Links and Minifeatures 12 17 Monday

Carnival of Personal Finance

San Diego Special Edition

Lieberman endorses McCain for President. The article says former Democrat, which is inaccurate. He was the Democratic nominee for Vice President in 2000. His voter registration says Democrat. When the NutRoots&trade gave defeating him their all, he formed a new party in 2006 and successfully won the general election through that party, but his own registration remained Democrat (there being no law that a party's nominee must be themselves a member of that party). He remains one of the more left-wing members of the U.S. Senate on everything except the War on Islamic Fundamentalism. He caucuses with Democrats and voted for a Democratic nominee to run the Senate.

Here are two key quotes from the article:

"Political party is important, but it's not more important than what's good for the country and it's not more important than friendship," Lieberman said.

When was the last time you heard that in American politics?

Lieberman backed McCain. He said he had intended to wait until after the primaries to make a choice for the 2008 presidential race, but McCain asked for his support and no Democrat did.

In other words, the contenders for the Democratic nomination don't want his endorsement (as they are afraid it'll alienate the NutRoots that hold the Democrats more tightly than the Christian lobby holds the Republicans), but John McCain does. I don't agree with Joe Lieberman about much, other than the War on Islamic Fundamentalism, but he has earned my respect, as has John McCain (although I'm still not planning to vote for him in the primaries).

The press is trying to spin the fact that a former Democratic party nominee to national office has decided to cross party lines and endorse a member of the opposition party, a stinging rebuke to all of the Democratic candidates. And I speak as someone who has decided that if the Republicans nominate Huckabee (whose appeal to Republicans seems to stem entirely from his personal appeal to fundamentalist and evangelical Christians), I'll vote for Hillary Clinton, whom I completely detest personally (although not Obama or Edwards. Bad as Huckabee would be, he wouldn't be that bad). Due to his ongoing attempts to repeal the first amendment, McCain is way down my list of Republican candidates, but I'll vote for him before Ron Paul or Huckabee. My preference list at this point, from the top down: Fred Thompson, Duncan Hunter, Rudy Giuliani, and then I'm not sure who. As things stand, I could and would hold my nose and vote for McCain or Romney in the general election over anyone the Dems have on tap. But there are Republicans who would not likely get my vote in the general election, and Huckabee is one of them.

You can't choose some hypothetical generic candidate. You have to decide which actual person running for the job would do the best, or at last resort, least bad.

I like this embedding thing! Merle Hazard sings a parody of the financial situation set to a possibly recognizable tune. Guest appearance by Arthur Laffer (who is an excellent speaker, by the way).

While we're at it, Iowahawk has a parody that's better than most.

Watching the Watchers: Why Surveillance Is a Two-Way Street

Because otherwise "1984" becomes hopelessly optimistic. Surveillance is here, and it's here to stay. Let's at least even the odds between the rich and powerful and official and everyone else.

UPDATE: I'm probably going to be doing fewer new, never before published articles for the next two weeks until New Year's Day. Reprints will be more common until then, including perhaps the entirety of the Christmas-New Years week. Indeed, the only new work article I'm certain of at this moment will be the consumer focused carnival of real estate on Wednesday.