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David Warren on summit nonsense.
There are two very big, very foolish ideas on the table at the G20 Summit. One of them is “Anglo-Saxon,” or at least Anglo-American. The other is European, or more precisely, French.
The first foolish idea is that, given the black holes opened by the financial crisis, we should throw money into them. This is called, I believe, “the new Keynesianism.” To be fair to the late Lord Keynes, who made at least one successful prediction (“in the long run we are all dead”), every Keynesianism has been a new Keynesianism, including the first. This is because politicians have invariably selected the easy part of his common-sensory proposals (“the government should spend when the economy falters”), while ignoring the hard part (“the government should save at all other times”).
There is never a new “new Keynesianism.” It is always the old “new Keynesianism,” in which governments tread water while the good times last, and then drown us in debt. This works, if not for us then for the politicians, since in the long run every government is out of office, and another is left holding the bag. …
Proving once again he is easy to roll, the kid president has applied for U. S. membership in the UN human rights council. Claudia Rosett has the story.
As part of President Obama’s “new era of engagement,” the U.S. State Department has just announced plans to seek one of the 47 seats on the United Nations Human Rights Council. This overturns the Bush policy since 2006 of shunning the Council, on grounds that, like its predecessor the U.N. Human Rights Commission, it is irredeemably tipped toward serving the interests of human rights violators.
In a teleconference press briefing on Tuesday, U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice said that, while the Council’s trajectory has been “disturbing,” the U.S. aim is to “stand up and lead.” The aim now is to work “aggressively” from “within” to make the Council “a more effective body” and “a key forum for advancing human rights.”
Given the Council’s rotten record and structural flaws, that’s an agenda akin to headquartering Alcoholics Anonymous on a bar stool in a busy saloon. Like most U.N. bodies, the Human Rights Council allocates membership seats not on the basis of merit (such as democratic credentials) but on the basis of regional blocs. Western states currently get seven of the 47 seats, while African and Asian states between them get a controlling majority of 26. …
Obama will be in Turkey next week. A couple of weeks ago Spengler wrote on the forthcoming visit.
For the United States to borrow the US$2 trillion a year that it wants, a poor country like Turkey cannot borrow the $30 billion a year that it needs – unless, that is, the United States borrows it first and re-lends it to Turkey.
When President Barack Obama respectfully suggests that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan might like to jump, Erdogan will ask, “How long should I remain in the air?” Turkey requires a bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) at which the US has the biggest vote. News that an IMF loan might be delayed sent Turkey’s lira crashing to a new low against the dollar last week. Just then, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton turned up in Ankara to announce that Obama would visit Turkey in April.
Most analysts expected Obama to adjust American foreign policy to the modesty of his circumstances, constrained by rising foreign debt and enervating entanglements. Instead, Obama has entered the foreign policy area with a magic lamp in hand, namely America’s bottomless capacity to borrow, and the whole of the world seems to him a Cave of Wonders – at least for the moment. Does America want logical support for its withdrawal from Iraq, or mediation with Iran, or a back channel to Hamas, or anything else? Obama’s wish is Erdogan’s command, as long as Erdogan can hold onto power.
Obama will run foreign policy precisely as he ran his presidential campaign, by dismissing consistency as the hobgoblin of small minds as he promised diametrically opposed things to irreconcilable factions. And the rest of the world will smile and nod and take American checks, at least for the moment, while there still are functioning governments to take American checks. …
Ed Morrissey reports Dianne Feinstein has bailed on card check.
Yesterday, The Hill reported that another Senate Democrat has expressed reluctance to support Card Check, and this one will sting. Dianne Feinstein’s opinions carry significant weight within her caucus, and her apparent rejection of Big Labor’s prime directive will create more political cover for dissidents in her own caucus — as well as give moderate Republicans room to appease conservatives: …
Karl Rove wonders if the president will regret acting like the godfather.
“Don’t think we’re not keeping score, brother.” That’s what President Barack Obama said to Rep. Peter DeFazio in a closed-door meeting of the House Democratic Caucus last week, according to the Associated Press.
A few weeks ago, Mr. DeFazio voted against the administration’s stimulus bill. The comment from Mr. Obama was a presidential rebuke and part of a new, hard-nosed push by the White House to pressure Congress to adopt the president’s budget. He has mobilized outside groups and enlisted forces still in place from the Obama campaign.
Senior presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett and her chief of staff, Michael Strautmanis, are in regular contact with MoveOn.Org, Americans United for Change and other liberal interest groups. Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina has collaborated with Americans United for Change on strategy and even ad copy. Ms. Jarrett invited leaders of the liberal interest groups to a White House social event with the president and first lady to kick off the lobbying campaign.
Its targets were initially Republicans, as team Obama ran ads depicting the GOP as the “party of no.” But now the fire is being trained on Democrats worried about runaway spending. …
The Corner staff has Krauthammer’s take from last night’s Special Report. On the NY 20th election;
… You can spin this every which way. And…it will be over-spun because it’s all we have. So we’re going to have to go with it.
But I look at it a little more simply. I’m no Richard Feynman, but I can do elementary arithmetic. Five months ago the Democrats won this seat with 62 percent. Last night it was a split 50-50. That’s a 12 percent drop in less than half a year.
And I think it’s explained by the fact, among other things, that the magical mystery tour of Obama is over, and that charismatic era is done. …
David Harsanyi weighs in on the Texas school’s evolution debate.
Some time ago, a highly charged argument was set in motion. It pitted evolution against creationism. One side of this debate relies on scientific inquiry and the other relies on ancient mythological texts.
That’s my view. That’s what I intend to teach my children.
Yet, I have no interest in foisting this curriculum on your kids. Nor am I particularly distressed that a creationist theory may one day collide with the tiny eardrums of my precocious offspring.
Which brings me to the Texas Board of Education’s recent landmark compromise between evolutionary science and related religious concerns in public school textbooks.
The board cautiously crafted an arrangement that requires teachers to allow students to scrutinize “all sides” of the issue. This decision is widely seen as a win for pro-creationists — or are they called “anti-evolutionists”? …
One unalloyed good of the government’s increasing interference in our lives is the growing number of examples of government idiocy. George Will thinks the compact fluorescents work well that way. Remember, this is a law George W. Bush signed.
… A San Francisco — naturally — couple emerged from Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth” incandescent with desire to think globally and act locally, in their home. So they replaced their incandescent bulbs with the compact fluorescents that Congress says must soon be ubiquitous. “Instead of having a satisfying green moment, however,” the Times reported, “they wound up coping with a mess.”
Although supposed to last 10,000 hours and save, the Times says, “as much as” $5.40 a year in electricity costs, some bulbs died within a few hours. Some experts, reports the Times, “blame the government for the quality problems,” saying its push to cut the bulbs’ prices prompted manufacturers to use inferior components.
Furthermore, some experts have written a guide saying the new bulbs require “a little insight and planning.” The Times says that “may be an understatement.”
The bulbs, says the Times, “do not do well in hot places with little airflow, like recessed ceiling fixtures,” and some do not work “with dimmers or three-way sockets.” And: “Be aware that compact fluorescents can take one to three minutes to reach full brightness. This is not a defect.” Well, if you say so. Because all fluorescents contain mercury, a toxic metal, they must never be put in the trash, so Home Depot and other chains offer bins for disposing of dangerous bulbs. …
Interesting follow-up to the Forbes article in on Harvard’s endowment from Talking Points Memo. The piece appeared in Pickings on March 25th.
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