certain visiting American officials off the streets and bring them to trial for crimes against humanity. The suggested snatchees, should they travel abroad, were President Bush, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, former CIA Director George Tenet, and other unnamed civilian and military officials. Amnesty International said that 'all states have a responsibility to investigate and prosecute people responsible for these crimes,' just as the British pounced on Augusto Pinochet in London in 1998. The snatching recommendation wasn't new, but the Amnesty press release is a useful reminder of the dangers of signing on to the International Criminal Court."
{HT: InstaPundit}

Dual-Core Chips

Dual-Core Chips Help Processors Share Load: "AMD's Athlon 64 X2 and Intel's Pentium D use 'dual-core' designs that put two processors on a single piece of silicon, divvying up the work between the pair. These models are available in top-of-the-line desktop computers from such vendors as Dell Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co. and Alienware Corp...Contrary to what the dual-core name might suggest, however, these new chips won't deliver twice the speed of their predecessors. The two 3.2-gigahertz cores in a new Intel Pentium D won't necessarily yield 6.4 GHz worth of performance...AMD and Intel say they plan to roll out their new chips aggressively. By the end of 2006, Intel plans to have more than 70 percent of its desktop and laptop processors dual-core, with that figure rising to 90 percent by 2007."

Edwards Running Hard

""I have a range of interests now," Edwards told the Observer in a phone interview Wednesday. "I feel like I'm staying busy, but busy in a good way, working on things I really care deeply about and spending time with my family."

Edwards, 51, has visited at least 15 states since January. Saturday he speaks to Tennessee Democrats in Nashville. He'll visit at least eight more states in the coming months. He declined to say if he's running for office, only that he's doing things and "We'll see where that leads."

Edwards' whirlwind schedule does little to dampen speculation that he's in full sprint toward a 2008 campaign for the White House, an office that eluded him as both a presidential candidate and Sen. John Kerry's running mate last year."
*************
In NC strong speculation exists over whether Edwards will challenge Sen. Dole in 2006 as noted in this blog previously. Sen. Dole is already using that idea in her money raising effort. I personally think Edwards will stick to his national ambition; I also think Edwards would have a rough go of it against Liddie Dole here in NC in a bid to regain a seat in the US Senate.

Edwards: The Skeptics

And this from The John William Pope Center for Higher Education , a conservative think tank in NC, in an email piece offered through the John Locke Foundation, available through Carolina Journal listed in my favorites list on this blog - since that's so confusing here it is in full:

"All right, you skeptics, just why is it so hard to believe that John Edwards' center at UNC Law isn't really about solving poverty? Why don't you believe all those statements about how Edwards' interest in the center is not political? Why do you continue to think it's simply about giving Carolina publicity and Edwards an issue for 2008?

Is it because of the timing of the center's creation? Is it because no one'd heard a peep out of Chapel Hill about a poverty center until the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity was announced in early February? Does it have anything to do with the fact that shortly after Edwards lost in November, UNC Law School Dean Gene Nichol openly talked about his desire to get Edwards into UNC Law? Could it be that you're suspicious over the center's whirlwind creation in a matter of weeks without input from lawmakers or the public? Did all that make you think UNC's real interest was in rescuing a darling of a desperate politician on the brink of political irrelevancy?

Or is it also because Edwards announced his new directorship not in Chapel Hill, not in Raleigh, not anywhere between Murphy and Manteo, but in New Hampshire, site of the first presidential primary of 2008, at a Democrat fundraiser?

Is it because the poverty center was created within the school of law, despite being obviously outside the discipline's scope? Is it because it was not created somewhere else, say, the economics department? Is it because Edwards keeps talking about governmental "solutions" to the problem? Does it have anything to do with Edwards' recent speech at a Democrat fundraiser in South Florida, where he advocated such ways to fight poverty as raising payroll taxes to support Social Security, raising taxes via "roll[ing] back tax cuts," raising the minimum wage, expanding the earned income tax credit, and in his inestimable words, "doing something about inner city schools"?

Did rehashing those worn-out socialist notions increase your skepticism about the program's promise of "innovative and creative" solutions to poverty? Do you wonder whether an economics-based approach to alleviating poverty would seek to scale back rather than increase governmental interference with the economy? Do you think a center truly focused on helping the impoverished -- and completely independent of Democrat Party politics -- would instead suggest ways to reduce regulation, cut bureaucracy, and otherwise favor a more hands-off approach toward people's incomes and decisions? Is that because you think having government dictate people's financial decisions tends to increase all kinds of societal costs that disproportionately harm those in poverty? Do you think it makes it harder for people in poverty to find employment, buy affordable goods, and receive charity from concerned individuals?

Is your skepticism also because Edwards and UNC officials appear to use the terms "poverty" and "poor" interchangeably? Does that concern you because it's not the sort of mistake serious academics make? Is it because you know that "poverty" is privation, the lack of basic necessities, but "poor" is a relative marker that does not necessarily mean living in poverty? Is it also because statistical measures of people in poverty in America generally exclude all current government services (food stamps, housing aid, etc.) they receive? Would that not mean that the poor in America are generally not in poverty, and even those who are, still aren't as left out as Edwards and UNC imply? Do you worry that Edwards' confusion over the distinction between the poor and the impoverished denotes not scholarship on his part, but demagoguery?

Does Edwards' consistent call for raising the minimum wage make you more doubtful about the seriousness of the center? Is that because you know the minimum wage hurts the poorest the hardest? Do you wonder why the man who was the only choice to lead UNC's poverty center doesn't seem to know the effects of wage floors on the least employable? Are you amazed he would actively seek to make the poorest people harder to hire -- in the name of helping them? Do you sometimes wonder how basic truths of economics could evade a supposed scholar seriously intent on studying poverty?

Is that why you think scholarship isn't engaged with the "Edwards center," that it's all about politics? Is that why you find UNC's interactions with the Edwards campaign extraordinarily shameful, like institutional prostitution? Are those all your reasons, or are there more?

Times of London: Europe's Challenge

Opinion - Gerard Baker US Editor Times Online:"European civilisation has sown the seeds of its own decline and fall": "This week, voters in France and the Netherlands sounded the alarm. Characteristically, while the Dutch seem to have got the message about the social costs of its ruinous ultra-liberalism, the French have got the wrong end of the stick and want to escape from globalisation behind high walls of social protection.

But the challenge is now upon Europe. The longer it puts off the inevitable reforms - economic, social and political - the harder it will get. And if it chooses to defer a real response for ever, the greatest civilisation in the history of the planet will simply continue to sink beneath the waves of its own economic irrelevance and moral ennui. "

VDH on GWOT in NRO

Victor Davis Hanson on the War on Terror on National Review Online: "The three-year-plus war that began on September 11 is the strangest conflict in our history. It is not just that the first day saw the worst attack on American soil since our creation, or that we are publicly pledged to fighting a method -'terror'- rather than the concrete enemy of Islamic fascism that employs it.

Our dilemma is that we have not sought to defeat and humiliate the enemy as much as wean a people from the thrall of Islamic autocracy. That is our challenge, and explains our exasperating strategy of half-measures and apologies — and the inability to articulate exactly whom we are fighting and why.

For now Islamic fascist strategy is to make such horrific news in Iraq that America throws up its hands and sighs, “These crazy people simply aren’t worth it,” goes home, snoozes — and thus becomes ripe for another September 11. "
***********
Read it all.

John Edwards Candidate

CITIZEN-TIMES.com: John Edwards appears to be vying for party's nomination: "John Edwards says he hasn't decided whether to make another bid for the presidency, but the former Democratic candidate for the nation's top job appears to be campaigning hard for his party's nomination in 2008.

Edwards, a one-term North Carolina senator who was Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry’s running mate in 2004, stressed his familiar “two Americas” theme in a speech Thursday to about 2,000 liberal Democratic activists.

“I have no doubt he’s running for president,” former national Democratic Party chairman Don Fowler said in a telephone interview from South Carolina.

Mike Munger, a Duke University political scientist, is convinced that Edwards will run for president. If Edwards didn’t want to be president, Munger said, he would have returned to his law practice after the elections. “He has a think tank and a political organization and is giving talks all over the place,” Munger said via e-mail. “This is costing him $10 million a year, at least, in lost legal fees. So, he is serious.”

The EU and America's Liberals

Fear and Rejection - New York Times: "Forgive me for making a blunt and obvious point, but events in Western Europe are slowly discrediting large swaths of American liberalism.

Most of the policy ideas advocated by American liberals have already been enacted in Europe: generous welfare measures, ample labor protections, highly progressive tax rates, single-payer health care systems, zoning restrictions to limit big retailers, and cradle-to-grave middle-class subsidies supporting everything from child care to pension security. And yet far from thriving, continental Europe has endured a lost decade of relative decline. "
*************
Since Brooks' column I have read dozens making the same point including Freidman who was most eloquent so as not to offend the NYT base.

Note of Irony on Felt

Felt Broke Rules by Sharing Information : "When Felt was on trial for authorizing illegal break-ins during the 1970s at homes of people associated with the radical Weather Underground, Nixon testified on his behalf.
And after Reagan pardoned Felt in 1981, he received a bottle of champagne and this brief note from the disgraced former president: ''Justice ultimately prevails.''"

80th Wedding Anniversary

Secret of longest marriage is saying 'sorry' : "LONDON (Reuters) - A British couple who hold the world record for the longest marriage said Wednesday their success was down to a glass of whisky, a glass of sherry and the word 'sorry.' Percy and Florence Arrowsmith married on June 1, 1925 and will celebrate their 80th anniversary Wednesday.

The Guinness World Records said Tuesday the couple held the title for the longest marriage and also for the oldest married couple's aggregate age.

"I think we're very blessed," Florence, 100, told the BBC. "We still love one another, that's the most important part." Asked for their secret, Florence said you must never be afraid to say "sorry."

And from the New York Times: "A British husband and wife revealed the secrets of the longest marriage of any living couple on Wednesday as they celebrated their 80th wedding anniversary -- don't sleep on an argument, always share a kiss and hold hands before going to bed... The Arrowsmiths, who have three children, six grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren, claim the key to their long marriage is not to go to sleep on an argument. They say they always kiss each other and hold hands each night before going to bed. ''He can't settle down if I'm not holding his hand,'' Mrs. Arrowsmith was quoted as saying last month. The couple's daughter Jane Woolley said her parents were both ''very perky.'' ''She (Mrs. Arrowsmith) says she can't dance any longer but it feels good to have been married for 80 years. She says she can still have a drink,'' Woolley said. Guinness World Records said the pair held records for the longest marriage for a living couple and the oldest aggregate age of a married couple.

"You must never go to sleep bad friends," she said, while Percy, 105, said his secret to marital bliss was just two words: "yes dear." The couple have three children, six grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren and are planning a party soon. "I like sherry at lunch time and whisky at night and I'm looking forward very much to my party," said Florence."
**************
My parents celebrate their 55th wedding anniversary June 14.

Tutors: High Test Scores High Fees

New York Times: "A slender fellow with a goatee and a mass of curly hair, Mr. Fisher, 34, still tutors students. Only today his students are seeking higher test scores - and his tutorials cost $375 to $425 an hour. Mr. Fisher is among about 100 tutors working for Advantage Testing Inc., an Upper East Side test preparation firm. He joined nine years ago, with no formal teaching experience but a master's degree in music from Juilliard and a Harvard physics degree, and is now one of the firm's most senior tutors...

Steve Feldman, a 23-year-old Manhattan resident, said that the three months Mr. Fisher tutored him for the law school exam prepared him well for the mental rigors of the law. Originally scoring in the 16th percentile, Mr. Feldman ended up in the 85th percentile. He was accepted to his first-choice school, Tulane University, and credits much of his success to his tutor's method and disposition...

"He knows the LSAT inside and out," Mr. Feldman said. "He would sit and watch me take a practice test and figure out, just by watching me, what I was having trouble with. Then we'd work on that until I had it down."
Though Mr. Feldman estimates that his two months of tutoring twice a week cost him "three-quarters of a year's tuition" (Tulane Law charges $33,000 a year in tuition and fees), it was worth it, he said.
"This was an investment in my future."

Poll Shows Support for PRAs

Social Security plan backed in new poll : "Most likely voters continue to support President Bush's proposal to let younger workers invest some of their Social Security payroll taxes through personal accounts, a new survey finds.

The poll by independent pollster John Zogby for the Cato Institute, which is being released today, found that when voters understood the benefits of personal investment accounts, including a better financial rate of return than the current system, the Bush plan was supported by 52 percent of Americans and opposed by 40 percent.

Among supporters, the most popular reason for supporting private accounts was, "It's my money; I should control it," Mr. Zogby said. "This was true for every group except African-Americans, who chose inheritability as their biggest reason for supporting accounts." The poll's results suggested that Mr. Bush's proposal would be much more popular if he focused "on the points in this poll," Mr. Zogby said in an interview.
"Nobody can understand or relate to the system's insolvency in 2043. But it wins a majority when the issue is raised as a matter of choice and as a positive opportunity," he said. "If it's pitted as just Social Security reform because it is becoming insolvent, that's not enough."

College Vouchers in Colorado

College vouchers put a face on funds in Colorado -- The Washington Times: "Recruiters for Colorado's state colleges are hustling to sign up current students and high school graduates as the nation's first market-oriented tuition-voucher system begins this fall.
Colorado is the first state to abandon direct funding to its 13 community colleges, three state universities and six other public colleges -- currently, $500 million a year -- in favor of a $2,400 tuition voucher to each enrolled college student.
'It's going to drive changes and force reform, which is what we want,' said Richard F. O'Donnell, executive director of the Colorado Commission on Higher Education (CCHE). 'Students have ownership over their tax dollars in an explicit way, which we think will motivate those changes.' "

Democrats Getting Religion

Columns: Finding religion on the left: "Listening to a Democratic meeting or political rally these days can be like attending church service. At Our Lady of Perpetual Defensiveness.

"...Howard Dean, who since becoming Democratic National Committee chairman has developed a zeal for Bible verse.

"I didn't see it in the Republican platform anywhere, but I saw in the Bible that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven," Dean told southwest Florida Democrats recently. "It is a moral value to walk with the least among us. Those moral values are consistent with Democratic values, with American values, and they are sorely lacking with the Pharisees and the Sadducees, who preach one thing and are hypocritical. We need to kick the money changers out of the temple and restore values to America again!

Awkward as it may be at times (especially for someone such as Dean, who once called the Old Testament story of Job his favorite book of the New Testament), ...Democratic politicians have become so consumed with religion."

Kerry Still Running

Gainesville.com The Gainesville Sun Gainesville, Fla.: [At National Head Start Conference in Orlando]
"I went back and reread the whole New Testament the other day. Nowhere in the three-year ministry of Jesus Christ did I find a suggestion at all, ever, anywhere, in any way whatsover, that you ought to take the money from the poor, the opportunities from the poor and give them to the rich people,' Kerry said.

Kerry has yet to officially announce whether he's in the running for the 2008 nomination, and he didn't take questions from the media Friday.

But while speaking to the educators and child advocates gathered in a hotel ballroom, it wasn't difficult to imagine his rhetoric, unchanged, being said at a campaign rally.

'We need to enlist and join together in a great cause across the country that puts a simple choice before our fellow Americans. It's a choice that, I think, is based on values,' Kerry said."

C.I.A. in Smithfield, NC

C.I.A. Expanding Terror Battle Under Guise of Charter Flights - New York Times: "SMITHFIELD, N.C. - The airplanes of Aero Contractors Ltd. take off from Johnston County Airport here, then disappear over the scrub pines and fields of tobacco and sweet potatoes. Nothing about the sleepy Southern setting hints of foreign intrigue. Nothing gives away the fact that Aero's pilots are the discreet bus drivers of the battle against terrorism, routinely sent on secret missions to Baghdad, Cairo, Tashkent and Kabul.

When the Central Intelligence Agency wants to grab a suspected member of Al Qaeda overseas and deliver him to interrogators in another country, an Aero Contractors plane often does the job. If agency experts need to fly overseas in a hurry after the capture of a prized prisoner, a plane will depart Johnston County and stop at Dulles Airport outside Washington to pick up the C.I.A. team on the way."

France Votes No

The Times of London:
"The milestones in the evolution of Europe are well-known, from the rise of Charlemagne to the Enlightenment to the Treaty of Rome in 1957 and future scholars will agree (eventually) that yesterday's 'non' in France is a defining moment for both that country and the continent. There is something particularly ironic, perhaps unappealing, about the eccentric coalition of Left and Right that proved the campaigning engine for this monumental defeat of the French elite. And yet this unholy alliance is itself a reflection of the fundamental and fatal ambiguities of a constitution that is not worth the hundreds of pages it is written on (the exact length varies with language)...

"Far more importantly, though, the EU proceeded towards a monetary union that has so far produced pathetic economic growth, an appalling lack of competitiveness in international trade, massive unemployment, the revival of protectionism and an atmosphere in which extremists of several stripes can happily flourish. The single greatest condemnation of the EU constitution is that it promised more of the same. This fate can be reversed after this referendum. 'C'est non'is surely clear."

Memorial Day: IBD Comments on Media and Military

Today in Investor's Business Daily stock analysis and business news: "Memorial Day: When President Nixon replaced the draft with an all-volunteer force, anti-war rallies vanished. Now, with only volunteers serving, the anti-war crowd doesn't throw tantrums. It writes headlines.
No question much of the Vietnam era's radical left migrated to the media.

...The pettiness astounds. As President Bush told Annapolis grads Friday, over the last four years the American military has liberated some 50 million people.

But why write a macro-story when a micro-story will do?

If, as the military now fears, there's a looming recruitment problem, the elite media should bear much of the blame."

Larry Kudlow on the 2005 Economy

Larry Kudlow on the 2005 Economy, GDP, and Inflation on NRO Financial: "Actually, we are looking at non-inflationary prosperity for several more years to come. This is a good stock market scenario where the broad indices still look to be 20 to 25 percent undervalued. In policy terms the Fed has done its job by restraining inflation and President Bush�s supply-side tax cuts have reignited economic growth. The results are unmistakably positive."

China to Scrap Textile Export Taxes

China to Scrap Textile Export Taxes: "Commerce Minister Bo Xilai said Washington and Brussels had failed to prove their domestic markets had been disrupted by an increase in Chinese exports since a 40-year-old system of quotas on developing countries' exports of textiles expired on Jan 1.

Bo said China was willing to hold talks, but he was scathing about the "double standards" of rich countries that flew the flag of free trade but rushed to throw up barriers when poor nations started to exploit their comparative advantage of cheap labor.

"The EU and the United States should spend more time on the development of high technology -- Airbus or Boeing airplanes, and advanced modern machinery -- rather than spending time quarrelling with us on issues like shirts, socks and trousers."

Bo was speaking hours after China said it would scrap export tariffs on 81 textile products, making good on its threat to roll back the taxes if the West imposed curbs on its goods.

The tit-for-tat move followed a formal request on Friday by the European Union for talks with China over surging shipments of T-shirts and flax yarn, which have fanned fears of widescale bankruptcies and lay-offs in the 25-member bloc.


...The row over textiles has added fuel to a debate over the value of the yuan, which has been pegged near 8.3 per dollar for a decade. Law-makers and manufacturers in the United States, as well as many independent economists, believe the peg undervalues the currency, giving China's exporters an unfair advantage.

Bo gave no clues as to Beijing's thinking on a shift in the currency, saying only that when the government decides it will consider China's needs and the stability of the global economy. "

Peggy Noonan on "Public Servants"

OpinionJournal - Peggy Noonan: "People who charge into burning towers are heroic; nuns who work with the poorest of the poor are self-denying; people who volunteer their time to help our world and receive nothing in return but the knowledge they are doing good are in public service. Politicians are in politics. They are less self-denying than self-aggrandizing. They are given fame, respect, the best health care in the world; they pass laws governing your life and receive a million perks including a good salary, and someone else--faceless taxpayers, 'the folks back home'--gets to pay for the whole thing. This isn't public service, it's more like public command. It's not terrible--democracies need people who commit politics; they have a place and a role to play--but it's not saintly, either. "

NC Judge Boyle in the Political Wind

newsobserver.com: "'At this point, Boyle is outside the agreement,' Tracy Schmaler, [Sen. Patrick] Leahy's committee spokeswoman, said Tuesday. 'I don't know how it affects him.'
Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, a moderate Pennsylvania Republican, said last week that Democrats, whom he didn't name, had told him they would not block Boyle.
Sen. Elizabeth Dole continues to urge her colleagues to approve Boyle's appointment.
'It's unconscionable that he has been held up this long,' said Lindsay Taylor, a Dole spokeswoman. 'He's due an up-or-down vote on the Senate floor.'
Boyle enjoys broad bipartisan support among lawyers who practice before him. The American Bar Association has rated him well-qualified for the job."

Racial Preference in Education

Carolina Journal | Carolina Journal | John Hood's Daily Journal: "...it's fair to say that the best evidence leans against Bowen and Bok's thesis that lowering admissions standards for minorities has no adverse effect on their college performance, which has the additional disadvantage of being severely counterintuitive.

If preferential policies don't produce the desired result, why do college administrators and state policymakers continue to promote them? Here's where I think Gryphon really nails it. 'Affirmative action programs are the primary way that college administrators offer an institutional apology for the exclusionary policies of decades past,' she writes, so it is 'an expressive act as much as a policy decision.'

It is all about intention, in other words, and an intention that can scarcely be faulted given the racially charged history of UNC and state government in general. But good intentions don't make good laws."

Edwards Campaigns at LSE

ABC News: The Note: Intraparty Love and Warfare: "Senator Edwards is scheduled to speak about global challenges facing the United States and Europe at the London School of Economics at 11:30 am ET."

Senator Edwards has a full schedule in his political campaign perhaps next against Senator Elizabeth Dole in a bid to return to the national platform. Oh, I forgot he is campaigning to reduce poverty on behalf of the state-funded UNC Law School.

Kerry's Form SF 180

The caveat emperor - The Boston Globe - Boston.com - Op-ed - News: "During an interview yesterday with Globe editorial writers and columnists, the former Democratic presidential nominee was asked if had signed Form SF 180, authorizing the Department of Defense to grant access to all his military records.
''I have signed it,' Kerry said. Then, he added that his staff was ''still going through it' and ''very, very shortly, you will have a chance to see it.'
The devil is usually in the details. With Kerry, it's also in the dodges and digressions. After the interview, Kerry's communications director, David Wade, was asked to clarify when Kerry signed SF 180 and when public access would be granted. Kerry drifted over to join the conversation, immediately raising the confusion level. He did not answer the question of when he signed the form or when the entire record will be made public...

...Kerry's communications director, David Wade, was asked to clarify when Kerry signed SF 180 and when public access would be granted. Kerry drifted over to join the conversation, immediately raising the confusion level. He did not answer the question of when he signed the form or when the entire record will be made public.

Several e-mails later, Wade conveyed the following information: On Friday, May 20, Kerry obtained a copy of Form 180 and signed it. ''The next step is to send it to the Navy, which will happen in the next few days. The Navy will then send out the records," e-mailed Wade. Kerry first said he would sign Form 180 when pressed by Tim Russert during a Jan. 30 appearance on ''Meet the Press."

Six months after Kerry's loss to George W. Bush, it feels somewhat gratuitous to point out how hard it can be to get a clear, straight answer from Kerry on this and other matters."

Social Class and Education

Class Matters - Social Class and Education in the United States of America - The New York Times - New York Times: "Only 41 percent of low-income students entering a four-year college managed to graduate within five years, the Department of Education found in a study last year, but 66 percent of high-income students did. That gap had grown over recent years. 'We need to recognize that the most serious domestic problem in the United States today is the widening gap between the children of the rich and the children of the poor,' Lawrence H. Summers, the president of Harvard, said last year when announcing that Harvard would give full scholarships to all its lowest-income students. 'And education is the most powerful weapon we have to address that problem.' "

This a long and important article.

Female Advantages in Business

What Women Want - New York Times: John Tierney said,"A friend of mine, a businessman who buys companies, told me one of the first things he looks at is the gender of the boss.

"The companies run by women are much more likely to survive," he said. "The typical guy who starts a company is a competitive, charismatic leader - he's always the firm's top salesman - but if he leaves he takes his loyal followers with him and the company goes downhill. Women C.E.O.'s know how to hire good salespeople and create a healthy culture within the company. Plus they don't spend 20 percent of their time in strip clubs."

Still, for all the executive talents that women have, for all the changes that are happening in the corporate world, there will always be some jobs that women, on average, will not want as badly as men do. Some of the best-paying jobs require crazed competition and the willingness to risk big losses - going broke, never seeing your family and friends, dying young."

Federalist Paper No. 66 and the Deal in the Senate

Efforts of 2 Respected Elders Bring Senate Back From Brink - New York Times: "After weeks of seemingly fruitless negotiations between the two sides, Mr. Byrd, 87, a West Virginia Democrat who has spent more than half a century in Congress, and Mr. Warner, 78, a Virginia Republican who regards himself as an 'institutionalist,' met privately twice on Thursday. They parsed the language of Alexander Hamilton's Federalist Paper No. 66 in an effort to divine what the founding fathers intended when they gave the Senate the power to advise and consent on nominees. After trading telephone calls over the weekend, they drafted three crucial paragraphs.
The agreement contends that the word 'advice' in the paper 'speaks to consultation between the Senate and the president with regard to the use of the president's power to make nominations.' It goes on to state, 'Such a return to the early practices of our government may well serve to reduce the rancor that unfortunately accompanies the advice and consent process in the Senate.'"

US Senate Deal on Judges

US Senate Makes Deal

Senators Reach Deal to Avert Showdown on Judicial Nominees - New York Times: "The 14 senators who forged the compromise included, on the Republican side, Mr. McCain, Mr. Graham, John Warner, Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, Mike DeWine and Lincoln Chafee, and on the Democratic side, Mr. Lieberman, Mr. Byrd, Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, Daniel Inouye, Mark Pryor and Ken Salazar.

Under the accord, announced in a hastily called Capitol news conference, the 14 senators pledged to vote to end prolonged debate on three of President Bush's most disputed appellate court nominees: Priscilla R. Owen of Texas, Janice Rogers Brown of California and William H. Pryor of Arkansas.

The 14 senators made "no commitment to vote for or against" the filibuster against two other nominees, Henry Saad and William Myers, Mr. McCain said."

AP via NYT Bias

Prodded Anew by Bush, Senate Plunges Into Marathon Debate - New York Times: "...with Republicans seeking to strip Democrats of their right to filibuster nominees to the appeals court and Supreme Court."

News story, not an op-ed - and there's no liberal bias?

Krugman's Depression - You Heard It Here

This is what I wrote in this space early last Friday morning:

"In all economic situations, Krugman always looks for, predicts, and earnestly hopes for a depression caused by Republicans who are too foolish to just raise income taxes, sales taxes, payroll taxes, corporate taxes and use any tool to grab any assets in the hands of any entity not in poverty."


This is Krugman today:

America Wants Security - New York Times: "Here's my thought: maybe 2004 was 1928. During the 1920's, the national government followed doctrinaire conservative policies, but reformist policies that presaged the New Deal were already bubbling up in the states, especially in New York.
In 1928 Al Smith, the governor of New York, was defeated in an ugly presidential campaign in which Protestant preachers warned their flocks that a vote for the Catholic Smith was a vote for the devil. But four years later F.D.R. took office, and the New Deal began.
Of course, the coming of the New Deal was hastened by a severe national depression. Strange to say, we may be working on that, too. "

{See my post 05/20/05 7:47am: "Yuan Revaluation: Krugman Says Economists Are Confused, Proves With His Confusion".}

Europe's Reality and Ours

Tomorrow (the web is a wonderful thing) IBD's editorial points out the harsh reality of Europe's future Today in Investor's Business Daily stock analysis and business news: "Europe Closing Shop?"

And today's Arizona Republic's editorial comes to the same point "European social model is limping on the runway":

After citing the statistics of "old" Europe's economic failure compared to the United States the following is the conclusion:

"In the United States, the basic choice on social policy is whether to pursue the European model and increasingly rely on the government to provide economic security, or enhance an American alternative in which individuals are more empowered to obtain economic security for themselves. The current Western European experience offers an instructive and cautionary lesson about that choice."

***************
The biggest issue facing the United States, my country as I am proud to say, is the dichotomy between two theories and as much as I try to sum up it boils down to capitalism or not, faith in God or not.

The public debates that really irritate me is first that the notion that one (I, Me) can't be a believer in economics and have a compassion for people.

The other irritation is that according to some I can't have my belief as a Catholic and still be compassionate, concerned, be an advocate for people that I disagree with, and even have a great time.

I digress and will save the remainder of this for another day.

Fouad Ajami: "The Middle East Embraces Democracy --and the American President"

Today's WSJ (Online articles on Sat. & Sun.) OpinionJournal -Bush Country: "To venture into the Arab world, as I did recently over four weeks in Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan and Iraq, is to travel into Bush Country. I was to encounter people from practically all Arab lands, to listen in on a great debate about the possibility of freedom and liberty. I met Lebanese giddy with the Cedar Revolution that liberated their country from the Syrian prison that had seemed an unalterable curse. They were under no illusions about the change that had come their way. They knew that this new history was the gift of an American president who had put the Syrian rulers on notice. The speed with which Syria quit Lebanon was astonishing, a race to the border to forestall an American strike that the regime could not discount. I met Syrians in the know who admitted that the fear of American power, and the example of American forces flushing Saddam Hussein out of his spider hole, now drive Syrian policy. They hang on George Bush's words in Damascus, I was told: the rulers wondering if Iraq was a crystal ball in which they could glimpse their future...

As I made my way on this Arab journey, I picked up a meditation that Massimo d'Azeglio, a Piedmontese aristocrat who embraced that "springtime" in Europe, offered about his time, which speaks so directly to this Arab time: "The gift of liberty is like that of a horse, handsome, strong, and high-spirited. In some it arouses a wish to ride; in many others, on the contrary, it increases the desire to walk." It would be fair to say that there are many Arabs today keen to walk--frightened as they are by the prospect of the Islamists coming to power and curtailing personal liberties, snuffing out freedoms gained at such great effort and pain. But more Arabs, I hazard to guess, now have the wish to ride. It is a powerful temptation that George W. Bush has brought to their doorstep."

If you get a little down from the Sunday editorials go and read this heartening narrative from Professor Ajami.