Author: Dave

Despite our best efforts the holidays are once again upon us, and so in the spirit of the season I’d like to share a recipe that I’ve enjoyed annually for some years now. Traditional Two-Minute Bodybuilders’ Low-Carb High-Omega-3 Christmas Dinner You will need: 1/4 cup olive oil 1/3 cup flaxseed meal (milled) 1 tsp Metamucil…

I have to agree with Matt Welch’s criticism of Bill Kristol’s call for forceful state action against Wikileaker and accused rapist Julian Assange. I happened to catch Bill, who I have past admired, saying much the same yesterday while watching Special Report on Fox News for the first time in years. Krauthammer was even worse,…

In this weekend’s “strange new respect” news, someone at Newsweek… trumpets Hayek’s triumphant return? Apparently we aren’t all socialists now. The big debate lately seems to be whether Bernanke’s second round of “quantitative easing” is helping provide liquidity, a la Milton Friedman, or just an attempt to reflate the bubble. If you read Amity Shlaes’…

I can’t decide what’s funnier in all this: that Krugman thinks this arms treaty is “desperately needed,” that he likens spending cuts to “blood lust” while claiming the GOP won’t do anything to address deficits, or his intimation that the GOP having a voice on spending may mean the end of the Republic as we…

A few thoughts and links on libertarian economics: von Mises was certainly groundbreaking and is definitely worth studying, though he hurt his credibility with the failed prediction that the pound would collapse. Schiff hasn’t exactly covered the Austrians with glory either, repeatedly predicting the collapse of the dollar. Hayek and Friedman tended to be both…

In today’s fierce moral urgency of change news, it turns out the market for government health insurance for the uninsured is about 50 times smaller than Obamacare proponents told us it would be. Of course, we opponents of Obamacare were arguing last year this problem was overblown, and it appears in retrospect even our most…

Great piece from TNR on Gary Johnson, perhaps the highest elected libertarian in recent times, and candidate for President in 2012: “That’s the first sign you know you’re a libertarian,” he says. “You see the red light. You stop. You realize that there’s not a car in sight. And you put your foot on the…

It took a while, but Iraq’s major parties have agreed on a national unity government. This will arguably be Iraq’s first true unity government, as it will bring in major representation of the Sunnis who had largely avoided the polls in 2005. Allawi’s party will reportedly hold the speakership, while Maliki continues as PM. The…

Via Reason, Matt Taibbi makes a strange argument. It’s amazing to me that people who should know better are missing some of the most obvious facts here. Markets have winners and losers. Inevitably some banks will fail in a major economic adjustment. Why did we need the bailout? Because the Feds allowed institutions to become…

Stuart Rothenberg is served some crow for predicting a GOP recapture of the House was impossible, but not everyone blames him: This failed prognosticator’s mistake is an easy one to understand. How was he to know that he lived in a nation populated by raving loons who would lash out against the very people who…

This is certainly an auspicious beginning, assuming he actually follows through. No earmarks, no passing bills until the public has three days to view them, explicit Constitutional authority needed for all bills… I feel like it’s morning in America.

I would add in the same vein: rather than engage in the simplistic battle of labels (“socialist, extremist”) , which generally leads only to one side declaring its labels acceptable/applicable and the others’ not, one is usually better served to argue the consequences of competing points on the ideological continuum. Here empiricism can be employed,…

Megan and Ace both talk about the possibility of government shutdown, which specter may loom sooner rather than later if DeMint can be believed. Something to keep in mind regarding this scenario — today’s situation is very different than the last time government was shut down in the mid-1990s. Unemployment is much higher, the deficits…

Let it be known across the land — Nov 2, 2010 shall henceforth be remembered as Refudiation Day.

In today’s “the MSM is worse than you thought possible” news, one media outlet is caught on tape plotting to tie Joe Miller to child molesters, while another “forgets” to run Christine O’Donnell’s big 30-minute ad… twice. The day before the election. Reality truly is stranger than fiction sometimes — if you wrote this kind…

I’ve been hearing the complaint that only the top 10% of income earners are benefitting from productivity growth because middle-class personal incomes are stagnating, with the implication living standards are only rising for the rich, but I think (outside of monopolies) for the large majority of goods and services it’s generally not possible for productivity…

I have to agree with Simon — it’s the Chicago Way, the way of Daley and Ryan and Blago. These Illinois politicians don’t know any other way to be. I think this partly explains why Pelosi and Obama seem incapable of admitting the reality that the GOP is taking the House — they’re deeply worried…

Glenn notes that the Wikileaks doc dump further discredits various well-debunked antiwar theories. Four things to remember here in 2010: 1) 90%+ of civilians killed in Iraq were killed by Al Qaeda or Iran-affiliated militias, not coalition forces, who lost about 5,000 troops — most killed defending Iraqi civilians from those groups. 2) Saddam’s use…

No, it’s not about Obama butchering a Reagan quote on government’s role, or another Scalzi post; I’ve concluded the writing of lefty fiction writers should be held only to the standards of fiction, and am swearing off taking their thoughts on the real world seriously enough to criticize, unless they hold elected office. Speaking of…

Krugman: Here’s what you need to know: The whole story is a myth. There never was a big expansion of government spending. Reality: That level of government spending compares unfavorably even to profligate Japan, which is at 36%. More Krugman: Consider, in particular, one fact that might surprise you: The total number of government workers…