As soon as this broke, I e-mailed Sen. Feingold, as he's going on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

I begged him that if this continued, to please not be meek and subservient (like Rockefeller) but, in the spirit of voting against the Patriot Act, to publicly spill the beans on this ASAP.

His oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution trumps any and all Senate Intelligence Committee oaths.

Posted at December 19, 2005 7:56 PM in response to NSA Wiretaps

I'm not saying that Democrats are the primary or even the coeval corruption-meisters of the last few years.

But, as people like Reid and Dorgan in the Senate, in addition to a number of Republicans, taking money from Abramoff shows, there's enough bipartisanship here to indicated that maybe, just maybe, Democrats are afraid of damaging some of their own interests.

Either that, or they're just afraid, perio.d

Posted at December 9, 2005 2:15 PM in response to The Ethics Truce Lives On

I see two problems with the later part of Ivo's post.

First, saying "wait until elections" can come off as sounding similar to Bush's "wait until Deadline X" comments that continue to roll down like Old Man River.

Second, as the recent underground torture chamber makes clear, it's a good possibility that next month's elections will be a huge repudiation of any alleged movement toward democracy.

That, in turn, accepts last month's referendum, and the rejection of any claims of vote tampering, at face value.

Posted at November 17, 2005 12:08 PM in response to Murtha's Bombshell

I would like to see unfettered free traders ask if they would like this distinction applied to themselves.

We are appying it, here and in places like Shanghai or Mumbai, to people at the lower end of the economic spectrum. We're asking them, or telling them, that short-term flat wages will have a payoff in the "long term."

First, how short is the short term? How long is the long-term, and how long until we start to get there?

Second, free traders should never forget we are talking about people, not abstract numbers on balance sheets.

People have needs. They also have wants. People don't have guarantees about the "long term." Even if they had something close to a guarantee, they still have wants -- ane emotions -- today.

Posted at November 9, 2005 8:50 AM in response to Do Free Traders Think the American Public is Stupid?

Agreed. His new Deep Throat book, where he talks about his first meeting with Felt, confirms that. He never talks about being that uncomfortable with Felt's blag bag operations, or the whole background of the late 60s-early 70s beyond Watergate itself.

Posted at October 30, 2005 11:19 PM in response to Bob Woodward, Lost in Cronyism?

I just read a story in Seed magazine that notes a significant percentage of people with H. pylori in their stomachs never get ulcers.

We still know so little about microbiology.

Posted at October 27, 2005 12:02 PM in response to A Pox On Both Houses?

Seed magazine has an in-depth story about the rise of Chinese science and what, if any, geopolitical effects it may have.

Seed is a more cutting edge version of, say, Discover. Sorry, no URL to the actual story. Mara Hvistendahl has all the important caveats about how the Chinese government will influence scientific development, etc.

But, he brings out some important points.

One, stem cells. Our government is, of course, influencing our research at this time.

It is, in science in general, with post 9/11 visa policies.

I'm not saying "Ooh, look out for big, bad China" myself. But, I wouldn't dismiss it, either.

Beyond trade with Canada, increasing unification within the EU, even if glacially incremental, will be a bigger concern than China trade, IMO.

Posted at October 27, 2005 11:56 AM in response to The Asia Hype

Posted at October 26, 2005 11:20 PM in response to What It's Like

But the pardon power clears the way for the Wilson/Plame lawsuit power. Start the popcorn.

Posted at October 20, 2005 9:11 PM in response to Bush's Ace in the Hole-- The Pardon Power

Scott Burns is one.

Burns is a nationally-syndicated financial columnist whose home base is The Dallas Morning News.

A week ago Sunday, he wrapped up a five-part column on generations of the Burns family from his grandparents through his grandchildren. The series included financial demographics and sidebars for each generation depicted that week.

In the last one, about his granddaughter, he tried to play up a continuing "entitlement crisis."

I e-mailed him back about that:

You say, "Since Bobby was born in 1940, our government has promised to pay out benefits that exceed the $48.8 trillion net worth of all American households."

I infer that you imply that all this debt is going to come due at one drop-dead date.

First of all, some of that debt's already been paid. People who became eligible for Social Security in 1941, a year after your magic date, have long since left the scene. Ditto for the magic year of 1966; many people who were in the front of Medicare eligibility have died many moons ago, as well.

You say that we exceed all consumer net worth by $23.2 trillion. But you nowhere state how much of this debt is still outstanding and how much is already off the books.

Finally, as noted above, you leave the implication this is all coming due at some date "X." Well, of course it's not. And federal entitlements have always been a "pay as you go." Therefore, without the margin of difference, perhaps, I probably could have written a graf like yours a couple of decades ago.

Arguably, federal entitlements need a look-see. Arguably as well, they need a more minor tweak than anything you've proposed in the past.

By not contexting your $72 trillion in total post-1940 federal debt, nor the $23.2 trillion after consumer assets, I think you're skewing the story and painting with a doomsday brush.

Posted at October 19, 2005 10:08 PM in response to Crisis Averted