Zee Links and Minifeatures: November 2005 Archives

Fannie, Freddie Raise Limit on Mortgages. Effective January 1, new limits are $417,000 for a conforming mortgage on 1 unit, $533,850 for 2 units, $645,300 for 3 units, and 801,950 for 4 units. I was expecting something significantly lower, in the $380,000 to $400,000 range, but they're likely playing some catch up. It will make a real difference to a lot of folks.



On another front, Lenders Push Envelope to Get More Biz, just like I've been writing about.



Mildly surprising that it wasn't worse: Housing starts drop. I would expect all of the destruction on the Gulf Coast to have ameliorated it. But my brother, who works in home building, has been laid off as the builder he was working for has decided to hold off building stuff they already have permits for. He's not alone by any stretch of the imagination.



Fannie Mae says more errors found. Errors. That's certainly one word for it, but that kind of implies 'honest mistake' to me. If it's intentional, most people call it fraud.



Bernanke Urges Limits on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Holdings. Well, I understand why, with accounting fraud like above being endemic at both. On the other hand, if their holdings are limited, that will largely frustrate the reason they exist and have some taxpayer guarantees in the first place. "Shortages" of money at Fannie and Freddie, really them not being able to fund all the A Paper conforming mortgages that are called for, will impact those who really do take good care of their finances and credit in a really negative way, as the margins for A paper loans rise. It would be a better thing to limit, phase down, or even phase out the taxpayer guarantees behind Fannie and Freddie. Of course that might be bad news for Fannie and Freddie investors. But Bernanke's proposal is nothing short of a gold mine for A paper mortgage lenders. Furthermore, it will further exacerbate the pain from any decline in housing values.



Remember, Bernanke and Greenspan are both bankers first, not economists. Although that certainly does enter into their job function, their first loyalties are to the banks they regulate.



As soon as Lorie Limbaugh heard about a 1.25 percent interest rate on a mortgage loan, she figured it was too good to be true. Then why did they go and do it? Basically, they were lied to. If you want to be lied to, I have all kinds of lenders who will do 1 percent nominal rate, but it's not the rate you are really being charged. The more you shop around, the more you increase your likelihood of their competition - who works in this field every day - telling you what's actually going on. They said they talked to other loan officers, but I'll bet a nickel that they are one of those people who thinks they're being slick by demanding "What's your lowest rate?" over the phone, and hangs up when you try to find out what's going on. The other lenders they called were honest, and said they couldn't beat 5.7%. So they ended up rewarding the crook for scamming them.

Caveat Emptor

This is, alas, par for the course: FAA calls for mediator in talks with air traffic controllers. FAA management is a sick, corrupt culture, and they have monopoly power over controllers. There are no other significant jobs in Air Traffic. ATC is pretty unique in the federal government. How many times does the average bureaucrat get to go home saying "I got all those planes down (or through my sector) and did so quickly, and managed to keep them all from crashing into each other and dying." Nobody else has dozens to hundreds of people's lives depending upon them making correct decisions right now, every minute of every day they are at work. Military officers do it in combat. Air Traffic's own lives are not on the line, but they are doing it constantly, every time they sign on a position, from the second they say "I got it," to the second their relief says, "I got it." Yes there are hours of boredom - and that's when you have to be constantly on guard against complacency. The man who first replied to "what could go wrong?" with "The mind boggles," was likely a controller.

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This is a good article to read: Social Security could be big chill for 50-somethings. The Donkeys derailed reform this year by saying Social Security is fine. It isn't. With every private insurance company revising their mortality tables upwards, to show people living longer, social security has yet to do so. Raising the age from 65 to 67 or 70 won't cut it. The retirement age of 65 that we had for such a long time is based upon the figure that Germany chose under Von Bismarck, when the average life expectancy was 48. Based upon current life expectancies, to get those same proportions today, we'd have to raise the retirement age to something like 96, and that's without disability figured in. Not many people are in shape to continue working at 96, or even 80.



The Donkeys also told scary stories about investing the trust fund (or a personal segment of it) in private capital markets, saying that it was too likely to lose money right when people can least afford it. Boys and girls, I would rather make an average of 9 to 10 percent per year for 20 years, and then lose half, then make 4 percent per year from the government for those twenty years. Here's the math: Option A (9.5% equity markets that suddenly lose 50% after 20 years), $1000 in the beginning turns into $3071. Option B (4% per year) turns $1000 into $2191. For a 20 year time frame, you would have had to have bought all your investments right at the top in 1929 to have done worse than Option A. Nothing else even comes close. With Dollar Cost Averaging over time, even somebody who started at the worst possible moment in history beats option A, the worst realistic case I can come up with.



So sorry, AARP and Donkey partisans. The facts just aren't on your side.



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And for our next trick, we're going to defuse this bomb twenty years after it goes off... France Tightens Controls on Immigration



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Jawa Report has hostage video and more.



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Congratulations and a heartfelt THANK YOU to Gunnery Sergeant Ismael Sagredo! Awarded the Silver Star!



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World According to Nick makes several very good points against a Sheboygan spaceport, as referenced in this article, but misses the biggest reason of them all. The reason that our primary spaceport is in Florida is because that's about as far south (i.e. close to the equator) as we could find a suitable site). Earth's rotational velocity. Cape Canaveral (28.43 N) gets us 916 miles per hour of rotational velocity. Sheboygan, WI (43.75 N) gets us only 753 miles per hour of rotational velocity. 916-753=163 mph, or about 239 feet per second or 72.86 meters per second. This is free velocity that the entire rocket is moving at before it burns one microgram of fuel. And because you have to gain 72.86 meters per second of velocity before you're even with where you would be sitting on the ground in Florida, this means it's more expensive - noticeably more expensive, as that's the first entire second free at 8 gs (7 net), almost three seconds at 4 gs (3 net) - to get to orbit from Wisconsin. Why would anybody want to do that when Canaveral has more capacity than the whole world can use any time soon? (Vandenberg, used for polar orbits, was the furthest south they could get something suitable on the west coast, where polar orbital insertions go out over the water almost immediately, much as the easterly launches off Canaveral do).



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HT to Inside Larry's Head for heads up on Mao debunkers defend their book; Critics call it effort to discredit communism. As if communism needs discrediting. Except for killing tens of millions of people, sending large portions of the world economy backwards, causing billions to live in crushing poverty, setting the cause of personal liberty and human rights back decades, enriching and rewarding tyrants who oppress the people worse than any capitalist ever thought about doing, causing multi-decade famines in areas that once were breadbaskets, failing to feed its people for decades at a time, expanding the system of gulags worldwide, causing deadly and widespread environmental damage, literally destroying the means of production it inheritied from its capitalist predecessors so nobody (except the rulers) got anything, stymying the contributions billions of people could have made to the world,and doing its best to cover all of this up, including habitual executions of innocent people who simply stumbled on the wrong piece of evidence, I guess communism wasn't so bad.



At least the nobles in feudalistic societies A) didn't know any better, and B) Come the war, had an obligation/reason to stand in the front lines.



"Joe the Georgian" by Al Stewart



Now I've got my payment

For the service that I gave

They've given me my ticket

To this place beyond the grave

I suppose it's kind of funny

I suppose it's kind of sad

Thinking back on all the times we had



But it's kind of hot and smoky

In this anteroom to Hell

And I won't make up a story

'Cause you know the truth so well

It's much too late to worry

That we never had a chance

And when Joe the Georgian gets here

We will dance, dance dance

When Joe the Georgian gets here

We will dance



We all set off together

On this sorry ship of state

When the captain took the fever

We were hijacked by the mate

And he steered us through the shadows

Upon an angry tide

And cast us one by one over the side



But it's kind of hot and smoky

In this anteroom to Hell

And I won't make up a story

'Cause you know the truth so well

It's much too late to worry

That we never had a chance

And when Joe the Georgian gets here

We will dance, dance dance

When Joe the Georgian gets here

We will dance



There's Kamenev, Zinoviev,

Bukharin and the rest

We're sharpening our pitchforks

And we're heating up the ends

We've got a few surprises

For the mate when he appears

I hope he likes the next few million years



And it's kind of hot and smoky

In this anteroom to Hell

And I won't make up a story

'Cause you know the truth so well

It's much too late to worry

That we never had a chance

And when Joe the Georgian gets here

We will dance, dance dance

When Joe the Georgian gets here

We will dance



(Me again) The problem is that they weren't exactly hijacked by the mate. Stalin didn't take them anywhere that Lenin didn't intend for them to go. Each and every time it's been tried, communism has ended up in the exact same place. It's time to stop pretending this is a freak occurence.



What's the definition of insanity again?



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Environmental Republican has quite a nice little article on Joe Lieberman, whom (thus far) is my favorite Donkey for 2008. He'd got integrity, he's got political cojones, he's willing to be villainized for doing the right and correct thing. No, I don't agree with him 100%, but I do admire him for attempting to lead the moonbats away from the cliffs. I'll take him over anyone else the Donkeys have on offer. Heck, I'll take his pet rock over anyone else the Donkeys have shown me.



Tinkerty Tonk has more.

RINO Sightings is up over at Don Surber. Recommended Posts: Strata-Sphere, legal redux



Best of Me Symphony is also up! Recommended posts: TFS Magnum, Living the Scientific Life (Whose experience parallels my own, even if it is in an entirely different discipline).



Carnival of Personal Finance is also up!

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WHITE HOUSE PLAN IF SADDAM FOUND 'NOT GUILTY (Yes, the link is Drudge. Get over it). I'm torn between being happy that there is a Plan B, and being nervous that they're going to keep after him with more charges. Oh, I know that they intentionally didn't hit him everything, only the stuff that they thought was the easiest conviction. I also know that he's a mass murderer, serial torturer, human rights wasteland, and all around nutjob. Nonetheless, I'm not happy that they are planning to hit him with more and more until something sticks. Not a good precedent to have in front of you. Stuff like this is why we need to get it right the first time.



While I'm on the subject of Iraq, a little bit of hope for our legacy media in that they picked up this story: The Iraq story: how troops see it



Money quote (From an Iraqi Army officer): "Marines are not friends; marines are brothers." You cannot buy that kind of thinking. Well, actually you can, but not with money.



Captain's Quarters has more on the disconnect between the press and what's happening.



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Teen With Peanut Allergy Dies After Kiss. My deepest sympathies with the family. I'm not quite as allergic as she was to anything common, but I've spent a lot of time very sick with nasty allergy attacks due to inconsiderate smokers. This is one of the reasons I don't want to leave California, with its mostly enlightened views on the subject. The time I spend in other states is mostly miserable, and even with the best medications available, foreign travel is worse.



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Cool! I just got a neat little bit of consulting work from a certain title company, as a result of this site.



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HT to Michael Barone for a pointer to a Washington Post article debunking a lot of rhetoric on the subject of Medicaid.



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Stupid, Stupider, and Stupidest: Calif. Congressman Pleads Guilty. Boys and Girls, accepting illegal favors is stupid. Accepting bribes above the level of chump change is stupider - there will always be records that your opponents can find, and both parties have people looking. But doing it on a real estate transaction is King of The Land of Stupid, as the records are explicitly public, freely available for anybody who cares to look. My five year old daughter could have dug this one up. Stuff like this is why I love the concept of transparency, as it holds the rich and powerful accountable to the same degree as everyone else, and largely because they've painted the target on their own backs. Many people, used to the mechanics of bygone eras where this stuff wasn't quite so easily found, still haven't figured it out. Get used to it. If you do something illegal, anybody who really looks is going to find it.



Sadly, this doesn't surprise me from Cunningham, who unlike many who have claimed the accolade, is a legitimate war hero but seems to have been coasting upon that fact ever since. I still respect him (and will humbly thank him to his face if I ever meet him) for what he accomplished back then, but that in no way excuses what he did recently.



And he's out of there! Cunningham Resigns



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Here's an interesting site I ran across: Housing Panic. I think they're significantly over the top, but that's just my opinion. Please note that despite the fact I'm a real estate agent, I've been saying prices are in trouble for months, I've been saying it clearly, I've been saying it consistently. I should have some built up credibility on the issue. I have given specific advice on strategies to deal with the possibility, not just stirred up the garbage. My best guess is we're looking at about a 30% loss of real estate value here in San Diego, but that's all it is - an educated guess, based upon numerical computations of similar goods. With inflation revving up a bit, it might be lower than that. Once investor psychology and fear kick in, it could get much worse. Don't panic. Don't ever panic. That's what hurt the poor schlubs worst when the dot com bubble burst. Keep your head about you and you will come out just fine. If you've got the right loan, even those who buy right at market peak will be fine. I bought my current residence right at the last peak, and I'm doing just fine, thank you. If I was offered the chance to go back and do exactly the same thing again or refrain from doing it, I'd do it in a heartbeat.



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An excellent, logical, mathematical piece on how many real civilian casualties there have likely been in Iraq at Logic Times. I spotted a couple of adjustments they should have made, but basically solid work.

Here's the website: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/



Here's the news story: Couple Sues Operators of Evolution Site



Three words: Get. Over. It.



Evolution may not be scientific fact, but it is a scientific theory supported by as much evidence as relativity or quantum mechanics. It was formulated based upon observed evidence. It can be debunked at any time by facts which actually contradict it. We just don't know of any. It is true that it is only the best idea we have so far and that it is possible that we'll come up with something better some day. But thus far subsequent discoveries (in multiple disciplines, yet! Engineering. Mathematics. Physics. Genetics.) have strengthened and reinforced evolutionary theory and our understanding of it. The fershluggin' Catholic Church, of all the world famous stick in the mud institutions, accepts evolutionary theory as the explanation which best fits observed facts.



Get. Over. It.

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This is political grandstanding. But notice how the groups accused of abuse - Allawi's fellow Shia - are buried in the third paragraph? For scanners of news who may not read the whole story, the obvious implication is that it's americans who are doing it. Nor does the one place we have found (and dismantled and freed the prisoners) equate to what Saddam Hussein was doing on a wholesale scale. I'm not in any way defending the perpetrators, mind you, and I'll bet that those victimized suffered every bit as much pain as Saddam's victims. Nonetheless, there is a pretty significant difference in scale.



On the subject of Iraq and their upcoming elections, Iraq the Model has an article on the differences in how the votes will be counted in the upcoming election. The way he explains it, it makes a lot of sense. This way a small party that doesn't get the votes for a seat in any one province can still get one - or a few - through amalgamation.



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Here's an article on the incredible Dr. Bose and what he's been up to lately.



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My wife and I got a volunteer babysitter and decided to go see "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" at a theater on Friday. Great movie, easily better than the last two in the series, and we loved the way the mood changed on a dime at the end.



Nonetheless, we were very conscious that we were going to a maul mall on Black Friday, and were pleasantly surprised at the ease of getting in and getting around. There's even a Wal-Mart in the one we went to (Parkway Plaza), right next to the entrance we used. The crowd wasn't as thick as we've seen on ordinary weekend days. this article confirms what I thought then. Given earlier reports of relatively heavy shopping traffic, the phrase "whistling past the graveyard" popped into my mind. It's not that bad. But I suspect when everything's over that it'll be a disappointing season.



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Captain's Quarters has a thoughtful, dead-on analysis of the situation in Iraq (and incidentally, the Donkeys as exemplified by Senator Joe Biden, D - Denial getting it completely wrong).



We're doing better than we did in WWII. That the Iraqis only have one level one battalion means they've got one more than France has today.



Jawa Report has more, with an interview of the commander of the multinational corps in Iraq about the consequences of pulling out now.



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Speaking of Iraq, Michelle Malkin has a report that Bruce Willis is intending to make a movie based upon the service of the "deuce-four" as reported by Michael Yon. Bruce seems to be different from the average Hollywood personality, in that he "Gets It" as regards the War on Terror.



Captain's Quarters has more.



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Powerline has an excellent snippet on the cooperation between North Korea and Iran.



Personally, I don't find their cooperation to be any stranger than the cooperation between United States and Soviet Union during World War II.



While we're on the subject of Iran, Chequer Board has an article about the President of Iran being in far worse trouble than our own has ever thought about being in. Seems Parliament has denied him three different choices for Oil Minister. A rough equivalent might be Congress voting down three nominees for Secretary of Defense, less than six months into his term. Ouch.



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Balloon Juice has an excellent article of the sort the Donkeys dread. Despite Donkey control of most major media outlets, the public "gets it" , and realizes that Donkey criticism of the war is intended for political advantage.



HT to Wizbang for the link to this Big Lizards article about the Afghanistan effect. In reverse. The pravda (official truth, as espoused by most legacy media) says that Iraq is Vietnam: unwinnable and creating further problems. My take is that even Vietnam's problems were mostly mental, and if we'd have had the guts to hang tough despite the liberals in our own ranks sabotaging us, we would have won the war as we won on all of the battlefields except propaganda. Big Lizards' theme is that Iraq could well be the downfall of our self appointed elites, much as Afghanistan was for the communist party in the soviet union. Who are the people going to believe once the troops come back: The mainstream media, who the vast majority of us know are incompetent boobs with their own axes to grind, or their own brother, sister, cousin, or neighbor?



(Think to all of the news stories you have ever witnessed or known some of those involved personally. What's the media's batting average in getting it right? I've been witness to a couple, involved in the aftermath of others, and known those involved firsthand in many more, and the aggregate batting average is so low it wouldn't be tolerated in a pitcher. Even in a league that uses the designated hitter rule.)



I do see a problem with this in that the military is concentrated in so-called "red" states and regions of the country, and so most of the effort will be coals to Newcastle. On the other hand, enough will spill over to the purple or blue states to make a real difference.



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Language warning, but it does need to be that explicit to get through to some people: Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler has the best piece on the mindset necessary to defend yourself in case of violent thugs.



Money quote: "Remember: There are two sides to every story, your side and his side. Make sure he ain't telling his."



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A sign that there is hope for this world after all over at Armies of Liberation. Oppressed by the Saleh regime for twenty-seven years now, the political opposition is uniting, and their main platform for the election is... a constitutional government! I really hope it doesn't come to bullets to get rid of Saleh, whose regime is collapsing on multiple fronts. I hope the opposition is prepared either way, but would really prefer the transition happen peacefully.



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Captain's Quarters also has an expansion of the confrontation that the Border Patrol lost with Mexican smugglers (and possibly the Mexican Army!). They were outgunned and unable to take the actions that their mandate required of them.



It's past time we took control of our border. If this requires a concrete fence thirty meters high with barbed wire all over it, so be it.



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Wizbang has an excellent post up about that Eeevil John Bolton and the horrible things he's done. Like financial reform, condemning Hisbollah attacks upon Israel as terrorist, bringing real pressure to bear on Syria, etcetera. The subject came up in conversation the other day, and I said Reid's best option here is offering to quietly confirm Bolton as a rider on some other unrelated legislation.



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If you haven't seen Farenheit 1861 yet, take the two minutes to do so. You'll laugh. You'll cry.



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Captain's Quarters also has an article on the Iranian way of saying thanks for supporting them against the West: training Chechen terrorists.



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Forward Biased uses this link which goes to Editor:Myself

to illustrate the need for anonymity on the web. Evidently, the border folks googled his name at the crossing, although they declined to let him in only when they discovered he was actually an illegal resident. I can only agree with Forward Biased in the context of not allowing your criminal deeds to come to light, which is just plain stupid. You really shouldn't write about something that's going to cause you legal difficulty.



On the other hand, if everyone gets racked up for stupid little stuff, that's good impetus to change the law making stupid little stuff illegal. I don't agree that this was stupid little stuff, but I'm prepared to debate against that position. Many people misunderstand the purposes of the fourth and fifth amendment. They are not in place to shackle the government in its quest to prove actual illegalities. They are there so the government can't go looking for illegalities on apparently law abiding citizens that it (or some parts of it) may wish to persecute for whatever reason. If the cop on the corner Googles you and finds out you're wanted for rape, murder, and failure to pay parking tickets, that's a good thing, as long as you are indeed wanted for rape, murder, and failure to pay parking tickets.



Now there are some, me included, who don't think failure to pay parking tickets should constitute an arrestible offense. That's an entirely different debate, and the one I should like to force us to have. If, in order to have it, I have to debate over whether rape and murder should be arrestible offenses, I'm willing to have that debate. What I am not willing to do is force us into any kind of informational dark age when the cop has the tools at their fingertips to tell if this is a a person they need to Concern Themselves With. No malice, but I believe the cops in question did exactly the right things for exactly the right reasons, and should be praised for it. If you don't like what the cops did, attempt change the law on which their decision-making is based. Because what he and Forward Biased saying with what was written reduces to merely "I don't want to be bothered."



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TMH's Bacon Bits has a wonderful story about the necessary end result of assimilating those who come to this country and their children. "I'm Amelican now."



They must think of themselves as American. Not hyphenated-american. American must have sole pride of first place. Afterwards they can remember (with pride) the "old country", or wherever their ancestors came from, and I'll be happy to oblige them whether their special day is St. Patricks or Cinco de Mayo or Juneteenth. But people who describe themselves as hyphenated-Americans tell me that the other part is more important than the American, practically begging me to label them as deserving of second class status. Because we're all in this together, wherever our ancestors came from, and those who do not realize this truth and live it every day are not, in their hearts, Americans.



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Anarchangel has an excellent article that details why our current approach to airline security is wrong. The correct thing, IMHO, would be to ask everyone boarding if they are armed, and if not the next question should be "Would you like to borrow a weapon?" and then after your right thumbprint has been run against a database of convicted felons, they give you a loaner for the duration of the flight. Something standardized, of course, like a 9mm. We might have a few shootings until everybody got the idea that this is for real and they are expected to act like responsible adults, but the end result would be more secure than you can buy with any level of protection. I trust my fellow americans to respond correctly en masse to an obvious threat a lot more than I trust bureaucrats hobbled by political considerations and fear of giving offense to keep the threats off the plane entirely.



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Belmont Club has a very thoughtful article on the nature of modern warfare.



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Big Cat Chronicles has an excellent article on upcoming Medicare Part D, including resources. I suspect it's going to a boondoggle to beggar the long term care insurance issues. People buy based on emotional "hot button" issues, not based upon the rational thing to do once you have investigated - otherwise every person in a state that has a partnership for long term care would have one of those policies - and Congress would pass by acclamation a recission of the law against the creation of any more.



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What he said: BlackFive has an excellent editorial up entitled "Beyond Neocon - Rise of the Rational Hawk."



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Out of time on this fine Sunday afternoon. I already have a new article set to go for tomorrow morning. Later!

Carnival of the Vanities is up at Don Surber's. Recommended posts: Ruminating Dude, and ROFASix, who writes an excellent article detailing how DDT got banned despite the "science" or doing so being complete junk. In point of fact, DDT may cause problems. But there are no serious scientific papers (peer reviewed, etcetera) backing up this claim. The whole subject has been taboo for over thirty years, and it's past time to revisit it. The world is losing 3000 people per day, dying horrible deaths due to malaria and similar diseases because DDT has been banned. The environmental movement that keeps the subject politically untouchable is performing no favors for the world.



While I'm on the subject of bad science and denial of science, Respectful Insolence has a great debunking of HIV deniers. The actual argument, I confess, had parts that were beyond my understanding of the subject, but I can appreciate the use of scientific method, debunking where lack of evidence was used as if the evidence pointed the other way, etcetera. Well worth reading just to watch the scientific method in action.

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Hold The Mayo has a good post up about the UN's attempt to further erode our freedom of speech.



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Chris Cam caught something I'd missed in that our asian allies don't think the US can win a war with China. Pay close attention to the reasoning stated. It demonstrates that they are paying attention to our domestic politics.



Justus For All has more on the tactical situation, but fails to take the political one completely into account. The "evil" US fighting "wonderful" "communist" China has all of the elements that would have our domestic america haters thinking they'd be committing treason against mankind if they didn't sabotage us. "But they're not white men! And they have a different culture, not corrupt western chauvinism! And they're communist, which must mean they care about The People®!"



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Don Surber has a post up with his reactions to TTLB changing the rules under which the Ecosystem is computed. Well, let's see, I do this Links and Minifeatures column as many days of the week as I have time for, and I admit to sending trackbacks to a lot of the places that take them. But I link because there's something there that I think worth reading. Don (among others) is bigger than I am in the 'sphere, and does open trackbacks to give the little guys some exposure. I don't have a problem with that - it's one of the reasons I have for doing this column. His method is passive and works off of others willingly linking to him. Mine is just active and requires more time on my part, and the other site can always delete my trackback if they don't like it. If I got as much participation as he does, I might do some kind of open thread periodically.



On the other hand, "open" posts do kind of tend to make the large folks bigger (economic principles say that folks will respond to open stuff where it'll do the most good). So it's kind of a negative for the diversity of the Ecosystem, as it allows the "big boys" to coast. But back to the first hand, all of the participants are mutually willing. So both ways have their drawbacks. If NZ wants to change the rules of how his site counts links, that is, of course, his prerogative. I believe, however, that changing them will prove largely a waste of time as the real incentive for the Open Trackbacks lies in the traffic they can generate. If people come to realize that anytime you send a trackback, it is something interesting and relevant, they will follow it, and they are more likely to make you part of their regular routine. If people start thinking "not him again!" (and I can point to many sites I see regularly submitting to carnivals where I just groan and move on, having wasted entirely too much time on their tripe), they will ignore it. Links may be fine and easily quantifiable, but it's traffic (daily eyeballs) that's really important. If we just had a standard tool that did it well (According to Powerblogs' server logs, Sitemeter counts an average of 15 to 25 percent of my unique visitors and page views. The ratio has been under 3 percent, never over 40). I'm sure NZ would switch to traffic, if we had something that measured it reliably.



Poliblogger makes a few more points along these lines. I just hate his trackback machine because Powerblogs doesn't reliably have a permalink until it actually posts ;-). HT to Arguing With Signposts for directing me to an Outside the Beltway post by James Joyner that also mostly agrees with what I've said. Since he's the one who started the open trackback thing, that carries some weight.



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Willisms has a heck of a good article about economic creative destruction, and why protectionism of existing jobs is a bad thing. Highly recommended, and a further demonstration of the principal that many times the worst risk is not taking one. Yes, it's a risk to jump out of an airplane with only a parachute. But if all four engines are on fire and it's plummeting towards the ground at terminal velocity, they guy who declines to take the risk is dead for sure.



(HT to Justus for All)



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Accuracy in Media has the goods on the press giving Hillary a free pass for far worse infractions of election rules than Bill Frist and Tom DeLay are even accused of. HT to Random Numbers via Wizbang.



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Balloon Juice has a hefty thumping of Daily Kos.



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Armies of Liberation notes that the Yemeni government seems to be aiding and abetting the Iraqi resistance - the the tune of allowing training and refusing to extradite Saddam's nephew at the request of the Iraqi government.



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Captain's Quarters has an excellent article of John Bolton warning the UN that it can clean up it's act, or the United States will invest in a different problem-solving mechanism. The UN has been allowed the illusion that they are important simply because they're the UN. This has never been the case, but even back in the 1980s Jeanne Kirkpatrick and Ronald Reagan never had the guts to go this far.



I think it's time for all of us to sign up for the John Bolton fan club.



Maybe he's a good example for other countries, also: Via Instapundit on Pajamas Media, Germany's new Chancellor made her first foreign trip and said (among other things) "BRUSSELS, Belgium, Nov. 23, 2005 (AP Online delivered by Newstex) -- Angela Merkel made her first foreign trip as German chancellor Wednesday, calling the NATO alliance the main forum for settling world problems and saying her country must heal its rift with the United States."



Hmmm.



(BTW, is it just me or is Glenn not linking Althouse nearly so much anymore? I wonder why?)



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LGF has the scoop about a Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali wanting to make a Islamic version of Monty Python's Life of Brian. I see serious problems with the mob outside his window scene: "You are NOT individuals!"



On the other hand, the crack suicide squad bit could easily fill an hour and a half movie. It could trivially be the new ending: "Always look on the bright side of life KABOOM! KABOOM-KABOOM-KABOOM!"



Or the scene in the forum when they're trying to find someone to accuse of being a "splitter!"



LGF also talks about Joe Lieberman standing firm in the War. If he runs for President in '08, I may decide to register Donkey so I can vote for him. He is my nominee for best potential savior for the Donkey party, but I suspect the only way he can get nominated is by switching to Elephant, as the Donkey moonbat base considers him a traitor (considering the source, that's a compliment!). I might vote for him there, too.



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Time to sign off. Happy Thanksgiving to all (I will have a real estate article auto post tomorrow morning), but probably won't do anything further until Saturday.



A very partial list of what I am thankful for:

My wife

My children

The rest of the family

The country of my birth and those who have defended her, and all of us, for the past 230 years.

The vast majority of her citizens who are decent, civilized, intelligent folks. If this were not so, we would not be so successful as a nation, not nearly so important to the world.

The fact that we have the right man in the white house for the test we are now facing.

the dogs

My father's influence and good example.

All of those who have won victories for humanity, so that we are able to live the lives we can, doing the things we are able in the comfort we have become accustomed to, rather than beating each other's brains out with rocks every day of our nasty, brutish, unpleasant, and short existence.



Good night.

Carnival of the Capitalists is up! Recommended Posts: View From a Height, Roth and Company (lest it not be clear to you, in addition to everything else, I expect some prosecutions for fraud on this one. I wrote on a related issue here), Econbrowser (hint: the text of questions is worded in a leading way one direction, while the actual answers illustrate the opposite point of view. The test afficianado in me says "Beautiful Work")



Best of Me Symphony is also up!



Carnival of Personal Finance is also up! Recommended Post: Personal Finance Advice,



Now it is Tuesday and Carnival of Liberty is up!

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Jawa Report seems to agree with what I wrote here. He minces fewer words than I did, but the basic idea is the same.



Indepundit has a good article upon the westernization and democratization of the arab world - based upon first person observation. It agrees with what I said here, among other places.



Whatever the cause, I am happy to see more people calling the "We've got to get out of Iraq right now before we win!" crowd on their lies.



Out of time for today.

I've been wondering when this shoe would drop: GM Job Cuts Fail to Assuage Investors. The various car makers have been cannibalizing their future business with incentives for several years. It's a vicious cycle that gets the executives involved performance bonuses but leaves the company in a worse position, and vulnerable. Nor is GM the only one. Ford and others have been doing exactly the same thing thing. Anybody want to make a bet about a series of auto companies restating earnings downwards in the near future, as well as accounting standards violations (which almost always translate to major securities violations, fraud convictions, etcetera)?



No? Gee, I don't know why people don't want to give me their money.

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Enrevanche has an article about Jews in France voting with their feet. Seems they've been targeted by the Moslems there for at least the last five years, and if the French authorities had had the courage and good sense to deal with the situation instead of sticking their heads ever harder into the sand, they might have headed off the recent riots, not to mention had a better chance of, you know, keeping control of their country.



Committees of Correspondence has an article I wanted to review a few days ago on the same subject. Indeed, this one is more of a predictive nature while Enrevanche's is descriptive, but the prediction has been borne out by the description.



On a very similar subject, Pigilito Says has an article up on the changes in Holland since the assassinations of Pim Fortuyn and Van Gogh.



Especially taken as a group, in a connect the dots fashion, these cautionary tales illustrate the point that there's such a thing as too much tolerance. My working hypothesis is that Europe was playing to avoid the immediate confrontation that confronting its Moslem immigrants and the dictatorships they came from would have engendered, and by so doing placed themselves into a position where they were certain to lose the ultimate confrontation.



Victor Davis Hanson applies the brutal lessons France and the rest of europe are learning to the american domestic situation.



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Don Surber has a great round up on Open Source Media, oops, OSM. He even changed his site name to Open Source Media for a while (a couple more ideas like that and we'll be comparing him to Scrappleface).



Remember when I wrote this last Wednesday?

Note to any Open Sourcer who may read this: I have yet to see a coherent mission statement. I have yet to see an "elevator ride" sales pitch. I have yet to see any kind of coherent business strategy articulated. I have yet to see any kind of editorial standards articulated. I'd really like to. I have been paying attention, because I'd like your venture to succeed (I'm probably going to want to advertise if I can be convinced it'll deliver bang for the buck). I poked around on your site today. Maybe I clicked right past them, but I didn't find any of those things. However on target Dilbert is with making fun of those things, when they're done right, they make all the difference. The fact that they seemingly haven't been done at all, and the company is "open for business" says something, and it's not good.

Well, my Edsel sense in tingling more strongly now (I suggest you read the article to understand the sense in which I mean that). They need to find their editorial "voice" and soon. Which means, however much they want to pretend to the contrary, that they need a content and censorship policy and more people are going to be left out in the cold. It would have been better if they had never been let in than to be pushed out. And before any of that, they have to actually articulate what it is that they are trying to do. What is their core business, such that they are willing to cast off everything else if that is the only way to stay in business? Are they an advertising revenue collective? Are they an aggregator? Are they reporters? Sad to say, every time I have dropped by their website, http://www.osm.org/index_html, I have been saddened by the spectacle of people who elsewhere produce resoundingly wonderful, resourceful articles producing bland vanilla cut and paste.



I've just been struck by a thought. Question for consideration: Is OSM a tragedy of the commons (or should I say, commune) in the making?



(And lest you think I am "ragging" on them, I have not changed my opinion that I would like to see them succeed. The question in my mind is whether my desire is going to be matched by observed reality. If any Open Sourcer is actually reading this, please take it in the spirit of someone who may be misplaced or even wrong, but is at least trying to be helpful to a neighbor he perceives as having problems.)



Politechnical

thinks this is just normal "start up" jitters. The problem is that this is a media company of some nature. Yeah, this sort of thing happens in board rooms all the time, particularly start-up board rooms. But when it spills into the public view, that's not good.



PoliBlog wonders what effect OSM will have upon the 'sphere. My opinion: If it succeeds, probably beneficial on the whole. If it fails, nothing of any real significance. Like the dot com bust, a couple of bad years for venture capital is about the extent of it. Everything else that happened there was a result of things returning to economic reality.



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Gateway Pundit has a moving article that explains why President Bush stands out from other world leaders. Read the comments as well.



I certainly gripe and moan about some of the man's policies. But on the subjects of being willing to take action in the face of political cost or opposition when he believes it necessary, or of advancing the cause of democracy and freedom in the world, President Bush has done more than any other person in the country going back to at least George C. Marshall. Possibly since Abraham Lincoln. As evidenced by these Azerbaijanis, he is a giant standing amongst dwarves.



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Piling On Department: T F Stern's Rantings makes the case that if we need to pull out the situation in Iraq on the basis of troop casualties, we certainly need to pull out of Washington DC as well.



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I apologize, but I didn't get a chance to go through the Carnivals for Extra Good Stuff yet. I'll try to link them tomorrow. You'd think I had work to do or something...

I must apologize for my lack of spreading link love around these last few days, but between RINO Sightings and this monster that took me a couple of days to think through, I just didn't get it done.



Stop back bright and early tomorrow morning for RINO Sightings. It's set to autopost 3 AM California time, 6 AM Eastern, so those of you on the east coast have some opportunity to look at it before work.

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Carnival of Vanities is up! Recommended: Ruminating Dude debunking the bird flu hysteria, Unrepentant Individual skewering the current politics of abortion,



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What a difference a couple of days makes: House Republicans Eke Out Budget Cut. Okay, so it's only walking towards the path to fiscal discipline, from which they have strayed badly. Still, an encouraging sign.



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Captain's Quarters has a good article up about the head of the Orange County (Florida) NAACP switching his party affiliation from Donkey to Elephant.

Money quotes:

"Ninety percent of those I do business with are Republicans," he said. "Opportunities that have come to my firm have been brought by Republicans."



Just as importantly, he said, he didn't want people to immediately brand — or dismiss — NAACP concerns as synonymous with those of liberal Democrats. "I want this branch to be respected," he said.

This is not only intelligent and long overdue for the NAACP, but a nightmare scenario for the Donkeys, who have been treating minorities like a wholly owned "cash cow" for votes since the seventies.



While I'm on the subject of race politics, La Shawn Barber has an article about a biracial student who wrote a column in the student newspaper against affirmative action. Those minorities of the party of "diversity", "tolerance" and "inclusiveness" were so "supportive" of her that their actions caused her to leave the university she was enrolled in. Is it just me, or did we all take a wrong turn somewhere and end up on stage in a theater of the absurd?

By the way, my reading of the schedule has me hosting RINO Sightings on Monday. Please send submissions to me or use the Meta Carnival Submission Form at Conservative Cat. And of course stop by here Monday November 21st for Raging RINOs!

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On this day in history, Congress actually did something right. Senate Passes Bill to Shore Up Pensions



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Art of the Blog has a good bit about Iowa's Senator Grassley (Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee!) being a pandering, demogogue who flunked Econ 1A with his desire for a Windfall Profits Tax. Praise whatever universal powers you worship for Senator Hatch.



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Right Wing Of The Gods has the best take on the McCain amendment that I've seen.



McCain may be grandstanding, but all things considered, I think I like the idea of legally prohibiting torture. If there ever is an justified exception where it was necessary, that is what Presidential Pardons are for. Torture is not only unreliable, but is a bad business for everyone involved, and we should discourage it as much as practical.



Looks like Vodkapundit agrees.



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No Government Cheese has as exhaustive an analysis of the contrast in legal reproductive rights of the two sexes as I have seen.



Let's get this straight: a woman has the right to do anything she pleases with a prospective child while she is pregnant, up to and including an abortion while she's having labor contractions, while a man basically has the right to keep his pants on, and if he fails to do that, he has no choices and basically unlimited responsibility.



Is there anybody who seriously claims women are the discriminated class here? I would be happy to debate it with you. Just suppose the situation was 180 degrees reversed. Woman has right to keep pants on, but if she fails to do that, no ability to divorce self from baby unless baby's father permits her to do so. Abortion without father's consent illegal, of course. Probably stoning offense. Must support baby throughout life. State will come after her for support. Can even be sued for support by child (or by state!) if father permits her to relinquish responsibility.



Ladies, is being a field hand in the Old Confederacy prior to the Civil War starting to look attractive by comparison? Because as bad as things were for women a hundred years ago, they were never as bad as they are for men right now.



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World According to Nick has a good debunking of a pro-illegal immigrant article.



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Wizbang has some excellent suggestions to the Donkeys on halting their slide to oblivion as a national party. Problem is that any or all of the suggestions require deep change in the Donkey party and its attitude. And the Donkeys themselves are deep in Denial about their need to change. If they can convince themselves "It's all about Evil Karl Rove and Cheating Chimpy McBushHitlerburton," then they spare themselves the need for any tough choices. And thus far, they appear to be convincing themselves.



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Volokh Conspiracy has a nice piece about academic blogging being harder than normal academic writing. "Scholarship without a safety net." Excellent point, and I'm wondering if it won't contribute to more ideas seeing the light of day via serious follow up research. When you self-censor, nobody else sees it. If the prof's best friend happens to be someone who thoroughly but wrongly trashes an idea, it's gone. But once it's out in the 'sphere, anybody can run with it.



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No Government Choose has a hilarious satire on on the left wing's take on the whole "Bush lied" meme.



Problem with tinfoil hats is that they actually increase the susceptibilty to mindrays.



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Hugh Hewitt has the ultimate roundup on the Elephant Senators trying to woo the Donkey's MoveOff base.



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Lot of stuff around the 'sphere today about the launch of Open Source Media. I'm having difficulty putting this into words, but my Edsel Sense is tingling. Many strong egos used to working alone, now trying to work together. They may have a good strong business plan, somewhere, and I realize that pre-launch any business plan has confidential elements, but they have observable effects even when they are confidential. I haven't seen any symptoms of strength yet. The conflicting things that lesser lights of the 'sphere have been told regarding participation would have me concerned, were I an investor.



I'm neither investor nor participant (I'm too new and too small to have been approached, and I didn't approach them as I have a business model of my own that has inherent conflicts with theirs in that it discourages me from accepting advertising). Furthermore, I wish them the best of luck, and the wildest of successes. But if they're trying to be more than a collective bargaining unit (i.e. blogger's union) to get better advertising rates, said effort does not yet seem apparent. Nor do I see the sort of activity which would cause a hypothetical blogger's union to succeed (and no, I'm not talking about kneecapping the competition).



Note to any Open Sourcer who may read this: I have yet to see a coherent mission statement. I have yet to see an "elevator ride" sales pitch. I have yet to see any kind of coherent business strategy articulated. I have yet to see any kind of editorial standards articulated. I'd really like to. I have been paying attention, because I'd like your venture to succeed (I'm probably going to want to advertise if I can be convinced it'll deliver bang for the buck). I poked around on your site today. Maybe I clicked right past them, but I didn't find any of those things. However on target Dilbert is with making fun of those things, when they're done right, they make all the difference. The fact that they seemingly haven't been done at all, and the company is "open for business" says something, and it's not good.



UPDATE: This paragraph got me noticed (in a good way) by legendary blogger Steven Den Beste! The happy dance will now commence! HT to Chapomatic.



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UPDATE: Aaron's cc has spades nominations up. I was originally hoping to be able to get in as one of the small diamonds, as my primary issue sphere is appropriate for that. But he's gotten spades down as being issues sites willing to call a spade a spade. Well, that's this place, described precisely. Furthermore, my primary sphere (things financial) is completely unrepresented in the Spades thus far. Should I toss my hat in for the spades? (comment or email)

New computer was delivered Monday. Finally got it configured about 9PM. How nice it is to have a sharp, easily readable display! Will put the other one in the shop to use as a "learning" computer for Hilda. Will go get a router so both computers can use the nifty new laser printer (or the ancient inkjet when we want color).



And with the largest portion of writing for the commercial sister-site done, I should be back at the site mines more often.

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Carnival of The Capitalists is up! Recommended: Financial Methods for his report on the San Francisco Fed noticing what I'd written here back on June 23rd.



Carnival of Personal Finance is also up!



RINO Sightings is also up!



Carnival of Liberty is also up! Recommended: Pubcrawler, who stands up for the politically unpopular but correct notion that the oil companies are not "price gouging."



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I'm a Numenorean. Which race of middle earth are you?



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Michael Barone has a thoughtful column up about President Bush finally deciding to take the battle back to those who have been slandering and libelling him about the Iraq War. I have long wondered why the administration remained silent on this point. Perhaps the Eeevil Karl Rove was selling the Donkeys rope to hang themselves with. Because the record is decisively damning against them.



Michelle Malkin has a wonderful article going into the nuts and bolts of the Donkey "Bush Lied" meme, and why they thought it would work. They've got way to google the question automatically. For those who haven't seen it there, here it is:



http://www.google.com/search?q=clinton+iraq+1998



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La Shawn Barber has a good entry aggregating ways to help boost your traffic. If you have a site of your own, you can always pick up a couple good tips by following her "how to build your traffic/following" posts.



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Looks like Jane of Armies of Liberation was on al Jazeera slamming the Saleh regime in Yemen like she does so well!



She also notes that UPI has taken note of Yemen's arms trafficking, a fact she brought attention to months ago. Maybe somebody at UPI finally got around to Googling Arms trafficking. It puts them well up on the competition.



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Jawa Report has a wonderful post up about effective (and not so effective) weapons used by our troops and the insurgenst in Iraq. I don't get dozen's of emails direct from the troops in Iraq, but everything I read in the post is on a par with what I'd expect from my knowledge of the weapons. Never served in the military, but a long time ago, I had occasion to shoot on ranges with M-14 and M-16. I know which I'd want to be plonking bad guys with. Anybody has access to 9mm and M1911A1. Okay, the 9mm is hands down more accurate - not that it matters (much) at handgun ranges. If you're close enough to want to use a handgun, you need to put them down NOW!



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Nominations for The Weblog Awards are now open.



I am not going to nominate myself (that's gauche) but I am going to make it easy for others to nominate me in the categories appropriate for this site.



Best of the top 500-1000 Blogs



Best Business Blogs



(I am also eligible for Best New Blog, but think Don Surber stands out amongst sites I know are less than a year old, and probably deserves to win.)

Well, it looks like California lived down to its reputation. Propositions 74 (change the "teachers make two years and they're impossible to fire" rule), 75 (change law so members have to approve public union political disclosures), 76 (revoke the schools "license to loot") and 77 (revoke part of the Incumbent Politicians Protection Act by giving district drawing authority to judges), all failed. The only bright spots on the statewide news were that 78, 79, and 80 also failed.



I realize it was necessary, but special elections are activists elections. It it worth noting that in San Diego where we elected a new mayor, 74 and 75 got the majority of the vote. Had Arnold waited a year with a governor's race on the line, it might have made the difference between losing all four and winning all four.



Captain's Quarters has a different take. He thinks it's a hole in Arnold's mandate from two years ago; I disagree. I think Arnold got impatient and made a large tactical error by holding the election in an off year.



Can he revisit the issues? I don't think so. It's one of those "The decision is made" things. So this is not good by any stretch of the imagination.



Hugh Hewitt has some advice for Arnold. Comprehensive, well reasoned - and I'm not sure I agree. California is so far to the left it's not funny. You can't win statewide as a hardliner on the right. But Wilson and Deukmejian won by running as centrists, and except for Deukmejian's first win, they were fairly wide margins. I agree that Arnold should appoint more center-right judges. But I'd be more optimistic of his chances if he dragged Pete Wilson or George Deukmejian out of retirement than Bruce Herchensohn.

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HT to Instapundit for a pointer to an Opinion Journal article about what is wrong with the CIA: Basically everything.



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Aaron's CC is creating a deck of Cards with prominent Blogs as various cards. Nominations for facecard clubs are up. Forced to choose just one, I went with Mudville, but I also would like to mention Blackfive, Indepundit, and (Fellow Raging RINO) Argghhh! as being particularly voteworthy.

Carnival of Liberty is up!

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Captain's Quarters has an excellent post about the demographics of suppressing the riots and actually governing. Money quote: "the combatant ratio in any ethnic war may thus be one to one." That's a wonderful ratio for guerilla activity, absolutely unacceptable in terms of actually governing, if and when the riots are contained. France has been pretending that an obvious problem didn't exist for thirty years, not realizing that they were giving away their country (or at least large chunks of it), and I just don't see them getting it back. Even if they did, given the demographics of the situation, they won't be allowed to keep it. Time to emigrate, because Arabic will be the official language of what's now France within two generations at the very most.



Q: What did one moslem say to the other moslem?

A: We'll always have Paris!



LGF has more about the explicitly racial and ethnic nature of the riots. He also has Kos blaming the riots on Bush (or at least running a poll where the options are France, Bush, and the Rioters, in that order. The votes as of when I looked are 838, 337, and 2136, respectively, so maybe there is hope for almost two thirds of them.



The more I read on the left, the more I think that Eric Flint has a point about Moby Dick in this book. Is it looking a lot like the Liberal Captain Ahab has cast George W. Bush as the Great White Whale?



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Powerline has two articles worth reading. One on the CIA's attempt to influence domestic politics, one on the contradiction between investigating Libby and Rove for leaks, while not investigating leaks of actual classified government intelligence to the newspaper. Why aren't those reporters being subpoenaed? Why aren't they being forced to divulge their sources?



Chortle! Hugh Hewitt chimes in with "What did Wilson not know, and when did he invent it?"



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Vodkapundit has an excellent essay up on what kind of war this is, what the status really is, and who's really fighting it. Here's a hint: It's not about military position. The US won all the battles in Vietnam.



I fully agree with him that if we lose, it will be because of the media. That's one of the (lesser) reasons why I'm here. Even if it's only with a few hundred readers a day, just because I can only do so much is no excuse to do nothing.



I want to ask the next question that Vodkapundit failed to ask, however: What happens to our domestic politics after we blame the media for losing this war. Well, nothing, really, because if we lose it wil be because we've essentially been conquered. Maybe there won't be Islamic soldiers trooping through our streets a la Germans in 1940 Paris. But we'll be as much under their thumbs as Vichy was under Hitler's (and he rolled in and conquered the rest of France two years later because they were insufficiently submissive). Freedom of the expression will mean, in al practicality, freedom of Islamic expression, which is to say that you are free to worship god how the mullahs tell you to, free to pay the dhimmi tax, free to have fatwas issued against you for offending the clerics.



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Mudville Gazette has the very moving story of a survivor of Ia Drang, on the fortieth anniversary of that battle. A man who decided to fight instead of give up, and lived to tell the tale because he refused to give up.



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Asymmetrical Information has an excellent post on the subject of abortion, with which I very much agree. Bottom line: The presumption behind going to get an abortion is that you're stopping a human life. I don't agree that it's necessarily murder. It's still not something I want to have be an easy thing to do. In fact, I want it as difficult as practical without outright prohibiting it.



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If you're reading this and haven't yet voted, please remember to do so. Particularly in California, where I have already voted in favor of Propositions 74, 75, 76, and 77. The choice is clear: Do you want more of what we've been going through, or do you want the possibility of change for the better? No guarantees, of course. But if we continue on the course we're on, it's a certain disaster. Now I have to get home and watch the kids so my wife can vote!

Activity other than financial and real estate type articles may be light for a while. I'm facing a couple of crunches.



Carnival of Personal Finance is up.



RINO Sightings is up. Recomended: World According to Nick, Pigilito Says,



Carnival of the Capitalists is up. Recommended: Conservative Cat (this is why I tend to prefer FIFO accounting, but most executives, whose bonuses depend upon relative profits, prefer LIFO), The Enterpreneurial Mind, Coyote Blog, Catallarchy, Skeptical Optimist



California Conservative has the inaugural of the Carnival of Arnold. I've given my viewpoints at the bottom of this post.

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The right way to do it: Australia foils major attack



Captain's Quarters talks about the planned nature of the riots in France.



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Victor Davis Hanson is in favor of removing the agricultural subsidies. We've been trying to get rid of these for thirty years. Why are they still here?



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HT to La Shawn Barber for the link to We Hire Aliens, a site listing companies that hire illegals and with resources to report them.



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"So much for fact checking" Department: LGF notes that Jimmy Massey, who has been accusing our armed forces of various atrocities, has been determined to be lying.



Michelle Malkin has the categorical rundown. I should have looked there first; she's been all over it while I took the weekend off.



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Dr. Sanity has a long and thoughtful post about the civil rights movement and the fact that they have moved away from their previous ideals. I can not think of one instance after 1970 of any "Civil Rights Organization" who, when faced with a choice between increasing their own power and furthering the cause they are allegedly pursuing, chose the latter course.



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Instapundit makes a good point in one of his rare site editorials. There's a difference between real torture and just icky.



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Number one sign that Alito will be confirmed: Democrats Push to Delay Alito Hearings. If someone is fighting a delaying action, it's another way of saying "Lose slowly and maybe something will happen". In this case, they're just hoping the delay enables them to find something they can derail him with. Note to Spector and other judiciary Elephants: Push like hell to hold them ASAP. Like tomorrow. Yesterday would be even better.



My first reaction on seeing that the Donkeys forced the Senate into closed session was that it was a response to Alito's nomination, playing to their base for brownie points because they know they can't defeat Alito. Indeed, if you read the article, that's aluded to: Democrats Force Secret Senate Session. Anything to distract attention.



Captain's Quarters reports on TV networks attempting a draft dodger smear on the nominee. My take is that he served a commitment which was declared equivalent. Volunteering to fight in the front lines, as John F. Kennedy and George H.W. Bush did, is not necessary. Serving honorably and fulfilling your commitment is. Alito seems to have done that. But CNN seems to remember the issue had some traction against certain Donkeys. Big hint: that's because those Donkey's gamed the system (Kerry) and didn't fulfill their commitment (Clinton).



Michael Barone talks about how, unlike the days of Robert Bork, the left no longer has a stranglehold on the public dialog, so any borking is likely to be met with counter-force on the right. He also directs me to a David Corn article proposing that the Donkeys explicitly politicize the nomination of Alito. The question I would ask of Mr. Corn is "Then what?" Win or lose, you've given the Elephants a fight to energize their base, which is larger than the Donkey base. Furthermore, by explicitly politicizing it, you're going to push a lot of the undecideds away from you, something the Donkeys can not afford. Next question: If the Supreme Court becomes all about politics, why are we even bothering with this fig leaf called qualification? Why not fight over whether Hillary Clinton or Ann Coulter is going to be the next justice? There may be some on the extremes who want that, but I can tell you that the vast majority in the center - including most of the base for both parties - do not. I have this thought, you see, that the majority of the people in the country want judges who at least start out in considering a case on its merits, rather than by its political implications.



Ann Althouse clears the record when a reporter took what she said to mean something a little different.



ED: Update corrected spelling of Ms. Althouse's name.

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Chortle!.



Money quote:

The chart indicated we were a mile and a half" from the coral reef when the ship ran aground, Constantino told AFP

Does anybody actually believe this? Anybody? Buehler?



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Carnival of The Vanities is up!



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For the Californians reading this: Eric's Grumbles has an excellent take on why you should vote Yes on 77.



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Interesting! Hints of Early Stars May Have Been Found



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Captain's Quarters notes that corruption as well as faulty design had a role in the New Orleans levees failing. The Donkeys want to blame Army Corps of Engineers. A more likely culprit is the Louisiana state political machine, which controlled and awarded most of the flood control money.



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Opinion Journal makes a point that needs to be made over and over and over again in "Race to the Bottom" (Third Header). Just because you're a member of a minority does not mean you're not a racist.



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La Shawn Barber has probably the best take on the Paris Riots that I've seen. I do not agree with her that Islam is inherently violent, but do agree that Islamic violence is tolerated and encouraged by co-religionists to an extent that Christianity hasn't seen since the Inquisition began to decline in the late sixteenth century. We cannot afford to be any more tolerant of those who encourage violence (let alone contribute money to it!) than those who actually commit violence. No other major world religion today tolerates or advocates religious (or other!) violence to anything like the degree that Islam does. This can change, or we can exterminate it, or it will exterminate us. I'd prefer option one, but that's got to come from within the Islamic world. Nobody can force it on them. I'll take option two over option three every time, just the same as I am perfectly willing to kill in self defence and will have no moral qualms over it whatsoever. The two situations are precisely analogous, albeit one on a wholesale, the other on a retail, level. I'd rather not have to do it, but the confrontation is not of our making, and we have done everything that any court could possibly expect a reasonable person to do and then some. My personal weapon of choice is a good strong light to illuminate intolerable practices, but without a willingness to exterminate the revealed cockroaches as they scatter, this is useless. If we have to put a bullet in the head of every last person who supports jihad or terrorism and adopt their children out to parents of other religions (or none), so be it.



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I regard this as more good than bad: S.D. makes neglected property an issue. I sympathize when it's a property owner with no available cash to do the rehabilitation, and with a property that is not eligible for a loan. Also, when it's an estate in dispute and the heirs can't agree, there's nothing that can really be done until final resolution of the probate. But even the worst case projection for collapsing real estate value I've seen is still well above property values from just a few years ago. We can't expect the neighborhood to put up with eyesores forever, and all of the other problems that go with neglected property. So it's a case of fix it up or sell it.



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NASA isn't the only place that can do spectacular things in space: Japan's Hayabusa Closes in on Asteroid Landing Site



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China Reportedly Shuts Down Blog. Except that the story says they actually only blocked it. This is a better written story, with an actual interview, and the information that it's actually defunct (I was hoping to be able to toss the guy a link to raise his search engine ranking even more). This has a little more. Here's an article on the actual shutdown.



Tim Worstall has more, including the text of Wang Yi's thank you and the place to visit in order to vote for him (or anyone else nominated) for BOB and here is his nomination page.



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Too weird not to link: Man Kills Buck With Bare Hands in Bedroom



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The SEC has issued a warning about online investing. The actual guide is Online Brokerage Accounts. I noticed that I had neglected to add the SEC to my resources list to the right on the bottom. It's there now, and useful.



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I love seeing stuff like Muffy the Liberal Slayer over at Wizbang. Money quote: "Sometimes, the baby seal comes up with a shotgun."



This is not so much a liberal versus conservative thing as it is a mindless compassion versus intelligent consideration thing.



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Mudville Gazette has the link to a new book about celebrity hypocrisy Michael Moore owns Halliburton



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The Immigration Blog has the goods on where to report illegal aliens. No guarantees they'll actually do anything, of course, but you will have tried a legal means.



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The Democrats are working on a 2006 version of the Republican Contract With America. The link is here. Looks basically good, especially the Secure America for Our Children Act (if it has any teeth), but except for the Quagmire Avoidance Act, which I sincerely hope is a sop to their base because the whole premise is stupid, they all seem like good ideas. Unfortunately, I don't think any of them are "hot button" issues that will resonate the way the Republican Contract did with voters. (Except the Quagmire Avoidance Act, which according to my understanding of the military and political situation, is plainly stupid denial of the facts, no matter how the legacy media is framing it). Nonetheless, I'm glad to see the Donkeys working on ideas for a national agenda of their own.



Dean's World is where I found the link, and he's got some very worthwhile comments of his own on the issue. He seems to mostly agree with me, but I suggest you read him yourself.



One thing studying military history will give you is an appreciation for the possibility of sneaky tactics, and not just military. Given Pelosi's past history, I have a reasonable suspicion (in the possibility sense of the term, not the innuendo sense) that the rest of it is a smokescreen to make it seen like the so-called "Quagmire Avoidance Act" is backed by the majority of the voters when in fact that is the part everyone went along with in order to get the rest of it.



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Armies of Liberation has at least three new good articles on Yemen since the last time I had a chance to look. Saleh's trail of bodies. Death Threats for opposition figures. The ruling party steamrollering an opposition attempt to change from Presidential to Parliamentary authority. Go read her whole front page.

Sorry I didn't post much over the past few days. Flu shot I got Friday kind of got to me, like they say it sometimes does. I still feel like I am going to lose the contents of my stomach - except when I actually eat, I usually find that I am very hungry. The rest of this week is likely to be light also, due to two conferences and a legal deposition in addition to the above.



On the definite plus side, the baby Ramona took her first undeniable steps on Friday, for me. I wasn't expecting it or egging it on; it just happened. She's been "cruising furniture" for several months. She just decided she wanted daddy, and didn't bother to sit down and crawl. A few quick steps and there she was. Ramona (my wife) was jealous of course, especially since she was upstairs at the time and missed them. The baby has since repeated it, of course. But that doesn't change the fact that I was the only one who got to see the first time.



Also on the plus side, Thing has recovered enough that he's chasing his ball, climbing the stairs, and as of Saturday, looking like he's got enough meat on his bones that I reduced him back to his regular rations. There for a while he was looking positively emaciated (and Mellon's weight went up as Thing passed on his food), but he's been eating more of less normally again for a couple of weeks now, and he's filled out to where his vertebrae aren't sticking so far out that they form a high ridgeline along his back. I was worried about a certain little dog for a while.

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Here's A Beautiful Tribute.



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RINO Sightings is up. Recommended: Armies of Liberation, Louisiana Libertarian



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On another subject entirely, Victor Davis Hanson has a much needed dose of reality for the perpetually outraged.



Belmont Club covers someone with the guts to say what may really be necessary.



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Michelle Malkin has a short roundup of electoral fraud. As I've said a few times on this site, I want this stuff cleaned up. If it means I've got to go through a little more in order to vote, so be it. Might even be a good thing if people have to go to a little more trouble to vote.



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Predictably, Eric's Grumbles thinks the Supreme Court should butt out of the abortion issue, along with the rest of the government. In principle, I agree, and I would in practice also if we could get issues like paternity suits (no authority to make decisions means no imposed legal responsibility) resolved rationally.



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Carnival of The Capitalists is up. Recommended: Stone City, Coyote Blog, Pacesetter Mortgage (I don't agree that "Stated Income" should be completely abolished, but there should be a very large print disclosure/affadavit listing the pitfalls, as well as cash reserve requirements, etcetera. It is abused, but sometimes people cannot document the money they really do make. See my essays on Prequalification, and also levels of income documentation).



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Carnival of Personal Finance is up. Recommended: Bargaineering



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Carnival of Liberty is also up. Recommended: Soldier's Angel = Holly Aho, Watchful Investor (It is to be noted that China has no one on death row because they get taken out and shot in the back of the head immediately - and the family gets a bill for the bullet!)



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Despite losing 8 plus days of data due to a server change, finished October with 24,547 visitors from sometime about 7AM on the 9th through the end of the month. That's only 40 less than the entire month of September which counted all 30 days, so I'm happy. 73,593 page views for the same period. Running totals: 82,896 visits, 257,157 page views.



I am grateful to all of you for stopping by. If you have something to say (or a question to ask or a contribution to make), speak up!