Escape From Berkeley...By Any Non-Petroleum Means Necessary

Posted on October 12, 2008, 11:48am | Brian Doherty

The alt-energy experimenters who I wrote about in this May reason feature are sponsoring a unique road race this weekend, which launched from Berkeley yesterday and is expected to end in Vegas on Monday. The idea is, from the event's own site:

the rally challenges contestants to start their “engines” on something other than petroleum based fuel, and by any means necessary, cause their “vehicles” show up in Las Vegas three days later- using only fuels/power/motive force scavenged “for free” along the route.

All types of vehicles are welcome. All schemes for non-petroleum based transport are encouraged. In short, everything is permitted– just as long as your “fuel” is from a non-petroleum based source, your acquisition of “it” does not require money, and you start the race with no more than 10kwh of “it” on board.

The full field of power generation and conversion is open for your pleasurable scavenging and creative hacking– biomass gasifiers, WVO, steam, on board fermentation stills, fast starch anaerobic digesters, solar, pneumatic, creek side hydro and lots of batteries, tesla free energy vortexes, cold fusion, humans, hamsters, etc etc etc.

Want to test out your 40% efficiency triple junction PV cell covered Prius? Or maybe see if your steam cracking anaerobic digester hydrogen producer can keep up with the intake of your fuel cell Honda Civic prototype? We welcome you to join us- and risk getting beat by a young punk on a rat bike, running on granulated McDonald’s napkins and hair spray.

DARPA had a Grand Challenge. . . the rednecks a Cannonball Run. . . and the hippies a bunch of WVO buses broken down on the side of the road. Now, NASA scientists and junkyard fabricators go head-to-head in a no holds barred battle of engineering prowess and creative excess. Hanging somewhat in the balance, are bragging rights for saving the world. That, and a grand prize of $5,000.

At least one of the cars had not quite moved a block in the first hour--they were still chopping wood for their gasifier engine.

This long East Bay Express feature profiles some of the racers and their scheme. Wired.com does the same in this story.

I have the good fortune to be one of the event's official judges (important in a race where actually reaching the finish line could be unlikely for many entrants) and expect to be reporting on some of what I learned here in the future.

Read Up on the Bailout and More Before Monday's Opening Bell Signals More Losses!

Posted on October 12, 2008, 10:38am | Nick Gillespie

Recent reason coverage of the bailout.

And go here for Hit & Run posts on the topic.

Abandon All Hope: Everybody's running against the bailout, but nobody's serious about killing it. David Weigel 

Rescue or Waste?: Why the bailout isn't working. Steve Chapman

Private Accounts Still Make Sense: Why the market meltdown doesn't negate the case for privatizing Social Security. Radley Balko

Building a Better Bailout: How Washington could have helped the market at no cost to taxpayers. And what it should do if it's hell-bent on spending $700 billion. Veronique de Rugy and Philippe Lacoude

Economist Russell Roberts on What You Need to Know About the Bailout (and Why You Should Be Really Worried:

The Winner of Last Night's Debate? Washington: Both candidates embrace central planning as prudent economic policy. Matt Welch

What Would Mises Do?: Confessions of a free-market, anti-bailout operator. Matt Kibbe

The Roots of the Crisis: How did Wall Street get into this mess? Michael Flynn

Does It Take a Panic to Stop a Panic?: The Wall Street bailout and the perils of bipartisanship. Jacob Sullum

An Expert-Induced Bubble: The nasty role of ratings agencies in the busted housing market. David M. Levy and Sandra J. Peart

Why Paulson is Wrong: Saving capitalism from the capitalists. Luigi Zingales

Economist (and former Freddie Mac staffer!) Arnold Kling on The Big Bailout:

Beg, Borrow, or Steal: Why the bailout is a terrible idea. Steve Chapman

Five Questions About the Short-Selling Ban: The government's only answer: Shut up, we're in charge! Brian Doherty

The Great Bailout Brouhaha: Free market economists weigh in on Paulson's plan

Bailout Bums: Libertarian-minded Republicans are caught with their pants down as Wall Street panics the Capital City. David Weigel

Hank Paulson's Countdown to Armageddon: How the Chicken Little treasurer is nationalizing the U.S. economy. Tim Cavanaugh

The Case Against the Bailout: Why the government shouldn't save businesses from their bad choices. Steve Chapman

Tons more coverage over at Hit & Run.

Recently on Reason.tv: Fixing Health Care, Saving Social Security, and More...

Posted on October 12, 2008, 10:31am | Nick Gillespie

Get Some!: How to fix the nation's health insurance crisis:

Saving Social Security, episode 2, "Boom Baby Boom":

The presidential debate in 63 seconds:

Don't vote (really):

For more information, including embed code and supporting articles, go to reason.tv.

Strange Things Done In the Midnight Sun

Posted on October 11, 2008, 2:13pm | Jesse Walker

While one pack of paranoiacs plunges into hysteria over Barack Obama's past left-wing associations -- a phenomenon that may have reached its nadir with No Quarter's breathless revelation that the young Obama sought the endorsement of the mild-mannered Democratic Socialists of America -- a similar witchhunting lunacy is brewing in some quarters of the left. Max Blumenthal and Dave Neiwert published a story in Salon yesterday that's positively breathless in tracing Sarah Palin's relationship to the Alaska Independence Party.

The article is filled with innuendo and unsupported assertions. On learning that some of Palin's 1996 campaign literature described her as "the Christian candidate," for example, Blumenthal and Neiwert assert confidently that this was a "subtle suggestion" that her Lutheran opponent was really Jewish. The authors also make a lot of the AIP's sympathy for southern separatists, implying that the group has a racist core. They don't mention that the pan-secessionist party is also friendly to Lakota separatists, Hawaiian separatists, Puerto Rican separatists, and crunchy-granola Vermont separatists -- all of which impies that it's not whiteness but devolution that drives the organization.

But enough about the AIP. What does the Salon story tell us about Palin? Basically, that she and a few right-wing populists (a) worked together on some gun-rights issues, (b) worked together on some property-rights issues, and (c) uh...well, they were together, man.

This is what "Ayers! Ayers! Ayers!" sounds like in Salonese.

New Toy for Cobb County, Georgia SWAT Team

Posted on October 11, 2008, 12:48pm | Radley Balko

The Untrustworthy Arab

Posted on October 11, 2008, 8:17am | Michael Young

The novelist Khaled Hosseini, an American of Afghan origin, has written a commentary for the Washington Post condemning the reaction of the Republican candidates when responding to those who use Barack Obama's middle name, Hussein, as a term of abuse. He observes:

Never mind that such jeers are deeply offensive to millions of peaceful, law-abiding Muslim Americans who must bear the unveiled charge, made by some supporters of Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin, that Obama's middle name makes him someone to distrust - and, judging by some of the crowd reactions at these rallies, someone to persecute or even kill. As a secular Muslim, I too was offended. Obama's middle name differs from my last name by only two vowels. Does the McCain-Palin campaign view me as a pariah too? Do McCain and Palin think there's something wrong with my name?

But never mind any of that.

The real affront is the lack of firm response from either McCain or Palin. Neither has had the moral courage, when taking the stage, to grasp the microphone, turn to the presenter and, right then and there, denounce the use of Obama's middle name as an insult. Instead, they have simply delivered their stump speeches, lacing into Obama as if nothing out-of-bounds had just happened.

The commentary came amid reports of mounting rage among Republican voters at the likely victory of the Democratic candidate in November, with Obama's alleged origins frequently being used against him. At a rally in Minnesota this week, for example, one woman told John McCain: "I don't trust Obama. I have read about him and he's an Arab." McCain responded by saying, "No ma'am, no ma'am. He's a decent family man... [a] citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues. That's what this campaign is all about."

Hossein's point is valid. McCain was trying to be decent, but you would have expected him to answer in a million different ways than the way he did, instead of just focusing on Obama's personal qualities. He could have, first of all, corrected the woman's inaccuracy, the confusion of one fallacy (that Obama is an Arab) with another (that he is a Muslim), before adding: "So what?" Substitute the name of most other ethnic groups for the word "Arab", and the candidate would have been - and quite legitimately so - apoplectic with rage at the bigotry on display. But denouncing someone because he or she is an "Arab" or a "Muslim" all too often seems fair game in American popular political discourse, with little visible backlash.

And if it's not fair game, then it would be useful to see the country's prominent politicians affirm that with a bit more conviction.  

Spying on Innocents Abroad

Posted on October 10, 2008, 7:42pm | Jacob Sullum

Two former military intercept operators, both Arab linguists, have independently told ABC News that the National Security Agency routinely listens to the telephone conversations of innocent Americans in the Middle East, including soldiers, aid workers, and journalists, when they call people in the United States. "These were just really everyday, average, ordinary Americans who happened to be in the Middle East, in our area of intercept and happened to be making these phone calls on satellite phones," one said. She described the conversations as "personal, private things [involving] Americans who are not in any way, shape or form associated with anything to do with terrorism." The other whistleblower said intercept operators would often share especially risqué or amusing conversations, including calls to spouses and girlfriends, with each other. "Hey, check this out," he said colleagues  at the NSA center in Fort Gordon, Georgia, would tell him, "there's good phone sex or there's some pillow talk, pull up this call, it's really funny, go check it out. It would be some colonel making pillow talk."  As ABC notes, this sort of idle snooping is rather different from the sort of by-the-book professionalism that Bush administration officials have repeatedly insisted characterizes the so-called Terrorist Surveillance Program:

"There is a constant check to make sure that our civil liberties of our citizens are treated with respect," said President Bush at a news conference this past February....

In testimony before Congress, then-NSA director Gen. Michael Hayden, now director of the CIA, said private conversations of Americans are not intercepted.

"It's not for the heck of it. We are narrowly focused and drilled on protecting the nation against al Qaeda and those organizations who are affiliated with it," Gen. Hayden testified.

He was asked by Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), "Are you just doing this because you just want to pry into people's lives?"

"No, sir," General Hayden replied.

In June I noted that Barack Obama supported the legislation that gave the executive branch permission to monitor Americans' international communications at will, while John McCain seems to think the president did not need Congress' permission.

[Thanks to Tricky Vic for the tip.]

The Friday Political Thread: Countdown to Dow 1000

Posted on October 10, 2008, 6:00pm | David Weigel

The Week in Brief
- John McCain and Barack Obama got interrupted by Tom Brokaw, a lot.
- Connecticut destroyed marriage and Western civilization.
- George McGovern joined the vast right-wing conspiracy.
- John McCain really, really wanted you to care about Bill Ayers.
- So, do you own stocks? Oh, too bad.
- Bob Barr started looking better amid the financial ruins. (And the latest Georgia polls show the state tightening up again.)

Below the Fold
- Robert Stacy McCain says last rites for John McCain's campaign.
- Norman Mailer muddles through the politics of the 20th century (and a bit of the 21st).
- The Open Debate Coalition demands a non-terrible Obama-McCain face-off.
- Sean Quinn pummels Michael Barone (who weirdly asserts that Obama's ground game is no better than Howard Dean's).
- Some smart people (including Kerry Howley!) tell McObama what to say.

Ian Anderson's got Politics 'n' Prog taken care of this week. I think he's previewing the next McCain ad about Obama.

Reason Writers Around Town: Matt Welch on McCain's Last Best Hope for Victory

Posted on October 10, 2008, 5:30pm

In the final installment of his week-long L.A. Times dust-up with USC law professor Kareem Crayton, Matt Welch argues that it's time for John McCain to bring the maverick out of retirement for one last caper.

Read all about it here. Read the rest of the week's entries here.

New at Reason: Dave Weigel on the Conservative Comedy of An American Carol

Posted on October 10, 2008, 4:30pm

An American Carol, writes Associate Editor David Weigel, is the first Hannity and Colmes comedy, birthed in an echo chamber, with references that only make sense to people who are already die-hard conservatives.

Read all about it here. 

Take the Nationalization Express

Posted on October 10, 2008, 4:06pm | David Weigel

For your daily dose of terror, go to Albert Bozzo at CNBC.com.

"I don't wish to spread alarm on the line people but the big issue confronting the market is I'm afraid the health and sustainability of Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs." Hugh Hendry, Partner and CIO at Eclectica, told CNBC early Friday. "It is unimaginable that they can be allowed to go, I suspect that they will be nationalized at some point today or over the weekend," he added.

Just one guy's opinion, but it's not impossible.

The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008’s vague language gives Paulson almost unlimited power to intervene and leaves much up to interpretation.

In that context, some say cash injections could apply to non-depository institutuons like investment banks, insurers and hedge funds.

“He’s free to just strike deals, to do special deals,” says Lawrence White, a former White House economist and savings and loan regulator, who adds Congress was aware of the powers being given to Paulson and thus pressed hard for an oversight board.

This weekend will be key. The New York Times previews some of the discussions between the U.S. and the European powers. No one is ruling out the "special deals" that would let the Treasury take over banks. 

Damon Root on the Radio

Posted on October 10, 2008, 3:46pm | Damon W. Root

I’ll be on Sirius Satellite Radio’s NRA News tonight at 9:40 eastern time discussing the 2nd Amendment and the states with host Cam Edwards. Tune in to Sirius channel 144 or watch the webcast at NRA News.com.

One Book, Two Book, Red Book, Blue Book

Posted on October 10, 2008, 3:10pm | Katherine Mangu-Ward

As usual, this election is suffering from a two-sets-of-facts problem. Democratic voters know one batch of data, and Republicans another, and only rarely the twain shall meet.

But lest we educated, well-informed readers of reason get on our high horses about the stupidity of people who get their facts from partisan cable news and talk radio, take a look at these charts showing political book buying patterns.

They're from the work of social networking big thinker Valdis Krebs, who used Amazon's "people who bought this book also bought..." feature to gather his data.

That's right: Even folks with book learnin' can't get out of the partisan ghettos. This has been true for years, as the first version of this chart, assembled in 2003, shows. Note that the only linking book is ironically titled What Went Wrong?

New at Reason: Cathy Young on Russia's War on South Park

Posted on October 10, 2008, 3:00pm

Last month, hundreds of demonstrators gathered in a Moscow park to protest the Russian government’s attempt to crush the television show South Park. For now, writes Contributing Editor Cathy Young, it seems to have ended in a victory for the protesters—at a time when victories for freedom in Russia are a rare treat.

Read all about it here.

One Reason Why This Is Still a Great Country (South Park 12th Season Semi-Premiere Edition)

Posted on October 10, 2008, 2:58pm | Nick Gillespie

Sure, things may be going down the crapper in any number of ways: The stock market is tanking faster than the Cubs in post-season play; George W. Bush is still president at least until January; McCain and Obama are very special bums each in their own way; and much, much more.

But as long as there's South Park, there's hope. Or at least incredibly bizarre laughs. Earlier this week, SP returned with new episodes as part of its 12th season. The opener this time included a truly mad plotline in which the most recent Indiana Jones movie was filled with scenes in which creators George Lucas and Steven Speilberg repeatedly rape Harrison Ford, causing post-traumatic stress disorder among South Park's denizens.

Is this "beyond offensive and into some sort of hyper-offensive stratosphere," as some critics have claimed? And that's not even taking into consideration the episode's other plot, which involves Eric Cartman's xenophobic reaction to the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics.

Decide for yourself by watching the full episode online right now (go on, it's Friday and this isn't Putin's Russia).

And don't forget to read the 2006 reason interview with Matt Stone and Trey Parker. A snippet:

Matt Stone: I had Birkenstocks in high school. I was that guy. And I was sure that those people on the other side of the political spectrum were trying to control my life. And then I went to Boulder and got rid of my Birkenstocks immediately, because everyone else had them and I realized that these people over here want to control my life too. I guess that defines my political philosophy. If anybody's telling me what I should do, then you've got to really convince me that it's worth doing.

More here.

Off Track - California Dreamin' of High Speed Rail

Posted on October 10, 2008, 2:48pm | Ronald Bailey

Japan and France move over. High speed rail is coming to the Golden State if the California High Speed Rail Authority gets its way. The Authority promises Californians that if they vote for Proposition 1A authorizing $9.95 billion in bonds that they will one day enjoy trains barrelling along at speeds of 197 miles per hour linking all of California's biggest cities. And the trains will make a profit too. Too good to be true? You betcha.

My colleagues over at the Reason Foundation (the non-profit that publishes reason) painstakingly show in a due diligence study that this is all a very expensive fantasy: 

"The current high-speed rail plan is a fairy tale," said Adrian Moore, Ph.D., vice president of research at Reason Foundation and the study's project director. "The proposal suggests these high-speed trains will be the fastest ever; the most-ridden ever; the cheapest ever; and will convince millions of Californians they no longer need to drive or fly. Offering up a best-case scenario is one thing, but actually depending on all of these miracles to happen simultaneously is irresponsible public policy."

Proposition 1A would authorize $9.95 billion in bonds for a high-speed passenger train, but taxpayers should beware that this is just a fraction of the system's total price. The Rail Authority claims the first two phases of the system will cost $45 billion. But even that understates the total price. With the high costs of building in California and the history of cost overruns on rail projects, the final price tag for the complete high-speed rail system will actually be $65 to $81 billion, according to the Reason Foundation report.

And while the Rail Authority forecasts between 65 and 96 million intercity riders by 2030, the due diligence report finds these projections are dramatically inflated. After compiling numerous ridership studies previously conducted for California rail systems, the study demonstrates the state can expect 23 million to 31 million riders a year in 2030.

Any failure to meet the Rail Authority's lofty ridership projections would force ticket-price increases, further cutting ridership, or require taxpayer subsidies to cover the financial shortfall, adding to future budget deficits. The due diligence report finds "the San Francisco-Los Angeles line alone by 2030 would suffer annual financial losses of up to $4.17 billion."

Similarly troubling, the report finds that no existing high-speed rail train is currently capable of meeting the speed and safety goals set by the system's advocates. California will have to use heavier, slower trains than the world's other high-speed rail systems because it plans on using the same tracks as freight trains in some sections, instead of specialized tracks.

Whole Reason Foundation report here.  

Obama Runs Away for Office and Joins the Circus

Posted on October 10, 2008, 2:27pm | Katherine Mangu-Ward

A delightful display of cheerful cynicism and despair from The Wall Street Journal's Kim Strassel, who writes in the voice of a carnival barker touting the Great Obama's magic act. Don't look too hard at the image at right, or he'll hypnotize you.

Watch the Great Obama perform a feat never yet managed in all history. He will create that enormous new government health program, spend billions to transform our energy economy, provide financial assistance to former Soviet satellites, invest in infrastructure, increase education spending, provide job training assistance, and give 95% of Americans a tax (ahem) cut—all without raising the deficit a single penny! And he'll do it in the middle of a financial crisis. And with falling tax revenues! Voila!

And this:

For tonight's finale, the Great Obama will uphold America's "moral" obligation to "stop genocide" by abandoning Iraq! While teleported to the region, he will simultaneously convince Iranian leaders to peacefully abandon their nuclear pursuits (even as he does not sit down with them), fix Afghanistan with a strategy that does not resemble the Iraqi surge, and (drumroll!) pull Osama bin Laden out of his hat!

Shouldn't trust the man, though. Look at how much stuff he keeps in his pockets. Got to be a doubleheaded coin in there somewhere.

Via R. G.

Bush: Don't Panic! At Least Not This Week, Anyway

Posted on October 10, 2008, 2:00pm | Matt Welch

From President George W. Bush's speech today about the economy:

Over the past few days, we have witnessed a startling drop in the stock market -- much of it driven by uncertainty and fear.... This uncertainty has led to anxiety among our people. And that is understandable -- that anxiety can feed anxiety

Gee, I wonder why Americans are feeling anxious just a couple of weeks after THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES TOLD THEM WE'RE HEADING FOR "A LONG AND PAINFUL RECESSION"????

More from Bush:

[T]he decline in the housing market has left many Americans struggling to meet their mortgages and are concerned about losing their homes. My administration has launched two initiatives to help responsible borrowers keep their homes. One is called HOPE NOW, and it brings together homeowners and lenders and mortgage servicers, and others to find ways to prevent foreclosure. The other initiative is aimed at making it easier for responsible homeowners to refinance into affordable mortgages insured by the Federal Housing Administration. So far, these programs have helped more than 2 million Americans stay in their home. And the point is this: If you are struggling to meet your mortgage, there are ways that you can get help.

Why does HOPE NOW leave me feeling so HOPELESS? Why is a chunk of my personal income going to bail out people who chose to refinance–not buy an initial mortgage necessarily, but leverage it into an even bigger ATM machine–at the top of an insane housing market? When do I finally get rewarded (through the market correction of prices), not punished (through taxation to artificially prop up those prices), for choosing to rent rather than buy into a bubble?

With these actions to help to prevent foreclosures, we're addressing a key problem in the housing market: The supply of homes now exceeds demand. And as a result, home values have declined. Once supply and demand balance out, our housing market will be able to recover -- and that will help our broader economy begin to grow.

Note this explicit justification for government action. It's now an urgent federal priority to make sure asset prices appreciate forever. Even though housing prices in real terms, even after a two-year plunge, are still up 40 percent since the beginning of 1997.

[W]e're working closely with partners around the world to ensure that our actions are coordinated and effective. Tomorrow, I'll meet with the finance ministers from our partners in the G7 and the heads of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. Secretary Paulson will also meet with finance ministers from the world's 20 leading economies. Through these efforts, the world is sending an unmistakable signal: We're in this together, and we'll come through this together. [...]

And as we act, we will do it in a way that is effective. [...]

The plan we are executing is aggressive. It is the right plan. It will take time to have its full impact. It is flexible enough to adapt as the situation changes. And it is big enough to work.

A score of central governments working in concert to coordinate industrial policy on a perhaps-unprecedented scale? What ever could go wrong!

Exasperated sarcasm aside, I have two questions for the assembled:

1) Is this indeed The End of American Capitalism as we know it?

2) Am I the only tightwad in the world who has always thought it a way-too-risky idea to put any more than, say, 10 percent of your savings into equities markets? Seriously, I'm starting to feel like a jerk here, but when did "retirement" come to = "massive over-exposure into stock-index funds"?

David Zucker, back when he was still funny, predicted Bush's calming ways three decades ago: 

Membership Has Its Privileges

Posted on October 10, 2008, 1:26pm | Radley Balko

Chicago may revise its strictest-in-the-country ban on using cell phones while driving—but only because one of the city's aldermen got caught breaking the law.

Chicago motorists who get caught talking on cell phones while driving without a hands-free device would no longer lose their driver's licenses, under a mayoral plan that would have spared a North Side alderman political embarrassment.

Last year, Ald. Tom Tunney (44th) got pulled over and ticketed for yakking on his cell phone while driving. He was forced to hand over his license like thousands of other motorists.

Tunney then called Town Hall District Cmdr. Gary Yamashiroya and demanded to know why officers in an "understaffed police district" with serious unsolved crimes were "assigned to pull people over solely for cell phone violations."

In response, Yamashiroya ordered a police officer -- not the one who wrote the $50 ticket -- to hand-deliver Tunney's driver's license to the alderman's ward office.

Motorists generally get licenses back only after they go to court or pay their fines.

Earlier this year, Chicago Alderman Dick Mell introduced a bill granting a grace period for Chicagoans who may have forgotten to register their guns (this would apply only to the handful of privileged Chicagoans permitted to own a gun).  The reason for Mell's bill?  He himself had forgotten to register his guns before the deadline.

Now you see how Chicago's aldermen could make the city one of the most paternalistic in the country.  They either don't have to abide by the laws they pass, or they can simply pass a new law exonerating themselves should they get caught.

Saving Social Security, Episode 2: Boom Baby Boom!

Posted on October 10, 2008, 12:00pm

Worried about the viability of Social Security? Unless you're already collecting it, you should be!

Follow the animated adventures of Sonny, exactly the sort of youth who is set to get screwed by a system designed during The Great Depression, when workers were plenty and retirees rare.

Episode 2 of the series Saving Social Security is titled "Boom Baby Boom" and explains the demographic death grip that will force major cuts in benefits or massive increases in taxes (or both) to pay for the nation's mandatory savings plan.

Created by Lineplot Productions.

Watch episode 1, "Pimp My Walker," by clicking below:

A Tale of Two Videos

Posted on October 10, 2008, 11:06am | David Weigel

This is a video from the McCain campaign called "Ayers." It's 90 seconds long, meant for web consumption, and it spent all of yesterday linked from The Drudge Report. As of 10 a.m. today, it had 418,605 views.

Remember "the McCain-Palin mob," the video from a liberal blogger that I linked yesterday? As of 10 a.m., it had 625,561 views.

Two small data points, but the takeaway is that the Ayers attack, pushed hard this week by the McCain campaign, and ampliflied by the media, is not burning up the web. Discussion of McCain's tactics is. That, not Ayers, is the McCain story of the week. (Another new media data point: While "Ayers" has stayed a topic topic in Twitter messages all week, now most Ayers tweets are mockery of McCain.)

Think about Bill Kristol's New York Times column from Sunday. Given a short phone interview with Sarah Palin, he pushed her to talk about Jeremiah Wright. "To tell you the truth, Bill, I don’t know why that association isn’t discussed more," she said. Bam! Zip! Pow! Etc. But if the goal was to launch a new discussion of Wright, it completely failed. As The Politico's Ben Smith wrote on Monday, "Today we have coverage of Palin talking about Wright, for instance, not of Obama and Wright."

I don't know why McCain is doing this. There was a reason that President Bush made a dig at the "angry left" in his Republican convention speech. Voters can get angry, but they don't want to think they're part of a mob. To make a really outsized analogy, historians of the 60s agree that the thuggery of cops on the Edmund Pettus bridge and video of ugly whites attacking blacks had the biggest impact on shifting mainstream white attitudes on civil rights. Obviously McCain supporters aren't attacking Obama supporters, but the unidentified man who yelled "terrorist!" when McCain asked "who is the real Barack Obama?" has gotten more ink than Palin's coaxed attack on Wright.

It's all a bit mystifying because in the Tuesday debate McCain had the makings of a successful anti-Obama attack on the economy. He warned against Fannie Freddie abuses, Obama didn't, Obama is their political project, I'll save your home and he won't. Did he cede some of this battlefield when he voted for the bailout? Sure. But this is still the battlefield that the election's being fought on. It's as if Iranian troops rolled into Iraq at the end of the 2004 election and John Kerry started attacking Bush's National Guard service. Unless the economy rebounds in three weeks, this will not be a referendum on Obama's character, and McCain's attempts to make it that will tempt this kind of backlash.

UPDATE: Another danger in what McCain's doing: Stories like this, where an ex-governor of Michigan bellyaches about the tone of the GOP campaign and un-endorses the candidate. It looked for a while like McCain would split newspaper endorsements with Obama, but he'll probably get hammered there too.

15-Year-Old Arrested, Jailed for Nude Cell Phone Photos of Herself

Posted on October 10, 2008, 10:26am | Radley Balko

What a dumb waste of resources.

The judge has some discretion, here, but by the letter of the law, she could be forced to register as a sex offender for 20 years.

Read This Story About Stocks On Track for Their Worst Year Since 1937 and Then Tells Me What It Means Exactly...

Posted on October 10, 2008, 9:28am | Nick Gillespie

Continuing the less-than-stellar reporting of the financial sector, this AP story has the attention-grabbing headline "Stocks are on track for their worst year since 1937," without really explaining what that means. "Stocks are on track for their worst year since 1937," announces the story (hence the headline), without detailing how or in what ways. Ah well, context really doesn't matter, does it?

GM, the story says, is at its 1950 price, which kind of makes sense given the product that company makes. Ford, another rusted-out industrial-era giant, is tanking too. Which leads to a real problem, even beyond the $25 billion these two welfare kings (along with Chrysler) have already gotten from the feds. It's no secret that the Big 2.5 (sorry, Chrysler, the truth can be so hurtful) are dying to unload their pension and health-care liabilities onto the American taxpayer. Current and future conditions make it likely that they'll get their wish.

Look for a new 'roided-up stimulus package too:

"We have to prop up consumption," Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said in an interview.

The new proposal would be far greater than the $60 billion stimulus package that the House passed in September, Frank said. The Senate has not acted on the earlier bill, which was dwarfed in attention and scope by the sums being pledged to Wall Street companies and commercial banks.

And look for a new drop in the Dow, too. President Bush is going to speak about the market today, and that always seems to take a couple hundred (thousand) points off the index, doesn't it? The AP suggests various factors are to blame for yesterday's big dip (electronic trading, late-day execution of trades) but a humongous chunk has got to be related to the evolving plans of the Bush admin to first push a useless bailout through Congress and then announce plans to nationalize banks via direct purchase of equity. If I could only get out of this damn wheelchair (but I can't, I can't!), maybe I'd be moving into cash or gold coins hawked by G. Gordon Liddy too.

reason on the bailout.

Is McCain Still in the Game? Does He Need a Hail Mary? Marshall McLuhan Has Answers, Dammit! (Though To Questions Far More Interesting Than Those Ones)

Posted on October 10, 2008, 7:39am | Nick Gillespie

Pollster Scott Rasmussen says that Sen. John McCain needs a Hail Mary play to win the election:

"John McCain probably needs an outside event to win the White House," pollster Scott Rasmussen told the Herald. "He's a little bit like a football team in the fourth quarter, down by a couple of touchdowns. You can't make it all up in one play. And you still need a break or two."

More here.

Pollster John Zogby says the election "can still break either way":

"I don't think Obama has closed the deal yet," pollster John Zogby told the Herald yesterday.

Zogby's latest poll, released yesterday in conjunction with C-Span and Reuters, shows Obama and John McCain in a statistical dead heat, with the Illinois Democrat up 48-45 percent.

More here.

This much seems certain: Whoever wins, "Free Minds and Free Markets" lose, as is clear from our for-you-viewing-pleasure 63-second condensation of Tuesday's debate:

And speaking of Tuesday's debate, here's a YouTube clip of media theorist Marshall McLuhan appearing on the Today show in 1976 to comment on the debates between Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. Hosting the Today show? One Tom Brokaw, who seemed every bit as perplexed by complex thought and the English language as he does today (Edwin Newman, NBC's resident egghead, is also there). It's a really interesting clip, I think, especially because it shows how little has changed in the staging of political spectacle.

In many ways, McLuhan's criticisms of the debate format are more relevant now than ever given that we live in a radically deconstructed media environment. Phoney-baloney pseudo-events such as the presidential debates are even more self-evidently agitprop for, well, phoney-baloney pseudo-events. (Note: The technical difficulties that Brokaw, Newman, and McLuhan refer to resulted in a 27-minute delay during which moderater Harry Reasoner "vamped" while the candidates stood like wooden puppets at their podiums.)