AN ECONOMIST WHO MATTERS

Robert Mundell, the father of the euro, isn't in the habit of making fruitless policy recommendations, though some take a long time ripening, says the Wall Street Journal. Nearly four decades passed between his early work on optimal currency areas and the birth of the euro in 1999 -- the same year he received the Nobel Prize for economics.

At the Copenhagen Consensus summit in May, Mundell said the big issue economically in the upcoming U.S. presidential election is what's going to happen to taxes. One of the original "supply-side" economists, Mundell has long preached the link between tax rates and economic growth. Mundell says it would be "lethal" to suddenly raise taxes, and that rescinding the Bush tax cuts would be "devastating" to the world economy. Mundell recommends:

• A ceiling of 30 percent on marginal rates (the current top rate is 35 percent).
• Cutting the corporate tax rate to 25 percent, a proposal he first made back in the 1970s.

Democratic nominee Barack Obama regularly professes disdain for the Bush tax cuts, suggesting that those growth-spurring measures may be scrapped. Mundell predicts that if that happens, the United States will go into a big recession, a "nosedive."

According to Mundell, the most important thing that could be done with respect to tax rates now is to make the Bush tax cuts permanent. Eliminating that uncertainty would be more important than pushing for a further cut -- in the income tax rates, anyway.

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On TSA Attitude and Attitude-Detecting Policies:

“Someone who wishes to hijack or destroy a plane will spend considerable time and effort to get around the TSA's attitude-detecting policies. The bulk of the people hassled by these and other TSA procedures are law-abiding Americans who have no malicious intentions, along with a few people traveling with drugs and other contraband. The TSA routinely confiscates about 15,000 items a day from passengers, in addition to the hassle, rudeness and arrogance.

With these kind of costs imposed on the traveling public, I'd like TSA to give an account of themselves, namely just how many hijackings or bombings they have prevented, along with the evidence. Americans have been far too compliant and that has given the TSA carte blanche to treat travelers any way they wish."

Walter E. Williams, Author, Economist and Professor of Economics
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US army to hand over security in Iraq's Anbar province

Baghdad - Iraqi troops are expected to take over security tasks in the once volatile western Anbar province from the US military on Saturday, making it the first Sunni Arab area to be handed back to Iraq. 'Preparations are underway for the transfer of security responsibilities by US troops in Anbar,' General Murdi Nayyif al-Hardan, the commander of the Iraqi army in the province.

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Insulting our troops: Moveon.org strikes again

Does Moveon.org despise all military personnel or just think Americans are stupid? Or both? Following its disgusting "General Betray us" ad from last year, the leftist group has a new one depicting a mother and a newborn. (Snip) Moveon.org might find this hard to believe, but America's military men and women are adults who choose to defend the country. They are neither children, nor victims. Depicting them as such is despicable. But that is what we've come to expect from this anti-military outfit.

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[we've an all volunteer force]

Muslims should be free to convert, says cardinal

Rome - A leading cardinal has called on the Islamic world to allow individual Muslims "the freedom to convert" to Christianity, arguing that this does not threaten Islamic identity.

This week death threats to Mr Allam and Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, were posted...

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[evidently anything threatens their identity, to wit... {next}]

Free Speech Dies at the UN

[HT:SN]
The war against free speech is advancing rapidly: Associated Press reported Thursday that “Muslim countries have won a battle to prevent Islam from being criticised during debates by the UN Human Rights Council.” Council President Doru-Romulus Costea explained that religious issues can be “very complex, very sensitive and very intense…This council is not prepared to discuss religious matters in depth, consequently we should not do it.” Henceforth only religious scholars would be permitted to broach them. [snip]

Yet as of September 2007, eight women in Iran were awaiting stoning for adultery charges.

In sum, then, what Littman was saying was accurate, and the Egyptian, Pakistani and Iranian representatives consistently characterized these truthful statements as insults to Islam, and moved to have them suppressed. Not only does this shameful episode bode ill for the human rights of women in the Islamic world; it also represents another victory in the war against free speech that Islamic supremacists have been pursuing with particular energy lately, calling on Western authorities to prosecute Dutch politician Geert Wilders for his film Fitna and Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard for his drawing of Muhammad with a bomb in his turban, and in general to outlaw what they perceive as insults to Islam.

They have won at the UN Human Rights Council. That will not be the only battle of this war. But it remains to be seen whether any governing official in the West has the courage and the clear-sightedness to stand up to this challenge before it’s too late -- before we are required by law to stand by as mute witnesses to our own conquest and Islamization.

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North Korea nuclear accounting won't include bombs

Seoul, South Korea - North Korea is expected this week to turn over its long-delayed accounting of its nuclear weapons activities, part of a chain of events leading to a unique photo opportunity: the destruction of the cooling tower at Pyongyang's main reactor.

One item that won't make the declaration, which the White House says is due Thursday, will be North Korea's nuclear bombs. The omission means the world will have to wait for an answer to the question at the heart of the nearly six-year-old standoff: Is the North ready to give up its nuclear weapons?

[well at least we're making progress: we're getting an accounting of their nuclear weapons program that includes everything but their nuclear weapons]

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James Hansen: Abusing the Public Trust

Monday, James Hansen, Director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), addressed Congress and brought a new twist to his tired global warming song and dance routine. Hansen now seems to be calling for the chief executives of Big Oil to be tried for high crimes against humanity. Their crime? Spreading doubt about global warming.

Actually, it is Hansen who is guilty. Guilty of abusing the public trust.

James Hansen is the recognized international arbiter of the global temperature record-past, present and future. Armed with a network of thermometers, state-of-the-art satellites, computers and a huge chunk of NASA's near $18 billion budget, Hansen is the man who is deemed the final authority on Al Gore's constant claim that "the earth has a fever."

All this despite the fact that GISS' own data clearly illustrates that the Earth's temperature has been flat since 1998 and recently has been dipping downward. Hansen's shenanigans [!] on Capital Hill are not about climate-they are about money... [snip]

As a NASA Director, his role should be collecting data and truthfully sharing results, not trying to influence policy and legislation.

Congressman Darryl Issa (R-San Diego) called Hansen on his continual talking out of turn. During a hearing on Capitol Hill regarding his abuse of his government status, Issa said, "You're speaking on federal paid time. Your employer happens to be the American taxpayer." Issa went on to say that an internet search showed Hansen had had stated on more than 1,400 occasions in over a year's worth of interviews and appearances (15 interviews alone in the month that the congressional hearings were taking place - and the same month Hansen complained that the Bush Administration was censoring him). [snip]

Examine the largess culled by Hansen: In 2001, the Heinz Foundation "awarded" James Hansen with a payment of $250,000 for his work on global warming. According to Investors Business Daily, Hansen has also received as much as $720,000 from [George] Soros' [born Gyorgy Schwarz] Open Society Institute (OSI), which also gave him ‘legal and media advice'... [snip]

With that kind of cash allegedly lining his pockets, do you think that Hansen will ever allow the data that he is charged with maintaining to point to anything but disaster?

[ ! = hey I coined the 'shenanigans' shtick yesterday... fair use? ;^) > http://netizennewsbrief.blogspot.com/2008/06/oil-execs-should-be-tried-for-crimes.html ]

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Obama's Corn Fake

Barack Obama says he represents change. He also criticizes John McCain for trying to drill our way to energy independence to add to the profits of Big Oil.

But it's Obama who's playing politics by trying to plant our way to energy independence, buying votes with alternative fuel subsidies that benefit ethanol producers such as Archer Daniels Midland.

ADM is based in Illinois, the second-largest corn-producing state...

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Tories promise NHS targets revamp

"And it's awful that you're more likely to die from a stroke in England than you are in any other country in western Europe."

"So we've got a situation where we pump the same money into our health system as other countries, but on the thing that actually matters - a patient's health and the results of their actual treatment - we're doing worse." [snip]

Focusing on survival rates instead of waiting times would save thousands of lives, Conservative leader David Cameron says.

He said his party would scrap the government's "top-down" approach to NHS targets and instead focus on major diseases such as cancer and stroke...

[get that? Their wait time are 5 to 10 times what ours are - and that's what they have been focusing on. Government + health care = frightening.]

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High court: Don't execute child rapists

The Supreme Court on Wednesday outlawed executions of people convicted of raping a child. (Snip) In a 5-4 vote, the court said the Louisiana law allowing the death penalty to be imposed for raping a child violates the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

"The death penalty is not a proportional punishment for the rape of a child," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in his majority opinion. His four liberal colleagues joined him, while the four more conservative justices dissented.

[- have we devised a special punishment for them alone that's particularly cruel?
- what is unusual about exterminating predators of our children?
-- this year's election is very important]

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ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEGISLATION GATHERS STEAM

Thirty states now have laws specifying that official government communications be in English, this year such bills are under consideration in 19 legislatures.

Typically the proposed laws require that documents, ballots and other communications be published in English. Exempt are communications to protect public health and safety or efforts to promote tourism. [snip]

Requiring English for official business encourages immigrants to learn English. That will help them to assimilate into U.S. society and prosper in its economy, says Mauro Mujica, a Chilean immigrant and chairman and CEO of U.S. English.

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Plans to disrupt GOP convention

Elaborate plans are underway to encircle and "shut down" the Republican National Convention at St. Paul's Xcel Energy Center in September. The strategies and tactics involved could come straight from a guerrilla warfare manual.

Anarchist groups with ominous names -- the RNC Welcoming Committee, Unconventional Action -- have announced a "three-tier strategy" to cut off the Xcel Center. The steps include "blockading" streets and freeways, "immobilizing" delegates' transportation and "blocking" bridges ...

[progressive political discourse]

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'Just Drill, Baby'

Alaska's governor Sarah Palin - mentioned as a possible running mate for John McCain sent a letter to Harry Reid telling him what needed to be done as far as helping to solve the energy crisis. In effect, she told the senator - "Just Drill, Baby:"

Governor Sarah Palin today urged members of Congress to enact legislation that would allow oil and gas development in a small portion* of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. (Snip) Governor Palin stressed the need to enact an energy policy that includes oil and gas production from domestic sources...

[* = 1/10 of 1% of ANWR's area - only a fraction of it in turn actually involved in oil extraction]

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Democrats Gear Up for Denver

As the Mile High City gears up to host a Democratic bash for 50,000, organizers are discovering the perils of trying to stage a political spectacle that's also politically correct.

Consider the fanny packs.

The host committee for the Democratic National Convention wanted 15,000 fanny packs for volunteers. But they had to be made of organic cotton. By unionized labor. In the USA.

Official merchandiser Bob DeMasse scoured the country. His weary
conclusion: "That just doesn't exist." Ditto for the baseball caps. "We
have a union cap or an organic cap," Mr. DeMasse says. "But we don't
have a union-organic offering."

[this is how they handle their own money. Think how they'd handle yours]
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[HT:GC]