Celebrate Human Achievement Hour

Via Glenn Reynolds, check out this cool video from the Competitive Enterprise Institute:

The Competitive Enterprise Institute plans to recognize “Human Achievement Hour” between 8:30pm and 9:30pm on March 28, 2009 to coincide with Earth Hour, a period of time during which governments, individuals, and corporations have agreed to dim or shut off lights in an effort to draw attention to climate change. Anyone not foregoing the use of electricity in that hour is, by default, celebrating the achievements of human beings.

Meanwhile, "Do New Bulbs Save Energy if They Don’t Work?" Check the commentary on that at Memeorandum, and get a good laugh at Freddie deBoer's leftist orthodoxy while you're at it. Lights out, eh Freddie?

Paul Krugman Wants More, or Else!

Paul Krugman's in the news this weekend.

The ubiquitous Nobel-winning economics professor and New York Times columnist has in recent weeks been hammering the Obama administration for its timidity. In his recent essay in Rolling Stone, Krugman praised the scale of the administration's market intervention, but suggested that "the current economic disaster demands even more aggressive action than Obama has taken so far."

Well, Krugman's calls for even more collectivization are getting some attention in the left-wing press. Newsweek's new cover story features Krugman in an essay entitled, "Obama’s Nobel Headache." The article, by Evan Thomas, portrays Krugman as "nervous, shy, sweet and fiercely sure of himself." But Krugman's getting a cordial cold shoulder from President Obama, which is an interesting situation, considering the following passage:

Krugman has a bit of a reputation for settling scores. "He doesn't suffer fools. He doesn't like hauteur in any shape or form. He doesn't like to be f––ked with," says his friend and colleague Princeton history professor Sean Wilentz.

If he doesn't get his way with a bolder direction from Obama, don't be surprised to see even more strident hit pieces against the Democrats' economic program. That's the theme Mike Allen takes up in his piece at The Politico, "Krugman: The Left's New Anti-Obama"(via Memeorandum):

What is striking about this development is that Obama’s most thoughtful critic is taking on the president from the left at a time when, as Jonathan Alter notes, so many others are reflexively arguing that the administration is trying too much too soon.

See also my essay, "Democrats to Milk Economic Crisis for Trillions," where I note, "This is why progressive leftists love Paul Krugman. The guy's a Princeton economist and Nobel laureate. More importantly, the man's an "establishment" statist who can use his "credentials" to discredit those who rightly repudiate his socialist program."

Oakland Remembers Slain Police Officers

This is the front-page photo from today's Los Angeles Times, which accompanies a report on the city's services for the four Oakland police officers who were killed last week in a shoot out with Lovelle Mixon, a local hoodlum.

The flag-draped caskets of the four slain Oakland police officers at their funeral.

Unfortunately, there were more pernicious commemorations this week as well, when demonstrators marched in support of cop-killer Mixon, chanting "police oppression," or some other such baloney.

Melanie Morgan has been posting on this, and she's got an essay up at World Net Daily as well, "You Say You Want a 'Revolootion'?":

Today the city of Oakland, the Bay Area and the entire country say goodbye to four police officers who were murdered by a parolee, no-good street thug. Thousands are expected to attend the funeral of officers killed Saturday: Sgts. Mark Dunakin, 40, of Tracy; Erv Romans, 43, of Danville; and Daniel Sakai, 35, of Castro Valley. Officer John Hege, 41, of Concord, also was shot Saturday and declared brain-dead Sunday. He was taken off life support late Monday.

Lovelle Mixon, the cops' killer and a suspected child rapist, is now a popular icon in the sick and twisted minds of those who support Mixon's murderous actions and hate the cops. The other night on TV, a reporter held pictures of Mixon's victims and some maniacs stepped forward and spit on the photographs. It was sickening, but what do you expect from street punks who take no personal responsibility and worship the likes of Che Guevara, a mass murderer, the Black Panthers, and now Mixon, the pervert and cop killer.

Mixon's apologists are proud of themselves and are not only spitting on pictures of the officers who died in the line of duty, but they're marching in the open, videotaping themselves and trying to intimidate folks who don't believe in their radical lunacy.

More at the link.

Also blogging this story, thank goodness:

* Dan Collins, "A Primer on Crapweasels, Punks and Parasites."

* Nice Deb, "Oakland Leftist Moonbat Drones March In Support of Cop Killer."

* Saber Point, "Unbelievable: Blacks Hold Memorial Service for Oakland Cop Killer."

* Kathy Shaidle, "Stay classy! Protesters mourn death of cop-killing child rapist."

* Stilettos in the Sand ..., "Lovelle Mixon - Piece of Sh!t."

* Van Helsing, "Moonbats March in Adoration of Cop Killer."

Full Metal Saturday: Britney Spears

It's time again for the weekend's full metal roundup of great "Rule 5" blogging, and related blog-ruffianism. This week's hottie is inspired by Stogie at Saber Point, who suggested that if you're going to sell out, go all the way with some Britney Spears action. (And not to forget, Monique Stuart's doing some Britney blogging in her post, "“Filter-Free News”= Obama’s Propaganda Machine.") Stogie's also got a post up on Michele Bachmann, who qualifies for Rule 5 hotness in my book, and Snooper's too. But see PA Pundits International for a more general appreciation of Ms. Bachmann and women in politics.

Those new to the genre ought to check out Smitty's entry this morning, "'The Full Monty Joint Review' Avalanche." Check out as well my friend Pundette's entry, "Saturday Link-fest 3/28.

Also worth a look is The Sundries Shack, with "This Takes The Notion of “Having Some Skin in the Game” to a New Level." And don't miss TrogloPundit's roundup on the "World's Most Beautiful Politicians" (which includes a picture of South Dakota's hot Blue Dog Dem, Stephani Herseth).

For your addtional blog-reading pleasure, check out Glenn Reynolds, Midnight Blue Says, Monique Stewart (a bona fide Rule 5 upstart), No Sheeples, Right Wing News, and The Western Experience.

As always, send me an e-mail with your "Rule 5" entries if you'd like to be included in upcoming full metal roundups.

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UPDATE: Monique Stuart's Britney post, in parentheses above, added after some gentle e-mail prodding! It's a good thing too - we don't want to turn into the idiots at the Los Angeles Times, as seen here!

Also, Skye e-mails, "Way cool!"

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UPDATE II: I meant to update a few minutes ago, but I couldn't stop laughing! R.S. McCain puts out the call for his regular Sunday Rule 5 roundup, and he goes for inclusiveness:

* Ladybloggers can be eligible by posting beefcake;

* Gaybloggers cannot be eligible by posting beefcake, but can qualify by posting Marilyn Monroe or other camp diva photos ...

Check out the entire post, and get busy babe-blogging! Those needing inspiration might want to visit Theo Spark's page, where you'll always find good stuff, albeit NSFW more often than not, so be careful not to go afoul of "The Hustler's" guidelines cited at the roundup.

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UPDATE III: Dave at Point of a Gun forwards his post on Carrie Underwood, "Just A Dream": "Carrie Underwood's tribute to the troops and those who got left behind."

I've been searching for an angel in white...

One of my favorites from The Eagles, "One of These Nights": 

Time Magazine's "Great Recession"

The cover story at this week's Time asks, "Is This Crisis Good for America?" The story rips the Reagan years as the precursor to today's discolation:

The '80s spirit endured through the '90s and the 2000s, all the way until the fall of 2008, like an awesome winning streak in Vegas that went on and on and on. American-style capitalism triumphed, and thanks to FedEx and the Web, delayed gratification itself came to seem quaint and unnecessary. So what if every year since the turn of the century the U.S. economy grew more slowly than the global economy? Stuff at Wal-Mart and Costco and money itself stayed supercheap! Even 9/11, which supposedly "changed everything," and the resulting Iraqi debacle came to seem like mere bumps in the road. Even if deep down everyone knew that the spiral of overleveraging and overspending and the prices of stocks and houses were unsustainable, no one wanted to be a buzz kill.

In the Road Runner cartoons, after each fall, the coyote is broken and battered but never dies. America isn't going to expire either. But unlike him, we will be chastened and begin behaving more wisely. For years, enthusiasts for unfettered capitalism have insisted that the withering away of enterprises and entire industries is a healthy and necessary part of a vibrant, self-correcting economic system; now, more than at any time since Joseph Schumpeter popularized the idea of creative destruction in 1942, we must endure the shocking and awesome pain of that metamorphosis. After decades of talking the talk, now we're all obliged to walk the walk.

We cannot just hunker down, cross our fingers, hysterically pinch our pennies, wait for the crises to pass, blame the bankers and then go back to business as usual. All that conventional wisdom about 2008 being a "change" year? We had no idea. Recently Rush Limbaugh appeared on Sean Hannity's Fox News show, panicking not so much about the economy but about how the political winds are blowing as a result. If we finally manage to achieve something like universal health care, Limbaugh warned, it would mean "the end of America as we know it." He's right, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. This is the end of the world as we've known it. But it isn't the end of the world.

I'm in no mood to desconstruct this rubbish, although I can hope that Time goes the way of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. It's not like there won't be more Pravda-style mouthpieces available.

"Why can't we just figure out a way to get rid of this pig..."

From the comments at Daily Beast, with reference to Rush Limbaugh:

I didn't listen to this clip, but I already know I didn't miss anything. Why can't we just figure out a way to get rid of this pig and everybody who listens to him and make the world a better place?

Hat Tip: The People's Blog.

Modern-Day Hoovervilles

The New York Times has an article and slideshow on the new shanty towns:

Tina Garland, an out-of-work truck driver, in the kitchen area of the tent she shares with her husband in Sacramento. Homeless enclaves have grown in places such as Nashville, Olympia, Wash., and St. Petersburg, Fla., but the situation in Sacramento has received extra attention following a visit from Oprah Winfrey.

Be sure to read the whole thing, here.

Many of the shanty-dwellers are in Fresno, where I lived from 1989 to 1992. Unemployment is there is generally twice the national average. That's why I don't think the notion of "Hoovervilles" is media propaganda. You get the "Grapes of Wrath" feeling living up there for a while, even during boom times.

McCain Was Right on Fiscal Fundmentals!

Via Memeorandum, "On Spending and the Deficit, McCain Was Right":

Barack Obama used to get very upset about federal budget deficits. Denouncing an "orgy of spending and enormous deficits," he turned to John McCain during their presidential debates last fall and said, "We have had, over the last eight years, the biggest increases in deficit spending and national debt in our history … Now we have a half-trillion deficit annually…and Sen. McCain voted for four out of five of those George Bush budgets."

That was then. Now, President Obama is asking lawmakers to vote for a budget with a deficit three times the size of the one that so disturbed candidate Obama just a few months ago. And Obama foresees, for years to come, deficits that dwarf those he felt so passionately about way, way back in 2008.

Everywhere you go on Capitol Hill, you hear echoes of the last campaign's spending debate. So on Thursday morning, as the budget fight raged, I asked McCain about the president's seemingly forgotten concern about deficits. McCain doesn't like to rehash the campaign - "The one thing Americans don't like is a sore loser," he told me - but when I read him Obama's quote from the debate, he said, "Well, there are a number of statements that were made by then-candidate Obama which have not translated into his policies."

That's an understatement. The deficit issue could be one of the most, if not the most, consequential of Obama's unkept campaign promises. Just how consequential was made clear last week in a little-noticed conference call featuring Budget Director Peter Orszag. Orszag was trying to explain to reporters how the Obama administration calculated its rather rosy forecasts for economic growth. Near the end of the call, he was asked whether deficits along the lines of those predicted by the Congressional Budget Office are sustainable."

There's more at the link.

Cartoon Hat Tip: Political Pistachio.

Michele Bachmann, Saving America

I'm looking at Memeorandum, and again not one conservative blogger is listed next to all the leftist attacks on Representative Michele Bachmann. I should note that my friends at Legal Insurrection and Snooper Report have posts up on this, although I'm still looking around the conservative blogosphere for additional essays. Glenn Beck gets it, of course. Below is the video from his show this afternoon, where he excoriates Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, saying "the international reserve currency is the dollar!" Beck also has spoke with Representative Bachmann this morning, in "Glenn talks with Congresswoman Bachmann."

Meanwhile, Fox News reports that the Minnesota congresswoman may be positioning herself for higher office:

Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann has shown an uncanny knack for infuriating critics with sometimes off-the-wall behavior and comments, all the while advancing her own political career.

Minnesota politicos say the Republican congresswoman, having fended off perhaps her toughest challenge last year, could hold on to her seat indefinitely -- thanks in part to the conservative makeup of her district.

But Bachmann, a lightning rod of the left, also may be poised to run for governor or senator, according to the political chatter. Either way, the longer Bachmann stays in office, the more she seems to rile her opponents nationwide with a style some call genuine, but others call clueless.

"For what pisses off the Democrats, it really energizes that conservative base she has," said Lawrence Jacobs, a political professor at the University of Minnesota. "This is not a strategic politician. This is a movement conservative. She's a true believer."

Bachmann, 52, is a born-again Christian -- she has said God called her to go to law school and to run for Congress -- who cut her political teeth in the Minnesota Legislature pushing for an amendment to ban same-sex marriage. She won election to the U.S. Congress in 2006, going against the wave of Republicans forced out of office that year. Since then, she's concentrated more on tax and spending issues. She was in the spotlight this week as she questioned Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke during a hearing about federal intervention in the financial system.

Bachmann told FOXNews.com her ultimate goal in Congress is to overhaul and simplify the tax code, while fighting the efforts of the Obama administration to expand government and increase the tax burden. She said President Obama has gone on a spending "blitzkrieg," and she argued that the recent flap over AIG bonuses is just another sign that Washington needs an exit strategy for its financial intervention.

As for her re-election last year, she said it was just proof of her appeal.

"The fact that people knew that I am who I say I am and I'll vote the way that I vote and do so unapologetically, that's one thing people appreciate," she said. "You know, we're the state that voted in Jesse Ventura."

"The nation needs all the conservative fighters we can get in D.C.," she added.

There's more at the link, but the conclusion to the article, a quote from political scientist Lawrence Jacobs, is worth citing: "The larger party infrastructure is about winning elections, and Michele Bachmann is about saving America ... Michele Bachmann is a microcosm of the tension between the Republican Party that wants to win elections and conservatives who want to fight and win policy battles. That is the core of it."

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UPDATE: Allahpundit posts on Glenn Beck, so at least somebody's getting close!

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UPDATE II: Newsbusters defends Bachmann, in "Matthews Calls Bachmann the 'Mata Hari of Minnesota'; Rolling Stone's Taibbi Says 'Guy Huffing Glue' More Sensible" (with video).

Leftists Launch "Currency Trutherism" Against Bachmann

Are conservatives interested in standing up for Michele Bachmann? I sent out my post yesterday to a number of top bloggers but heard nothing. Maybe I'm wrong about this. Maybe she's indeed the extremist that the leftists keep portraying her to be. Can it really be that top right-wing bloggers are willing to let Bachmann hold down the fort on her own? Not me. I don't buy the meme that she's dog-whistling to the black-copter crowds. Bachmann's speaking more clearly about things that are half of the top conservative opinion makers in the Washington press corps (Brooks, Frum, etc.).

The leftosphere smells blood in the wake of Bachmann's denunciation of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's comments suggesting an "openness" to the displacement of the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency. Eric Kleefeld's got a post up right now, "Bachmann Blasts Obama's 'Economic Marxism,' Calls For 'Orderly Revolution' To Save Freedom." Here's the key quote from the audio:

At this point the American people - it's like Thomas Jefferson said, a revolution every now and then is a good thing. We are at the point, Sean, of revolution. And by that, what I mean, an orderly revolution - where the people of this country wake up get up and make a decision that this is not going to happen on their watch. It won't be our children and grandchildren that are in debt. It is we who are in debt, we who will be bankrupting this country, inside of ten years, if we don't get a grip. And we can't let the Democrats achieve their ends any longer.

Just so folks are clear, notice how Bachmann clarifies her point: "And by that, what I mean, an orderly revolution ..."

No matter. Matthew Yglesias is on the hunt, "Bachmann and Beck Double-Down on Currency Conspiracy Theory." And Steve Benen diagnoses Ms. Bachmann as insane:

Bachmann simply isn't well. Were she not an elected member of the U.S. Congress, she'd probably be shouting conspiracy theories and holding cardboard signs on some sidewalk somewhere. But what I find especially interesting is that her paranoid delusions are so detached from obvious truths. If Bachmann wanted to complain that a 39.6% top rate was the epitome of Marxism, she'd be just another conservative. But she's convinced herself that the Obama administration will "move us to an international currency," due entirely to her breathtaking stupidity.

Gird your loins, conservatives!

Bachmann's proposed resolution to protect the dollar as the country's sovereign unit of exchange is perfectly justified in light of monetary history and the outlandish comments from Secretary Geithner. Advanced economies are not inoculated from supranational pressures toward monetary homogenization or unification, as the case of the European Union indicates. Once Ms. Bachmann refers to "One World Currency," the only logical reference point is to a national currency unit that would replace current dollar hegemony worldwide. There is no alternative for circulation within borders for everday tendered transactions. More abstract currency units, for example, the IMF's "SDRs", do not circulate as legal tender within nations - they are accounting units for central bank transactions. For something to displace an indigenous legal tender as a means of domestic exchange, an international reserve currency would be introduced into local markets for stability and confidence. This is not unusual, as the dollar now routinely serves as the local unit of exchange in transitioning economies. If anything is outlandish in all of this, it's the idea that Americans should take seriously the notion that China has the economic power to replace U.S. as the world's leading economic power. This is the administration's stupidity, not Representative Bachmann's. She's simply putting in place legislative protections against this administration's transnationalists, those who are willing to consider the replacement of the dollar of the world's reserve currency. See the discussion, for example, at the Wall Street Journal, "The Chinese Yuan: The Next World Currency?"

There's nothing stupid about Michele Bachmann's concern for American sovereignty or her distrust of the Democratic financial manderins in Washington. What is not so smart is how conservatives, at least as demonstrated by the lack of response to the left's "currency trutherism" against Ms. Bachmann, aren't taking these atacks seriously. (But thank goodness for William Jacobson's exceptional essay, "Yet Another Cheap Attack On Michele Bachmann.)

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UPDATE: See also Snooper Report, "I Want To Bear Michele Bachmann's Babies!"

The Kooky League of Ordinary Marxists

While it's by no means jaw-dropping for those familiar with the babbling "liberaltarianism" at Ordinary Gentlemen, Freddie's attack on free markets and international interdependence is worth citing for a sense of current orthodox thinking on the left.

Freddie cites Thomas Geoghegan cover story at Harpers, "Infinite Debt: How Unlimited Interest Rates Destroyed the Economy." Geoghegan's piece, ostensibly about the "deregulation of usury," is actually a long boilerplate screed against bank lending and capital markets, and includes this juicy quote of Marxian dialectics, "What is history, really, but a turf war between manufactuing, labor, and the banks. In the United States, we shrank manufacturing. We got rid of labor. Now it's just the banks." Anyway, read the whole thing, here.

Freddie, too lazy to find a link to the Geoghegan's piece, offers his own summary, plus a video link to Geoghegan's interview at Democracy Now!, naturally. But Freddie's extension of Geoghegan's discussion to globalization is what really caught my attention:

There’s a lot of consequences to our understanding of this situation. The first is, I think, another nail in the coffin in the notion that you can ever have a truly free market when you have a currency. When you have a currency, you’ll have lending, and when you have lending, you’ll have interest, and human nature being what it is, lenders will wring out as much interest as they can when they can, offsetting the balance of our economy ... So we need a strong regulatory apparatus to limit the size of interest rates and the degree to which banks are leveraged, in order to prevent the kind of situation we have now ....

Secondly, the pro-globalization furor that has gripped our consciousness in recent decades bears a lot of blame ... The idea that globalization is good for the United States, the world and its people is an attitude that people insist on with incredible zeal, and this insistence comes from conservatives and liberals, Democrats and Republicans. But the consequences of globalization for the United States have meant a hollowed out economy, where we produce very little of actual value, and where a huge amount of our growth comes from the accumulation of imaginary money.

Folks can debate this notion of "imaginary money" (isn't all money imaginary, really, since we place our faith in pieces of security-encoded paper, with pictures of our presidents on them, and are comforted in the notion of the "full faith and credit" of the United States government?). It's this meme of the "hollowed out economy" I want to debunk right here. The claim that the U.S. doesn't produce things is a Big Lie of the protectionist left. In thinking about this, I recall a piece some time back in the Wall Street Journal, "Still Built on the Homefront," which includes some correctives statistics:

Rumors of the death of U.S. manufacturing have been greatly exaggerated. Even as high-profile manufacturers like American auto makers stumble, a remarkable amount of stuff is still made in the U.S., from construction equipment in North Dakota to high-end ranges in Mississippi, artificial knees in Indiana and pipe organs in Ohio.

While manufacturing represents a relatively small part of the U.S. economy - about 17 percent of GDP compared with China's 41 percent - and the number of plants has dwindled, the U.S. is still by far the world's largest manufacturer by raw value of the goods produced, $1.79 trillion worth last year, nearly twice its nearest rival, Japan. China produces more of the things most consumers think of as coming out of factories - cellphones, toys, and coffee makers - but the U.S. continues making goods that tend to be more complex, difficult to transport, and time-sensitive.

This is obviously not to say the U.S. is problem free, or that there's absolutely no room for regulation in an industrial society. I'm just more fascinated at leftist ecstasy at the notion that they've finaly got their "crisis of capitalism." For more on this, see Cathy Young's piece at the Weekly Standard, "Reveling in the Financial Crisis: Naomi Klein, Rising Star of the Kooky Left."

That's classic, the "kooky left."

Let's just say Freddie at Ordinary Gentlemen is a card-carrying member.

Obama's Commitment to Afghanistan

I watched this morning's White House press conference on Afghanistan. President Obama declared that success in Afghanistan represents "an international security challenge of the highest order." The full text of the address is here.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

This is the most encouraging speech I've heard from this president. The U.S. will reinforce the deployment with increased troop contingents and the administration will redouble civilian nation-building efforts and regional diplomacy. But the most important point here is the tone: Obama sounds tough. He speaks of the virtues of hard military power, for example, when he says, "There is an uncompromising core of the Taliban. They must be met with force, and they must be defeated." Although the tough talk was leavened with the language of reconciliation and multilateralism, the president's sense of commitment and urgency is a little surprising for one who was the most antiwar candidate among top-tier Democrats in last year's presidential campaign.

It's thus no surprise that there's already pushback from the antiwar left. Arch-appeaser Matthew Yglesias exclaims, " I’ve been worried for months now that Obama’s plan might get the administration caught up in the vicious logic of escalation ..." Also responding is Andrew Sullivan, who returns to form:

I haven't had time to absorb the president's decision to double-down on Afghanistan this morning. I am, however, skeptical for two reasons. The first is that pacifying that entire region - the region that defeated the British and the Soviets - is a gargantuan task whose costs do not seem to me outweighed by the obvious security benefits. As long as we can prevent terrorist bases forming that could target the US mainland, I do not see a reason for this kind of human and institutional enmeshment. My fear is that it multiplies our enemies, drags us further into the Pakistan nightmare, and will never Westernize a place like Afghanistan without decades-long imperial engagement. Secondly, I do not believe that Iraq is as stable as some optimists do, and fear that we will not be able to get out as cleanly as the president currently envisages. To be trapped more deeply in both places in a year's time seems Bush-like folly to me.

Sullivan has even stronger words in response to David Brooks' neocon encomium to the renewed project in Afghanistan.

Greyhawk has a roundup of the media's coverage of Obama's Afghanistan plan, accompanied by the appropriate skepticism:

I always wondered how Iraq would have progressed with balanced media coverage and fewer outright declarations of failure from the halls of congress. The next few months in Afghanistan could provide the closest thing to an answer we're ever going to get.

Yuanization of the American Economy?

There's a big outcry on the left in response to Representative Michele Bachmann's congressional resolution that would prohibit the replacement of the dollar by a foreign currency as the unit of exchange in the United States. Greg Sargent and Matthew Yglesias, respectively, have riduculed Ms. Bachmann as a "colorful" personality and have attacked her resolution as more "madness." The Hotsheet has jumped on the bandwagon, indicating that Ms. Bachmann's demand for the truth from the Obama administration reflects confusion "about calls by China for a so-called 'international reserve currency'." In other words, leftists are attacking Representative Bachmann's alleged policy buffoonery.

I tried unsuccessfully to contact Ms. Bachmann's Washington office, although I did reach a staff member from the Minnesota district offices. I was told my inquiries would be forwarded to the national office. However, Greg Sargent spoke with Debbee Keller, Bachmann's spokesperson, and she said that the resolution only applied to the introduction of a foreign currency unit inside the United States. The proposal has no implications for limiting the introduction of a new international reserve currency to replace the dollar as the premiere unit of global finance.

There's something of a rush to judgment on the left, however. It's well-established in developmental economics for "full dollarization" to be established in domestic economies suffering from economic crises and the lack of international confidence in local currencies. With dollarization, the dollar replaces local currencies as both the unit of tender in routine exchange transactions, as well as the official currency in world balance of payments accounting. So when Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner suggested that he'd be "quite open" to abandoning the U.S. dollar as the international system's reserve currency, the logical implication is that another national currency would take its place, with all the attendant privileges. Although the American economy remains the world's largest, the crises of the U.S. financial system have placed tremendous pressure on the confidence of the dollar in global trade and finance. Some are predicting that it's only a matter of time before China's economy replaces the U.S. as the world's leading market, and thus, "It’s clear to see that the Chinese yuan will be the world’s reserve currency in the future."

Considering the great uncertainties facing the U.S. economy, as well as the propensity for Secretary Geithner to create economic controversy with his economic free-thinking, there is nothing inherently unreasonable for Representative Bachmann to demand direct answers from the Obama administration; that is, it is entirely appropriate to demand that top U.S. officials clarify the appropriate legal foundations for the transition away from the dominance of the dollar in both domestic and world financial transactions.

It is not unusual for advanced industrial economies to replace their domestic currencies. France and Germany, long thought as classic examples on nations jealously protective of state sovereignty, are now the leading cases of world-class economies that have abandoned their national currencies (wth the Euro). More recently, Canada has been open to the dollarization of its economy. Should the Chinese economy come to dominate international trade and finance in the decades ahead - as so many now predict - there is nothing inherently illogical about considering, and protecting against, the possible "yuanization" of the American domestic market.

Perhaps Matthew Yglesias and some of his allies on the left might have reasoned through the full implications of this before dismissing Representative Bachmann's proposal as a "dog whistle to the “end times” folks."

Adam Lambert Sings "Tracks of My Tears"

Last year, when I posted on Smokey Robinson's "Tracks of My Tears, " I suggested that it was that "one damn song that can make me break down and cry." On that note, here's Adam Lambert's knockout performance from last night's American Idol:

Be sure to watch the judges' accolades, and Simon's surprise.

Hat Tip: Ann Althouse.

Why Can't Cantor See Britney?

Okay, here's the Huffington Post's headline on Representative Eric Cantor's Britney Spears faux scandal: "Cantor Watched Britney Spears Concert During Obama Presser, Landrieu Denies Rumors."

I don't get it. Everyone saying how the GOP's got to get hip with the younger crowd, and as soon as one of the party's rising stars goes out for an evening of entertainment, it's Britney-gate.

This is no big deal. As Sister Toldjah notes:

The latest “scandal” brewing at far left blogs involves a story that first broke at the liberal Wonkette blog about how House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) allegedly “blew off” Obama’s presser Tuesday night for a Britney Spears concert. Think Progress sums up the thoughts of the far left on this “issue” (via JWF) ....

Are these people really that stupid that they don’t understand the difference between the President of the United States trying to sell his econ plan on a late night talk show versus the House Minority Whip attending a concert, allegedly with a few Congressional Democrats (or was it at the request of a fundraiser?), during (the latter part of - see update below) the Obama presser? Apparently so.

Are these fruitcakes also not aware that it’s possible that Cantor recorded or TiVo’d the presser? At last check, only one bright bulb thought to speculate on that possibility, seeing that Cantor talked at length Wednesday morning on NBC about what Obama said at the press conference.

Republicans need to go to more concerts. Screw political correctness. They need to get out and have some fun. Good for Cantor, but you've got to ask yourself, why is Mary Landrieu denying this? I don't think the issue is the missed press conference. It's that officials don't want to be seen as morally depraved. Wow, and we thought social conservatism was dead?

More at Memeorandum.

Sarah Palin: Pray With Me

From Ben Smith and Memeorandum, check out this video of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's speech to a Republican dinner in Alaska:

I like this part from the transcript:

"So I'm looking around for somebody to pray with, I just need maybe a little help, maybe a little extra," she said. "And the McCain campaign, love 'em, you know, they're a lot of people around me, but nobody I could find that I wanted to hold hands with and pray." As the crowd laughed, Palin grinned and said she meant no disrespect to the McCain campaign. She said she ultimately prayed with her daughter Piper.

I'm like that. Sometimes I just want to say a little prayer for strength. I don't do it often, but I've done it like that throughout my life, and I've never thought of my self as "hyper-religious." Sometimes you just need a little extra strength.

God bless Sarah Palin.

"Mortimer came to the meetups to score, man!"

Remember what I said about Althouse's comments section? I rest my case (snark...): " 'Love in the Time of Commenters'":

This is why Mortimer Brezny stopped blogging. He came on this damn blog to woo Ann into marrying him and all it got him was mockery from Trooper York and into flame wars with Simon Dodd. (For which I apologize, Simon.) Then some other commenter steals Mr. Brezny's idea and succeeds. I mean, all the defending I did of Ann was totally just a vain and pitiable attempt to get in the knickerbockers! Who cares about what Ron Bailey thinks! And it's Meade! Oh man, I could have put in so much less blogging effort! Gaaah! I mean, I threw Jessica Valenti through a plate glass window for Ann! And I broke her leg with a pipe! I mean, talk about full frontal feminism!

But at least this bloggingheads diavlog clears some things up. Ann is not dominant in her personal relationships. I guess that kills it, Simon. It kills it for me. I mean, I had fantasies, man. Mortimer had dirty, filthy fantasies. Mortimer came to the meetups to score, man! It hurts! The wooing I did here! The hardcore woo action that I put out here! I was devoting it up in here. I am fulminating with rage! Rage and fulmination and fire and brimstone! I mean, if I can't have Ann, no one else should! That is the cosmic rule, doesn't everyone KNOW that?

Why Be Conservative?

Check out Christopher Brownwell's excellent essay at American Thinker, "Why be a conservative?"

As a conservative I will not change my conservative principles to mirror popular or progressive policies. These conservative principles stand in antithesis to principles held by modern liberals.

The reference to "modern liberalism" is classical liberalism, for example, here.

See also, John Ray, "Defining conservatism," a brief review of Mark Levin's new book, Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto.

Barney Frank's Distraction

Think Progress is really bad. After attacking John McCain last year with allegations of plagiarism, the editors issued an apology that included this preface: "As a blog that strives to maintain credibility and transparency ..." Yeah. Right. That's just before the tortuous mea culpa.

Now Think Progress has attacked Fox News as enabling Justice Antonin Scalia's alleged bigotry, "Fox News Attacks Barney Frank for Accurately Characterizing Scalia’s Views as Homophobic."

The background to the controversy is here (Frank attacked Scalia as a "homophobe"). Dr. Sanity suggests that Frank's attack is a perfect example of "how postmodern rhetoric works so brilliantly - to distract from real issues and a rational discussion of them." But the best response is Ann Althouse's. She goes right to the source of Frank's allegations, Justice Scalia's dissenting opinion in Texas v. Johnson (2003):

Let me be clear that I have nothing against homosexuals, or any other group, promoting their agenda through normal democratic means. Social perceptions of sexual and other morality change over time, and every group has the right to persuade its fellow citizens that its view of such matters is the best. That homosexuals have achieved some success in that enterprise is attested to by the fact that Texas is one of the few remaining States that criminalize private, consensual homosexual acts. But persuading one’s fellow citizens is one thing, and imposing one’s views in absence of democratic majority will is something else. I would no more require a State to criminalize homosexual acts–or, for that matter, display any moral disapprobation of them–than I would forbid it to do so. What Texas has chosen to do is well within the range of traditional democratic action, and its hand should not be stayed through the invention of a brand-new “constitutional right” by a Court that is impatient of democratic change. It is indeed true that “later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress,”... and when that happens, later generations can repeal those laws. But it is the premise of our system that those judgments are to be made by the people, and not imposed by a governing caste that knows best.

Althouse summarizes, saying "There is nothing — absolutely nothing — to support the proposition that Scalia thinks it's a good idea to lock up gay people."

Maybe Think Progress will issue an apology to Justice Scalia.

Hat Tip: Glenn Reynolds, who notes, "don’t be distracted into forgetting about Barney Frank’s financial issues, which is what he’d like you to do."

Image Credit: The People's Cube.