No Oil for Pacifists

Bloomberg News, November 27, 2007:

Global Warming Increases Malaria, Dengue Fever Threat, UN Says

Global warming will put millions more people at risk of malaria and dengue fever, according to a United Nations report that calls for an urgent review of the health dangers posed by climate change.

Increases in rainfall, temperature and humidity will favor the spread of malaria-transmitting mosquitoes over a wider range and to higher altitudes, according to the 2007-2008 Human Development Report, released today. That could put 220 million to 400 million additional people at greater risk of the disease that kills about 1 million a year, mostly in Africa.

"Ill health is one of the most powerful forces holding back the human development potential of poor households," the report said. "Climate change will intensify the problem."

The 384-page report commissioned by the UN Development Program was released a week before delegates to a UN-sponsored conference on Bali, Indonesia, will try to convince the U.S. to join a new emissions-limiting treaty that will pick up after 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol ends.

BBC News, August 26, 2011:

Mosquitoes 'disappearing' in some parts of Africa

Malaria-carrying mosquitoes are disappearing in some parts of Africa, but scientists are unsure as to why.

Figures indicate controls such as anti-mosquito bed nets are having a significant impact on the incidence of malaria in some sub-Saharan countries.

But in Malaria Journal, researchers say mosquitoes are also disappearing from areas with few controls.

They are uncertain if mosquitoes are being eradicated or whether they will return with renewed vigour.

Data from countries such as Tanzania, Eritrea, Rwanda, Kenya and Zambia all indicate that the incidence of malaria is dropping fast.

(via Global Warming Policy Foundation)

Or so I assume, given Jeffrey Toobin's amazingly objective New Yorker profile of Clarence and Ginni Thomas:

In several of the most important areas of constitutional law, Thomas has emerged as an intellectual leader of the Supreme Court. Since the arrival of Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., in 2005, and Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., in 2006, the Court has moved to the right when it comes to the free-speech rights of corporations, the rights of gun owners, and, potentially, the powers of the federal government; in each of these areas, the majority has followed where Thomas has been leading for a decade or more. Rarely has a Supreme Court Justice enjoyed such broad or significant vindication.

The conventional view of Thomas takes his lack of participation at oral argument as a kind of metaphor. The silent Justice is said to be an intellectual nonentity, a cipher for his similarly conservative colleague, Antonin Scalia. But those who follow the Court closely find this stereotype wrong in every particular. Thomas has long been a favorite of conservatives, but they admire the Justice for how he gives voice to their cause, not just because he votes their way. "Of the nine Justices presently on the Court, he is the one whose opinions I enjoy reading the most," Steve Calabresi, a professor at the Northwestern University School of Law and a co-founder of the Federalist Society, said. "They are very scholarly, with lots of historical sources, and his views are the most principled, even among the conservatives. He has staked out some bold positions, and then the Court has set out and moved in his direction."

Thomas’s intellect and his influence have also been recognized by those who generally disagree with his views. According to Akhil Reed Amar, a professor at Yale Law School, Thomas’s career resembles that of Hugo Black, the former Alabama senator who served from 1937 to 1971 and is today universally regarded as a major figure in the Court’s history. "Both were Southerners who came to the Court young and with very little judicial experience," Amar said. (Thomas is from Georgia.) "Early in their careers, they were often in dissent, sometimes by themselves, but they were content to go their own way. But once Earl Warren became Chief Justice the Court started to come to Black. It’s the same with Thomas and the Roberts Court. Thomas’s views are now being followed by a majority of the Court in case after case." . .

Like his intellectual heirs in the Tea Party, Thomas has a special hostility for government attempts to level the playing field in the political arena. For this Justice, the Constitution mandates the law of the jungle. When it comes to free speech, Thomas first laid out his views in McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission, a case early in his tenure. In 1988, Margaret McIntyre distributed unsigned leaflets at public meetings in a small town in Ohio. According to Ohio election laws, she was required to put her name on any material she distributed, and McIntyre was ultimately fined a hundred dollars for breaking the rule. In a 1995 opinion by John Paul Stevens for a seven-Justice majority, the Court overturned the fine as a violation of McIntyre’s right to free speech. For the Court, Stevens weighed the interest of the state in protecting the integrity of campaigns versus the individual’s right to express herself and concluded that the state’s restrictions went too far.

Thomas wrote a concurring opinion, which laid out a template that he, and to some extent the Court, has since followed. The opinion is an originalist tour de force, with extensive discussion of the practice of anonymous speech as practiced by the framers of the Constitution. "In light of the Framers’ universal practice of publishing anonymous articles and pamphlets," Thomas wrote, it was clear "that the Framers shared the belief that such activity was firmly part of the freedom of the press. It is only an innovation of modern times that has permitted the regulation of anonymous speech." This case marked the début of Thomas’s absolutist position on free-speech issues. "I don’t agree with him, but Thomas has the most internally coherent view of any Justice," Richard Hasen, a professor at the School of Law at the University of California at Irvine and the proprietor of a widely read blog on electoral law, said. "His view is that the First Amendment allows virtually no regulation of campaign advertising, campaign contributions, or expenditures. The Court has been moving his way."

Thomas put his position straightforwardly in a dissent to a decision, in 2000, that upheld a Missouri law that limited individual contributions to local campaigns to a total of a thousand and seventy-five dollars. "In my view, the Constitution leaves it entirely up to citizens and candidates to determine who shall speak, the means they will use, and the amount of speech sufficient to inform and persuade," he wrote. During the past decade, Justice Stephen Breyer has led the way for the other side, arguing in a series of cases (and in two books) that Congress may enact strict campaign-finance laws. As Breyer wrote in his book "Active Liberty," campaign-finance laws reflect the concern that "the few who give in large amounts may have special access to, and therefore influence over, their elected representatives." Breyer asserts that the Constitution permits Congress to limit the influence of these wealthy political insiders.

By 2010, in Citizens United, it had become clear that Thomas was routing Breyer.

In a somewhat overwrought blog post, Walter Russell Mead calls Toobin's article:

[O]ne of the most startling reappraisals to appear in The New Yorker for many years. It is hard to think of other revisions as radical as the declownification of Clarence Thomas. . .

There are few articles of faith as firmly fixed in the liberal canon as the belief that Clarence Thomas is, to put it as bluntly as many liberals do, a dunce and a worm. Twenty years of married life have not erased the conventional liberal view of his character etched by Anita Hill’s testimony at his confirmation hearings. Not only does the liberal mind perceive him as a disgusting lump of ungoverned sexual impulse; he is seen as an intellectual cipher. Thomas’ silence during oral argument before the Supreme Court is taken as obvious evidence that he has nothing to say and is perhaps a bit intimidated by the verbal fireworks exchanged by the high profile lawyers and his more, ahem, ‘qualified’ colleagues.

At most liberals have long seen Thomas as the Sancho Panza to Justice Antonin Scalia’s Don Quixote, Tonto to his Lone Ranger. No, says Toobin: the intellectual influence runs the other way. Thomas is the consistently clear and purposeful theorist that history will remember as an intellectual pioneer; Scalia the less clear-minded colleague who is gradually following in Thomas’ tracks.

If Toobin’s revionist take is correct, (and I defer to his knowledge of the direction of modern constitutional thought) it means that liberal America has spent a generation mocking a Black man as an ignorant fool, even as constitutional scholars stand in growing amazement at the intellectual audacity, philosophical coherence and historical reflection embedded in his judicial work.

Toobin is less interested in exploring why liberal America has been so blind for so long to the force of Clarence Thomas’ intellect than in understanding just what Thomas has achieved.

Though Toobin disagrees with the Justice's originalist view of the Constitution, his take on Thomas is correct. Long-time NOfP readers know I'm a huge Clarence Thomas fan. I think his two-paragraph dissent in Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003), a masterpiece. And about a decade ago, I was lucky enough to be seated next to Justice Thomas at a dinner party--his conviviality, knowledge (not just about law) and insight made it among the best evenings of my life.

Toobin ends his article by highlighting Thomas's well-known and narrow interpretation of the commerce clause (see his concurrence in United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549 (1995)) as a possible predictor of Supreme Court review of Obamacare. Similarly, Mead closes his piece discussing how a Thomas-driven interpretation could turn the Tenth Amendment into an "Amendment of Doom" for living constitution jurisprudence:

It’s hard to argue with Toobin that Thomas has moved the ball down field in his quest for a new era of constitutional jurisprudence. . .

Jeffrey Toobin is announcing to the liberal world that Clarence Thomas has morphed from a comic figure of fun to a determined super-villain who might reverse seventy years of liberal dominance of the federal bench and turn the clock back to 1930 if not 1789.

The fantasy is still far fetched, and it is notoriously hard for political movements to get and hold power long enough to shift the balance on the Supreme Court, but that Thomas has accomplished as much as he has shows how far the country has drifted from the old days when liberals were confident that the Supreme Court would find new ways to fit its judicial philosophy to the demands of the blue social model.

They can no longer count on that; the consequences could be extreme.

Good. Liberals have mocked and under-estimated Justice Thomas for too long. And the only way to preserve our liberties is to interpret the Constitution as not "living"--in other words, we must kill the Constitution in order to save it: "Call for Clarence Thomas, Mr. Justice Clarence Thomas."

(via reader Doug)

Michael Ramirez on August 21st:

There's no doubt Richard Posner is brilliant: lawyer, supreme court clerk (to Brennan), author, law professor, shade-tree economist, blogger, and Federal appeals court judge. Excluding the list of judicial opinions he authored, his resume is 47 pages.

Early in his career, Posner did more to develop the discipline of law and economics than anyone except possibly Ronald Coase. Posner's first book, The Economic Analysis of Law (now in its eighth edition), influenced my thinking enormously.

For most of his career, Posner was an unabashed conservative; my favorite case quote:

But there is no constitutional right to be protected by the state against being murdered by criminals or madmen. It is monstrous if the state fails to protect its residents against such predators but it does not violate the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment or, we suppose, any other provision of the Constitution. The Constitution is a charter of negative liberties; it tells the state to let people alone; it does not require the federal government or the state to provide services, even so elementary a service as maintaining law and order. Bowers v. DeVito, 686 F.2d 616 (7th Cir. 1982).

But, starting around the turn of the century, he's been most identified with "pragmatism":

Posner urges that political and legal decision-makers should be guided by what he calls everyday pragmatism rather than worry about abstract moral considerations (chs. 1-2). He links this conception of pragmatic government to an unromantic theory of democracy that rejects more demanding and idealistic views currently embraced by many political theorists and legal scholars. In contrast to deliberative democracy and other theories that require a high level of disinterested political involvement on the part of citizens, Posner follows Joseph Schumpeter in defending a theory of democracy limited to a competitive power struggle among members of a political elite for the electoral support of the masses. He further argues that judicial review should be based on a combination of pragmatism and adherence to his limited conception of democracy, rather than sticking closely to formalist theories of adjudication, which demand strict adherence to the text of the Constitution, legal precedent, or the original intent of the framers (chs. 6-10).

As a result, Posner's book on terrorism post 9/11 is surprisingly light on law and the Constitution, substituting his assessment of what might work best in practice. Similarly, though he agreed with the outcome of Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000), Posner was less concerned with the law and more focused on the practical necessity of reaching a decision -- any decision -- so as to avoid a Constitutional and political crisis. Needless to say, conservatives -- especially conservative lawyers -- find some of Posner's newer views legally unsound and economically inefficient.

Posner's recent books address the financial meltdown. In The Crisis of Capitalist Democracy, Posner critiques Adam Smith's invisible hand and financial deregulation. His latest, A Failure of Capitalism, is more the problem's precis than recommend remedies.

I haven't read the latter book, but Posner's recent piece in The New Republic gives a flavor:

If the notion that we are merely living through the aftereffects of a mere "recession" that ended in 2009 sounds somewhat ridiculous, that’s because it is. If we were being honest with ourselves, we would call this a depression. That would certainly better convey both the severity of our problems, and the fact that those problems have no evident solutions.

The American economy currently has both a short-term problem and a long-term problem. The short-term problem is that the economy is depressed; it is growing more slowly than the population, with the result that per capita income is declining. The high rate of un- and underemployment is a factor, but is itself the product of other factors, having mainly to do with the reluctance of over-indebted consumers (over-indebted in major part because of loss of equity in their houses, the major source of household wealth) to spend, the reluctance of the impaired banking industry to make risky loans, and the reluctance of businesses to invest and to hire, which is due in part to weak consumer spending and in part to profound uncertainty about the nation’s economic future.

The roots of this catastrophic situations lie primarily, I think, in the incompetent economic management of the Bush administration and the Federal Reserve. The persistence of the depression, however, is due in part at least to surprising failures of the Obama administration--poor leadership, poor management, the sponsorship of incomprehensibly complex health care and financial regulation laws that have created widespread uncertainty that has discouraged consumption and investment, and the inability to explain the nature of the economy’s problems to the general public. These failures caused the stimulus enacted in February 2009 to be botched in both in its design and its administration, resulting in the discrediting of deficit spending as a response to depression.

So what can be done now? Probably nothing. Anything that involves spending, such as a new stimulus program, would come too late to be effective. Measures that would not involve spending, such as devaluing the currency (which the Federal Reserve could do by buying a great many bonds, thus flooding the world with dollars), could stimulate our exports and hence production and hence employment and reduce imports (which would further help domestic production), but they are too risky given the interdependence of our economy and the economies of the rest of the world.

Posner's less worried about entitlements -- if the economy begins to grow again, he suggests some tinkering, some of which I support -- that would postpone the crisis in "mandatory" spending.

It's startling that one of America's most prolific public intellectuals is so pessimistic that Posner concludes:

The result is a quandary. I don’t see a way out of it. I hope others do.

Twice I wrote posts suggesting how to close the Federal budget deficit--but neither got much traction. By questioning capitalism and the preference for markets over regulation, Posner's raised a far broader issue. So, I spent no more than an hour formulating ten things I would do as Platonic philosopher king. One caveat--given my job, I skipped the FCC and Commerce Department.

1) Repeal Obamacare; substitute ending the tax break for employer health insurance and authorizing interstate health insurance competition. I'm on the fence as to whether stay revenue neutral by cutting income taxes.

2) End Medicare; transfer all the funds to Medicaid. America is wealthy enough to subsidize the poor--there's no reason, however, why we should subsidize people just because they're old. Cut back unemployment insurance to a year--it will increase employment. Trim Federal minimum wage back to 2007-08 levels--ditto.

3) Privatize Social Security for those under, say, 50. Means-test it for the over-fifty crowd. Replace it with a 401k-like scheme, with some constrains on qualified investments, avoiding among other potential calamities, the "Enron problem." Older Americans have too little time to build sufficient capital to privatize now--but they'll have to go "COLA-turkey."

4) Contrary to Posner, keep driving the dollar down, to boost exports--besides, with interest rates so low, debt is a bargain. But avoid inflation.

5) Eliminate the Departments of Education, HUD (auction off all existing public housing), Agriculture (there's about two full-time farmers for every Agriculture department employee -- page 123 -- making the DoA DOA would go a long way toward funding continued farm price supports, if any), NASA, the pointless Post Office, and HHS (preserve the FDA).

6) Quadruple legal immigration quotas -- one quarter filled by lottery, the remainder by reverse auction. Deport illegals.

7) Three Amendments to the Constitution (a) capping state-law tort punatives at 3x actual damages (the Supreme Court partially Federalized state law tort remedies in BMW of North America, Inc. v. Gore, 517 U.S. 559 (1996)); (b) not a balanced budget amendment (sorry Congressperson Bachmann), but a modified line-item veto where Congress has to approve strike-outs (NJ has something similar); (c) modify the first sentence of the first section of Amendment 14, to read as follows (additions in bold):

All persons born in the United States to citizens or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

As currently in effect, the provision encourages "chained" immigration and "birth tourism," because the offspring of illegal immigrants born here automatically are citizens.

8) Defense: Give up on new fighter jets (especially the Marines version of the F-35)--refurbish avionics on the existing ones--we can retain overall air supremacy with avionics upgrades for around a decade. Seriously think of withdrawing from Afghanistan, at least if President Hamid Karzai keeps equivocating about whether he wants our troops gone or protecting his country and training his military and police.

9) Tax simplification: either a flat tax, or three brackets (as the Bowles Commission recommended), with only two deductions: home mortgage and charity (too disruptive to end given the long history). Capital gains rates remain less than ordinary income rates--President Obama bragged that his stimulus package would boost investment, jobs and growth; surely the should apply the same logic to a policy that also stimulates investment and boosts jobs and growth. Lower the corporate tax rate, but eliminate most of the "choosing winners and losers" deductions.

10) For everything else, return to the FY 2005 spending levels.

There, Judge Posner--feeling any better now? Comments?

(via reader Doug)

Robert Samuelson in the Washington Post:

When it comes to energy, America is lucky to be next to Canada, whose proven oil reserves are estimated by Oil and Gas Journal at 175 billion barrels. This ranks just behind Saudi Arabia (260 billion) and Venezuela (211 billion) and ahead of Iran (137 billion) and Iraq (115 billion). True, about 97 percent of Canada’s reserves consist of Alberta’s controversial oil sands, but new technologies and high oil prices have made them economically viable. Expanded production can provide the U.S. market with a growing source of secure oil for decades.

We would be crazy to turn our back on this. In a global oil market repeatedly threatened by wars, revolutions, and natural and man-made disasters -- and where government-owned oil companies control development of about three-quarters of known reserves -- having dependable suppliers is no mean feat. We already import about half of our oil, and Canada is our largest supplier, with about 25 percent of imports. But its conventional fields are declining. Only oil sands can fill the gap.

Will we encourage this? Do we say yes to oil sands? Or do we increase our exposure to unstable world oil markets?

Those are the central questions raised by the proposed $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline connecting Alberta’s oil sands to U.S. refineries on the Texas Gulf coast. The pipeline requires White House approval, and environmentalists adamantly oppose it. . . .

Actually, the reality is more complex. If Obama rejects the pipeline, he would -- perversely -- increase greenhouse gas emissions. Canada has made clear that it will proceed with oil sands development regardless of the American decision. If the United States doesn’t want the oil, China and other Asian countries do. Pipelines would be built to the West Coast. Transporting the oil by tanker to Asia would almost certainly create more emissions than moving it by pipeline to closer U.S. markets.

Next, oil sands’ greenhouse gases are exaggerated. Despite high per-barrel emissions, the cumulative total is not large: about 6.5 percent of Canada’s emissions in 2009 and about 0.2 percent of the world’s, according to Canadian government figures. More important, most emissions from oil (70 percent or more) stem from burning the fuel, not extracting and refining it. Here, oil sands and conventional oil don’t differ. When all these "life cycle" emissions - from recovery to combustion -- are compared, oil sands’ disadvantage shrinks dramatically. Various studies put it between 5 and 23 percent.

Agreed.

U.S.-Columbia Free Trade Agreement: signed November 22, 2006.

U.S.-Panama Free Trade Agreement: signed June 28, 2007.

U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement: signed June 30, 2007, revised December 2010.

President Obama, State of the Union address, January 27, 2010:

We have to seek new markets aggressively, just as our competitors are. If America sits on the sidelines while other nations sign trade deals, we will lose the chance to create jobs on our shores. But realizing those benefits also means enforcing those agreements so our trading partners play by the rules. And that's why we'll continue to shape a Doha trade agreement that opens global markets, and why we will strengthen our trade relations in Asia and with key partners like South Korea and Panama and Colombia.

President Obama, State of the Union address, January 25, 2011:

[L]ast month, we finalized a trade agreement with South Korea that will support at least 70,000 American jobs. This agreement has unprecedented support from business and labor, Democrats and Republicans -- and I ask this Congress to pass it as soon as possible.

President Obama, August 15, 2011:

We’ve got pending trade legislation. Tom Vilsack and I were talking on the way over, on the bus here, and the truth of the matter is, is that the agricultural sector in America, the cornerstone of states like Iowa, is doing very well. But we could be doing more. And my general attitude is, why don’t we want to open up markets so that the extraordinary bounty of the heartland of America is making its way there, but also manufacturing is making its way there. . . We should go ahead and get those trade deals done.

So there are a whole host of ideas that we could be implementing right now that traditionally have had bipartisan support. The only thing that is preventing us from passing them is that there are some folks in Congress who think that doing something in cooperation with me or this White House, that that somehow is bad politics.

Wall Street Journal, August 20, 2011:

On his three-state tour in the Midwest this week, Mr. Obama repeatedly told audiences that the Korea, Colombia and Panama free-trade deals would all be law by now if not for an obstructionist Congress. Passing the deals is something Congress "could do right now," he said.

Except that's not true. Congress can't pass the agreements "right now" because it doesn't have them. They are still sitting on the President's desk. Seriously.

If you are surprised to learn this, you are not alone. White House deputy press secretary Josh Earnest only learned the news on Friday during a press conference. Asked why the FTAs haven't been sent, he responded, "We have not sent them over?" . . .

We don't want to pick on poor Mr. Earnest, who is no doubt doing his best, but it's worth noting that all three of these trade deals were signed three or more years ago, before Mr. Obama became President. If he wants them passed, stop the kvetching and send them to Congress.

Agreed.

(via Carpe Diem, Latin American Trade Coalition, Brookings)

Another day off.

Anil Kandangath created a site called Where did my tax dollars go? It allows users to enter income and filing status, and produces a nifty interactive pie chart showing what Federal programs they paid for. (Spending data via Louis Garcia and Andrew Johnson's What We Pay For.) Here's the (non-interactive) output for a married/filing jointly family earning the median (2009) income of $49,777 (see page 40):




The results are similar to my figures, albeit entitlements are a bit lower in their chart--I'm not sure why. Surf over to Where did my tax dollars go? and try yourself.

From Tuesday's Wall Street Journal:

Off the San Francisco Rails
$1.6 billion for 1.7 miles of subway.

Tony Bennett may have left his heart in San Francisco, but the politicians who contrived the city's Chinatown subway project must have left their brains somewhere else. The subway is a case study in government incompetence and wasted taxpayer money.

P.S. The Obama Administration is all for it.

Former Mayor Willie Brown sold a half-cent sales tax hike to voters in 2003 to pay for the 1.7-mile line on the pretext that the subway would ease congestion on Chinatown's crowded buses, but he was more interested in obtaining the political support of Chinatown's power brokers. In 2003, the city estimated the line would cost $647 million, but the latest prediction is $1.6 billion, or nearly $100 million for each tenth of a mile.

Transportation experts say the subway's design is seriously flawed and that improving the existing bus and light-rail service would make more sense. The subway misses connections with 25 of the 30 light-rail and bus lines that it crosses, and there's no direct connection to the 104-mile Bay Area Rapid Transit line or to the ferry.

Commuters will have to travel eight stories underground to catch the train and walk nearly a quarter of a mile to connect to the Market Street light-rail lines--after riding the subway for only a half mile. Tom Rubin, the former treasurer-controller of Southern California Rapid Transit District, calculates that taking the bus would be five to 10 minutes faster along every segment.

From the Economist:

Electricity producers in Germany are in disarray. The cause of the chaos is the government: in June it decided to shut all the country’s nuclear power stations by 2022, after Japan’s struggles to contain radiation leaks from its reactors following an earthquake and tsunami in March.

A study commissioned by the economics ministry has estimated the cost of that decision, in lost jobs and higher energy and carbon prices, at around €32 billion ($46 billion). The government had planned to extend the life of nuclear plants by an average of 12 years.

Other things make matters worse. Germany’s four big electricity generators have too much debt. They are also being forced by the European Commission to spin off their distribution arms to improve competition. The firms are trying to adjust, shrink and extricate themselves from unprofitable foreign ventures and to co-operate more with municipal power-producers. E.ON, Germany’s biggest power company, is threatening to lay off up to 11,000 people.

Told 'ya.

I've previously and repeatedly demonstrated that, contrary to progressive myths, income is not increasingly concentrated among a static upper class, nor are the poor getting poorer, in part because such arguments:

• confuse individuals with statistical categories;


• ignore government transfer payments;


• wrongly compare unbounded (the top 1 percent) and bounded (the lower 80 or 50 or 20 percent) categories; and


• disregard substantial income mobility, including earnings reductions among the top quintile and most of the top 0.01 percent.

Relatedly, and contrary to the bleating of President Barack Obama and billionaire Warren Buffett, raising taxes on the rich -- popularly called the "millionaires tax," though some proposals would cover couples with annual earnings of $250,000 -- won't close the budget deficit. (In a no doubt entirely unrelated development, the tax returns for Buffett's investment company, Berkshire Hathaway, are under IRS audit for years 2002-2009, see 2010 Annual Report at 54 n.15.)

The top quintile are the only earners paying a disproportionately greater share of total Federal taxes as compared with income (for 2007 figures, see CBO chart 2; Carpe Diem), and the top 1 percent actually paid a greater share of Federal income tax during the Bush Administration as opposed to the Clinton years. In any event, upper earners soon will be hit with tax hikes as Obamacare phases-in.

Shocking news: I was right on all counts. Based on the most recent (tax year 2009) IRS data:

1. The "upper class" is melting, as documented by the Wall Street Journal:

   In 2007, 390,000 tax filers reported adjusted gross income of $1 million or more and paid $309 billion in taxes. In 2009, there were only 237,000 such filers, a decline of 39%. Almost four of 10 millionaires vanished in two years, and the total taxes they paid in 2009 declined to $178 billion, a drop of 42%.
   
   
   
   Those with $10 million or more in reported income fell to 8,274 from 18,394 in 2007, a 55% drop. As a result, their tax payments tanked by 51%. . .
   
   It's an old story: The best way to produce income equality is to destroy trillions of dollars of wealth. Everyone loses, but the rich lose relatively more than the poor and the middle class. By that measure, if few others, Obamanomics has been a raging success.

2. The number of "mega-rich" (annual earnings of at least $10 million) nosedived, as charted by Carpe Diem's econ. prof. Mark Perry:
   
   
   


3. The Federal budget deficit cannot be ended via dramatically increased taxes on the "rich." The Congressional Research Service projects (at XI) the fiscal year 2011 Federal deficit will be $1,284 billion. So, as Steve McCann shows in American Thinker:

   If the nation were to go down the road of increasing the tax rates or eliminating deductions on [those earning over $1 million/year] and create a 25% higher effective tax rate of 30.5%, the additional revenue to the Treasury would be $44.1 Billion. Still $1,055.9 Billion [NOfP note: McCann was using the CBO's April deficit estimate] short of mitigating the deficit. A 40% higher effective tax rate of 34.1% would generate only an additional $70.3 Billion.
   
   That assumes a static number of taxpayers would continue to earn over $1,000,000 per year. In fact, the number of taxpayers in this group changes almost yearly and as an absolute certainty this variation would become far worse if the effective tax rate were to be raised dramatically particularly when factoring in already high state and local taxes. . .
   
   Therefore the reality is that other income groups would have to be included in any tax increases if Obama and the Democrats are insistent on "revenue enhancers."
   
   In 2009 there were 3,688,000 filers in the $200,000 to $1,000,000 AGI sector. They paid $256.8 Billion in individual income taxes out of a total Adjusted Gross Income of $1,237.4 Billion or an effective rate of 20.8%. Were the effective rate to be raised by 25% to 26.0% an additional $64.9 Billion would be realized.
   
   The largest AGI group is the $75,000 to $200,000 in annual income. In 2009 there were 24,986,000 filers paying $292.8 Billion in income taxes out a total AGI of $2,792 Billion. (Effective rate of 10.5%).
   
   A comparative chart is as follows utilizing the 2009 statistics:
   
   
   
   These three income groups account for 65% of the total Adjusted Gross Income recorded in the tax filings in 2009 and 84% of all income taxes paid.
   
   As the deficit in 2012 is estimated to be in excess of $1,100 Billion and near that amount again in 2013, there are simply no way raising income tax rates or eliminating so-called loop-holes for the "rich" will generate anyway near enough income even if one assumes no change in tax paying behavior.

   Of course, because the "static" scoring of tax hikes is contrary to rational economic behavior and historical experience, the actual increased revenues from raising taxes would be even lower than depicted by McCann.
   
   In fact, as the Tax Foundation reports:

   Even taking every last penny from every individual making more than $10 million per year would only reduce the nation's deficit by 12 percent and the debt by 2 percent. There's simply not enough wealth in the community of the rich to erase this country's problems by waving some magic tax wand.
   
   Finally, to put everything in perspective, think about what would need to be done to erase the federal deficit this year: After everyone making more than $200,000/year has paid taxes, the IRS would need to take every single penny of disposable income they have left. Such an act would raise approximately $1.53 trillion. It may be economically ruinous, but at least this proposal would actually solve the problem.

Conclusion: The rich aren't getting richer. So, per force, "soaking" them won't solve the Federal budget gap. Just as I showed this spring. As the WSJ concludes:

[The] disappearing millionaires go a long way toward explaining why federal tax revenues have sunk to 15% of GDP in recent years. The loss of millionaires accounts for at least $130 billion of the higher federal budget deficit in 2009. If Warren Buffett wants to reduce the deficit, he should encourage policies to create more millionaires, not campaign to tax them more.

(via reader Warren via Washington Examiner; NetRight Daily)

Karen Greenberg in Salon:

As the 10th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, the unexpected extent of the damage Americans have done to themselves and their institutions is coming into better focus. The event that "changed everything" did turn out to change Washington in ways more startling than most people realize. On terrorism and national security, to take an obvious (if seldom commented upon) example, the confidence of the U.S. government seems to have been severely, perhaps irreparably, shaken when it comes to that basic and essential American institution: the courts.

If, in fact, we are a "nation of laws," you wouldn't know it from Washington's actions over the past few years. Nothing spoke more strikingly to that loss of faith, to our country's increasing incapacity for meeting violence with the law, than the widely hailed decision to kill rather than capture Osama bin Laden.

Clearly, a key factor in that decision was a growing belief, widely shared within the national-security establishment, that none of our traditional or even newly created tribunals, civilian or military, could have handled a bin Laden trial. Washington's faith went solely to Navy SEALs zooming into another country's sovereign airspace on a moonless night on a mission to assassinate bin Laden, whether he offered the slightest resistance or not. It evidently seemed so much easier to the top officials overseeing the operation -- and so much less messy -- than bringing a confessed mass murderer into a courtroom in, or even anywhere near, the United States.

The decision to kill bin Laden on sight rather than capture him and bring him to trial followed hard on the heels of an ignominious Obama administration climb-down on its plan to try the "mastermind" of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, or KSM, in a federal court in New York City. Captured in Pakistan in May 2003 and transferred to Guantanamo in 2006, his proposed trial was, under political pressure, returned to a military venue earlier this year.

What don't liberals understand? Non-citizen belligerents captured abroad largely are not covered under the Constitution, and terrorists aren't protected by the Geneva conventions on POWs or civilians--they're like pirates, beyond the law:

Pirates are common enemies, and they are attacked with impunity by all, because they are without the pale of the law. They are scorners of the law of nations; hence they find no protection in that law.

As Greenberg recognizes, between the impasse over Git'mo and Administration's abandonment of civilian trials, killing terrorists in situ is nearly the only option left. The wonder is she can't understand that she has only her fellow leftists to blame.

Iowa State University prof. Jean Goodwin, "The authority of the IPCC First Assessment Report and the manufacture of consensus," Working Draft at 4, 9-10 (2009):

A consensus claim is an appeal to authority . . . Scientists involved in the IPCC began the association of the FAR with a consensus claim. . .

[T]he consensus claim created opportunities for opponents to object that the IPCC's emphasis on consensus was distorting the science itself. Once the consensus claim was made, scientists involved in the ongoing IPCC process had reasons not just to consider the scientific evidence, but to consider the possible effect of their statements on their ability to defend the consensus claim. Sluijs et al. have pointed out that the "climate sensitivity" (i.e., the temperature increase predicted for a doubling of CO2) has been reported as between 1.5 and 4.5 C since Working Draft 10 1975, with a "best estimate" of 2.5 or 3 C (an observation that still holds with the Fourth Assessment Report). They have suggested that one reason for this "anchoring" was that changing the figure would "embarrass" the IPCC and undermine its credibility, and that scientists were therefore forced (among other things) to "disqualify" results that did not conform . . . The IPCC and its defenders had to reply to these objections as well.

"Consensus" is a strong claim, and it opens a wide argument space; that is what I have been trying to suggest in the above sketch. By representing their work as a "consensus," the scientists of the IPCC essentially legitimated the objections of those commonly labeled as "denialists," and committed themselves to a twenty year process of replying to them.

University of Arizona (and Miami) prof. Keith Lehrer, "Social Consensus and Rational Agnoiology," 31 Synthese 141, 141 (1974):

Succinctly stated, the concern [of science and rational inquiry] is to obtain truth and avoid error. We shall argue that consensus among a reference group of experts thus concerned is relevant only if agreement is not sought. If a consensus arises unsought in the search for truth and the avoidance of error, such consensus provides grounds which, though they may be overridden, suffice for concluding that conformity is reasonable and dissent is not. If, however, consensus is aimed at by the members of the reference group and arrived at by intent, it becomes conspiratorial and irrelevant to our intellectual concern.

(via Climate Etc.)

Electile Dysfunction--the inability to become aroused over any of the choices for President put forth by either party in the 2012 election year:



(via reader Otto)

This spring, a Nasa-affiliated scientist and colleagues at Pennsylvania State University published "Would Contact with Extraterrestrials Benefit or Harm Humanity? A Scenario Analysis." Among other things, the paper reasons, at 21:

Rapidly (maximally) expansive civilizations may have a tendency to destroy other civilizations in the process, just as humanity has already destroyed many species on Earth. ETI that place intrinsic value on civilizations may ideally wish that our civilization changes its ways, so we can survive along with all the other civilizations. But if ETI doubt that our course can be changed, then they may seek to preemptively destroy our civilization in order to protect other civilizations from us. A preemptive strike would be particularly likely in the early phases of our expansion because a civilization may become increasingly difficult to destroy as it continues to expand. Humanity may just now be entering the period in which its rapid civilizational expansion could be detected by an ETI because our expansion is changing the composition of Earth’s atmosphere (e.g. via greenhouse gas emissions), which therefore changes the spectral signature of Earth. While it is difficult to estimate the likelihood of this scenario, it should at a minimum give us pause as we evaluate our expansive tendencies.

In other words, carbon emissions increase the risk of alien attacks.

Add it to the list--is there anything global warming can't do?

(via Volokh Conspiracy)

From the August 17th EU Observer:

An absurd Merkel-Sarkozy summit

Angela Merkel and Nicholas Sarkozy spent part of Tuesday (16 August) mapping the future of the Euro Area (EA) and apparently came away pleased with their work. The good news is that they want to move towards serious EA economic governance and seemed to have agreed on a Tobin tax as part of the deal. The bad news is that they want all members of the EA-17 to write a 'balanced budget' rule into their constitution; ie, to replicate the German 'debt brake' (Schuldenbremse) law across the EA. It won’t work.

The reason a generalised balanced budget rule won’t work is simple; it follows from the basic national accounting savings balances. Because (over the business cycle as a whole) the private sector normally runs a savings surplus, a government balance of zero logically entails a current account surplus. While this may hold true for Germany, it cannot be true for all EA countries taken together.

For the EA as a whole, one country’s exports are another’s imports--for some countries (like Germany) to run a surplus, others must run a deficit. This is not an empirical matter but follows logically from national accounting definitions; Merkel and Sarkozy are guilty of a basic fallacy of composition.

There is only one way a 'balanced budget rule' might work for the EA as a whole--each EA deficit country would have to run a countervailing surplus with the non-EA world. But there are two problems here. The first, shown in a paper by Whyte, is that there is not enough excess demand in the rest of the world to absorb the extra EA exports. Even if there were, the resulting global trade imbalance would result over time in the EA accumulating excess reserves, much as China today.

I'm too tired to analyze the 11th Circuit's Florida v. Department of Health and Human Services ruling voiding Obamacare's individual mandate. Mostly because it's wordy; also because others have addressed it already:

Defenders of the insurance mandate claim that health care is a special case because everyone eventually uses it. But this argument relies on shifting the focus from health insurance to health care. The same bait and switch tactic can justify any other mandate. For example, not everyone eats broccoli. But everyone does participate in the market for food. Therefore, the federal government’s position would justify a mandate requiring everyone to purchase and consume broccoli.

MaxedOutMama has a particularly interesting analysis. She says, and I agree, that the mere fact that Congress hasn't previously claimed, and the Supreme Court hasn't said, the commerce clause covers "inactivity" doesn't establish it doesn't. See contra Printz v United States, 521 U.S. 898, 907 (1997), cited in majority opinion at 116. But, the majority opinion also highlights various Congressional Research Service memos on the arguments for and against the Constitutionality of the mandate (including a 2009 memo M_O_M doesn't cite). This is odd--the CRS papers are essentially legal advice to Congress. I don't see how one can imply anything about the mandate from CRS uncertainty--indeed, the fact that Congress chose to craft one after CRS found no clear answer is, if anything, an intimation that Congress rejected the CRS view.

M_O_M suggests an alternative argument against the mandate:

I would argue it under due process and equal protection grounds, and advance the claim that such a scheme must inevitably deny masses of individuals equal treatment before the law and an effective avenue of redress.

But she doesn't explain why the treatment will be fatally unequal--the "fine" for failure to purchase approved health insurance is $750 annually for everyone. And Obamacare advocates, of course, argue that only a mandate can make health insurance "equal." Plus, due process claims were rejected in the District Court and not appealed. Majority opinion at 123 n.93.

Finally, M_O_M seems to have shifted her view. Formerly, she predicted the Supremes would uphold the mandate. Now she believes "the SC will strike this provision." I've always hoped for that; just doubted it. M_O_M says the court quietly will account for voter opposition to Obamacare, voiding the mandate to avoid calls for an Amendment that could create a crisis. Though I'm not so foolish to think the Court immune from politics, I'm not sure I agree. I still think that, to win, the government must articulate some type of economic regulation that would remain beyond Congressional authority under the commerce clause.

MaxedOutMama's analysis is thoughtful and worth reading--even if we're at odds on some points.

Britain [hearts] green energy. And to consummate its love, the government's massively subsidizing the stuff, paid for by a 56 pence tax on electricity. The Sunday Telegraph suggests who benefits:

They are among the nation's wealthiest aristocrats, whose families have protected the British landscape for centuries. Until now that is.

For increasing numbers of the nobility -- among them dukes and even a cousin of the Queen -- are being tempted by tens of millions of pounds offered by developers to build giant wind farms on their estates.

An investigation by The Sunday Telegraph reveals how generous subsidies -- that are added to consumer energy bills -- are encouraging hereditary landowners to build turbines up to 410ft tall on their land.

For its part, the BBC (of course) refuses to provide the public a cost/benefit analysis of wind farm subsidies compared to output. According to Sir Simon Jenkins, chairman of the National Trust:

The level of subsidy available to landowners to put up these turbines is out of all proportion to the public benefit derived from them and the temptation to ruin what is usually outstanding landscapes is overwhelming. It is a crime against the landscape.

Agreed--twice.

(via Global Warming Policy Foundation)

UPDATE: The Times issued several "corrections" about the value of the medical complex and the profit on the AIM fund.


Republican Darrell Issa has been a congressman since 2001, representing the northern suburbs of San Diego. He chairs the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. He's a fierce critic of Obama Administration economic policies--and that, plus the fact that he's wealthy, turned Issa into a target.

A week ago, the New York Times profiled Issa on the front page, in a story by Eric Lichtblau. The first para of this "hit piece" reads:

Here on the third floor of a gleaming office building overlooking a golf course in the rugged foothills north of San Diego, Darrell Issa, the entrepreneur, oversees the hub of a growing financial empire worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

The article generally suggests the Congressman uses political power to favor personal financial interests. Devastating, if true.

Issa's office says it isn't, in a letter quoted on Hot Air:

On behalf of Rep. Darrell Issa, please accept this as a formal request for a full front page retraction, including the headline, "Helping His District, and Himself," that ran in the Monday, August 15 edition of the New York Times. The request for a full front page retraction is based on numerous errors that invalidate the primary assertions made in the story that is a false and sensationalized account [of] Rep. Issa’s efforts to conduct congressional oversight of the Obama Administration and other matters.

This request is being sent after New York Times reporter, Eric Lichtblau, who wrote the story, refused to share the contact information of his editors for a discussion of errors in the story as requested by Rep. Issa’s congressional office.

The central claim in the New York Times story is an allegation of self-dealing on the part of Rep. Darrell Issa, as the story describes, "with at least some of the congressman’s actions helping to make a rich man richer" and "specific actions that appear to have clearly benefited his businesses."

The New York Times story cites three central examples it believes justifies these allegations:

• A medical complex purchased by Rep. Issa in 2008 that the Times story alleges enjoyed a 60 percent appreciation as it increased in value from $10.3 million to $16.6 million, "at least in part because of the government-sponsored road work" that Rep. Issa supported.


• That he "went easy" on Toyota during 2010 hearings on unintended acceleration due to "his electronics company’s role as a major supplier of alarms to Toyota."


• An alleged 1900 percent profit Rep. Issa’s charitable foundation made on an investment of "less that $19,000" that was sold seven months later for $357,000 "months before the stock market crashed."

All central examples, however, are wildly inaccurate, and the truth deserves to be told.

• The medical complex the Times story alleges enjoyed a 60 percent appreciation since it was purchased for $10.3 million and is now valued at $16.6 million is a patently false claim. According to the buyer’s final settlement statement, the property in question was not purchased for $10.3 million as the New York Times reported but for $16.6 million -- the exact same figure of its current tax assessment. According to these numbers, the appreciation is not 60 percent but roughly zero. In addition, the government sponsored road work noted in the article has not even begun and Rep. Issa’s requests for the project (which were publicly announced and made on behalf of and at the request of the City of Vista, and the San Diego Association of Governments which is the regional transportation planning authority) all came before the 2009 property purchase.


• The allegation that Rep. Issa "went easy" on Toyota during 2010 hearings because of "his electronics company’s role as a major supplier of alarms to Toyota" is again an example of a factual error in the Times story that lends no support to the story’s central premise. While the Times story tells readers that Rep. Issa’s former company, Directed Electronics, is a "major supplier of alarms to Toyota," the story offers no evidence, and Directed Electronics is, in fact, not a supplier to Toyota. . .


• The "1,900 percent" profit allegation is, again, based on reporting errors by the New York Times. This . . . assertion is based on an incorrect form obtained by the Times. According to a financial transaction record, the Issa Family Foundation’s initial investment in the AIM Small Company fund was not $19,000 but $500,000. The asset was later sold for $375,000 resulting in a $125,000 loss -- not a 1900 percent gain as was reported.

Toyota later confirmed that Issa's company has no direct relation with the automaker (though the company might be a Toyota or Toyota dealer subcontractor). Issa's office also posted records supporting the $500,000 and $16.5 million figures. Issa's staff also provided a picture of his office view--with no golf course in sight.

Lefties, the mainstream media and the Obama Administration (but I repeat myself) love class warfare arguments. I doubt they're effective with the electorate--but ask me again in 15 months.

And what about legal arguments? By Federalizing the case law, the Warren Court made it almost impossible for politicians to sue the press for libel. New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964). This is so even where the article is false, id. at 278. The principal exception is where the officeholder "proves that the statement was made with "actual malice" -- that is, with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not." Id. at 279-80.

Absent a retraction -- unlikely, given the newspaper's follow-up piece -- I wonder whether the Times story qualifies as "reckless disregard" for the truth? Plenty of errors, and even the left-wing Politico says there was no smoking gun--though, with the burden on the Congressman, that's not enough. So, Issa's unlikely to try, but what a test case it would be!

(via reader Warren)

Back home. Will start posting again, slowly.

The fog rolls in:

A racing Ferrari:








A "one-off" Ferrari, built for Ingrid Bergman:

Off to the Concours d’Elegance Thursday.

Back from the Middle East, but on vacation for a week. Reading the 11th Circuit's 300+ page opinion (majority opinion: 207 pages) voiding Obamacare's individual mandate. Fogged-in here:

View from the lobby looking up:

My hotel lobby taken from the second floor. Note the crescent commemorating the month of Ramadan:

I'm headed back to the Middle East. Little or no posts this week.

From the Fall 1974 Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, an article by Dennis Upper called "The unsuccessful self-treatment of a case of 'writer's block'". Look it up.

(via reader Michael Y.)

As reported by Reuters:

The British government faces a public backlash against its green energy agenda as consumers are unwilling to spend more on power and gas bills to pay for investment in low-carbon forms of energy, a parliamentary committee warned on Monday.

"Our evidence points to the danger of a backlash against the government's green agenda if it means rising bills for consumers," the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee said in a report.

It urged the government and the energy industry to better engage with the public to explain underlying factors that create higher energy prices.

"Explain"? That should be easy:

Industry faces energy price increases of up to 70 per cent as a result of new 'green taxes' imposed by the Government.

Studies by the Energy Intensive Users Group, which represents industries such as chemicals and steel, show that the extra costs are so high that many companies may be tempted to move to countries that do not have such extreme environmental laws.

The group fears that a study by the Department of Energy into the impact of climate-change laws on energy prices for industry will attempt to downplay the impact of the new taxes.

Conclusion: One can have affordable energy or green energy. But, for the moment, not both. Why is this so difficult for British policymakers to understand?

(via Global Warming Policy Foundation)

From the July 28, 2011, Washington Times:

Despite President Obama’s promises to rein in health care costs as part of his reform bill, health spending nationwide is expected to rise more than if the sweeping legislation had never become law.


source: Actuary Report, Exhibit 3



source: Actuary Report, Exhibit 4

Total spending is projected to grow annually by 5.8 percent under Mr. Obama’s Affordable Care Act, according to a 10-year forecast by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released Thursday. Without the ACA, spending would grow at a slightly slower rate of 5.7 percent annually.

CMS officials attributed the growth to an expansion of the insured population. Under the plan, an estimated 23 million Americans are expected to obtain insurance in 2014, largely through state-based exchanges and expanded Medicaid eligibility.

The federal government is projected to spend 20 percent more on Medicaid, while spending on private health insurance is expected to rise by 9.4 percent.

As reported by the Economist:

A new report, published in Health Affairs on July 28th, paints a daunting picture. Health spending will rise by 5.8% each year from 2010 to the end of 2020, according to actuaries at the Centres for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). In 2020 health care will account for one-fifth of America’s economy. The federal government will pay for a greater share than ever before.

Hawks have long warned that it would be impossible to curb government spending without curtailing spending on health. Democrats claimed that their health law would lower costs. Barack Obama assembled grey-haired sages to recommend changes to entitlement programmes. Paul Ryan, the Republican chairman of the House Budget Committee, offered his own reforms. And yet spending on health care continues to climb.

Reaction from White House staffer Nancy-Ann DeParle:

[T]he report doesn’t tell the whole story.

The Affordable Care Act creates changes to the health care system that typically don’t show up on an accounting table. We know these new provisions will save money for the health care system, even if today’s report doesn’t credit these strategies with reducing costs.

Conclusion: What are "changes. . . that typically don't show up on an accounting table"? If you can't count the savings, do they exist? I agree with Bruce McQuain at Hot Air:

Bottom line, we were sold a lemon, a bill of goods, snake oil. All the ACA does is give the government a legal ability to intrude deeper and deeper in a market it really has no business being in at all and to distort that market even further. And that’s precisely what is going to happen. We all know that when government gets in as deep as it will be in this market, nothing ends up "costing less".

(via Heritage Foundation)

President Obama, in his January 25, 2011, State of the Union Address:

To attract new businesses to our shores, we need the fastest, most reliable ways to move people, goods, and information -- from high-speed rail to high-speed Internet.

Our infrastructure used to be the best, but our lead has slipped. . . Countries in Europe and Russia invest more in their roads and railways than we do. China is building faster trains and newer airports. Meanwhile, when our own engineers graded our nation’s infrastructure, they gave us a "D."

Washington Post editorial, July 27, 2011:

For months, it has been increasingly obvious that China’s shiny new high-speed rail system is not the triumph of national planning that Beijing or Western admirers claimed. The Chinese government this year fired top rail officials for alleged wrongdoing, an implicit recognition that corruption and debt plague the project. Many of those who questioned the economics of high-speed rail in China also argued that authorities were cutting corners on safety in their rush to build the world’s largest bullet-train network. Those accusations, too, received tacit confirmation when China announced in April that it would cut the trains’ top speed by 30 miles per hour.

Too late: Last Saturday, China’s high-speed rail produced the long-feared catastrophe. Two bullet trains collided in the eastern province of Zhejiang, leaving more than three dozen people dead and scores more injured.

The terrible collision is not only a human tragedy but also a major blow to the credibility of the communist government, which had hoped to sell its trains to other countries -- including the United States. Authorities blamed a lightning strike for causing one train to stall out, after which a second train rear-ended it, causing four cars to plunge off a bridge. Unlikely on its face, this scenario does not explain why no fail-safe mechanism halted the second train after the first stopped.

We should not copy China.

(via Planet Gore)

Thankfully, President Obama's posture toward Iran appears to be shifting. Unfortunately, the Administration's policy is about a year behind the facts--suggesting America will be ill-prepared for the Mullahs' next moves.

You'll remember Obama vowed during the Presidential campaign to negotiate directly with Iran. Once in the White House, Obama tried to play nice, and watered-down all proposed responses. Meanwhile, the Administration continued to promote greater engagement with the Islamic dictatorship.

When Iran ratcheted-up its nuclear program, Obama claimed to have isolated the rogue state. Even after obtaining evidence in 2009 of an Iran-al Qaeda connection, the Administration de-funded a CIA unit that was studying tracking and killing terrorists in Iran--complaining only that the Mullahs weren't turning over suspected terrorists to third countries. And progressives always have insisted that a Shia Iran wouldn't help the al Qaeda-backed Sunni insurgents.

Whoops:

The Obama administration said Thursday that Iran is helping al-Qaeda funnel cash and recruits into Pakistan for its international operations, the most serious U.S. allegation to date of Iranian aid to the terrorist group.

Documents filed by the Treasury Department accuse Iran of facilitating an al-Qaeda-run support network that transfers large amounts of cash from Middle East donors to al-Qaeda’s top leadership in Pakistan’s tribal region.

A Syrian national who directs the network has been allowed to operate in Iran since 2005, and senior Iranian officials know about money transfers and allow the movement of al-Qaeda foot soldiers through its territory, administration officials said.

Although U.S. officials have repeatedly accused Iran of assisting al-Qaeda [NOfP note: mostly officials of the Bush Administration], links between the two have been difficult to prove. Al-Qaeda regards the Shiite denomination, the dominant branch of Islam in Iran, as heretical, and Iran has sought at times to crack down on the terrorist group, deporting some operatives and holding others under house arrest.

U.S. officials asserted that the alleged network offered new evidence of Iranian support. "By exposing Iran’s secret deal with al-Qaeda, allowing it to funnel funds and operatives through its territory, we are illuminating yet another aspect of Iran’s unmatched support for terrorism," said David S. Cohen, the Treasury Department’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.

As the Wall Street Journal observes, this isn't exactly news--except to liberals. Jennifer Rubin writes: "the left will shrug its collective shoulders as this finding now slips into conventional wisdom, with nary a trace that so many for so long believed something so wrong."

So I'm skeptical of any real-world impact; the centrifuges still will spin. As will the hard left, predicts reader Warren: they'll say "the U.S. forced these enemies together." Yup--just blame Bush.