Minor Thoughts from me to you

This is good news:

The price of crude oil has hit an 8 month low, dipping to just under $90 a barrel. The decrease in price is being attributed to the global financial slowdown, which analysts believe will lead to a reduction in the consumption of gas. The decline in price should come as some relief to the average American and the numerous industries that are struggling to cope with the ripple effects of high energy costs.

Iranian leadership, however, view the decline in the price of oil with great concern. Speaking at the Second International Gas Conference in Tehran, a gathering that includes leading oil and gas producers, Iranian Oil Minister Gholam Hossein Nozari called on OPEC members to stabilize prices at over $100 a barrel. "A price of US$100 and below is not suitable for anybody, neither oil producers nor oil consumers... OPEC members need to respect their output quota to avoid a worsening of the oversupply."

At this point, Iran stands alone in its concern over the current price level for oil. But what is there motive? Is it simple greed - the higher the price of oil, the greater the revenues? To an extent, greed does play a role. However, there seems to be real fiscal concerns at hand for the Islamic Republic. Mohsin Khan, Director of Middle East and Central Asia at the International Monetary Fund, argues,

Iran's break-even price is $90 a barrel, and that is a big issue in Iran right now. ... If prices dip below $90 a barrel, and we have seen it touch $89 earlier this week, then they would have to tighten their public expenditure policy, and probably cut subsidies, which would be an issue for the government there – the public would not be content.

From ThreatsWatch.Org: RapidRecon: Iran's Fear of Low Oil Prices.

Another reader of The Corner sent an interesting email.

... This is not 1932. Despite having Sarbanes Oxley, the SEC, the FDIC, CRA, TVA, Social Security, Progressive Taxation, Medicare, Medicaid, a high Corporate Tax, the EEOC, tens of thousands of pages of federal regulations, and a $3 trillion plus federal budget, we find ourselves in a severe banking/credit crisis. For almost 3 weeks Paulson and Bernecke have pulled every financial rabbit out of their hats but they still cannot stop the panic on Wall St or the liquidity crisis. Despite having a federal regulatory apparatus that would have been unimaginable in 1929, this nation experienced 2 rather huge market bubbles (Tech stocks 1995-2000, and Real Estate 2003-2007), and all of the greed those kind of bubbles produce.

... The Fed cannot keep pouring cash into the markets; nor can it continue to spend taxpayers money like a teen with his/hers father’s Visa Card on a shopping mall bender. The federal deficit is already at a level no one can begin to imagine. The market has already punished some of the worst offenders, with probably a few more banks waiting in the wings. Who will be left to regulate? Will higher taxes, stiffer government regulations and intrusions work? Will resurrecting Glass/Stengall restore market and credit confidence? This is not 1932. The government is now the prime source of insurance and mortgages. Could it be that both the financial sectors and public sectors got too large to manage? Could it be that the new robber barons are not sitting in boardrooms, but on Capital Hill and in K-Street offices? Perhaps the panic’s root cause is that no investors can trust a financial system that is filled with so many conflicts of interests?

I think it is now dawning on some that there will be no government "solution" to this mess. The continued panic and credit crunch illustrates this. FDR came in to a federal government with a budget just a tad larger than PBS's budget today. Seventy six years and trillions of dollars later, we have come to the end of the FDR model.

That sounds about right. It would be hard for government to spend more than it already does (or is planning to). Somehow I don't think that even more spending will rescue us.

The Corner on National Review Online.

Alan Kazdin recently discussed corporal punishment. He's against it.

Twenty-eight states and the District of Columbia have banned corporal punishment in the schools. But so far, we have shown ourselves unwilling to extend that debate beyond the schools and into the ideologically sacred circle of the family. Where the argument against corporal punishment in the schools has prevailed, in fact, it has often cited parents' individual right to punish their own children as they, and not educators acting for the state, see fit. The situation is different in other countries. You may not be surprised to hear that 91 countries have banned corporal punishment in the schools, but you may be surprised to hear that 23 countries have banned corporal punishment everywhere within their borders, including in the home.

... Practically nobody in America knows or cares that the United Nations has set a target date of 2009 for a universal prohibition of violence against children that would include a ban on corporal punishment in the home. Americans no doubt have many reasons—some of them quite good—to ignore or laugh off instructions from the United Nations on how to raise their kids. And it's naive to think that comprehensive bans are comprehensively effective. Kids still get hit in every country on earth. But especially because such bans are usually promoted with large public campaigns of education and opinion-shaping (similar to successful efforts in this country to change attitudes toward littering and smoking), they do have measurable good effects. So far, the results suggest that after the ban is passed, parents hit less and are less favorably inclined toward physical discipline, and the country is not overwhelmed by a wave of brattiness and delinquency.

... We have so far limited our national debate on corporal punishment by focusing it on the schools and conducting it at the local and state level. We have shied away from even theoretically questioning the primacy of rights that parents exercise in the home, where most of the hitting takes place. Whatever one's position on corporal punishment, we ought to be able to at least discuss it with each other like grownups.

I find this very interesting. He thinks we should ban completely ban spanking. He thinks we should punish parents who spank their children. Maybe he thinks that we should take the children away if the parents continually defy the law.

I'm sure many prominent lefties would support his argument. And, yet, how many of those same people would support an effort to criminalize abortion and punish parents who seek abortions? Isn't this a double standard? How can you be willing to outlaw spanking -- to punish parents who hit their children -- but not be willing to outlaw abortions -- punish parents who kill their children?

How is that a just standard?

Many people can agree that abortion is a bad thing. Many people can agree that we should have fewer abortions in the world. But how can we reduce the number of abortions?

There are two main methods: social and legal.

How can we work socially to reduce abortions? I asked: why do women have abortions? The Guttmacher Institute offers some clues:

• Fifty percent of U.S. women obtaining abortions are younger than 25: Women aged 20-24 obtain 33% of all abortions, and teenagers obtain 17%.

• Women who have never married obtain two-thirds of all abortions.

• The reasons women give for having an abortion underscore their understanding of the responsibilities of parenthood and family life. Three-fourths of women cite concern for or responsibility to other individuals; three-fourths say they cannot afford a child; three-fourths say that having a baby would interfere with work, school or the ability to care for dependents; and half say they do not want to be a single parent or are having problems with their husband or partner.

It's clear, then, that many women choose to have an abortion because they either feel unable to afford children or feel unable to give the children a good life. That offers us two main routes for improvement.

First, we need to do a better job of helping young, single women afford children. Children have a lot of start-up costs: a crib, crib sheets and pads, diapers, wet wipes, bottles, formula, warm winter clothing, cool summer clothing, etc. There are doctor visits, delivery costs, pre-natal vitamins, post-natal vitamins, vaccinations, and so on.

All of this can be tremendously overwhelming and scary for a young, single woman with no social support network. Planned Parenthood and the majority of the Democrat Party send the signal that there's nothing wrong with abortion. Is it any wonder then that many of these women choose abortion?

We need to make pregnancy and child-rearing less scary and less expensive. We middle-class Christians need to do a better job of helping poor women afford pregnancy and child-rearing. We need to do a better job of being their emotional support network: comforting them, accepting them, and supporting them. We need to provide enough structure that they don't feel like abortion is the only way out of an unexpected pregnancy. If we can't be bothered to help then I think we bear part of the blame for the abortions.

Secondly, we need to change the way our culture views life. It seems clear from the Guttmacher Institute's data that many women are afraid that they won't be able to give their child a good life. I understand their concern but I strongly disagree with it. A life is far better than no life at all. Don't believe me? Start asking everyone you meet if they wish that their parents had chosen to abort them. I doubt you'll find many takers.

We need to recreate a respect for life in our culture. Every single life is precious. Whether a Down's Syndrome baby, a baby born to a poor single mother, or a baby born to wealthy parents -- every single life is precious. Every single life is worthy of respect, honor, and love. Every life lost is a tragedy and every person that would take a life is a villain. If we inculcate those attitudes, I suspect that the abortion rate would drop precipitously.

That's the social angle. What about the legal angle? We could pass laws making all abortions illegal for any reason whatsoever. But that wouldn't end abortions. Women have given themselves abortions throughout all of human history. Women were buying illegal abortions for centuries before Roe v. Wade was decided.

Does that mean that we should give up on making abortion illegal? Is it true that we can't legislate morality and that it's misguided to work for political and legal change? Should we instead work for the social changes mentioned above?

No. It's not misguided and it's not useless to work for legal change. It's very silly to say that we should give up on outlawing abortion because outlawing abortions won't end all abortions. People are raped, murdered, and robbed every day of the year even though these crimes have been outlawed since the days of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and Jamestown. We call certain actions crimes not because doing so will eliminate them but because doing so allows us to punish those who engage in such evil behavior. When we criminalize behavior we want to demonstrate the high value that we place on the victim's rights.

Should we put abortionists in jail? Yes! Absolutely! If a doctor murders granny, at the request of her daughter should we put the doctor in jail? Yes! Will doing so bring granny back? No, but it demonstrates just how heinous the crime was. It also prevents that doctor from murdering any other "patients".

I also believe that we should punish women who seek out abortions just as we would punish a woman who hires a hitman to murder her husband. The Guttmacher Institute's data indicates that many women seek abortions for reasons of convenience: "three-fourths say that having a baby would interfere with work, school or the ability to care for dependents". Killing someone to stay in school or killing someone to keep a full time job is evil. So is seeking an abortion to stay in school or seeking an abortion to keep a full time job.

We should work very hard -- we should give very generously -- to provide alternatives to abortions. But we should also recognize that some women can afford children but don't want to go through the inconvenience of a pregnancy. We should recognize that evil for what it is and punish it accordingly. If Christians aren't willing to recognize and confront evil for what it is who will? And what good are we?

Obviously we can't change everything overnight. I'm perfectly willing to work for incremental improvements in the laws. We've already outlawed partial-birth abortions and protected infants born alive. Those are very good first steps. We should work to protect doctors, nurses, and pharmacists who don't want to perform abortions. No medical professional should ever be forced to take a life. After that, we can start working to put limits on third trimester abortions. If a baby can be delivered and live -- and most third trimesters babies could -- then it should be illegal to abort that baby. After we've achieved that goal, we can decide what comes next.

Arguing against murder, rape, or robbery laws is silly. Arguing against abortion laws is just as silly. To say otherwise is to say that you don't value the life of an infant as highly as the life of an adult, rapee, or personal property.

Yesterday and today, joe chapman and I discussed Obama's votes on the Infant Born Alive Act. joe is distressed at my strong reaction to Obama's vote and has been urging me not to be a single issue voter over abortion.

I was planning to write a rebuttal to that charge. Then James and Adam stepped in and pretty much defended the position for me. I agree with James 100%, so I'll just quote his comment instead of trying to write something original that ends up looking mostly the same.

But there are numerous single issues that disqualify a person from public office. For example, any candidate who endorsed bribery as a form of government efficiency would be disqualified, no matter what his party or platform was. Or a person who endorsed corporate fraud would be disqualified no matter what else he endorsed. Or a person who said that no black people could hold office--on that single issue alone he would be unfit for office. Or a person who said that rape is only a misdemeanor -- that single issue should end his political career. These examples could go on and on. Everybody knows a single issue that for them would disqualify a candidate for office.

Adam also nails my feelings:

... it's not that I don't care who I vote for so long as he's pro-something. It's that people who are willing to do certain things should not be allowed into public office.

It is scientifically indisputable that a third-trimester fetus is a unique individual. He has a beating heart, a unique brain wave, moves and reacts to stimuli on his own, can hear, and has his own separate blood type and circulatory system. In every way that matters, a fetus is a baby capable of living outside the mother and surviving to adulthood. Obviously these premature babies need a lot of help and care to survive, but that's true of any other baby.

Given these facts, I believe that abortion -- especially in the third trimester -- is morally indistinguishable from infanticide and murder. I am quite aware that abortion is legally distinguishable from murder, but my political views are not based on the flawed decisions of legislators and judges but on the teachings of the Bible.

Given that abortion is morally indistinguishable from murder, I refuse to support any politician who condones and defends abortion. This does not make me a "single issue" voter. As discussed above, there are many issues that would disqualify a politician in my eyes. But this may be the issue that I feel most strongly about.

I will not support politicians who believe that women should have the right to murder their own children as long as the mother has wrestled with the issue sufficiently.

In case it hasn't been obvious from some of my recent posts, I don't like Senator Obama. Why? Well, aside from eloquent, soaring rhetoric, I haven't seen much about him to like. (The same is true of Senator McCain, but that's a separate series.)

While I haven't seen much to like, I have seen several things worth disliking. First up: he's really just another Chicago politician.

Democrats don't like it when you say that Barack Obama won his first election in 1996 by throwing all of his opponents off the ballot on technicalities.

By clearing out the incumbent and the others in his first Democratic primary for state Senate, Mr. Obama did something that was neither illegal nor even uncommon. But Mr. Obama claims to represent something different from old-style politics -- especially old-style Chicago politics.

According to the Chicago Tribune, Mr. Obama's petition challengers reported to him nightly on their progress as they disqualified his opponents' signatures on various technical grounds -- all legitimate from the perspective of law. One local newspaper, Chicago Weekend, reported that "[s]ome of the problems include printing registered voters name [sic] instead of writing, a female voter got married after she registered to vote and signed her maiden name, registered voters signed the petitions but don't live in the 13th district."

...

It is telling that, when asked at the Saddleback Forum last weekend to name an instance in which he had worked against his own party or his own political interests, he didn't have a good answer. He claimed to have worked with his current opponent, John McCain, on ethics reform. In fact, no such thing happened. The two men had agreed to work together, for all of one day, in February 2006, and then promptly had a well-documented falling-out. They even exchanged angry letters over this incident.

The most dramatic examples of Mr. Obama's commitment to old-style politics are his repeated endorsements of Chicago's machine politicians, which came in opposition to what people of all ideological stripes viewed as the common good.

In the 2006 election, reformers from both parties attempted to end the corruption in Chicago's Cook County government. They probably would have succeeded, too, had Mr. Obama taken their side. Liberals and conservatives came together and nearly ousted Cook County Board President John Stroger, the machine boss whom court papers credibly accuse of illegally using the county payroll to maintain his own standing army of political cronies, contributors and campaigners.

... When liberals and conservatives worked together to clean up Cook County's government, they were displaying precisely the postpartisan interest in the common good that Mr. Obama extols today. And Mr. Obama, by working against them, helped keep Chicago politics dirty. He refused to endorse the progressive reformer, Forrest Claypool, who came within seven points of defeating Stroger in the primary.

After the primary, when Stroger's son Todd replaced him on the ballot under controversial circumstances, a good-government Republican named Tony Peraica attracted the same kind of bipartisan support from reformers in the November election. But Mr. Obama endorsed the young heir to the machine, calling him -- to the absolute horror of Chicago liberals -- a "good, progressive Democrat."

Peter Kirsanow makes a really good point about Senator Abortion and the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act.

Even if one accepts any one of Obama's (four and counting) explanations for his vote against the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act, his position remains problematic, if not untenable. Consider:

• Obama sits through testimony that babies born alive after an unsuccessful abortion are left to die alone in a utility closet. The babies are provided neither comfort, care, nor sustenance during their brief lives. When this practice was brought to public attention horrified citizens petitioned their legislators to address the matter. Proposed legislation is drafted.

• Obama examines the draft of the Born-Alive Act and declares it deficient. Obama maintains that he would vote for the legislation if it did not curtail or derogate extant abortion rights.

• Remedying the alleged defect in the draft legislation is not a difficult task. It requires merely the insertion of a "neutrality clause" that says, in effect, "this legislation won't affect existing abortion rights."

• Obama, lecturer in constitutional law at the prestigious University of Chicago Law School, former Editor in Chief of the Harvard Law Review and undoubtedly the one most qualified in the entire Illinois state legislature to address the issue lifts not one finger to remedy the alleged defect in the draft.

• Instead, when the draft is amended to include the neutrality language, Obama votes against it.

Obama is the agent of change and compassion. He can heal the planet and lower the oceans. By stating that he would've voted for the bill had it contained the neutrality clause, he conveys that he supports the principles of the Born-Alive Act. Yet he takes no action whatsoever to make it happen.

Therefore, even if we accept any one of Obama's explanations regarding his vote against Born-Alive, we're holding him to an incredibly low standard for someone who intends to lead the nation. If he supports the principle of Born-Alive, the question isn't why he voted against it -- the question should be, "Sen. Obama, given your education, skills and background why didn't you take the relatively simple step of amending the draft so that the bill would work?" Isn't that what we expect from a leader?

Obama voted "present" more than 100 times in the Illinois state legislature. Why did he rouse himself to vote "No" on this one?

Obama has found time to ponder the habeas rights of foreign terrorists but no time to ponder the rights of babies born alive? Is it that far above his pay grade?

As far as I'm concerned, this issue trumps all others when it comes to Senator Obama. I cannot find any charitable interpretation of his actions and nothing his campaign has said has changed my mind.

Barack Obama didn't do so well at Pastor Rick Warren's forum Saturday night. How did the Obama campaign react? By whining and claiming that somebody else cheated:

I've been looking into all this buzz that McCain somehow cheated -- that he wasn't in a "cone of silence" -- during Barack Obama's half of the Saddleback summit Saturday night. The talk got started on "Meet the Press" yesterday, when Andrea Mitchell said, "The Obama people must feel that he didn't do quite as well as they might have wanted to in that context, because that -- what they're putting out privately is that McCain may not have been in the cone of silence and may have had some ability to overhear what the questions were to Obama. He seemed so well prepared."

Ah, yes. Because -- of course -- the only way to be "well prepared" for an event is to cheat. It can't be that one candidate has more life experience than the other. It can't be that one candidate is a good enough politician to know what kinds of questions to expect and to prepare accordingly. No. The other candidate must have cheated.

Even if it were true, whining isn't the right response. When you're auditioning for the job of "leader of the free world", you should expect everyone else to cheat. You should expect that other world leaders will often attempt to mislead you. You should expect others to gain the upper hand through devious means. Whining just means that you can't operate under normal conditions.

Except that McCain didn't even cheat.

As far as the McCain side is concerned, I spoke to Charlie Black a few minutes ago. He told me McCain's motorcade left his hotel at 5 p.m. Saturday -- that's the time Obama went on stage at Saddleback. Black told me the trip took 35 minutes, and that McCain was in the car with the Secret Service guys, Sen. Lindsey Graham, and press aide Brooke Buchanan. (Black was in another car.) Black says that McCain did not hear any of Warren's questions or Obama's answers during the car ride. Then: "We arrived at Saddleback and went into a holding room, which is a separate building from the main church. In the room there were four or five staff people, plus McCain, and there was no TV, no audio, no nothing. We talked through a few of the topics. We had spent time in the afternoon preparing, doing Q&A, and we did a few more questions to warm him up. At about ten til six, the advance guys came to get McCain to take him to the stage, because the handshake with Obama was a few minutes before 6 p.m. McCain never heard any of this stuff."

Tell me again why Senator Obama is ready to lead? Right now, he seems to fit in well with kindergarteners. Give me a call when he's moved up a few grade levels.

This is why I cannot -- will not -- vote for Senator Barack Obama in November.

The tiny newborn baby made very little noise as he struggled to breathe. He lacked the strength to cry. He had been born four months premature.

"At that age," says nurse Jill Stanek, "their lungs haven’t matured."

Stanek is the nurse who found herself cradling this baby in her hands for all of his 45-minute lifetime. He was close to ten inches long and weighed perhaps half a pound. It's just a guess -- no one had weighed or measured him at birth. No happy family had been there to welcome him into the world. No one was trying to save his life now, putting him into an incubator, giving him oxygen or nourishment. He had just been left to die.

Stanek had seen it all happen. That family had wanted a baby, but when they learned that theirs would be born with Down syndrome, they wanted an abortion. For that, they went to Christ Hospital in the southwestern suburbs of Chicago, which is affiliated with the United Church of Christ.

In "induced labor" or "prostaglandin" abortion -- a common procedure at the hospital -- the doctor administers drugs that dilate the mother's cervix and induce contractions, forcing a small baby out of the mother's uterus. Most of the time, the baby dies in utero, killed by the force of the violent contractions. But it does not always work. Such abortions sometimes result in a premature baby being born alive. Sometimes the survivors live for just a few minutes, but sometimes for several hours. No one tried to save or treat them -- it is hard to save someone you just mauled trying to kill. But something had to be done with them for the minutes and hours during which they struggled for air.

Stanek says her friend had been told to take this baby and leave him in a soiled utility closet. She offered to take him instead. "I couldn't let him die alone," she says.

Stanek was horrified by this experience. This was not an abortion -- it was something worse. Could it be legal to take a living and breathing person of any size, already born and outside his mother’s womb, and just leave him to die, without any thought of treatment?

Hospital officials dismissed Stanek's concerns. She then approached the Republican attorney general of Illinois, Jim Ryan, who issued a finding several months later that Christ Hospital was doing nothing illegal under the laws of Illinois. Doctors had no ethical or legal obligation to treat these premature babies. They had passed the bright line of birth that had effectively limited the right to life since the Roe v. Wade decision, but under the law they were non-persons.

Stanek's effort to right this wrong would lead her to testify before various committees. It would lead her to a state senator, Patrick O'Malley, who would propose a bill to stop what was going on at the hospital.

Her attempt to change a corrupt medical practice and bring hope to defenseless infants would put her on a collision course with a state senator named Barack Obama.

On March 30, 2001, Obama was the only senator to speak in opposition to a bill that would have banned the practice of leaving premature abortion survivors to die.

Senator McCain and the other presidential candidates are wrong on a lot of issues. But right now I can't imagine any issue with more moral significance than this one. As far as I'm concerned, anyone who refuses to defend these weak, helpless infants is too morally bankrupt to be President.

Obama fans think that McCain's "The One" ad tries to link Obama to the anti-Christ. I think they've gone completely batty.

The ad has also generated criticism from Democrats and religious scholars who see a hidden message linking Sen. Obama to the apocalyptic Biblical figure of the antichrist.

The spot, called "The One," opens with the line: "It shall be known that in 2008 the world will be blessed." Images follow of Moses parting the Red Sea and Sen. Obama telling a crowd, "We are the change we've been waiting for."

Critiques of the ad started surfacing earlier this week when Eric Sapp, a Democratic operative, circulated the first of two memos pointing out images that he believed linked Sen. Obama to the antichrist.

"Short of 666, they used every single symbol of the antichrist in this ad," said Mr. Sapp, who advises Democrats on reaching out to faith communities. "There are way too many things to just be coincidence."

Stewart Hoover, director of the Center for Media, Religion and Culture at the University of Colorado at Boulder, said the references to the antichrist in the McCain ad were "not all that subtle" for anyone familiar with "apocalyptic popular culture." Some images in the ad very closely resemble the cover art and type font used in the latest "Left Behind" novel. The title of the ad, "The One," also echoes the series; the antichrist figure in the books, Nicolae Carpathia, sets up "the One World Religion."

Ooookay. It takes a "special" kind of mind to see these connections. (Update: You can read an extensive excerpt of one of the memos.)

But don't take my word for it. Watch it for yourself.

Many people like to point out how Americans work harder -- and longer -- than the rest of the world. Many leftists like to point out that America's work / life balance is out of whack and that we need to spend more time at home and less time at the office.

Maybe.

But we don't really work all that much more. We just work differently.

Recent studies show that Europeans work much harder than most people think, and some, such as the Germans, work every bit as hard as we Americans do. An analysis of why makes it tough to say that one culture is somehow wiser than the other.

The key to the research is a simple question: What's work? The statistics we usually see focus on jobs that people get paid for, and by that measure Americans do indeed toil much more than Europeans. But that measure overlooks all the cooking, cleaning, lawn mowing, and other home-based labor that most people do. We don't get paid for it, but it's just as real as other work. When we count it as well as paid employment, the whole picture changes.

A thorough study by Richard Freeman of Harvard and Ronald Schettkat of Utrecht University found that Germans and Americans labor almost exactly the same amount. (The researchers note, "While our data deal with Germany and the U.S., our findings reflect the difference between EU and American models of capitalism more broadly.") The difference is that we do more market-based work, and Germans do more home-based work.

Now, I'd much rather do work that I get paid for than work that I don't get paid for. I'll take my leisurely home life over the Europeans leisurely vacations any day. Not to mention: America's model produces more jobs for women and low-skilled workers.

An important result is that we create far more service jobs than Germany does, and that nation's much smaller service sector is the main reason Germans are less likely to be employed, with an unemployment rate consistently higher than ours for the past 20 years.

New research by Richard Rogerson of Arizona State University finds that "almost all of the difference [between Europe and the U.S.] in hours of [paid] work is accounted for by differences in the service sector." Some people denigrate burger flipping and the like as dead-end jobs, but for young people whose skills aren't yet highly developed, they're gateway jobs that are the best economic use of their time.

Now carry the analysis a step further. The difference between Germans and Americans in work profiles is much greater for women than men. American women are far more likely to hold paid jobs than German women, and those who do are far more likely to earn higher pay.

The conventional wisdom is actually hilariously wrong in this instance. Americans only appear to work harder because we get paid for a higher percentage of the work we do. Americans can have just as much "free" time as Europe only if we agree to actually work for free!

No thanks.

Who thought it would be a good idea to let a brutal, repressive regime host the Olympics? As the Olympics kick off, we should all take a close look at what passes for "security" in the Chinese world:

The Beijing government, for starters, has denied visas to businessmen, backpackers, and middle-aged tourists holding Olympics tickets.

Moreover, the central government has also ejected long-term foreign residents and canceled) long-planned events involving foreign participants. Chinese citizens have been removed from Beijing, and many of them have been prevented from traveling there. The capital is now guarded by three rings of checkpoints and over 400,000 troops, police, and volunteers. Children cannot fly model planes, real pilots cannot quit or change their jobs, and dissidents have been forced to take "holidays." Spectators at the Games are not permitted to stand up in their seats. The only thing Chinese leaders have not done is declare martial law; but, even if they did, it's not clear that things would be much different than they are at this tense moment. The Games are supposed to be a joyous celebratory event, but the unprecedented clampdown means they have become the "No-Fun Olympics."

... Yet Beijing, in its efforts to ensure absolute security, is considering almost everything a "threat." Paramilitary police, for instance, beat two Japanese journalists in Kashgar and broke their equipment on Monday. That was an indication that the Beijing Olympic organizing committee was not serious late last month when its spokesman expressed regret for police roughing up Hong Kong reporters. The journalists were covering the chaos surrounding the sale of the last batch of Olympics tickets in Beijing and got caught up in events. There will undoubtedly be other occasions in the next few days when members of the press come up against police and other agents of the state, and the reaction of security officials will be telling. So far, it looks as if officials will continue to overreact. And if they do, we will know that Chinese officialdom, despite the supposed liberalizing influence of the Olympics, has not changed much over the years.

The Wall Street Journal correctly skewers T. Boone Pickens today:

Boone Pickens may be a fine man, and has played a colorful and useful role on the American stage for decades. But his "energy plan," which he's spending a fortune to promote on cable TV, is not a plan.

Asserting that something would be good to do is not "a plan." Saying how to do it is "a plan." By this standard, what the legendary oil man is devoting $58 million to pitch hardly amounts to a decent slogan.

He would replace natural gas in electricity production with wind, and use the natural gas to power cars. He fails to mention any practical theory of how to get there -- that would really be "a plan." Instead, he relies on the deus ex machina of Congress, waving a legislative wand to make people do things they would choose not to do, given the extravagant and unjustified costs involved.

Having reasons is not "a plan" either, but Mr. Pickens has his reasons. He says we spend $700 billion a year on foreign oil, which he calls a "transfer of wealth." But exchanging money for oil at the market price is an exchange of things of equal value. If we didn't value their oil more than our dollars, we wouldn't participate in such a bargain.

He laments that the U.S. consumes "25% of the world's oil." The phraseology is common, and misleading. Oil is produced to meet demand. He might as well complain that, with 25% of the world's GDP, we consume 25% of the world's advertising.

That "transfer of wealth" comment has been bugging me since I first saw it. It's such a stupid comment to make. It makes me wonder if a man of his skills and wealth is really that stupid or if he just thinks we are?

Whichever it is, I'm glad to see someone calling him on it.

John McCain, starting to hit his stride:

Thousands of motorcyclists greeted Republican presidential candidate John McCain with an approving roar Monday as he sought blue-collar and heartland support by visiting a giant motorcycle rally.

"As you may know, not long ago a couple hundred thousand Berliners made a lot of noise for my opponent. I'll take the roar of 50,000 Harleys any day," McCain said.

Sure, it's pandering. But it's effective and it doesn't cost the taxpayer anything. I'll take it.

Michael Yon thinks that [The Surge worked -- and we won].

The war continues to abate in Iraq. Violence is still present, but, of course, Iraq was a relatively violent place long before Coalition forces moved in. I would go so far as to say that barring any major and unexpected developments (like an Israeli air strike on Iran and the retaliations that would follow), a fair-minded person could say with reasonable certainty that the war has ended. A new and better nation is growing legs. What's left is messy politics that likely will be punctuated by low-level violence and the occasional spectacular attack. Yet, the will of the Iraqi people has changed, and the Iraqi military has dramatically improved, so those spectacular attacks are diminishing along with the regular violence. Now it's time to rebuild the country, and create a pluralistic, stable and peaceful Iraq. That will be long, hard work. But by my estimation, the Iraq War is over. We won. Which means the Iraqi people won.

So, over the weekend the Green Party decided to nominate Cynthia McKinney for President. I don't think much of her (and her former constituents don't like her much either), but I won't dwell on that here.

Instead, I'll focus on her peculiar definition of freedom:

Resolutely anti-war and anti-imperialist, firmly committed to defending individual liberties and determined to hold the outgoing president and vice president accountable -- as a member of the House in 2006, McKinney introduced the first articles of impeachment against President Bush -- McKinney is an ardent advocate for national health care, expanded education spending and energy policies that emphasize mass transportation and conservation rather than rewarding oil-company profiteering.

In McKinney's land of the free, you aren't free to:

• choose how to pay for your healthcare
• choose where to send your children to school
• choose how to travel and where to live

You know what, I choose not to vote Green this year.

As you may have heard on the news, Wisconsin experienced some pretty severe flooding last month. Shortly after the rains subsided, I received Congresswoman Baldwin's monthly e-mail update. She included this quote:

Our entire state Congressional delegation sent a letter to President Bush last Friday asking him to respond quickly to any requests Governor Doyle makes for federal aid for flood relief.

In this type of crisis, the federal government takes guidance from local authorities as to where help is most needed. Our municipal, county, and state agencies are responding magnificently to this wide-spread disaster.

(Emphasis added by the editor).

It's gratifying to see that Congresswoman Baldwin recognizes that state and local governments have a role to play in disaster relief. Nearly three years ago, she blamed the slow response to Hurricane Katrina exclusively on the the President.

I have heard from dozens of you who are outraged, as I am, by the slow response of the federal government and there will be questions raised and answers demanded of those ostensibly in charge of our homeland security and federal emergency management, but first we must focus on the crisis at hand.

Somewhat surprisingly, I don't recall hearing Congresswoman Baldwin lament any of the many mistakes that Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco made.

In summary then: when a state's government is on top of diaster relief, she calls on the President to respond to their magnificent efforts. When a state's government is lost, confused, and unprepared, she berates the President for not overriding their efforts. According to Congresswoman Baldwin, although "the federal government takes guidance from local authorities", ultimately only the federal government bears any responsibility at all. Thus, the federal government becomes a convenient whipping boy and the states are encouraged to minimize preparedness.

Obama's not even President yet and he's already revealing plans to stack the deck in his own favor. Protein Wisdom reveals What's behind Obama's national service plan?:

His broader approach proposes to expand AmeriCorps to 250,000 slots and double the size of the Peace Corps, integrate service-learning programs into schools and universities, expand service initiatives that "engage disadvantaged young people and advance their education", expand the capacity of nonprofits to innovate and expand their programs and so on.

Indeed, in making his proposal, Obama alluded to his time as a community organizer on Chicago's South Side, and his stint heading the group Project Vote -- and it turns out there is a direct angle here. Obama directed Project Vote for ACORN -- an "antipoverty" group also frequently involved in scandal-ridden voter registration drives. Obama has a long, sybiotic relationship with the group. He was their lawyer, helped train ACORN activists, and fed them grants from his position at the Woods Fund; they endorsed Obama's candidacies and provided troops for his early campaigns. ACORN has a long history concerning both election fraud and misuse of federal funds, including AmeriCorps funds:

In 1994, the ACORN Housing Corporation (AHC) received a grant from the newly created Americorps to assist low-income families at finding housing. In applying for the grant, the AHC claimed its activities were completely separate from ACORN.

But one year later, the Americorps Inspector General would testify that "AHC used Americorps grant funds to benefit ACORN either directly or indirectly." She found several instances of cost-shifting from ACORN's lobbying group to the housing entity, and also found several instances of the steering of recipients of housing counseling into ACORN memberships.

It is difficult to imagine Obama rigorously policing ACORN from using the national service program as a recruiting tool or to further its non-partisan-in-name-only voter registration drives. To the contrary, his national service plan looks like another avenue for Obama to realize his vision of creating an army of left-wing activists to push his agenda and register more likely Democrats.

The Heller decision was a big win for the 2nd Amendment: it established that citizens do have a right to own guns. Unfortunately, that decision only applies to the federal government. What about the states? It will take a new court case -- and a new decision -- to establish whether or not the 2nd Amendment applies to state and local governments.

Well, that didn't take long. It looks like that new court case is on it's way: SCOTUSblog » New case tests Second Amendment's reach:

In a newly filed lawsuit in federal court in Chicago, two gun rights organizations and four individuals asked that the Second Amendment be extended to block strict gun laws at the state and local level. "The Second Amendment right," the complaint contended, "is incorporated as against the states and their political subdivisions pursuant to the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment."

The case, McDonald, et al., v. City of Chicago, et al. (District docket 08-3645), was filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago to challenge a city ordinance that bars registration of handguns with only a few exceptions, and that limits registration of other guns. The case was assigned to Senior District Judge Milton I. Shadur. The complaint can be read here.