lines in the sand

St. Nick Arrives

I think this is my kid.

Voodoo Oilonomics

Elect me and oil prices instantly drop, says Hillary Clinton in Iowa.

When the world hears her commitment at her inauguration about ending American dependence on foreign fuel, Clinton says, oil-pumping countries will lower prices to stifle America's incentive to develop alternative energy.

"I predict to you, the oil-producing countries will drop the price of oil," Clinton said, speaking at the Manchester YWCA. "They will once again assume, once the cost pressure is off, Americans and our political process will recede."

Clinton argued that former President Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s actually started moving in the right direction toward energy independence, but his successor, Ronald Reagan, "dismantled" that work.

So when the oil producing countries lower oil prices, Americans will presumably buy less of it from them thereby gaining energy independence.

Apparently, Senator Clinton understands how this will work, but it's still not clear to me.

Christmas Luddite!

Tony Woodlief - OpinionJournal.

This holiday, we are unilaterally disarming. No matter how many acquaintances inundate us with Starbucks gift cards and Pepperidge Farm sampler baskets, we will not retaliate.

Instead, we're going to make cookies. Sugar cookies and chocolate-chip cookies and gingerbread cookies. We might give some away--but solely on the spur of the moment and without consulting a gift list. While other people throw elbows in last-minute shopping kerfuffles, we'll be driving through neighborhoods looking at lights. Every night during Advent, we've read stories from the Old and New Testaments, and our children have hung handmade ornaments representing these stories. This week they gave a musical recital in a nursing home. And if I can work up the nerve, we may even go caroling.

Taranto vs. Huck

For several days, James Taranto has been rather sloppily attacking the Fair Tax, usually linking it to Mike Huckabee.  Today, he turned his attention directly on Huck and his first installment looked at the candidate's concern for the nation's "health problem":

OpinionJournal - Best of the Web Today.

Huckabee practices what he preaches: A few years ago, he famously lost 110 pounds. And inasmuch as he's just offering commonsense health advice, we certainly don't disagree. Whether healthier lifestyles actually would lower health-care costs is a trickier question. After all, in the long run, we're all dead, and most of us are sick first.

However sensible Huckabee's admonitions to live healthy may be, though, it troubles us to hear them coming from a politician, especially one who aspires to the most powerful position in the world.

Living in New York, we've had experience with nanny-state zealotry in the executive: Thanks to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a former chain smoker, there is virtually nowhere in the city we can go to enjoy a cigar. Huckabee has said he would take this policy nationwide.

We're not an absolutist about this. We do not, for instance, favor decriminalizing drugs (sorry, libertarians). We'd be happy with a return to the status quo ante, say, 1985. We admire Rudy Giuliani and Ronald Reagan even though the former gave us a ban on smoking in most New York City restaurants (but not bars) and the latter, the federal drinking age.

Our trouble with Huckabee is that he simply seems too intent on telling people how to live their lives. Hooray for him for losing all that weight. We could stand to lose a few pounds, too--but we'd rather do it without Washington's "help."

Exactly my concern with Huckabee.  His eagerness to apply a Washington solution to any given problem makes him as good a candidate as anyone in the Democratic race.

Perhaps Taranto has been trying to get at Mike through hits on the Fair Tax, which has become pretty much his signature issue, and now realizes he could sink a decent idea in that process.  I won't hold my breath, but I can hope.

 

I am cool!

It says so right here...

Weathermen and other scientists

Hurricane forecasters and insurers didn't live up to expectations. -- OrlandoSentinel.com.

Floridians need to take serious notice in June of the beginning of each hurricane season, making sure they've taken stock of emergency supplies and escape routes. But tailoring their activities for the next half-year around such frequently botched forecasting seems folly...

Considering that the "botched forecasting" covering six months is done by actual weather scientists, this is an interest recommendation from the Sentinel.  Their editorials have been telling us for some time that we are not doing enough to tailor our activities to the 25 year weather predictions from various conglomerations of not just meteorologists and climatologists, but economists, civil engineers, politicians and bureaucrats.

The whole global warming thing reminds me of Y2K when technology was going to turn back into a pumpkin at midnight on December 31st.  I was heavily involved in that, but always felt the ones hollering the loudest were the ones with the most to gain from being taken seriously.  It was a problem, but in my experience, complying with the oversight mandates consumed more time, money and resources than fixing things.  Take Y2K, replace the consultants with tree-huggers, and you have Global Warming.  Of course, the smell of opportunity drew packs of lawyers and politicians to both.

This is a Scary Headline

AARP Bulletin: The President as Caregiver in Chief.

Whichever candidate wins, it's scary.

No surprise that the accompanying article is not an endorsement of Ron Paul, the actual physician seeking the job.