Thomas Carlyle coined the term "the dismal science" to describe economics -- his point being that economics confounds the hopes and dreams of so many utopian planners. Every so often a philosopher or academic economist will agonize over the fact that economics is unrooted in any kind of ethical framework, and will send out an anguished cry like The Economist's Oath: On the Need for and Content of Professional Economic Ethics . I haven't read the book yet, but if history is any guide it will be yet another academic crie de coeur to infuse economics with a "heart". My hackles go up every time I see a book like this -- generally the first time I come across a word like "fairness" or "greed" or "equal", I throw the book down in disgust. We'll see.

I've also re-visited Sir James George Frazer's The Golden Bough. As a study of religion and myth, it's been superceded by more recent books, but in my mind it's still one of the best reference books on the topic. Many academics have hated this book for years due to the "social Darwinist" aspects, and the perceived cultural superiority that Frazer brought to the subject; but even with the flaws, it is a fascinating and comprehensive insight into human culture, myth, and religion. (I'd advise casual readers to pick up the omnibus edition published in 1922, rather than one of the earlier multi-volume editions. Frazer revised the work several times during his life, but seldom to positive effect.) Carl Jung's books may make interesting parallel reading, something like Man and His Symbols.

What is everyone else reading?

Posted by: Monty at 05:02 AM | Comments (185)
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Posted by: rdbrewer at 07:03 PM | Comments (319)
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A few of the highlights.

Posted by: rdbrewer at 04:19 PM | Comments (288)
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Several people using Internet Explorer have reported problems with the site lately that include slow, jagged scrolling and some modern-looking sans serif font. Ace has top men working on it. Top. Men.

In the meantime, you can click the "compatibility view" icon up next to the URL address box. (The broken web page icon.) This will fix the problem temporarily.

If you don't see the compatibility view button, put your cursor somewhere in the menu bar (or nearby, if you don't have menu bar checked) and right click. Make sure you have the box next to "Compatibility View Button" checked.

Posted by: rdbrewer at 11:04 AM | Comments (372)
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Much has been made about Mitch Daniels and his possible run for the presidency. Most of it has focused on his oft stated desire to focus exclusively on fiscal issues and the perilous state of the nation's finances.

Last night Daniels gave the keynote address at CPAC and there was much interest in whether or not he would expand his topics to include the normal range of issues candidates usually must address. Such a departure from his previous statements would have been seen as an indicator that he was going to bow to reality in his run.

Well, he didn't. Hot Air has the video and transcript of the speech and it was all fiscal issues, all the time. No foreign policy and no hot button social issues (in contrast to say Tim Pawlenty who made a not very subtle play to social cons in his speech by saying the country needs to, "turn towards God, not away from him." ).

Daniels is running on a technocratic platform as the serious, sober adult who will roll up his sleeves and work with anyone to get the nation's fiscal house back in order.

The problem is the reality of what he is proposing (and what the nation clearly has to confront) is anything but mild, non-controversial "common sense". Sure you can talk about how the federal government should balance its books the same way a family does but what that means in practice is a radical departure from how business has been done for generations.

But we, too, are relatively few in number, in a nation of 300 million. If freedom’s best friends cannot unify around a realistic, actionable program of fundamental change, one that attracts and persuades a broad majority of our fellow citizens, big change will not come. Or rather, big change will come, of the kind that the skeptics of all centuries have predicted for those naïve societies that believed that government of and by the people could long endure.

We know what the basic elements must be. An affectionate thank you to the major social welfare programs of the last century, but their sunsetting when those currently or soon to be enrolled have passed off the scene. The creation of new Social Security and Medicare compacts with the young people who will pay for their elders and who deserve to have a backstop available to them in their own retirement.

These programs should reserve their funds for those most in need of them. They should be updated to catch up to AmericansÂ’ increasing longevity and good health. They should protect benefits against inflation but not overprotect them. Medicare 2.0 should restore to the next generation the dignity of making their own decisions, by delivering its dollars directly to the individual, based on financial and medical need, entrusting and empowering citizens to choose their own insurance and, inevitably, pay for more of their routine care like the discerning, autonomous consumers we know them to be.

Daniels is embracing, in broad terms,the concepts of the Ryan Roadmap and in the process is suggesting a complete scraping of the current entitlement system and replacing it with something entirely different.

And what of this idea, "These programs should reserve their funds for those most in need of them"? Is that a tentative stab at means testing? Would that apply to current programs like Medicare and Social Security only these Entitlement 2.0 programs?

Put aside the various pros and cons of such proposals for a moment and consider how radical they are. This is not the work of a wonkish, old school root canal Republican.

I know people dismiss talk off charisma and style but the fact is politics is about building coalitions, building pressure from one set of groups against another to make things happens. Charismatic leadership can play an important part in that. It's easy to point to an empty suit like Obama but he had a comparatively simply task...get people excited about getting all sorts of "free" stuff. Daniels' plan is going to require people step up and get excited about taking less (at least initially). It's smart policy but the politics of making it happen are tough.

Here's my question...can a rather uninspiring, mild-mannered candidate who is running on competence and boasts about the establishment endorsements on his letterhead really lead this kind of revolution?

Posted by: DrewM at 10:43 AM | Comments (168)
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Just to get it started...

Saw that "Robot" (or Endirhan) movie a few days ago. (that's the one with the clip that was posted here FOUR different times) (Remember the robot mob turning into a giant cobra?) A lot of fun. Ohhh, those crazy Indians.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:22 AM | Comments (100)
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Like Sheriff Joe says, this is a big f'n' deal. (NYT link)

During a news conference on Thursday morning, Stuart A. Levey, a treasury under secretary, described an elaborate global clunkers-for-cash kind of scheme in which senior managers at the bank used its connections to financial institutions like exchange houses around the world to help launder money for Ayman Joumaa, whom the Treasury Department has declared a drug kingpin. Mr. Levey said Mr. Joumaa, whose assets in the United States were frozen last month by the departmentÂ’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, moved shipments of cocaine from Colombia through West Africa to buyers in Europe.

The bulk cash from those sales was deposited into accounts at the Lebanese Canadian Bank, and then wired to used car dealers in the United States, who would buy vehicles and ship them to West Africa or other overseas destinations to be sold, the complaint said.

My ninja tipster tells me it's unusual to see the US so publickly link Hezbollah to drug trade. The DEA Special Agent in Charge asserts that drug money is filling the funding gap as money from terrorist state sponsors dries up.

Link to Notice of Finding.

Note the provision of the Patriot Act used to grant the Secretary "a range of options that can be adapted to target specific money laundering and terrorist financing concerns most effectively. These options give the Secretary the authority to bring additional pressure on those jurisdictions and institutions that pose money laundering threats".

Good thing House Democrats pitched a sore loser fit and refused to extend the law. Lucky for us we got Leon Panetta and CNN.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 05:01 AM | Comments (467)
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I'm all Egypted out. But if you aren't , some of the most breathtakingly concise and riveting commentary on today's events can be found here.

Might as well keep the theme going, no?

("AoSHQ: It references itself") more...

Posted by: Genghis at 06:15 PM | Comments (516)
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This wouldn't be newsworthy except the People's Front of Judea notes how perfect it is.

A long time ago Obama "borrowed" a tie of Gibbs. He liked it, so he wound up keeping it. Today he gave him the tie back, finally, with a couple of pictures of Gibbs with Obama in a glass picture-case.

So, here is an emblematic Democratic "gift:" Giving you back what was always yours and expecting a thank-you for it.

Posted by: Ace at 12:06 PM | Comments (735)
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The mullahs were cheerleading for this, hoping that a radical, anti-western terrorist claque could take charge in Egypt. That could still happen, obviously. Maybe that's even the way to bet.

But as much as Iran encourages revolution abroad, of course, they fear it at home.

So they don't want their citizens to get the idea that maybe this twice-repeated model is good for a third go.

Via Hot Air, there's more: Bush, not Obama, was forward-leaning on democratization and liberalization in Egypt, while Obama took his typical position of comforting the comfortable dictators.

As ably covered by the Washington Post’s Fact Checker – and former State Department reporter – Glenn Kessler, the Obama administration was far more quiet on the need for Egypt to engage in serious political reform, at least publicly, than the Bush administration.

Perhaps more glaringly, while the Bush administration tried to directly fund civil society in Egypt – pro-democracy groups and the like – the Obama administration changed that policy and cut funding significantly, ending an effort to provide direct funding to democracy groups not “approved” by the Egyptian government, and reduced funding in the budget for programs to promote civil society groups.

As Kessler writes: Bush’s final budget “proposed spending $45 million on democracy and good-governance programs in Egypt, including more than $20 million on promoting civil society…But that nascent effort was largely shelved when the Obama administration took office. For fiscal year 2009, the administration immediately halved the money for democracy promotion in Egypt; the civil society funds were slashed 70 percent, to $7 million. Meanwhile, money that was to be given directly to civil society groups was eliminated and the administration agreed to once again fund only those institutions that had Mubarak's seal of approval.”

More at Hot Air: The Swiss freeze Mubarak's accounts; an unnamed Democratic official emails Politico to say "Obama did it!;" and the military is apparently firing the cabinet and dissolving the parliament and will rule with the input of the chief justice of their supreme court.

I don't think any of that is anti-democratic, necessarily -- you can only be anti-democratic if you're taking action against a democracy, where here, there was none. Just window-dressing fake democracy. Whether this results in a democracy (and, more importantly: a republic where citizens' rights are guaranteed) is still unknown, and very unlikely.

But who cares if their was an unconstitutional coup against and unconstitutional tyrant? Freedom and democracy weren't harmed here, as they weren't at the party at all.

Posted by: Ace at 09:54 AM | Comments (493)
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