March 27, 2008
The Libertarian warning about McCain is made by Reason's editor in a NY Times op-ed.
BEHIND any successful politician lies a usable contradiction, and John McCain’s is this: We love him (and
occasionally hate him) for his stubborn individualism, yet his politics are best understood as a decade-long
attack on the individual.
The presumptive presidential nominee of the Republican Party has seduced the press and the public with
frank confessions of his failings, from his hard-living flyboy days to his adulterous first marriage to the
Keating Five scandal. But in both legislation and rhetoric, Mr. McCain has consistently sought to restrict the
very freedoms he once exercised, in the common national enterprise of “serving a cause greater than selfinterest.”
Such sentiment can sound stirring coming from a lone citizen freely choosing public service. But from a
potential president, Mr. McCain’s exaltation of sacrifice over the private pursuit of happiness — “I did it out of
patriotism, not for profit,” he snarled to Mitt Romney during the final Republican presidential debate —
reflects a worryingly militaristic view of citizenship. ...
McCain said yesterday we can win the hearts and minds of Islamic youth by sending them to
college here. Mark Steyn thinks he needs to get out more.
... There's plenty of evidence out there that the most extreme "extremists" are those who've been most
exposed to the west - and western education: from Osama bin Laden (summer school at Oxford, punting on
the Thames) and Mohammed Atta (Hamburg University urban planning student) to the London School of
Economics graduate responsible for the beheading of Daniel Pearl. The idea that handing out college
scholarships to young Saudi males and getting them hooked on Starbucks and car-chase movies will make
this stuff go away is ridiculous - and unworthy of a serious presidential candidate.
Robert Samuelson says, as far as the economy goes, hold the hysteria.
... The economy, said The New York Times last week, may be on "the brink of the worst recession in a
generation" -- an ominous warning.
Perhaps, but so far the concrete evidence is scant. A recession is a noticeable period of declining output.
Since World War II, there have been 10. On average, they've lasted 10 months, involved a peak monthly
unemployment rate of 7.6 percent and resulted in a decline of economic output (gross domestic product) of
1.8 percent, reports Mark Zandi of Moody's Economy.com. If the two worst recessions (those of 1981-82
and 1973-75, with peak unemployment of 10.8 percent and 9 percent) are excluded, the average peak
jobless rate is about 7 percent.
No one doubts that the economy has slowed. Many economists think a recession has already started. Zandi
is one. He forecasts peak unemployment of 6.1 percent (present unemployment: 4.8 percent) and a GDP
drop of 0.4 percent. If that comes true, the recession of 2008 would actually be milder than the average
postwar recession and milder than the last two, those of 1990-91 and 2001. ...
Although much more investigating is to be done, WSJ Editors celebrate the truth telling about
the real problems with Eliot Spitzer.
... And now that Governor Steamroller is Private Citizen Spitzer, leaks from the DA's office are making clear
that Mr. Spitzer was deeply involved in the smear campaign, even repeatedly calling Mr. Dopp at home to
ensure that the leaks would produce a damaging story. Mr. Soares got Mr. Dopp to talk by offering him
immunity from prosecution. But there's no question that every public employee in the state -- from Attorney
General Andrew Cuomo to the Public Integrity Commission to Mr. Soares himself -- was, at a minimum,
treating the question of Mr. Spitzer's involvement with kid gloves as long as he remained Governor.
That the truth is only coming out now underscores how corrupt the political culture of Albany is, and how
reluctant the political class was to question the malfeasance of a powerful and vindictive Governor. Now that
he's out, we may finally learn the truth. But New York voters can consider themselves fortunate that a sex
scandal ended Mr. Spitzer's career before his sense of righteous entitlement did far more harm to their state.
George Will says liberals are cheapskates.
Residents of Austin, Texas, home of the state's government and flagship university, have very refined social
consciences, if they do say so themselves, and they do say so, speaking via bumper stickers. Don R. Willett,
a justice of the state Supreme Court, has commuted behind bumpers proclaiming "Better a Bleeding Heart
Than None at All," "Practice Random Acts of Kindness and Senseless Beauty," "The Moral High Ground Is
Built on Compassion," "Arms Are For Hugging," "Will Work (When the Jobs Come Back From India)," "Jesus
Is a Liberal," "God Wants Spiritual Fruits, Not Religious Nuts," "The Road to Hell Is Paved With
Republicans," "Republicans Are People Too -- Mean, Selfish, Greedy People" and so on. But Willett thinks
Austin subverts a stereotype: "The belief that liberals care more about the poor may scratch a partisan or
ideological itch, but the facts are hostile witnesses."
Sixteen months ago, Arthur C. Brooks, a professor at Syracuse University, published "Who Really Cares:
The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism." The surprise is that liberals are markedly less
charitable than conservatives.
If many conservatives are liberals who have been mugged by reality, Brooks, a registered independent, is,
as a reviewer of his book said, a social scientist who has been mugged by data. They include these findings:
-- Although liberal families' incomes average 6 percent higher than those of conservative families,
conservative-headed households give, on average, 30 percent more to charity than the average liberalheaded household ($1,600 per year vs. $1,227).
-- Conservatives also donate more time and give more blood. ...
Number 2 son spots Wired Science report on invention that might solve the problem of clean
water. Perhaps he really saw it on Colbert Report. 'Cause that's where he gets the news.
There has been much buzz about the water-purifying machine that Segway inventor Dean Kamen
demonstrated on the Colbert Report last week (even taking on the bag of Spicy Sweet Chili Doritos that
Colbert added). Everyone has been trying to find out more about his claim that "you stick a hose into
anything that looks wet ... and it comes out ... as perfect distilled clean water."
So far as I can tell however, it's true. ...
You might think this is silly, but Pickerhead thinks what Russian scientists do with styrofoam
cups two miles below the surface of the ocean, is pretty cool. Yes we have pics.
Last August, as a team at the North Pole prepared to plunge more than two miles to the bottom of the Arctic
Ocean, some of the dozens of specialists who staged the dive engaged in a time-honored ritual: drawing on
foam cups, decorating more than 100 of them.
The cups were then gingerly sent into the deep. During the historic dive, led by Russian scientists, the
pressure of the surrounding water crushed the cups to the size of thimbles, also squeezing their whimsies of
writing and drawing. ...
We have a complete section on Hillary's lies. Notice it is near the humor section. That's because
Borowitz and Scrappleface want some too. Dick Morris starts us off.
The USA Today/Gallup survey clearly explains why Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) is losing. Asked
whether the candidates were "honest and trustworthy," Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) won with 67 percent,
with Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) right behind him at 63. Hillary scored only 44 percent, the lowest rating for
any candidate for any attribute in the poll.
Hillary simply cannot tell the truth. Here's her scorecard:
Admitted Lies
• Chelsea was jogging around the Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. (She was in bed watching it on TV.)
• Hillary was named after Sir Edmund Hillary. (She admitted she was wrong. He climbed Mt. Everest five
years after her birth.)
• She was under sniper fire in Bosnia. (A girl presented her with flowers at the foot of the ramp.)
• She learned in The Wall Street Journal how to make a killing in the futures market. (It didn't cover the
market back then.)
Whoppers She Won't Confess To
• She didn't know about the FALN pardons. ...
Christopher Hitchens' Daily Mirror blog.
... She now says she "mis-spoke". I'm not sure that covers it. Footage shows her landing in Tuzla, then
Bosnia's most peaceful city, and strolling with a smile, her daughter in tow, to be met by flowers, children
and dignitaries. In other words, there's not a word of truth in her original assertion.
It also illustrates the question of Mrs Clinton's respect for the truth. There is, first, her attempt to block
access to her records.
Second, her habit of making hugely inflated claims about herself. Third, a smarminess about matters of fact,
as in her recent utterance that Barack Obama is not a Muslim "as far as I know". ...
Peter Wehner in Contentions.
I wanted to add my thoughts on Hillary Clinton’s fabricated story about landing under sniper fire in Bosnia in
1996. It is a damaging, and probably deeply damaging, blow to an increasingly weak and desperate
candidate. It will now become fodder for late night talk show hosts. It also builds on other false claims she
has made, from her role in the Northern Ireland peace talks to S-CHIP legislation. And the sniper fire tale
reinforces an existing impression about the Clintons: they cannot be counted on to tell the truth in matters
small or large, about them or about others, about policy or about their personal conduct. It’s worth noting, I
suppose, that Senator Clinton acknowledged the story was false only after indisputable video evidence (in
this case from CBS News) emerged. Like her husband and the blue dress, the Clintons only concede their
untruthfulness when they’ve been caught - on camera or via DNA - in their untruths. ...
The Captain, now blogging at Hot Air.
Has Hillary Clinton’s Tuzla fantasy opened a bigger can of worms for the presidential aspirant? Jake Tapper
at ABC News wonders whether the press should take a look at earlier Hillary anecdotes to determine
whether a pattern of fabulism exists. Sure enough, he discovers an old chestnut from 1994 that Hillary has
not bothered to dust off for the current campaign:
In light of Tuzla-gate (catchy, no?), reporters are going over past statements by Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY,
(and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois) to see if others don’t stand more rigorous examination.
One that may get renewed scrutiny is a story she told “Women in Military Service” in 1994 — that shortly
after the end of the Vietnam war, she looked into joining the Marines.
In June 1994, Clinton told an organization trying to build a memorial for women who had served in the
armed forces, that while living in Fayetteville, Arkansas, in 1975, “I decided that I was very interested in
having some experience in serving in some capacity in the military. So I walked into our local recruiting
office…”
NY Times
John McCain Wants You
by Matt Welch
BEHIND any successful politician lies a usable contradiction, and John McCain’s is this: We love him (and
occasionally hate him) for his stubborn individualism, yet his politics are best understood as a decade-long
attack on the individual.
The presumptive presidential nominee of the Republican Party has seduced the press and the public with
frank confessions of his failings, from his hard-living flyboy days to his adulterous first marriage to the
Keating Five scandal. But in both legislation and rhetoric, Mr. McCain has consistently sought to restrict the
very freedoms he once exercised, in the common national enterprise of “serving a cause greater than selfinterest.”
Such sentiment can sound stirring coming from a lone citizen freely choosing public service. But from a
potential president, Mr. McCain’s exaltation of sacrifice over the private pursuit of happiness — “I did it out of
patriotism, not for profit,” he snarled to Mitt Romney during the final Republican presidential debate —
reflects a worryingly militaristic view of citizenship.
“We are fast becoming a nation of alienating individualists, unwilling to put the unifying values of patriotism
ahead of our narrow self-interests,” Mr. McCain warned in a speech during his 2000 presidential campaign.
He added that “cynicism threatens to become a ceiling on our greatness.”
Where there are threats to national greatness, there are activities that Mr. McCain insists the federal
government should curtail. And the most maverick individuals among us are destined to bear the brunt.
Teenagers are cynical about professional sports because of steroids (a “transcendent issue,” Mr. McCain
once thundered in the Senate), so he has proposed that the government be given the authority to demand
that even Division II college athletes be subject to the personal intrusion of random drug testing and
punishment. Likewise, because betting on college sports could make one cynical about games possibly
being thrown, Mr. McCain wanted to make that a federal offense.
The senator’s ideas for “reform” — taxing cigarettes, banning ultimate fighting, giving the president a lineitem veto — typically empower the executive branch at the expense of American citizens and their
representatives. Even his efforts to prohibit torture and overhaul immigration proved hostile to individual
rights. His ban on the cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees was packaged with provisions
that jeopardized habeas corpus. And his immigration bill would have required American workers to prove
their citizenship.
Nowhere is this dynamic more apparent than in Mr. McCain’s signature issue: the corrupting influence of
money in politics. His solution, the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, placed onerous restrictions on citizens
who have no affiliation with sitting politicians.
When people raised First Amendment objections to the law, which prohibits citizen advertisements that so
much as mention a federal candidate’s name within 60 days of an election, Mr. McCain responded, “I would
rather have a clean government than one where quote ‘First Amendment rights’ are being respected that
has become corrupt.” When the Supreme Court questioned the law’s constitutionality, he complained in a
legal brief that ads were targeting “candidates in close contests — and almost invariably in a partisan
manner.”
Mr. McCain’s stump speeches, as well as his five books, are chockablock with calls to elevate national
greatness, collective duty and Washington rejuvenation over whatever individual roads we might be
pursuing. In “Worth the Fighting For,” he wrote that “our greatness depends upon our patriotism, and our
patriotism is hardly encouraged when we cannot take pride in the highest public institutions.” These
institutions, Mr. McCain wrote, should “fortify the public’s allegiance to the national community.”
Like many country-first, party-second military officers who began second careers in Washington, Mr. McCain
is often mischaracterized as a politician without any identifiable ideology. But all of his actions can be seen
as an attempt to use the federal government to restore your faith in ... the federal government. Once we all
put our shoulder on the same wheel, there’s nothing this country can’t do.
It can be a bracing approach when his issues line up with yours — I, for one, would welcome President
McCain’s unilateral wars on pork-barrel spending and waterboarding — but it’s treacherous territory for
those of us who consider “the pursuit of happiness” as something best defined by individuals, not crusading
presidents-to-be.
Matt Welch is the editor in chief of Reason magazine and the author of “McCain: The Myth of a Maverick.”
The Corner
Come west, young man [Mark Steyn]
Yesterday, round about the time Andy and Derb raised this, I was giving a talk to the Hudson Institute gang
and Monica Crowley asked me a question about the presidential candidates and radical Islam. I replied that I
had no doubt that John McCain was fully committed to the military campaign - if only for personal reasons
and tribal loyalty, he's not going to let this generation of American warriors get stuck with a losing hand from
Washington. But I added I was unsure the Senator grasped the scale of the broader ideological struggle. His
words yesterday confirmed as much:
McCain said the United States' goal in fighting Islamic extremists should be "to win the hearts and minds of
the vast majority of moderate Muslims who do not want their future controlled by a minority of violent
extremists.
"In this struggle, scholarships will be far more important than smart bombs."
Really? Even as a theoretical proposition, trusting the average American college education (even if one
does not draw Sami el-Arian or Ward Churchill as one's mentor) to woo young Muslims to the virtues of the
Great Satan would be something of a long shot. But it isn't even theoretical anymore.
There's plenty of evidence out there that the most extreme "extremists" are those who've been most
exposed to the west - and western education: from Osama bin Laden (summer school at Oxford, punting on
the Thames) and Mohammed Atta (Hamburg University urban planning student) to the London School of
Economics graduate responsible for the beheading of Daniel Pearl. The idea that handing out college
scholarships to young Saudi males and getting them hooked on Starbucks and car-chase movies will make
this stuff go away is ridiculous - and unworthy of a serious presidential candidate.
Further Proof of the Benefits of Westernization [Mark Steyn]
John McCain might like to ponder this story:
Excerpts from a conversation in a car during "Operation Badr," recorded covertly by police:
Person 3: "What happens, what happens at the Parliament?"
Person 1: "We go and kill everybody."
Person 3: "And then what?"
Informant: "And then read about it ..."
Person 1: "We get victory."
That's not in the Sunni Triangle, that's in Toronto: Young Muslims who've spent virtually their entire lives in
the west. Interestingly, the above guys also met with the two Georgia Tech students currently facing trial.
Not sure whether they're on scholarships, but they're another stirring tribute to the soothing effect of western
education on the jihadist brow:
As the film shot by the Georgia students was played in court, Ehsanul Islam Sadequee’s voice could be
heard on the soundtrack: “This is where our brothers attacked the Pentagon.”
“Allahu Akbar,” responds young Ahmed. God is great.
A couple of readers have pointed out that John McCain at least has the guts to refer to "radical Muslim
extremists". But "extremism" surely means views out on the fringe: Thirty-six per cent of young Muslim men
favor the death penalty for apostasy. That's 36 per cent not in Yemen or Waziristan but in the United
Kingdom. By definition, thirty-six per cent can't be "extremist". It's mainstream.
Newsweek via Real Clear Politics
Hold the Hysteria
by Robert Samuelson
WASHINGTON -- Regarding the economy, it's hard not to notice this stark contrast: The "real economy" of
spending, production and jobs -- though weakening -- is hardly in a state of collapse; but much of today's
semi-hysterical commentary suggests that it is. Financial markets for stocks and bonds are described as
being "in turmoil." People talk about a recession as if it were the second coming of Genghis Khan. Some
whisper the dreaded word "depression." Meanwhile, Americans are expected to buy about 15 million
vehicles in 2008; though down from 16.5 million in 2006, that's still a lot.
There's a disconnect between what people see around them and what they're told is happening. The first is
upsetting (rising gas prices, falling home prices, fewer jobs) but reflects the normal reverses of a $14 trillion
economy. The second ("panic," "financial meltdown") suggests the onset of something catastrophic and
totally outside the experience of ordinary people. The economy, said The New York Times last week, may
be on "the brink of the worst recession in a generation" -- an ominous warning.
Perhaps, but so far the concrete evidence is scant. A recession is a noticeable period of declining output.
Since World War II, there have been 10. On average, they've lasted 10 months, involved a peak monthly
unemployment rate of 7.6 percent and resulted in a decline of economic output (gross domestic product) of
1.8 percent, reports Mark Zandi of Moody's Economy.com. If the two worst recessions (those of 1981-82
and 1973-75, with peak unemployment of 10.8 percent and 9 percent) are excluded, the average peak
jobless rate is about 7 percent.
No one doubts that the economy has slowed. Many economists think a recession has already started. Zandi
is one. He forecasts peak unemployment of 6.1 percent (present unemployment: 4.8 percent) and a GDP
drop of 0.4 percent. If that comes true, the recession of 2008 would actually be milder than the average
postwar recession and milder than the last two, those of 1990-91 and 2001.
Broadly speaking, the story is similar for stocks. So far, their weakness is unexceptional. A standard
definition of a "bear market" is a drop of 20 percent or more. Last week, the market was at times close to
that. Declines would have to get much worse to qualify as momentous. Since 1936, there have been 11 bear
markets as measured by the Standard & Poor's index of 500 stocks, says Howard Silverblatt of S&P. On
average, they've lasted 20 months and involved a decline of 34 percent. One was 60 percent (1937-42) and
two were nearly 50 percent (1973-74 and 2000-02, the last being the "tech bubble").
Some causes of the present hysteria are familiar: media hype; political finger-pointing -- always given to
exaggeration; and whining from Wall Street types. But there's also another large cause: disagreement over
whether the economy is highly unstable or whether business cycles are mostly self-correcting.
"This argument is as old as economics," says economic historian Barry Eichengreen of the University of
California, Berkeley. "There is no more consensus (now) ... than there was 70 years ago." Those who think
the economy is highly unstable talk now of an alarming "negative feedback loop" -- a "vicious circle" to most
people. Housing prices fall, creating more foreclosures; losses on mortgages increase, eroding the capital of
banks and causing them to curtail lending -- which weakens the economy, depresses housing prices and
causes more foreclosures and losses. Just as in the Depression, a crippled financial system spreads the
slump. Only forceful government intervention can break the downward spiral.
Not necessarily, if most markets self-correct. As housing prices fall, more buyers come into the market;
sales and construction revive. If inventories get too high, production slows and surpluses are sold; then
production accelerates. If consumers or businesses are overindebted, they reduce spending to repay loans;
spending speeds up when debt burdens drop. Government can help smooth business cycles and prevent
financial panics. But if it's too aggressive, it may make matters worse. That occurred in the 1970s when easy
credit created double-digit inflation -- and then required harsh recessions to suppress it.
Hardly anyone adheres rigidly to either view but many favor one or the other. That explains why today's
situation seems so threatening to some and less so to others.
The Great Depression doesn't settle the issue. True, massive bank failures converted an ordinary recession
into a calamity; but it's also true that government policy -- excessive rigidity by the Federal Reserve -actually aggravated the banking collapse. Still, economic conditions in the 1930s (average unemployment:
18 percent) were so different from today's that casual references to "depression" amount to fear-mongering.
If catastrophe strikes, it will probably result from something we don't now know or we haven't yet imagined.
WSJ - Editorial
The Other Spitzer Scandal
Cultural sophisticates lament that Eliot Spitzer was driven from office this month by a mere sex scandal. Yet
now that he's gone, we're learning that he also had far more to do than he's admitted with a scheme to
smear Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno.
Prior to the revelations about the Democratic ex-Governor's assignations with prostitutes, it
appeared that Mr. Spitzer had stonewalled everyone on the scandal known in New York as
"Troopergate." Albany County District Attorney David Soares exonerated Mr. Spitzer last year
after an initial investigation of the scheme to get state troopers to track his political opponent.
But inconsistencies in the testimony of long-time Spitzer enforcer Darren Dopp sent Mr.
Soares back to revisit his earlier whitewash.
And now that Governor Steamroller is Private Citizen Spitzer, leaks from the DA's office are
making clear that Mr. Spitzer was deeply involved in the smear campaign, even repeatedly
calling Mr. Dopp at home to ensure that the leaks would produce a damaging story. Mr.
Soares got Mr. Dopp to talk by offering him immunity from prosecution. But there's no
question that every public employee in the state -- from Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to
the Public Integrity Commission to Mr. Soares himself -- was, at a minimum, treating the question of Mr.
Spitzer's involvement with kid gloves as long as he remained Governor.
That the truth is only coming out now underscores how corrupt the political culture of Albany is, and how
reluctant the political class was to question the malfeasance of a powerful and vindictive Governor. Now that
he's out, we may finally learn the truth. But New York voters can consider themselves fortunate that a sex
scandal ended Mr. Spitzer's career before his sense of righteous entitlement did far more harm to their state.
Real Clear Politics
Conservatives More Liberal Givers
by George Will
WASHINGTON -- Residents of Austin, Texas, home of the state's government and flagship university, have
very refined social consciences, if they do say so themselves, and they do say so, speaking via bumper
stickers. Don R. Willett, a justice of the state Supreme Court, has commuted behind bumpers proclaiming
"Better a Bleeding Heart Than None at All," "Practice Random Acts of Kindness and Senseless Beauty,"
"The Moral High Ground Is Built on Compassion," "Arms Are For Hugging," "Will Work (When the Jobs
Come Back From India)," "Jesus Is a Liberal," "God Wants Spiritual Fruits, Not Religious Nuts," "The Road
to Hell Is Paved With Republicans," "Republicans Are People Too -- Mean, Selfish, Greedy People" and so
on. But Willett thinks Austin subverts a stereotype: "The belief that liberals care more about the poor may
scratch a partisan or ideological itch, but the facts are hostile witnesses."
Sixteen months ago, Arthur C. Brooks, a professor at Syracuse University, published "Who Really Cares:
The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism." The surprise is that liberals are markedly less
charitable than conservatives.
If many conservatives are liberals who have been mugged by reality, Brooks, a registered independent, is,
as a reviewer of his book said, a social scientist who has been mugged by data. They include these findings:
-- Although liberal families' incomes average 6 percent higher than those of conservative families,
conservative-headed households give, on average, 30 percent more to charity than the average liberalheaded household ($1,600 per year vs. $1,227).
-- Conservatives also donate more time and give more blood.
-- Residents of the states that voted for John Kerry in 2004 gave smaller percentages of their incomes to
charity than did residents of states that voted for George Bush.
-- Bush carried 24 of the 25 states where charitable giving was above average.
-- In the 10 reddest states, in which Bush got more than 60 percent majorities, the average percentage of
personal income donated to charity was 3.5. Residents of the bluest states, which gave Bush less than 40
percent, donated just 1.9 percent.
-- People who reject the idea that "government has a responsibility to reduce income inequality" give an
average of four times more than people who accept that proposition.
Brooks demonstrates a correlation between charitable behavior and "the values that lie beneath" liberal and
conservative labels. Two influences on charitable behavior are religion and attitudes about the proper role of
government.
The single biggest predictor of someone's altruism, Willett says, is religion. It increasingly correlates with
conservative political affiliations because, as Brooks' book says, "the percentage of self-described
Democrats who say they have 'no religion' has more than quadrupled since the early 1970s." America is
largely divided between religious givers and secular nongivers, and the former are disproportionately
conservative. One demonstration that religion is a strong determinant of charitable behavior is that the least
charitable cohort is a relatively small one -- secular conservatives.
Reviewing Brooks' book in the Texas Review of Law & Politics, Justice Willett notes that Austin -- it voted 56
percent for Kerry while he was getting just 38 percent statewide -- is ranked by The Chronicle of
Philanthropy as 48th out of America's 50 largest cities in per capita charitable giving. Brooks' data about
disparities between liberals' and conservatives' charitable giving fit these facts: Democrats represent a
majority of the wealthiest congressional districts, and half of America's richest households live in states
where both senators are Democrats.
While conservatives tend to regard giving as a personal rather than governmental responsibility, some
liberals consider private charity a retrograde phenomenon -- a poor palliative for an inadequate welfare
state, and a distraction from achieving adequacy by force, by increasing taxes. Ralph Nader, running for
president in 2000, said: "A society that has more justice is a society that needs less charity." Brooks,
however, warns: "If support for a policy that does not exist ... substitutes for private charity, the needy are left
worse off than before. It is one of the bitterest ironies of liberal politics today that political opinions are
apparently taking the place of help for others."
In 2000, brows were furrowed in perplexity because Vice President Al Gore's charitable contributions, as a
percentage of his income, were below the national average: He gave 0.2 percent of his family income, oneseventh of the average for donating households. But Gore "gave at the office." By using public office to give
other peoples' money to government programs, he was being charitable, as liberals increasingly, and
conveniently, understand that word.
Wired
Colbert and Kamen Solve the World's Water Problems
by Loretta Hidalgo Whitesides
There has been much buzz about the water-purifying machine that Segway inventor Dean Kamen
demonstrated on the Colbert Report last week (even taking on the bag of Spicy Sweet Chili Doritos that
Colbert added). Everyone has been trying to find out more about his claim that "you stick a hose into
anything that looks wet ... and it comes out ... as perfect distilled clean water."
So far as I can tell however, it's true. (Note: I still haven't worked out if it can handle volatile organics like
gasoline and benzene.)
So what follows are the numbers behind the hype. True to form they are distilled from a number of articles
and interviews over the last six years. The most informative being Kamen's talk at TED in 2002.

It is designed to supply a village with 1,000 liters/day of clean water. (Colbert Report)

You can use any water source -- ocean, puddle, chemical waste site, hexavalent chrome, arsenic,
poison, 50 gallon drum of urine. (Colbert Report)
Vapor compression distillation is not new. Doing it in such an incredibly efficient way such that it takes
only 2 percent of the power of convention distillers is new. (R&D World and Gizmodo commenter)
The are no filters to replace, no charcoal, no anything disposable (just distillation). (Colbert Report)
The Slingshot (as its called) can use half the waste heat (450 watts) from a sterling engine electrical
generator (prototype also being designed by Kamen's company) to boil its water. (TED)
The heat put into the water is recovered with a "counter-flow heat exchanger" and recycled to heat
the next batch of water (that is part of the novel bit). (TED and Gizmodo commenter)
Slingshot will be less then 60 lbs. (TED)
The prototype slingshot was hand-built for $100K. The goal is to get production units down to $1,000
to $2,000. (CNN)
The sterling engine, used as an electrical generator, can produce about 200 watts of power (it will
never be more then 20 percent efficient) and 800 watts of waste heat (the waste heat that slingshot
uses). TED
Later sources say the sterling engine can generate 1 kilowatt or enough power for 70 high-efficiency
light bulbs. (CNN)
The sterling engine can run on anything that burns, propane or even cow dung. (CNN)
The slingshot is a David and Goliath reference aimed at putting water and power back in the hands of
the individuals. (AP)
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The most interesting comments I came across were to the effect that inventing something great is only half
the problem. The other half is getting it to the people who need it in a way that works. Luckily, as Gizmodo
commenter enginblue points out, if units came down to $1,000 each, this new wave of micro-lending could
have people pooling money to purchase units for groups of entrepreneurs wanting to bring this to their
village.
NY Times
SEA SHRINKS FOAM
Far Below the Surface of the World’s Oceans, a Tough Place for Foam Cups
by William J. Broad
Cups and their messages back from the Arctic Ocean: left, from recent Russian dives; right, from an earlier dive,
with a landlubber.
Last August, as a team at the North Pole prepared to plunge more than two miles to the bottom of the Arctic
Ocean, some of the dozens of specialists who staged the dive engaged in a time-honored ritual: drawing on
foam cups, decorating more than 100 of them.
The cups were then gingerly sent into the deep. During the historic dive, led by Russian scientists, the
pressure of the surrounding water crushed the cups to the size of thimbles, also squeezing their whimsies of
writing and drawing.
Afterward, the tiny cups became instant mementoes of the polar dive, offering striking proof of the descent
into an unfamiliar zone and silent testimony to the crushing power of plain old water.
“The real North Pole,” read one cup’s shrunken writing. “Explore the abyss,” another urged.
Deep explorers have made thousands of such keepsakes over the decades, and more recently, schools
have joined the fun as a way to drive home some of the peculiarities of a planet where very deep water
covers some 65 percent of the surface.
For example, in 2001, a third-grade class at Harding Elementary School in Corvallis, Ore., decorated 28
foam cups with bright fish, happy faces and American flags. The scientist father of one of the students then
sent the cups into the depths of the Indian Ocean, shrinking them into small trophies for a lesson on the
crushing weight of deep water.
A comparison to air pressure helps. At sea level, atmospheric pressure is 14.7 pounds per square inch. The
deeper the dive, the greater the water pressure. At the resting place of the Titanic, more than two miles
down, the pressure is 2.8 tons per square inch. That constantly bears down and tries to obliterate any void.
The pressure on any object in the deep sea, as at sea level, is uniform. It presses from above, below and
the sides. That is because the molecules making up fluids (which in physics include both gases and liquids)
are free to move about and transmit force in all directions.
Sea creatures are made primarily of water, which is virtually incompressible. So they escape destruction in
the abyss.
But the high pressure causes most cavities and hollows, like human lungs, to collapse. So, too, with foam
cups. They are almost all void since the foam is 95 percent air, according to the American Chemistry
Council. As pressures build during descent, the air slowly compresses and the cups shrink.
Explorers of the deep escape slow torture by descending in small craft known as submersibles. A superstrong personnel sphere protects a pilot and two observers, who peer out through tiny portholes made with
extraordinarily thick windows. The air pressure inside is the same as at sea level.
In its early days, Alvin, a pioneering American submersible, often carried outside its crew sphere
compressible items like cork bricks and foam balls, cups and wig holders (to make shrunken heads),
according to “Water Baby,” a profile of the craft.
“It’s an old trick,” the author, Victoria A. Kaharl, wrote, adding that the pressure of the deep makes “perfect
miniatures.”
But the experimentally minded on such expeditions were also tempted to see what might withstand the
pressure, and in at least one instance sent down a raw egg.
Filled with incompressible fluid, Ms. Kaharl wrote, the egg returned to the surface “perfectly intact and
edible.”
The Hill via Real Clear Politics
Hillary's List of Lies
by Dick Morris
The USA Today/Gallup survey clearly explains why Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) is losing. Asked
whether the candidates were "honest and trustworthy," Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) won with 67 percent,
with Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) right behind him at 63. Hillary scored only 44 percent, the lowest rating for
any candidate for any attribute in the poll.
Hillary simply cannot tell the truth. Here's her scorecard:
Admitted Lies
• Chelsea was jogging around the Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. (She was in bed watching it on TV.)
• Hillary was named after Sir Edmund Hillary. (She admitted she was wrong. He climbed Mt. Everest five
years after her birth.)
• She was under sniper fire in Bosnia. (A girl presented her with flowers at the foot of the ramp.)
• She learned in The Wall Street Journal how to make a killing in the futures market. (It didn't cover the
market back then.)
Whoppers She Won't Confess To
• She didn't know about the FALN pardons.
• She didn't know that her brothers were being paid to get pardons that Clinton granted.
• Taking the White House gifts was a clerical error.
• She didn't know that her staff would fire the travel office staff after she told them to do so.
• She didn't know that the Peter Paul fundraiser in Hollywood in 2000 cost $700,000 more than she reported
it had.
• She opposed NAFTA at the time.
• She was instrumental in the Irish peace process.
• She urged Bill to intervene in Rwanda.
• She played a role in the '90s economic recovery.
• The billing records showed up on their own.
• She thought Bill was innocent when the Monica scandal broke.
• She was always a Yankees fan.
• She had nothing to do with the New Square Hasidic pardons (after they voted for her 1,400-12 and she
attended a meeting at the White House about the pardons).
• She negotiated for the release of refugees in Macedonia (who were released the day before she got there).
With a record like that, is it any wonder that we suspect her of being less than honest and straightforward?
Why has McCain jumped out to a nine-point lead over Obama and a seven-point lead over Hillary in the
latest Rasmussen poll? OK, Obama has had the Rev. Wright mess on his hands. And Hillary has come in
for her share of negatives, like the Richardson endorsement of Obama and the denouement of her latest lie
-- that she endured sniper fire during a trip to Bosnia. But why has McCain gained so much in so short a
period of time? Most polls had the general election tied two weeks ago.
McCain's virtues require a contrast in order to stand out. His strength, integrity, solidity and dependability all
are essentially passive virtues, which shine only by contrast with others. Now that Obama and Hillary are
offering images that are much weaker, less honest, and less solid and dependable, good old John McCain
looks that much better as he tours Iraq and Israel while the Democrats rip one another apart.
It took Nixon for us to appreciate Jimmy Carter's simple honesty. It took Clinton and Monica for us to value
George W. Bush's personal character. And it takes the unseemly battle among the Democrats for us to give
John McCain his due.
When Obama faces McCain in the general election (not if but when) the legacy of the Wright scandal will not
be to question Obama's patriotism or love of America. It will be to ask if he has the right stuff (pardon the
pun).
The largest gap between McCain and Obama in the most recent USA Today/Gallup Poll was on the trait of
leadership. Asked if each man was a "strong, decisive leader," 69 percent felt that the description fit McCain
while only 56 percent thought it would apply to Obama. (61 percent said it of Hillary.) Obama has looked
weak handling the Rev. Wright controversy. His labored explanation of why he attacks the sin but loves the
sinner comes across as elegant but, at the same time, feeble. Obama's reluctance to trade punches with his
opponents makes us wonder if he could trade them with bin Laden or Ahmadinejad. We have no doubt that
McCain would gladly come to blows and would represent us well, but about Obama we are not so sure.
Morris, a former political adviser to Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and President Bill Clinton, is the author of
“Outrage.”
Daily Mirror. UK
Christopher Hitchens on Hillary Clinton's trip to Bosnia
By Christopher Hitchens
As soon as Mrs Clinton's long-hidden daily records as First Lady were revealed to the public, my lines lit up
from people who remembered how her husband's administration sold out the Bosnians.
They raced to check her claim that she visited the country because it was too dangerous for Bill to do so,
and her extra boast that she landed under sniper fire and had to duck and scuttle.
She now says she "mis-spoke". I'm not sure that covers it. Footage shows her landing in Tuzla, then
Bosnia's most peaceful city, and strolling with a smile, her daughter in tow, to be met by flowers, children
and dignitaries. In other words, there's not a word of truth in her original assertion.
It also illustrates the question of Mrs Clinton's respect for the truth. There is, first, her attempt to block
access to her records.
Second, her habit of making hugely inflated claims about herself. Third, a smarminess about matters of fact,
as in her recent utterance that Barack Obama is not a Muslim "as far as I know".
She's being punished, not for one episode of "mis-speaking", but a whole record of dishonesty. In Bosnian
terms it's more disgraceful than many remember. In 1992 Bill Clinton ran against George Bush Snr
promising to help the Bosnians survive genocide - then repeatedly went back on his word.
(Locals dubbed the emergency graveyard dug on a Sarajevo soccer field "The Clinton Cemetery".)
And I shall never forget meeting his Defence Secretary Les Aspin, who said he had wanted to land his plane
under fire at Sarajevo airport to at least show some solidarity but was dissuaded by the White House. They
told him it would distract from Hillary's healthcare initiative. Now Bosnia has had its small, belated revenge
on her.
Contentions
More on Hillary’s Fabrication
by Peter Wehner
I wanted to add my thoughts on Hillary Clinton’s fabricated story about landing under sniper fire in Bosnia in
1996. It is a damaging, and probably deeply damaging, blow to an increasingly weak and desperate
candidate. It will now become fodder for late night talk show hosts. It also builds on other false claims she
has made, from her role in the Northern Ireland peace talks to S-CHIP legislation. And the sniper fire tale
reinforces an existing impression about the Clintons: they cannot be counted on to tell the truth in matters
small or large, about them or about others, about policy or about their personal conduct. It’s worth noting, I
suppose, that Senator Clinton acknowledged the story was false only after indisputable video evidence (in
this case from CBS News) emerged. Like her husband and the blue dress, the Clintons only concede their
untruthfulness when they’ve been caught - on camera or via DNA - in their untruths.
I have thought for a long while now that Clinton Fatigue Syndrome was real, even among Democrats, and it
would emerge as the campaign unfolded. It has, in many different ways - triggered by angry and false
comments by Bill Clinton to this story to much else. It brings rushing back many of the bad memories from
the 1990s and reminds people how the Clintons operate, both in campaigns and while in office. There is, at
core, a corruption of character.
Monday night Joe Klein was on CNN downplaying the significance of Mrs. Clinton’s tall tale:
It’s a war story, and — and she exaggerated it. And it doesn’t speak well of her. And it’s very un-Hillary like.
But could I just, for the sake of the fact that we’re in silly season now, and everybody — all these candidates
are totally exhausted, just plead for charity, not only for her, but for the Obama supporters… I mean, these
are not the important issues in the election. The important issues are two wars, an economic crisis, and —
and the need for energy independence…. The question is whether you blow up these little exaggerations
that everybody makes, including candidates, to the point where it obscures the real issues in the campaign.
I’m willing to give her a break on this one, even though, as I said, it’s very much unlike her, and it’s clearly
her telling a war story.
It’s not clear that this “exaggeration” is un-Hillary like. In fact, as I alluded to above, there are other
examples. And of course she was a key figure in the Clinton White House which, as Ruth Marcus of the
Washington Post wrote at the time, followed a “pattern of knowing and reckless disregard for the truth.” It
strikes me that Klein was more on target when he wrote a 1994 cover story for Newsweek, “The Politics of
Promiscuity,” in which he said this:
With the Clintons, the story always is subject to further revision. The misstatements are always incremental.
The “misunderstandings” are always innocent - casual, irregular: promiscuous. Trust is squandered in dribs
and drabs. Does this sort of behavior also infect the president’s public life, his formulation of policy? Clearly,
it does.
Hillary Clinton will almost surely lose the Democratic nomination for president; the question is how much
damage she will do to herself, and to Obama and her party, in the process. I suspect the answer is a fair
amount.
Hot Air
Hillary, Serial Fabulist?
by Ed Morrissey
Has Hillary Clinton’s Tuzla fantasy opened a bigger can of worms for the presidential aspirant? Jake Tapper
at ABC News wonders whether the press should take a look at earlier Hillary anecdotes to determine
whether a pattern of fabulism exists. Sure enough, he discovers an old chestnut from 1994 that Hillary has
not bothered to dust off for the current campaign:
In light of Tuzla-gate (catchy, no?), reporters are going over past statements by Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY,
(and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois) to see if others don’t stand more rigorous examination.
One that may get renewed scrutiny is a story she told “Women in Military Service” in 1994 — that shortly
after the end of the Vietnam war, she looked into joining the Marines.
In June 1994, Clinton told an organization trying to build a memorial for women who had served in the
armed forces, that while living in Fayetteville, Arkansas, in 1975, “I decided that I was very interested in
having some experience in serving in some capacity in the military. So I walked into our local recruiting
office…”
And the rest may not be history, at least not in the sense of, well, it actually happening. Hillary married Bill
Clinton in 1975, and his political career looked very, very bright; as Tapper notes, he was considered a
shoo-in for the Attorney General election the next year. Even Maureen Dowd in 1994 questioned the notion
that Hillary intended to dump Bill and his political future for a stint as a jarhead.
The story gets pretty strange. She claims that the Marine recruiter told her she was too old (27), her eyesight
was too poor, and … she had one too many X chromosomes. Now, in 1975, the military services were
struggling for recruits. The draft had ended, the Vietnam War had left a generation of potential recruits
looking elsewhere, and Congress was pressing the recruiters to find more women. It’s not impossible that a
Marine recruiter would chase a 27-year-old woman out of his office, but it certainly seems highly unlikely,
especially one with a law degree and some experience in the field.
Unlike the Tuzla episode, no witnesses to this transaction have appeared, nor are any likely to do so.
However, the collapse of her credibility this week, after repeating the story at least four times during the
campaign, calls into question her personal anecdotes, especially those that paint her in the kind of crusading
light as this does. Hillary can expect greater scrutiny of her claims, especially since the media got burned by
its credulity on Tuzla.
Update: I suppose it won’t be long before we get to the fabulist tale of how Hillary got her name, as some of
our commenters suggest. Snopes delivers the bad news to Hillary, even if the news media hasn’t exactly
caught up to this bit of fabulism:
Hillary Clinton said her mother, Dorothy Rodham, “had read an article about the intrepid Edmund Hillary, a
one-time beekeeper who had taken to mountain climbing, when she was pregnant in 1947 and liked the
name.” Although it is true that Edmund Hillary did not perform the feat that made him a household name
throughout the English-speaking world until 1953 (by which time Hillary Rodham was already six years old),
it is not true, as many skeptics have asserted, that Edmund Hillary was nothing more than an obscure
Auckland beekeeper until then. Even before World War II he was already a serious mountain climber who
boasted to a friend that “some day I’m going to climb Everest,” and by 1947 he was honing the necessary
skills on the peaks of the Southern Alps. It’s certainly possible young Edmund was profiled in some
periodical as far back in 1947.
However, how likely was Dorothy Rodham, a Chicago housewife, to have seen an article about a New
Zealand mountain climber? We performed a comprehensive search of several major American newspapers
(including the Chicago Tribune) and found that none of them made any mention of Edmund Hillary
whatsoever prior to June 1953, so it’s fair to say that the American media paid him little note prior to his
successful assault on Mt. Everest that year.
That little bit of fabulism didn’t hurt anyone except Hillary herself when people did the obvious math. It did
indicate a relationship between Hillary and Truth that seems rather distant and entirely self-serving.
Borowitz Report
Hillary Says 8-Year-Old Bosnian Girl Was Actually Sniper
Bouquet of Flowers Hid Semiautomatic Weapon
Accused in recent days of embellishing her story of a brush with sniper fire in Bosnia, Democratic
presidential candidate Hillary Clinton today said “don’t be fooled” by photos showing her being greeted at the
airport by a pony-tailed 8-year-old Bosnian girl with a bouquet of flowers.
“That was no little girl,” Sen. Clinton told reporters in Gary, Indiana. “That was a covert ops midget sniper.”
The New York senator said that moments after the “so-called little girl” presented her with the flowers, she
revealed what the bouquet had been hiding: “a tiny semi-automatic weapon.”
“Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to use some of the Tae Kwon Do techniques I had learned in
preparation for the Northern Ireland peace talks,” she said.
Defending his wife against charges that she had yet again fabricated her exploits while First Lady, former
President Bill Clinton told CNN’s John King that “Democratic voters have a clear choice this election: do they
want a liar or a plagiarist?”
“Hillary tells some real whoppers, but at least they’re original,” he said.
In response to a question about whether he believes his wife’s account of the events in Bosnia, Mr. Clinton
said, “All I have to say about that is Reverend Wright Reverend Wright Reverend Wright Reverend Wright
Reverend Wright.”
Scrappleface
Hillary Defends Against 'Swiftboating' on Bosnia
by Scott Ott
After a CBS News video appeared on YouTube contradicting former First Lady Hillary Clinton’s account of
her 1996 landing in Bosnia “under sniper fire”, a spokesman for Sen. Clinton’s presidential campaign said
unnamed critics were trying to “swiftboat” her “in a fashion reminiscent of what they did to John Kerry in
2004.” [Click to View CBS Video]
Sen. Kerry, a professional Vietnam war veteran, faced relentless questions during his own White House bid
that were sparked by fellow swiftboat crewman who alleged that his Vietnam service was not as harrowing
and valorous as his own medal applications and stump speeches implied.
The Clinton campaign source said CBS News had apparently edited out the sniper fire audio from its video
clips, making it look like First Lady Clinton and her daughter Chelsea were greeted at the landing site by a
little, pony-tailed Bosnian girl who kissed Mrs. Clinton on the cheeks.
“Even without the audio, you can see Hillary and Chelsea ducking toward the little girl as bullets whistle over
their heads,” said the anonymous campaign staffer. “The other people standing nearby were so paralyzed
by fear that all they could do was smile. The little girl practically leaped into Hillary’s arms for protection from
the barrage of searing hot lead.”