24 December 2005 @ 1:17PM >> Notes from the U.S. military effort to help Pakistan in the wake of the devastating earthquake this past October:

U.S. helicopters have flown 2,500 sorties, carried 16,000 passengers and delivered nearly 6,000 tons of aid. Just as importantly, the Chinook has become America’s new emblem in Pakistan, a byword for salvation in an area where until recently the U.S. was widely and fanatically detested. Toy Chinooks (made in China, of course) are suddenly popular with Pakistani children. A Kashmiri imam who denounced the U.S. in a recent sermon was booed and heckled by worshippers. “Pakistan is not a nation of ingrates,” a local businessman told me over dinner the other night. “We know where the help is coming from.”

The extent of the U.S. military’s assistance, well-known to Pakistanis, barely registers on the radar screens of most Western news outlets. That’s a pity, because it overlooks one of America’s most significant hearts-and-minds successes so far in the Muslim world. The assistance also illustrates another frequently overlooked fact: When it comes to foreign aid, the Department of Defense is one of the biggest contributors, and what it provides is something no other country can replicate.

[...]

On a recent inspection tour of U.S. facilities here, Gen. Steven Whitcomb, commander of the U.S. Third Army, gave a series of pep talks to the soldiers. His remarks bear repeating:

“We’re fighting two wars. We’re still doing recovery operations from our own natural disaster. We still have soldiers manning the DMZ on the Korean peninsula. We still have sailors manning the flight decks of aircraft carriers at two in the morning. And we can still do this kind of thing. . . . You are all here for no other reason than that the United States asked you to be here. You’ve come to a place you can’t find on a map. But you are making a difference.”

23 December 2005 @ 10:36AM >> Ted Hayes might be the last guy you’d expect to be a Republican. That’s true, at least, unless you got a chance to speak with him.

Hayes is a big tower of a man who looks like he could have just as easily played in Bob Marley’s band as be Los Angeles’s pre-eminent homeless advocate, which he is. In 1993, Hayes founded Dome Village, a community to house homeless people and instill in them a “philosophy of self-governance, responsibility, productivity, volunteerism and respect for individuals,” thereby providing “avenues for homeless people to seek empowerment and make a break from the chronic cycle and psyche of homelessness.”

When you see a Rastafarian-looking homeless advocate, you usually don’t think Republican. Apparently, multi-millionaire retired attorney Milton Sidley never expected Ted Hayes to be a Republican, either. Sidley, you see, is the landlord for Dome Village, which currently pays Sidley $2,500 per month, plus property taxes, for the right to occupy the formerly blighted encampment site.

Unfortunately for the once-homeless who now live at Dome Village, the Los Angeles Times published an article earlier this month that mentioned Hayes’s political leanings. Perhaps Milton Sidley—a partisan Democrat who contributed $4,000 to the John Kerry campaign in 2004—noticed the article: all of a sudden, the landlord has announced that Dome Village’s rent will increase by over 630% when the lease comes up in late 2006. Each month, Dome Village will have to come up with $18,333 plus property taxes in order to stay afloat, or the residents will face homelessness once again.

According to a recent press release from Dome Village, when asked about the rent increase, Sidley replied, “This Democrat is tired of supporting Ted and his Dome Village.”

So much for the self-proclaimed compassion of Democrats!

22 December 2005 @ 3:52PM >> The three-day New York City transit strike is over and the Transport Workers Union has agreed to go back to the bargaining table.

When the contract talks are through, Metropolitan Transportation Authority should immediately begin investigating upgrading the subway system to replace all train drivers with automated systems. A number of other cities have proven such systems workable, and there’s no reason why the largest subway system in the world should be vulnerable to another shutdown by an egomaniacal union boss. The taxpayers of New York should not be expected to underwrite the salaries of people whose jobs can be done more cheaply, efficiently and without complaint by machines. We are already the most heavily-taxed citizenry in the country.

If the TWU rank-and-file has any wisdom, they’d replace Roger Toussaint as their president. In his press conferences, Toussaint spent most of his time whining about not getting enough respect from the MTA, yet he showed New Yorkers about as much respect as a dog does to a fire hydrant. And in a few short days, he made himself the most hated man in New York City and managed to turn this liberal city into an anti-union town.

I’m sure there are many decent, responsible members of the TWU who disagreed with his tactics and were embarrassed by his antics. They need to make their voices heard, or the damage to their union will be irreparable. This ill will won’t dissipate soon.

22 December 2005 @ 2:17PM >> The rhetoric of Saddam Hussein is converging with that of the Democratic Party and the anti-war left, as he criticized President Bush as “the number one liar in the world.”

He is also accusing the U.S. of torturing him while in prison, although given how he and his former henchmen now define brutality, his idea of torture may simply consist of not having enough salt with his meals.

It’s too bad he wasn’t so sensitive to mistreatment while he was in power, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis might still be alive.

20 December 2005 >> For the first time since 1980, the New York City public transit system is completely shut down due to a strike. Transport Workers Union head Roger Toussaint made the announcement shortly after 3:00AM local time. In addition, many commuter railroads shuttling passengers in from the suburbs may be shut down, as sympathetic union workers refuse to cross picket lines.

I moved to New York in late 1979, a few months before the last transit strike occurred. Because most New York City residents don’t have cars, the preferred method of transportation for strike-stranded city-dwellers was walking. Each weekday, my father picked me up from school on 77th Street and York Avenue and we walked to his office in Times Square, a distance of 3 1/2 miles. We then walked the same distance back home at night. Perhaps that laid the foundation for my love of New York City, the perfect city for walking.

The 1980 strike lasted 11 days, and although it was a major inconvenience, at least it occurred during the spring. New York is in the dead of winter now, 24 degrees Fahrenheit as I type. Walking to work in this weather will not be nearly as kind, and it won’t be possible at all for many. I’m just thankful that my commute to work doesn’t require me to leave the apartment. Most people don’t have it so easy.

This strike has the potential to do far more damage to the city, both economically and psychologically. If it lasts as long as the previous one, many families—possibly including mine—will be separated for Christmas. Businesses depending on last-minute shoppers for year-end profitability will be devastated. New Year’s Eve plans will be scuttled. People unable to get to work will lose out on income, and those who have no choice but to show up will be forced to use taxis—if they can find one—and may be hours late to work. (There are approximately 10,000 taxis in NYC, and not all of them are on duty at any given time. The NYC subway system transports 7.5 million riders a day. Do the math!) And those lucky enough to find a cab will also find themselves quite a bit poorer after spending what could be $50 a day or more just to commute.

So, we should all give a big Christmas thank you to the Transport Workers Union, who in calling the strike, have become the Grinches for many New Yorkers. We should also reassess the wisdom of allowing our governments and transportation systems to be held hostage by unions.

I do not understand why unions aren’t considered illegal cartels. If I wanted to become a subway train driver, I could not do so without first joining the union, whether I wanted to pay the union dues or not. What’s the difference between that and being forced to pay protection money to the mafia? In either case, the mob or the union “protects” me (or my job), whether I want the protection or not.

Similarly, if a group of merchants got together to decide that they’re going to sell gasoline at $10 a gallon, it would be considered illegal collusion, and the merchants would be prosecuted. So why can individuals band together to fix prices for labor? They are in effect merchants of their work, and they’re colluding, via the union, to subvert the free market and set artificially high prices for what they are selling. And they are now effectively extorting the entire City of New York in order to ensure the perpetuation of their monopoly on the transit labor market.

It’s too bad that neither Mayor Bloomberg nor Governor Pataki have the power or the backbone to do what President Reagan did when PATCO—the (former) air traffic controllers union—went on strike. If the transit workers don’t want to show up and drive the trains, then the MTA should be free to hire people who do.

19 December 2005 @ 11:50AM >> Nearly three years after I posted my first video on this site, the establishment media has declared video blogging the latest craze. It’s nice that the media dinosaurs are finally noticing, although it is regrettable that the label vlog is being used for video blog. The term blog is annoying enough, but vlog? Come on! It sounds like the noise someone makes when coughing up phlegm.

19 December 2005 @ 9:23AM >> A study conducted by UCLA researchers finds more evidence of media bias:

“I suspected that many media outlets would tilt to the left because surveys have shown that reporters tend to vote more Democrat than Republican,” said Tim Groseclose, a UCLA political scientist and the study’s lead author. “But I was surprised at just how pronounced the distinctions are.”

[...]

Of the 20 major media outlets studied, 18 scored left of center, with CBS’ “Evening News,” The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times ranking second, third and fourth most liberal behind the news pages of The Wall Street Journal.

Only Fox News’ “Special Report With Brit Hume” and The Washington Times scored right of the average U.S. voter.

[...]

The researchers took numerous steps to safeguard against bias — or the appearance of same — in the work, which took close to three years to complete. They went to great lengths to ensure that as many research assistants supported Democratic candidate Al Gore in the 2000 election as supported President George Bush. They also sought no outside funding, a rarity in scholarly research.

“No matter the results, we feared our findings would’ve been suspect if we’d received support from any group that could be perceived as right- or left-leaning, so we consciously decided to fund this project only with our own salaries and research funds that our own universities provided,” Groseclose said.

17 December 2005 @ 10:57AM >> There are many reasons why music CDs make unwise purchases.

But for those parents who still don’t quite get it, here’s a website that will help you make the right purchase for your kids.

16 December 2005 @ 10:17AM >> The optimistic anticipation of the Iraqi people was detected by polling in the days before the election:

Interviewers found that 71% of [Iraqis] questioned said things were currently very or quite good in their personal lives, while 29% found their lives very or quite bad.

When asked whether their lives would improve in the coming year, 64% said things would be better and 12% said they expected things to be worse.

American soldiers are similarly upbeat about Iraq’s prospects:

When I told people that I was getting ready to head back to Iraq for my third tour, the usual response was a frown, a somber head shake and even the occasional “I’m sorry.” When I told them that I was glad to be going back, the response was awkward disbelief, a fake smile and a change of subject. The common wisdom seems to be that Iraq is an unwinnable war and a quagmire and that the only thing left to decide is how quickly we withdraw. Depending on which poll you believe, about 60 percent of Americans think it’s time to pull out of Iraq.

How is it, then, that 64 percent of U.S. military officers think we will succeed if we are allowed to continue our work? Why is there such a dramatic divergence between American public opinion and the upbeat assessment of the men and women doing the fighting?

[...]

We know the streets, the people and the insurgents far better than any armchair academic or talking head. As military professionals, we are trained to gauge the chances of success and failure, to calculate risk and reward. We have little to gain from our optimism and quite a bit to lose as we leave our families over and over again to face danger and deprivation for an increasingly unpopular cause. We know that there are no guarantees in war, and that we may well fail in the long run. We also know that if we follow our current plan we can, over time, leave behind a stable and unified country that might help to anchor a better future for the Middle East.

One factor contributing to this optimism may be the growing marginalization of terrorists within Iraq:

In a move unthinkable in the bloody run-up to the last election, guerrillas in the western insurgent heartland of Anbar province say they are even prepared to protect voting stations from fighters loyal to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al Qaeda in Iraq.

Graffiti calling for holy war is now hard to find.

[...]

The shift is encouraging for Washington, which hopes to draw Sunni Arabs into peaceful politics in order to defuse the insurgency.

Far from our actions creating more terrorists, as some argue, it appears that the terrorists are creating more people eager to support democracy. Whatever the outcome of yesterday’s elections, Iraqis and the chances for democracy and peace are the big winners. For the third time in a year, facing the prospect of death, Iraqis turned out to vote in far higher proportions than we Americans do. Some might even say that Iraq, like most societies still in the process of cleansing the bloodstains of tyranny, savors the promise of freedom and democracy far more than we do. We’ve had 219 years to become complacent about liberty, whereas the scars of the Saddam regime are still visible, quite literally, on the Iraqi people.

Arab News looks at the elections and declares them “a vote for peace”:

It was the voice of the Iraqi people that was being heard yesterday, not the bomb blasts of the terrorists. What little violence there was as millions crowded toward their local polling stations only served to demonstrate how incoherent and pointless are the efforts of the men of violence to change the country through further bloodshed.

[V]irtually every voter who was asked agreed that this was a momentous day, which well deserved the often party-like atmosphere that gripped the heavily patrolled, traffic-free streets. Time and again Iraqis told inquiring journalists that this was the moment when they took control of their country, the beginning of the end of the US-led occupation and — though this was generally voiced more cautiously — the beginning of the end of insurgent violence.

Meanwhile, the editorial pages of The New York Times and The Washington Post, which rarely miss a chance to declare Iraq a complete failure, couldn’t be bothered to say anything about the Iraqi elections. James Taranto notes a contradiction in the media coverage of Iraq:

There is an interesting disconnect in the U.S. media, and it goes beyond the usual complaints of pessimism or hostility to the American war effort. Go back and look at the transcript of NBC’s “Meet the Press” for Nov. 27, which we noted the next day—and in particular the journalist roundtable, which features five senior Washington journalists, all of whom seem to agree that democracy in Iraq is a dead letter. The only mention of Iraq’s then-forthcoming election was in a setup quote from the White House press secretary. To hear the journos talk, it was as if they hadn’t even heard that Iraqis were going to the polls.

And yet the producers at CNN and Fox appear to have regarded a genuine election in Iraq as such a routine event that it didn’t merit continuous live coverage. (Both stations did break into the recorded fare for occasional live updates.) It’s quite a striking indication of just how out of touch with the outside world are those within the Beltway media bubble.

The media pessimism can’t last forever. Eventually, people will recognize the truth about Iraq. In the meantime, though, large portions of the media and many politicians are setting themselves up for future irrelevance. What happens if you spend years declaring Iraq a disaster and it turns out not to be? What happens when you continually tell voters that we have no hope of winning and we do? Fear of success more than fear of failure may be driving the recent calls for an early departure from Iraq. After all, with each passing day there is less of a chance to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. And if we succeed in our mission in Iraq, there are going to be a lot of people whose credibility is utterly destroyed. Luckily for them, credibility is not a requirement for employment in politics or the media.

It’s still far too early to declare Iraq a complete victory, but given the tremendous progress that the country has made in less than three years, how anyone could possibly claim Iraq is a lost cause is beyond me. By what measure is Iraq is a disaster? Compared to what war is Iraq a failure? Anyone with a passing knowledge of history knows that every war will have its setbacks. There were many times during the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and World War II, for example, when the eventual victors looked certain to lose. Compared to most wars in history, what has been achieved in Iraq to date can only be considered a stunning success. We’re helping the Iraqis build a republic. Let’s hope they can keep it.

15 December 2005 >> Many schools ban U.S. military recruiters from campus over objections to Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell, the policy that prevents gays from serving openly in the military. Yet many of these same schools accept millions from Saudi royalty for the creation and maintenance of Middle Eastern Studies programs. Saudi Arabia, for the uninitiated, is a country where homosexuality is punishable by beheading. Why are these schools are willing to take a stand against the U.S. military but not against Saudi Arabia?

More thoughts on this at the OnTheFenceFilms.com blog:

It’s interesting that Saudi money can buy access to create permanent Islamic studies institutions—which, we can assume, won’t be terribly critical of the very donors of that money—but that American money won’t even buy the right for U.S. military recruiters to sit at a table for a few hours each semester.

15 December 2005 >> Behold: the Top Media Corrections of 2005.

15 December 2005 >> For far too long, newspaper websites have required that users register in order to read articles. Not only is it annoying for the user, it increases the chance that your inbox will become laden with spam. It also largely removes the newspaper from the global online discussion; bloggers are far less likely to point readers to a site that requires them to jump through hoops just to read an editorial or news item. On the web, if you can’t link to it, it might as well not even exist.

So I’m happy to report a welcome trend: some newspapers are seeing the light and doing away with the digital gates. Let’s hope that continues. In the meantime, for people who wish to keep their e-mail addresses private, there are other ways of crashing the gates.

13 December 2005 >> After the 2004 election, there was much talk in Democratic political circles about the need to reach out to Christian voters. Apparently, the Democratic Party of Washington State heard the message loud and clear. They recently reached out to Christians...and gave them the finger.

One blogger noticed that the Washington State Democrats were selling a number of magnetic car decals, among them a modified version of the traditional Christian fish. The word “hypocrite” was added, along with a cross on a bed of flames.

Oddly, the Democrats were offering the Christian-bashing decal on the same page as a rainbow-colored ribbon encouraging people to “Support Diversity.” Talk about hypocrites!

Update: Some comments on Delta Mike Charlie, the website that broke the story, expressed skepticism about the authenticity of the screen captures. But considering that Washington State Democratic Party Chairman Paul Berendt recently issued an apology, the story checks out. “The moment I became aware of it, I insisted it be taken down,” he said. “I’m sorry if anyone was offended. It’s embarrassing.”

12 December 2005 @ 10:40AM >> The governing body of the Palestinian territories has authorized a plan to encourage terrorism by making routine payments to the families of suicide bombers.

Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas recently signed the new law:

Under the new law, the terrorist’s family will be paid a base sum of $250 per month. The law takes into account extended family arrangements commonplace in Arab societies. The families of married terrorists are entitled to an additional $50 per month, and $15 are added for each child, $25 for each parent, and $15 for each brother who lived with the terrorist prior to his death.

The monies, to be paid out of the general budget of the Palestinian Authority, are significant sums for average Arab families living in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza.

No word yet on when the Palestinian Authority plans of make similar payments to the families of victims of those suicide bombers.

This scheme reminds me of Saddam Hussein’s old policy of making lump-sum payments of $25,000 to the families of suicide bombers who strike outside Iraq. Of course, as we all know now, Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with terrorism.

The article also notes that “[t]he budget of the Palestinian Authority is largely subsidized by grants from European nations and the United States.” So, in effect, American and European taxpayers are rewarding terrorism by ensuring that the families of suicide bombers are well taken care of. Yet another example of government money well-spent!

9 December 2005 @ 3:57PM >> Just a few days after Saddam Hussein exposed the brutality he faces in US custody comes word that the imperialist American warmongers are victimizing even more innocent Iraqis:

Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, Saddam’s former intelligence chief and one of his most feared sidekicks, also said the food was bad and he was not given blankets. He lost 18 kilos in just two months in captivity, he complained.

“We were detained by one of the wealthiest countries in the world, yet it was only after four months in detention that they gave me cigarettes,” said Barzan, charged with crimes against humanity.

“And then they were of the worst quality in the world.”

We gave him cigarettes? What are we trying to do, kill him? What’s the point of even fighting the so-called “War on Terror” if we’ve become just as barbaric and inhumane as the supposed terrorists we’re trying to defeat?

9 December 2005 @ 9:11AM >> At a recent conference on climate change, reporter Richard Ingham of Agence France-Presse apparently became rather agitated when speaking to one of the attendees. In this badgering exchange with Peyton Knight of the National Center for Public Policy Research, the reporter reveals that he has absolutely no prejudices about the topic he’s been assigned to cover:

“Who funds you?” [the reporter] angrily demanded.

I explained that individual donations make up the vast majority of our funding.

“What individuals?” he pressed.

I explained that our supporters are mostly individual Americans who believe in our mission.

Clearly disappointed that our main funding source wasn’t industry, the AFP representative moved on to another line of questioning.

“I see here that you do research. Just what kind of research do you do?” he asked, growing more hostile.

I pointed to the press release in his hand, specifically the bold portion at the top that quite clearly reveals the name of our organization — i.e. The National Center for PUBLIC POLICY Research.

Furious now, he demanded to know The National Center’s stance on global warming. I began to explain to him that it is our view that mankind is not causing the planet to get appreciably warmer. Before I could delve into any specifics, he cut me off, shouting: “Why?! Because it isn’t in the Bible?! It isn’t in Genesis?!”

He then stormed off. He was probably in a hurry to file an honest, unbiased account about the conference... or maybe not.

9 December 2005 >> I remember seeing an old New Yorker cartoon years ago that had a guy in a bookstore telling a clerk, “I’d like a book on chutzpah, and I want you to pay for it.”

Out of that same mold comes this proposal from Joe Mathewson, a journalism professor at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism:

[N]ewspapers, as important to the civic health of our society as public transportation, have a claim on public allegiance that goes beyond financial measure. Does anyone believe that our society is better, our civic virtue enhanced, by the failure of the Washington Star and the New York Herald Tribune and the Chicago Daily News and all the other fine dailies that have perished for purely financial reasons?

Because declining readership and revenue threaten the newspaper industry, Professor Mathewson recommends converting newspapers into tax-exempt entities. In effect, taxpayers would be underwriting the publishing of newspapers by giving them a free pass on their tax bills.

Just imagine...not only would you have the privilege of choosing to buy the print edition of The New York Times or paying $50 a year for TimesSelect, under Mathewson’s scheme, you’d have the additional privilege of subsidizing the Times through tax breaks, which would underwrite an editorial page that consistently calls for higher taxes. You’d be paying taxes so the Times could lobby for you to pay even more taxes.

Chutzpah indeed!

8 December 2005 @ 6:51PM >> 60 minuteman Mike Wallace was apparently turned down by President Bush for an interview. He recently revealed what he would have asked the president if given the chance:

What in the world prepared you to be the commander in chief of the largest superpower in the world? In your background, Mr. President, you apparently were incurious. You didn’t want to travel. You knew very little about the military. . . . The governor of Texas doesn’t have the kind of power that some governors have. . . . Why do you think they nominated you? . . . Do you think that has anything to do with the fact that the country is so [expletive] up?

8 December 2005 @ 4:04PM >> They’re nearing the bottom of the slide in Canada. And plenty of people would like it to happen here, too.

It’s strange that you can find so many who will expend oxygen defending rights that don’t appear in the constitution, yet when the Second Amendment comes under attack, they just shrug their shoulders.

8 December 2005 @ 12:40PM >> Ever wonder why you hear almost nothing in the media about Afghanistan? Probably because Afghanis themselves are so optimistic about the future.

8 December 2005 @ 9:31AM >> According to this map, on prominent display during the UN’s “Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People,” Israel does not (or is that should not?) exist.

I look forward to seeing what kind of maps the UN will be displaying at the “Day of Solidarity with the Israeli People.” Oh wait, there is no such thing...

6 December 2005 @ 1:47PM >> Shed a tear for Saddam Hussein, the latest victim of American terrorism (emphasis mine):

Saddam Hussein shouted Tuesday that he will not return “to an unjust court” when it convenes for the fifth session of his trial Wednesday. As the end of the session, when the judges decided to hold a session Wednesday, Saddam suddenly shouted: “I will not return. I will not come to an unjust court! Go to hell!” Saddam also complained that he had no fresh clothes and had been deprived of shower and exercise facilities. “This is terrorism,” he said.

In a world where the humiliations of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay are considered torture, it only makes sense that dirty clothes constitute terrorism. Still, terror victim Saddam looks like he’s doing much better than when he was pulled from the rathole.

6 December 2005 @ 11:58AM >> PriceRitePhoto, the company involved in the apparent attempt to fleece customer Thomas Hawk (covered previously), has apologized for its abusive, unethical, and probably illegal behavior. Considering the store received tons of bad virtual press and several hundred crank calls, there may be less sincerity than necessity behind the apology.

5 December 2005 @ 1:03PM >> Mohammed ElBaradai, the chairman of the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, warned that Iran may now be several months away from developing a nuclear weapon. As if to underscore that point, Iran is starting the process of building two new nuclear reactors. Although oil-rich Iran maintains that it needs nuclear energy to power the country, the byproduct of the reactors also happens to be useful for constructing nuclear weapons.

A nuclear Iran is rather worrisome considering the recent statements of new Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:

“And God willing, with the force of God behind it, we shall soon experience a world without the United States and Zionism.”

[T]he “new wave of confrontations generated in Palestine and the growing turmoil in the Islamic world would in no time wipe Israel away.”

“[Any country that] recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation’s fury.”

Since we all know that military action is not justified until a threat becomes full and immediate, I’m looking forward to seeing how the brilliant minds at the UN negotiate their way out of this mess. A chance to say, “See, I told you so!” won’t feel nearly as satisfying if I’m doing it from the inside of a mushroom cloud.

5 December 2005 @ 12:59PM >> A systems analyst recently discovered that Sony’s CD copy protection scheme can damage your computer’s operating system installation and leave your system vulnerable to hackers. Recently, the Department of Homeland Security took notice, leading to a rebuke from Stewart Baker, the department’s assistant secretary for policy, who chastised Sony: “It’s very important to remember that it’s your intellectual property — it’s not your computer.”

2 December 2005 @ 2:30PM >> One of the reasons I will probably never be considered a journalist is that I am insufficiently pessimistic for the job. Life will hand you plenty of cause to be periodically despondent; you don’t really need to go around looking for the dark cloud that surrounds every silver lining. That attitude alone would disqualify me from ever becoming an economic reporter:

During a quarter century of analyzing and forecasting the economy, I have never seen anything like this. No matter what happens, no matter what data are released, no matter which way markets move, a pall of pessimism hangs over the economy.

It is amazing. Everything is negative. When bond yields rise, it is considered bad for the housing market and the consumer. But if bond yields fall and the yield curve narrows toward inversion, that is bad too, because an inverted yield curve could signal a recession.

If housing data weaken, as they did on Monday when existing home sales fell, well that is a sign of a bursting housing bubble. If housing data strengthen, as they did on Tuesday when new home sales rose, that is negative because the Fed may raise rates further. If foreigners buy our bonds, we are not saving for ourselves. If foreigners do not buy our bonds, interest rates could rise. If wages go up, inflation is coming. If wages go down, the economy is in trouble.

This onslaught of negative thinking is clearly having an impact. During the 2004 presidential campaign, when attacks on the economy were in full force, 36% of Americans thought we were in recession. One year later, even though unemployment has fallen from 5.5% to 5%, and real GDP has expanded by 3.7%, the number who think a recession is underway has climbed to 43%.

This is a real conundrum. It is true, bad things have happened. Katrina wiped out a major city and many people are still displaced. GM has announced massive layoffs. Underfunded pension plans are being handed off to the government. Oil, gasoline and natural gas prices have soared. Despite it all, the U.S. economy continues to flourish.

It sure isn’t reported that way. If all you had to go on were the establishment media portrayals of the economy—as opposed to, you know, actual evidence—you would certainly be left with the same impression that the Democrats tried to impart during the last presidential campaign: namely, that we’re mired in the worst economy since Herbert Hoover and the Great Depression.

It’s funny, though. Just a few years ago, the general tone of economic reporting seemed a lot sunnier. Go back to the 1996 election and compare, for example, the unemployment data with that from the same point in the 2004 campaign. Notice any difference in the numbers? How about people’s perceptions of those numbers?

I wonder if the way economic news is reported has anything to do with the occupant of the White House...

1 December 2005 @ 1:28PM >> An unsigned joke via e-mail:

Next time you think your hotel bill is too high, remember this story...

Bob and Sarah are driving from Key West to Boston to visit their daughter in college. After almost twenty-four hours on the road, they’re too tired to continue, so they decide to stop for a rest.

They stop at a nice hotel and take a room, but they only plan to sleep for four hours and then get back on the road.

When they check out four hours later, the desk clerk gives them a bill for $350. Bob explodes and demands to know why the charge is so high. He tells the clerk that although it’s a nice hotel, the rooms are certainly not worth $350.

When the clerk tells him $350 is the standard rate, Bob insists on speaking to the manager. The manager appears, listens to Bob, and then explains that the hotel has an Olympic-sized pool, a huge conference center, and free wireless Internet available for their use.

“But we didn’t use them,” Bob complains.

“Well, they are here, and you could have,” the manager replies.

He goes on to explain they could have taken in one of the shows for which the hotel is famous. “The best entertainers from New York, Hollywood and Las Vegas perform here,” the manager says.

“But we didn’t go to any of those shows.”

“Well, we have them, and you could have.”

No matter what facility the manager mentions, Bob replies, “But we didn’t use it!”

The manager is unmoved, and eventually Bob gives up and agrees to pay. He writes a check and hands it to the manager.

The manager takes the check and looks at it, confused. “But sir,” he says, “this check is only made out for $50.”

“That’s right,” says Bob. “I charged you $300 for sleeping with my wife.”

Taken aback, the manager exclaims, “Sir! I did not sleep with your wife!”

“Well, that’s too bad,” Bob replies. “Because she was here, and you could have.”

1 December 2005 >> There have always been unscrupulous retailers pulling bait-and-switch jobs on customers, so it’s natural that they exist online as well. Scam retailers probably feel veiled by the lack of face-to-face contact when selling online. But what the Internet giveth, it also taketh away. Beware who you piss off, because your victim’s tale of woe may just get tons of traffic.