Barron's Ranks the Candidates

In the new Barron's, the cover story ranks the leading candidates by party and since the article is titled "The Mitt and Bill Show" guess who won:

Democrat Bill Richardson, the garrulous governor of New Mexico, has bloviated himself from near the front of his party's field to the back. Yet Romney would be the best Republican candidate for stocks, bonds and the economy, and Richardson, hands down, would be the best Democrat.


Those are among the findings of a Barron's analysis of the nine major candidates from the two parties. We based our judgments on the candidates' responses to a detailed questionnaire on taxes, spending, health care, energy and other issues. We also considered their records as governors, senators and holders of other offices. Romney, formerly governor of Massachusetts and once a top private-equity investor, garnered 3.8 points out of a possible 4, edging out Republican rival Rudolph Giuliani, with 3.7. John McCain was third, with 3.5. a On the Democratic side, Richardson scored a 3.0, handily topping the field. Perhaps surprisingly, Barack Obama, finished second, with 2.0. Despite his strong support from the party's traditional base, he displayed more free-market thinking than Hillary Clinton, who scored 1.8. He showed a healthy skepticism for big government in his approaches to both health care and energy....

In arriving at the scores, we consistently favored market-driven points of view.... While our points of view may sound more Republican than Democratic, our guiding principle is the power of markets. We are aware that the stock market often does best with a Democrat in the White House. From the beginning of the 20th century, the Dow Jones industrials have climbed an average of 7.19% a year when Democrats were president, versus 4% under Republicans, according to Ned Davis Research. Bonds, on the other hand, have done better under Republicans.

We don't know if history is set to repeat itself. But right now, the Republicans are clearly exhibiting more market-friendly tendencies.

The article seems to go out of the way to be fair and explores the big topics in some depth for each candidate. It really is interesting enough to deserve a full read.

Note & HT: MarketWatch provided the free link to the Barron's story.And MarketWatch remains my favorite source for financial news and I keep it up whenever I'm online. I even liked when it was CBS MarketWatch but it is even better as a Dow Jones product.

Obama on Religion

Michael Gerson in today's Washington Post had a great opening to a rather bland column about Senator Obama's attempt to address religiosity, the Democrat Party and Obama's own positioning in "The Gospel of Obama":

When British author Hilaire Belloc ran for Parliament in 1906, his speech on religion and politics, given to a packed public meeting, went as follows: "Gentlemen, I am a Catholic. As far as possible, I go to Mass every day. This is a rosary. As far as possible, I kneel down and tell these beadsevery day. If you reject me on account of my religion, I shall thank God that he has spared me the indignity of being your representative."

Just a great quote.

TNR on Dem's Debate

Michael Crowley from The New Republic's blog The Plank on last night's Democrat Presidential debate:

I found myself thinking that Hillary Clinton is on track to be the next president, and that Barack Obama is always slightly unsatisfying in the shadow of his amazing 2004 Democratic convention speech. There were some decently substantive conversations, and lots of "we need" to do this and "we must" do that--but virtually nothing new or surprising was said. One of the few things that sticks with me, in fact, was Mike Gravel's very interesting outrage over racial disparities in the war on drugs--and how little interest the other candidates had in siding with him.

By the way, in a first ever, I agree with Mike Gravel (what?) on this one observation of his regarding racial disparities in drug convictions and I would add income to that situation also.

College Rankings

According to Robert Samuelson "Universities Teach Lesson in Cynicism" by refusing to participate in US News & World Report's college rankings:

...[P]residents of 46 liberal arts colleges have said they will refuse to participate in part of the U.S. News annual survey. The list includes such well-known schools as Barnard and Kenyon. The presidents say the rankings are "misleading" and "do not serve well the interests of prospective
students."

Superficially, this seems a sensible blow against the increasingly frenzied, stress-ridden college admissions process. It isn't.

...First, where students go matters much less than popular wisdom holds.

...Second, the cutthroat competition to get into elite schools is as much among parents as the students.

...Third, the U.S. News rankings actually relieve the stress slightly by enlarging the pool of "elite" schools. Everyone knows that Williams (rank: 1) and Swarthmore (3) are top liberal arts colleges. But the first 10 also include Carleton College (6) in Minnesota, Pomona College (7) in California and Davidson College (10) in North Carolina. The use of semi-objective standards dilutes raw snobbery.

What's so shameful about this campaign against the rankings is its anti-intellectualism. Much information is in some way incomplete or imperfect. The proper response to evidence that you dislike or dispute is to supplement it or discredit it with better evidence. The wrong response is to suppress it. And yet, that's the agenda of these college presidents.

By not cooperating with some or all of the U.S. News survey, they hope to sabotage the rankings. They say they'll provide superior information. But they want to control what parents and students see. This is soft censorship.

What their students will learn, if they're paying attention, is a life lesson in cynicism: how eminent authorities cloak their self-interest in high-sounding, deceptive rhetoric.

Full disclosure: This post is shamelessly driven by the fact my undergraduate degree in Economics is from Davidson College.

My Immigration Overview

First, let me briefly explain where I stand generally on "immigration" and discuss why I, like many others, have experiences and leanings that influence my position. I am against the current bill for many reasons but foremost is the obvious problem with the bill that the stated enforcement provisions are like wisps of smoke that will vanish in the air.

I do support real enforcement, and secure borders first then bills to specifically address the assimilation of existing illegal aliens and how better to control and allow necessary and favorable immigration to occur on an ongoing fair basis. I am not hung up necessarily on a fence but more border controls coupled with enforcement of proper hiring by business is a must and now. I also am in favor of ID cards, sadly including all Americans, to control our borders, our jobs, and our national security. I say sadly because it is against the nature of this country and the design of our founders but this isn't the wild old west anymore where we know who the bad guys (and girls) are nor do we live in a time where the very notion of suicide bombers seeking to kill hundreds of thousands of people is unimaginable.

I am sympathetic to illegal immigrants especially Hispanics because of two main experiences:

1) My oversight of manufacturing plants in Texas with a majority of Hispanic workers that were legal as far as we could determine as to paperwork and government reporting (although I doubt that all were legal and doubt that the government would report back a bad social security number) and the fact our Hispanic workers were tremendous employees, and

2) My experience in the Catholic Church where our new Hispanic neighbors and church goers were more enthusiastic, pious, willing to give and work for the good of the Church and often more commendable than we "native" Americans.

So I am very sympathetic and many would call me soft on immigration, and I am, but not to go so far as the current bill goes.

I have three articles that I recommend to everyone to read as of today. First is a piece in the WSJ by Pete Du Pont which explains better than I can my own feeling on this bill, entitled "Security First." Here is an excerpt:

America's illegal immigrant admission has accelerated over time. Congress and President Reagan granted amnesty to three million illegal aliens in 1986; and the current President Bush wants to legalize another 12 million now, which sends an arithmetic signal to other immigrants who want to slip into America that 20 years from now whoever is president will perhaps grant amnesty to 48 million illegal immigrants.

We do need to secure our borders, issue legal ID cards to immigrants, and admit people skilled in the jobs we need to fill. But experience shows that our government lacks the political will to enforce such an immigration policy. Georgia state employee Reagan W. Dean was recently quoted in the New York Times: "Maybe it is possible to secure the border. Maybe it is possible to establish an employee identification system. But I don't have any confidence it will be done."

Many Americans agree with him, so a serious and substantive bill that would restore the people's confidence is the Senate's task this week.

Next is a piece from the May 2007 edition of City Journal detailing some of the worrisome sociology behind the assimilation of immigrants. This is by John Leo and here is a touch of "Bowling with Our Own":

Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam, author of Bowling Alone, is very nervous about releasing his new research, and understandably so. His five-year study shows that immigration and ethnic diversity have a devastating short- and medium-term influence on the social capital, fabric of associations, trust, and neighborliness that create and sustain communities. He fears that his work on the surprisingly negative effects of diversity will become part of the immigration debate, even though he finds that in the long run, people do forge new communities and new ties.

Putnam’s study reveals that immigration and diversity not only reduce social capital between ethnic groups, but also within the groups themselves. Trust, even for members of one’s own race, is lower, altruism and community cooperation rarer, friendships fewer. The problem isn’t ethnic conflict or troubled racial relations, but withdrawal and isolation. Putnam writes: “In colloquial language, people living in ethnically diverse settings appear to ‘hunker down’—that is, to pull in like a turtle.”

And last is a long piece from Commentary that I wish our Senators and our President had read and understood before embarking on this very poorly written and frankly bad immigration bill. The key point here is that we have two large immigration problems not one. The two problems are illegal immigration and legal immigration both of which are the result of a broken and unaddressed systems of our government on many levels. A brief cut form this excellent analysis from Yuval Levin, "Fixing Immigration":

Getting legal immigration right will be more complex than addressing the illegal inflow from Mexico. It is not a yes-or-no question but a matter of deciding how a nation of immigrants should regard those wishing to make America their home, and of translating that attitude into policy and practice at a dangerous moment in history. But if it is more complex, it is also more important. How we choose new immigrants, and how we help them to become , will determine whether we can remain what we are: a nation uniquely welcoming of outsiders yet also united around a set of ideas and ideals, a nation with a special place and purpose. That is another of the many ways in which immigration has been and can continue to be good for America.

I hope you read all three articles, form your own opinion, and influence your neighbors and legislators.

Steve Forbes on Protectionism

Here is Steve Forbes on Protectionism, and appropriate to the last post on Vietnam and Carter's foreign policy advisor, some on Carter's economic policies in, you guessed it, Forbes:

The current concern about inflation sadly confirms the staying power of bad ideas, in this case the notion that economic growth creates inflation. The Phillips curve, which posits that there is a tradeoff between inflation and unemployment, has long been discredited by events and academic research.

Since Ronald Reagan became President in 1981, for example, the U.S. has had a fantastic expansion, and inflation virtually disappeared until recently. Yet the media are full of stories and pundit head shaking that global capacity for producing goods could soon run out.

There is still astonishing confusion between price changes that reflect normal supply and demand and those that reflect monetary blunders. Moore's Law says that the real price of computing power decreases 50% every 18 months. That's productivity, not deflation. When prices for a hot rock concert soar, that's not inflation, it's demand. However, when the cost of living in the U.S. and elsewhere sharply rose in the 1970s, it was, as the late Milton Friedman never tired of pointing out, the result of excess money creation.

Central bankers finally began to grasp that inflation was indeed a monetary phenomenon, but the lesson still hasn't stuck. Investors need to realize that monetary misfires have political consequences, usually bad.

The 1970s led to a malaise in the U.S., which paved the way for Jimmy Carter's election as President. He gutted our military; undermined the shah of Iran, which led to the current hideous Iranian regime; and engendered a passivity that emboldened the Soviet Union to invade Afghanistan, which in turn fueled the rise of the Taliban and al Qaeda. Interest rates rocketed, and the stock market tanked. The only good to come out of that period of inflation was a push for the deregulation of our trucking, railroad and airline industries.

This inflation, thankfully, is very mild compared with the last one, but it could well lead to political mischief in the form of protectionism and higher taxes.

Iraq Exit Like Vietnam?

In the Washington Post, Michael Gerson in An Exit to Disaster has this:

In 1974, a weary Congress cut off funds for Cambodia and South Vietnam, leading to the swift fall of both allies. In his memoir, "Years of Renewal," Henry Kissinger tells the story of former Cambodian prime minister Sirik Matak, who refused to leave his country.

"I thank you very sincerely," Matak wrote in response, "for your offer to transport me towards freedom. I cannot, alas, leave in such a cowardly fashion. As for you, and in particular for your great country, I never believed for a moment that you would have this sentiment of abandoning a people which has chosen liberty. You have refused us your protection, and we can do nothing about it. You leave, and my wish is that you and your country will find happiness under this sky. But, mark it well, that if I shall die here on the spot and in my country that I love, it is no matter, because we are all born and must die. I have only committed this mistake of believing in you [the Americans]."

Eventually, between 1 million and 2 million Cambodians were murdered by theKhmer Rouge when "peace" came to Indochina. Matak, Kissinger recounts, was shot in the stomach and died three days later.

Sometimes peace for America can produce ghosts of its own.

Sometimes facts speak for themselves as above.

On the other hand there's this:

Remember Zbigniew Brzezinski from the Carter years; well here is what he said at Duke this spring, from the Durham Herald-Sun:

Brzezinski said there's no reason to think a bloodbath would necessarily follow a U.S. withdrawal.

"We expected that the U.S. leaving Vietnam would result in massive killings and genocide and so forth, and collapse of the dominoes in Southeast Asia," he said. "It didn't happen. How certain are we of the horror scenarios that have been mentioned in what will take place in Iraq?"

Again, I am not making this quote up although it does strike me as unbelieveable. I suppose forgeting about losing millions of lives is something we would all like to forget

Top Domestic Concerns: Protectionism

I see many signs of protectionism creeping into current politics and public opinion. I regard protectionism as being close to the top of issues that are on my list of domestic concerns. My worry list goes something like this:

Anderson Top Ten Domestic Concerns

1. Global War on Terror / fear of reversion to pre-9/11 mindset and appeasement of declared enemies
2. Protectionism / bad tariff and trade policies reversing important gains, and total misunderstanding of trade deficits and rationale behind foreign holders of US Treasury instruments
3. Global Warming / fear of adopting bad and overly aggressive and expensive programs based on bad economic models, i.e., global warming trends are real, significance of economic impact way overstated
4. Energy Independence / need movement on issue from national security, environmental and economic perspectives to firmly and realistically reach independence with environmental sustainability factors
5. Deficits / not current deficits which are very much under control but looming Social Security and Medicare, Medicaid liabilities
6. Health Care / need market based universal coverage now with strategies to slow medical cost inflation
7. Taxes / fear of higher taxes slowing economic growth; fear of myths about income inequality and state of our economy; need to simplify and overhaul tax code
8. Education / need to move toward school choice and voucher system, improve accountability and transparency of results to consumers at all levels of education; emphasize basic US history and basic economics for all citizens
9. Broken Government Bureaucracy / bloated and poorly agencies are the norm, need accountability, ability to fire employees; need to regulate down power of government worker union for federal, state, and local workers particularly in federal agencies and schools; need line item veto
10. Immigration / enforce non-hiring of illegals by businesses, secure borders, national IDs, adopt realistic and needed immigration policies from all countries based on skills and less on families, only then assimilate and integrate existing aliens in fair manner

Issues that will not probably not adopt my solutions:

1. War on Drugs / Phase out WoD outside of the United States (just give aid to South American counties outstipulations about drugs) by legalizing possession of some drugs and regulating where feasible (particularly marijuana to liquor stores, etc.) and continue control other drugs with reasonable quantity limitations, and continue criminalization of some drugs; as products more available price goes to nothing and economics for gangs and organized crime disappears, money spent for enforcement goes to hugely increased, accessible, well funded, professional treatment programs resulting in lower prison populations
2. Revamp Legal System / Eliminate hate laws and return to equal justice under the law; eliminate affirmative action; concentrate on reducing minority inmates that make up majority of prison population; institute "drug court" concept; examine and fight disparity in sentences and punishment due to income, race, drug and alcohol addiction (need rehabilitation and programs to maintain employment where possible); make Sixth Amendment right to speedy trial a reality again
3. Voting Rights / Add constitutional amendment: 1) to require all citizens to pass same test of knowledge of US history and government as required of applicants for citizenship in order to acquire right to vote just as a driver's license is based upon required standards, and 2) that guarantees and stipulates enforcement that no applicant for the license and right to vote shall be denied due to race, handicap, or any disability other than inability to comprehend, location, or education (any basic classes provide free of charge and accessible to all.

Now back to protectionism which is what I had intended this post to be all about:

[Protectionism]...is likely to become an increasing concern for the market in the months ahead,'' says Jens Nordvig, an economist at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in New York.

A poll for NBC News and the Wall Street Journal in March found only 28 percent of Americans viewed free trade deals as beneficial, compared with 46 percent who said they were harmful. When the same question was asked in December 1999, 39 percent were positive about free trade, 30 percent negative.

``We who believe in open economies are swimming against a strong protectionist tide these days,'' U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said June 5.

Congressman McHenry and Earmarks

Conressman Patrick McHenry represents NC District which includes Mitchell County where I now sit typing. McHenry was recently featured in The Crypt's Blog from The Politico for pushing hard against David Obey (D-Wis.), who as Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, has been reluctant to make earmarks transparent to the public. Here is a portiion:

Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) was all over the House floor last week, bashingAppropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) and other Democratic leaders for not doing enough to disclose member earmarks early in the appropriations process, as Democrats had promised when they took over the House in January. Republicans eventually got Democrats to back down and release
the earmark requests -- read "pork" -- earlier than Obey had planned, so McHenry got what he wanted. And now McHenry will be forced to defend his $129,000 earmark, via the Small Business Administration, for Christmas trees.

Actually, the $129K is to go to the The Mitchell County Development Foundation, "a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating jobs and strengthening the educational system, as well as
promoting tourism in Mitchell County." The "Perfect Christmas Tree" part comes in because in 2003, author Gloria Houston donated the rights to her children's book, "The Perfect Christmas Tree" to the town of Spruce Pine, N.C. Spruce Pine and Mitchell Country have thousands of textile and manufacturing jobs over the last several years to foreign competition. Mitchell County used the money to fund some small business jobs for woodworkers and other craftsman.

"Look, the important thing is transparency and openness," McHenry said when asked about the earmark, which he confirmed that he had inserted into the bill. "I have never been opposed to directed
spending."

McHenry added: "I just think that it's critical for members to know what they are voting on when a [spending] bill comes to the floor."

Update - This isn't going to make McHenry happy. Courtesy of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee comes this little ditty. McHenry has been unofficially nominated as the "Republican That
Democrats Most Dislike," so it's no surprise this came out. The song is sung to the tune of "Oh Christmas Tree." Here you go:

"O' McHenry,
O' McHenry,
How steadfast your hypocrisy!

You pitch a fit on the House floor,
But Christmas trees you do adore.

All politics are local and this enforces that fact for me. Unemployment in Mitchell County for the first five months of 2007 averaged 7.9%, almost double the national average. As to me, McHenry just got a three base hit by:

• Fighting David Obey on earmarks
• Fighting NC District 10 and Mitchell County unemployment
• Being named "Republican that Democrats Most Dislike"

Update: A reader comments that I made false statements concerning unemployment numbers. As cited in the post my source was the NC Employment Commission and the numbers for Mitchell County (not Avery as the commenter used) were for Jan - May 2007 respectively: 9.1, 8.7, 7.3, 7.5, 6.8. Total 39.4/5 = 7.88 which I rounded to 7.9%. No intention to mislead on my part. Thanks to the reader for the comments.

NYT Exposes Edwards: Poverty Center's Main Beneficiary Was Edwards

The New York Times, violating a rule not to hurt one's own, ran a article that revealed the truth behind John Edwards "poverty center" at UNC Chapel Hill. While the NYT had a glossed over title of "In Aiding Poor, Building a Bridge to 2008" clearly the bridge was using a non-profit to fund his campaign, travel, and broaden his exposure while he held no official office by claiming he was fighting poverty; he was certainly ensuring that poverty would never touch his own doorstep.

Directly from the horses mouth, the NYT:

Mr. Edwards, who reported this year that he had assets of nearly $30 million, came up with a novel solution, creating a nonprofit organization with the stated mission of fighting poverty. The organization, the Center for Promise and Opportunity, raised $1.3 million in 2005, and — unlike a sister charity he created to raise scholarship money for poor students — the main beneficiary of the center’s fund-raising was Mr. Edwards himself, tax filings show.

...Mr. Edwards, a former North Carolina senator, set out to keep his political options open by promoting issues he cared about, like poverty.

“He wanted to learn, travel and be in a position to be a viable candidate,” said J. Edwin Turlington, a Raleigh lawyer who was the manager of Mr. Edward’s 2003 presidential exploratory committee. “He had the ability to raise money to fund his activities. He had a vision, and he knew it would take money.”
Mr. Edwards mixed policy and politics in a way that allowed his supporters to donate to the causes he believed in — and to the organizations he had set up. He also set up two political action committees, something commonly done by politicians thinking of running for president.

But it was his use of a tax-exempt organization to finance his travel and employ people connected to his past and current campaigns that went beyond what most other prospective candidates have done before pursuing national office.

Now, besides the hefty fees he charged for giving speeches against poverty, recall the hedge fund Edwards went to work for that Edwards remarked was a 'way for him to learn more about poverty' -- from which he collect a hefty $500,000 consulting fee:

He was hired by the Fortress Investment Group, a New York hedge fund, to “develop investment opportunities,” according to a 2005 Fortress news release.

...“Fortress became a vehicle for foreign travel,” Mr. Turlington said, “but it was also a way to spend more time with sophisticated financial people.”

The "Poverty Center's" ...directors included Mr. Turlington, the Raleigh lawyer; Miles Lackey, Mr. Edwards’s former chief of staff; Alexis Bar, his former political scheduler; and David Ginsberg, Mr. Edwards’s current deputy campaign manager.

The Edwards campaign declined to disclose the amounts raised or spent by the two similarly-named nonprofit agencies — the Center for Promise and Opportunity and the Center for Promise and Opportunity Foundation — since their 2005 tax filings, which are the most recent to have been filed.

...Of the explicitly political entities, Mr. Edwards’ OneAmerica Committee 527 organization allowed donors to give without limitations. The money was transferred to his leadership political action committee. Leadership committees were initially created to allow prominent politicians to raise money for distribution to needy office-seekers. But Mr. Edwards spent the entire $2.7 million he raised for OneAmerica, including $532,000 raised by the 527, on himself, an increasingly common trend among politicians.

And this fianl last opinion quoted by the NYT: Nonprofit groups can engage in political activities and not endanger their tax-exempt status so long as those activities are not its primary purpose. But the line between a bona fide charity and a political campaign is often fuzzy, said Marcus S. Owens, a Washington lawyer who headed the Internal Revenue Service division that oversees nonprofit agencies.

“I can’t say that what Mr. Edwards did was wrong,” Mr. Owens said. “But he was working right up to the line. Who knows whether he stepped or stumbled over it. But he was close enough that if a wind was blowing hard, he’d fall over it.”

Does Religion Encourage Families or Do Families Want Religion?

In a fascinating and insightful analysis in the June/July 2007 Policy Review, Mary Eberstadt tackles key presumptions and beliefs about our belief systems in How the West Lost God. The article goes to heart of the common axiom that the great religions command having families as opposed to Eberstadt's proposition that family life leads to a desire for religiosity.

She makes many import points a few blurbed here: ...if 9/11 drove to church for weeks on end millions of Americans who had not darkened that doorstep in years — as it did — imagine the even deeper impact on ordinary mothers and fathers of a sick child or the similarly powerful desire of a devoted spouse on the brink of losing the other. Just as there are no atheists in a foxhole, so too would there appear to be few in the nursery or critical care unit, at least most of the time.

In sum, because it treats belief as an atomistic decision taken piecemeal by individuals rather than a holistic response to family life, Nietzsche’s madman and his offspring, secularization theory, appear to present an incomplete version of how some considerable portion of human beings actually come to think and behave about things religious — not one by one and all on their own, but rather mediated through the elemental connections of husband, wife, child, aunt, great-grandfather, and the rest.

And later she goes on: To argue by analogy, it appears that the natural family as a whole has been the human symphony through which God has historically been heard by many people — not the prophets, not the philosophers, but a great many of the rest. That is why the conventional story of secularization seems to be missing something: because it makes its cases by and to atomized individuals without reference to the totality of family and children through which many people derive their deepest opinions and impressions of life — including religious opinions and impressions.


In sum, and given what we know now about the religious and familial situation in Western Europe some 125 years later, Nietzsche was right to declare that the great Christian cathedrals of Europe had become tombs. But he may have been wrong about what exactly had been buried in them. It was not so much God as the European natural family that has been largely laid to rest — an interment already well underway in some countries long before his madman entered the square and one that is surely an overlooked and critical part of the full story of how Christian Europe went secular.

The article has totally changed my thinking and my mistaken acceptance of the common theory of why large families and religion go hand in hand. I also think that both theories are correct but as to which one is quantitatively more correct is still, perhaps ironically, open to one's own beliefs. Eberstadt discusses the influence of community in her analysis and I also think that community and tradition perhaps compose the third leg of the discussion; hence the inherent interrelatedness of family, community, and God.

Quotes From Our Enemies

From Cal Thomas today: Those still in doubt or denial about what Israel's (and America's) enemies are planning might benefit from reading Jed Babbin's new book, "In the Words of Our Enemies" (Regnery Publishing). In it, Babbin assembles what the Islamic terrorists, Chinese and North Korean communists and Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez are saying they want to do to us. This quote from the al-Qaida training manual leaves no room for diplomacy: "The confrontation that Islam calls for with these godless and apostate regimes, does not know Socratic debates, Platonic ideals nor Aristotelian diplomacy. But it knows the dialogue of bullets, the ideals of assassination, bombing and destruction, and the diplomacy of the cannon and machine-gun."

Anyone who questions the sincerity of such a statement is a fool. Apparently enough fools remain in leadership in Israel, the United States and Europe to encourage the killers to fight on until victory is attained.

When Rules Trump Common Sense

Zero tolerance strikes again in California: "A fifth-grade promotion ceremony in Rancho Palos Verdes turned into a free-speech battleground Thursday, when students were asked to remove weapons from toys that had been placed on mortarboard caps because of the school's zero-tolerance policy for weapons on campus....

"Each year, students decorate wide caps with princesses, football goal posts, zebras, guitars and other items to express their personalities and career goals. Cornerstone at Pedregal School is the only Palos Verdes Peninsula public school to practice the tradition.

"On Thursday, before the ceremony, one boy was told he couldn't participate unless he agreed to clip off the tips of the plastic guns carried by the minuscule GIs on his cap. Ten others complied with the order before the event.

"In enforcing the decision, the district cited its Safe Schools policy and the federal Gun Free Schools Act of 1994, a federal law designed to remove firearms from schools.

"Susan Liberati, an assistant superintendent, said she believes 'the principal has interpreted district policy accurately, and we support her in that.'

"A copy of the district's Safe Schools policy obtained by the Daily Breeze includes no mention of toy army men. Students found to be "possessing, selling or otherwise furnishing a firearm" are expelled for one year, the policy states.

"Weapons are also mentioned in the board's "weapons and dangerous instruments" policy that allows only authorized law enforcement or security personnel to possess "weapons, imitation firearms or dangerous instruments of any kind" on school grounds."

We have all read many cases like this where minimal judgment is thrown out the window based on one policy or another. And given the quality of the decisions made by these teachers of America's children is it any wonder results are so under par.

I am also reminded of the fact that even our judges are so hand-cuffed by mandatory sentence statutes that judgement is taken away from good judges. Onerous sentences are imposed for offensives committed under varying circumstances that often require and demand creative, and yes, sometimes lenient, sentences. Drug cases clearly fall into this trap many times given the number of incarcerations for minor drug offenses.

Andy McCarthy referred to this in a recent post in The Corner:

"With lots of support from conservatives, Congress several years ago was determined to make sure convicted felons were taken off the street. (Based on similar concerns that weak liberal judges were not cracking down hard enough on crooks, law-and-order conservatives similarly supported the very same draconian sentencing guidelines that resulted in Libby's 30-month sentence.) Basically, congress — with broad public support — has removed judicial discretion because we no longer trust judges to be judges.

I hate this new system (which came into being in 1984 and has gotten worse since). Yes, judges occasionally make outrageous rulings (those are the small percentage of rulings we hear about). But, most of the time, left to their own judgment, they act pretty reasonably. Our statutes, however, no longer leave them to their own judgment. "

I'm Back

After being away from blogging for a nice long while doing totally different things, I am now back to blogging and will resume some posting. I missed the catharsis of blogging and I was beginning to drive my friends crazy sending out random opinions and saying read this please. I intend to focus more at present on economics and business with my own twists on how current politics and cultural trends are impacting our world both today and in the future. I look forward to meeting new friends and hearing again from old friends and foes alike in this space.

China Unpegs Yuan

Yuan Unpegged - 072105

China drops yuan-dollar peg, to price vs. basket : "The Chinese government on Thursday announced its long-awaited reform of its currency, saying it's dropping its yuan-dollar peg in favor of one vs. a basket of currencies. The government also lifted the value of the currency by more than 2%.

'The People's Bank of China will make adjustment of the renminbi exchange rate band when necessary according to market development as well as the economic and financial situation. The renminbi exchange rate will be more flexible based on market condition with reference to a basket of currencies,' it said.

China said it's adjusting the exchange rate to 8.11 yuan per dollar; overnight, the dollar traded at 8.2765 yuan overnight.

The move gave a boost to Asian currencies, with the Japanese yen soaring 1.7% against the dollar. One dollar was last worth 110.89 yen.

The Korean won appreciated 0.9% against its U.S. counterpart.

The daily trading price of the dollar vs. the yuan will continue to be allowed to float within a band of 0.3%, while the trading prices of non-U.S. dollar currencies will be allowed to move in yet-to-be announced bands, it said in a statement released on its Web site.

The Bush administration and the U.S. Congress have long complained that an artificially low yuan has boosted Chinese exports."

Best Comment on Judge Roberts So Far

Forget the NYT's pre-written snide remarks and the preety good Washington Post piece and all the email I'm getting, I liked this the best Instapundit.com: "The Insta-Daughter's take: 'He looks pretty good for 50.'"
*********
I'll give you my opinion on Roberts after I do my homework on him. Me liking the above might have something to do with my own mid-40's...No of course not.

Remembering Srebrenica

SREBRENICA, BOSNIA - HERZEGOVINA - JULY 11: The 610 coffins of the Srebrenica massacre victims are seen prior to the funeral attended by their family members at the Srebrenica Memorial site during the 10th anniversary of the Srebrenica Massacre on July 11, 2005 in Srebrenica, Bosnia Herzegovina. Srebrenica marked the 10th anniversary of the massacre with a massive funeral of about 610 victims who were identified after being exhumed and who will be buried at the memorial site. Some 8,000 Muslims, mostly boys and men, were slaughtered at Srebrenica in July 1995 by Bosnian Serb soldiers who had overrun the eastern town. The killings, in what was then a U.N.-protected zone, came shortly before the end of the country's 1992-95 war. (Photo by Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images)

Please click and read the article from Richard Holbrooke as he shows clarity, honesty and bi-partisanship, all of which we could use more of in these days - Was Bosnia Worth It?: "If you wonder whether the 1995 American intervention in Bosnia was the right decision, go to a really horrible place, one whose name has become synonymous with genocide and Western failure. Go to Srebrenica."
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Read it all, please.

FX Speculators: Yuan Boat Ready to Float

Yuan Headed for Controlled Float

China's Currency May Float a Little: "Sixty percent of China's state economists think the government should allow the country's currency to increase in value sometime this year, according to a survey compiled Monday by the National Bureau of Statistics.
The survey of 60 economists -- an internal study confirmed by two participants -- reinforced a growing consensus that sometime this summer China will adjust slightly upward the value of its currency, the renminbi, also known as the yuan, which has been pegged at about 8.28 to the dollar for about a decade.

...Predicting a Chinese currency move has become a perilous if popular game, with some of the world's largest investment banks making bold forecasts of imminent moves in recent months only to see the old regime prevail. The last such outbreak came in May, when some predicted China would use a national holiday week to try to sneak in a change, assuming that markets would be relatively quiet.

In recent weeks, anticipation has been building anew, with many predicting that a move will come sometime in August, ahead of a visit to Washington by President Hu Jintao in September."
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I wish I could play in this game....

America's Drug Laws Are So Wrong

Tierney today with Punishing Pain : "...Mr. Paey is merely the most outrageous example of the problem as he contemplates spending the rest of his life on a three-inch foam mattress on a steel prison bed. He told me he tried not to do anything to aggravate his condition because going to the emergency room required an excruciating four-hour trip sitting in a wheelchair with his arms and legs in chains.

The odd thing, he said, is that he's actually getting better medication than he did at the time of his arrest because the State of Florida is now supplying him with a morphine pump, which gives him more pain relief than the pills that triggered so much suspicion. The illogic struck him as utterly normal.

'We've become mad in our pursuit of drug-law violations,' he said. 'Generations to come will look back and scarcely believe what we've done to sick people.' "

Nicklaus Says Goodbye

Jack Nicklaus Waves Farewell at St. Andrews

Nicklaus Exits The Open
Nicklaus Completes Bittersweet Farewell : "After a record 18 major titles in five decades of professional golf, Jack Nicklaus [age 65] made an emotional exit today at the British Open.

St. Andrews gave him two of his three British Open titles, endearing him to Scottish golf fans forever.

But Nicklaus's prime has passed, and he acknowledged that. He said his family was prepared to return to Florida on Saturday rather than stay at St. Andrews through the weekend, when Woods will try to win his second major of the season and 10th over all of his career, compared with 18 for Nicklaus.

When Nicklaus exited the tent this evening, the sky he left was still bright. Golfers who had spent their lives looking up to him were finishing their rounds.

In Scottish summers, the sun stays out a little longer."