Category Archives: The World

Nice job of repairing the ol’ Special Relationship there, Mitt. You trying to restart the War of 1812?

Well, you know how that awful Obama person went and insulted our Cousins across the water by dissing the Churchill bust?

Fortunately, Mitt Romney, a.k.a. The Mighty Mighty White Man, hopped across the pond to set things straight.

Above was the result. That’s from The Sun. Very lively newspaper industry they still have over there. Here’s more on the subject.

Anyway, the White House has really, really been enjoying this. And and at least one of Romney’s likely supporters is highly dismayed:

As Charles Krauthammer, who is probably Obama’s most vitriolic foreign policy critic on the right, put it, Romney really didn’t have to do much more than show up for the trip to be a success. Instead, he opened his mouth and undermined both of his goals. Whatever the right might say about the Obama administration damaging the “special relationship” between the U.S. and U.K., Obama has never caused an incident like the one Romney did yesterday. As an exasperated Krauthammer remarked last night, “All Romney has to do, say nothing. It’s like a guy in the 100-meter dash. All he has to do is to finish, he doesn’t have to win. And instead, he tackles the guy in the lane next to him and ends up disqualified. I don’t get it.”

Only Robinson Crusoe did it alone — and then only until Friday came along

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And note that not even he made the musket, or the hatchet.

Since I’m not at the paper any more, it fell to Cindi Scoppe to write this column that ran today, basically addressing the orgy of indignation among the libertarians who call themselves conservatives over President Obama’s unfortunate choice of words in explaining the painfully obvious fact that practically no one in our crowded, interdependent world achieves anything worthwhile alone:

A LOT OF what the president says and does is ripe for criticism. But what he said the other day about no one being an island, about how our parents and our communities and our teachers and mentors and, yes, our government all contributed to our success is not one of those things.

If you’re wondering who in the world would criticize such obvious commentary, it’s because you don’t recognize the full context of that bizarre, ridiculous, one hopes bungled quote that came in the middle of it: “If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”…

Of course business owners built their businesses — unless they inherited them or bought them from someone who did. Their initiative and hard work and luck set them apart.

As important as parents are to our success, one sibling can create a multi-billion-dollar business while another languishes on welfare. As much as we need good teachers, even the best have some students who drop out of school. Although government policy can give some businesses a leg up, others can go bankrupt even with too-generous government grants.

That’s because some people have initiative, and some do not. Some people are creative, and some are not. Some people are smart, and some are not. And while the schools can affect which group any individual is in, government does not eliminate those basic differences.

At the same time though, the vast majority of people who own businesses would not have been able to do that if we didn’t have a monetary system and a court system and roads and police and other functions of government. The vast majority of people who have any sort of success would not have it in a world without government. In fact, they wouldn’t have it if not for the peculiar kind of government that our country embraced from the start: self-government.

Can, and should, our government be more efficient? Of course so. Is there room to debate whether the government should bail out the banks or the auto industry or help pay for our medical care? By all means. Is there a legitimate question as to whether taxes are too high or too low? Certainly.

But the vast majority of Americans would not have the lives we take for granted — lives that are inconceivably luxurious compared to the lives lived by the overwhelming majority of people throughout human history — if it weren’t for our flawed but better-than-any-alternatives government.

Seems to me Cindi was being slightly over-cautious in saying that only “the vast majority of people” would have gotten nowhere without the basic conditions — civil order, rule of law, basic infrastructure — that are provided through the processes we call “government.” I suppose there are some to whom that doesn’t apply, but very few. It’s even harder to think of anyone who accomplished anything worthwhile completely and utterly alone — without anyone, whether you’re talking about government or not.

I suppose there’s Robinson Crusoe — that is, until Friday came along. This reminds me of an economics exercise we did in high school. We had to suppose we were stranded on a desert island, and we had to allocate our resources — which included time, and effort — so as to survive. This much time building a shelter out of available materials meant that much less time spent gathering food. X amount of time spent making a tool that would facilitate building that shelter cuts the construction time, leaving more time to weave a net to make fishing easier, etc.

A castaway who is completely alone can create something useful — to him, anyway — without anyone else’s involvement. But a business, in our crowded society? Well, to start with, you have to have customers. And then, depending on your business, there are suppliers, and vendors providing services that it would be inefficient to perform yourself. And as you grow, there are employees who become essential to your further growth, etc. Without the willing participation of those often vast networks of people, you can work and create all you want, but you’re not getting anywhere.

The extreme libertarians would put government in another category from just “people.” But in our system, the government and the people are the same thing. “Government” is just the word for the set of arrangements that we have among us, the people, for handling certain things that are best handled that way, such as building roads or deepening a port or passing and enforcing the laws without which the concept of private property is meaningless.

In fact, if I had a quibble with Cindi’s column, it would be that, in her litany of things for which government is essential, she kept referring to government as “it.” As in, “It creates and maintains a monetary system,” and “It provides a civil justice system…”

Given the screwy way so many of our neighbors these days think of government, that can be misunderstood as government being some separate entity that provides certain things to us, the people. But it’s not that at all. A better word than “it” would be “we,” because government is simply the process through which we create and maintain a monetary system, provide a civil justice system, and so forth.

Government does not give or take away. It’s just the arrangements through which we, the people, do certain things that we decide, through our system of representative democracy, are best done that way.

Bob Inglis and market-driven environmentalism

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Inglis blowing bubbles during his speech. Yes, he was making a point, but it would take too many words to explain it here. You had to be there.

Don’t know whether you read Bob Inglis’ op-ed piece in The State the other day or not. An excerpt:

There is important work to be done in order to realize the full potential of South Carolina’s advanced-energy sector. We need less government and more free enterprise. Some clean-energy technologies are more cost-effective than fossil fuels, and others are not there yet. But even the most cost-effective clean fuels still routinely lose out to more expensive fossil fuels. Why? Because the energy market is not a free market.

Speaking at the Clean Energy Summit is timely for me because, a few days ago, I launched the Energy and Enterprise Initiative, a national public-engagement campaign to promote conservative solutions to America’s energy challenges. One of our first efforts will be to convene forums around the country, much like the summit, that bring together economists, national-security experts, climate scientists and interested citizens to explore the power of free enterprise to solve our nation’s energy challenges. We’re going to be saying that, given a “true cost” comparison, free enterprise can deliver muscular solutions to our energy and climate challenges — solutions far better than clumsy government mandates and fickle tax incentives…

The day that appeared, he was speaking to the South Carolina Clean Energy Summit at the convention center. I attended the event, which was sponsored, understandably enough, by the South Carolina Clean Energy Business Alliance.

In case you wonder how Inglis gets to being an environmentalist from the perch of a dyed-in-the-wool conservative (which shouldn’t be puzzling — conservatives should by their nature want to conserve the environment, if words have meaning), here’s an example of how it works for him: The problem now, he explained, is that different sources of energy don’t compete on an even, market-driven playing field. For instance, the true cost of gasoline is hidden. If the full costs of our military operations in the Mideast were attached directly to the price of gasoline (as we in the Energy Party think it should be), “we’d beat a path to the Prius dealership.”

The real problem with the U.S. Olympic uniforms

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After noting that failing to have the U.S. Olympic team’s uniforms made in this country was a serious missed opportunity, Peggy Noonan raises the other problem, which has occurred to me whenever I’ve seen photos of these ridiculous togs:

But that isn’t the biggest problem. That would be the uniforms themselves. They don’t really look all that American. Have you seen them? Do they say “America” to you? Berets with little stripes? Double breasted tuxedo-like jackets with white pants? Funny rounded collars on the shirts? Huge Polo logos? They look like some European bureaucrat’s idea of a secret militia, like Brussels’s idea of a chic new army. They’re like the international community Steven Spielberg lined up to put on the spaceship at the end of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”

Americans wear baseball caps, trucker hats, cowboy hats, watch caps, Stetsons, golf caps, even Panama hats and fedoras. They wear jeans and suits and khakis and shorts and workout clothes. The Americans in the now-famous uniform picture look like something out of a Vogue spread where the models arrayed on the yacht look like perfect representatives of the new global elite.

Our athletes aren’t supposed to look like people who’d march under a flag with statues and harps and musical notes. Also, the women’s uniforms make them look like stewardesses from the 777 fleet on Singapore Airlines.

The failure of the uniforms is that they don’t communicate: “Here comes America.”

They communicate: “Chic global Martians coming your way.”

Amen to that, Peggy.

I saw a photo in the WSJ the other day showing the uniforms, and at first I thought sure they were on male fashion models — you know, the kind who are distinguishable from the female models only by slightly larger jaws, with neither gender looking entirely like normal, healthy humans? The effect was heightened by the fact that they were wearing clothing no normal person would wear.

I was shocked to learn they were actual American athletes. I’m still not sure the cutline was right. So maybe it was entirely the uniforms that made them look so unreal.

Russia backs down, somewhat, on Syria

You tell ’em, Hillary! It’s about time somebody called Russia and China on their obstructionism

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When the Cold War ended, we were supposed to finally get this New World Order that made it possible to advance the cause of civilization across the globe, without the agendas of competing superpowers overriding consensus in the United Nations. (Either that, or some global conspiracy to undermine national sovereignty and do dirt to People Like You, if you are of a conspiracy orientation.)

But time and time again, two countries — a superpower wannabe and a superpower used-to-be — have repeatedly, usually perversely, stood in the way of any effort to crack down on bad actors from dictators who crush their own people to nutjobs who seek to go nuclear. Time and time again, the best friend of the Assads of the world turn out to be either China or Russia, or both of them. (True, France and Germany also demurred when we were gearing up to go after Saddam, but that was an instance in which reasonable people could disagree.)

Now, Hillary Clinton has called them on it:

Syria crisis: Clinton lambasts China and Russia as Annan urges unity

Hillary Clinton demands rivals ‘pay price’ for backing Assad as UN’s Kofi Annan warns Iran must play role in ending conflict

International divisions over Syria were laid bare today as Kofi Annan issued a blunt warning that world powers must end their “destructive competition” over the future of the Assad regime even as Hillary Clinton demanded that Russia and China “get off the sidelines” and support the Syrian people.

Clinton used a conference of the Friends of Syria group in Paris to demand that Russia and China join the three western members of the UN security council to pressure Assad over an escalating conflict that has left 15,000 dead and is inflaming the wider region…

Clinton called for “real and immediate consequences” for non-compliance with the peace plan, including sanctions against the regime, but with Russia and China boycotting the event, there was no chance of agreement on punitive action under Chapter 7 of the UN charter. “What can every nation and group represented here do?” Clinton asked. “I ask you to reach out to Russia and China, and to not only urge but demand that they get off the sidelines and begin to support the legitimate aspirations of the Syrian people.

“I don’t think Russia and China believe they are paying any price at all, nothing at all, for standing up on behalf of the Assad regime,” she said. “The only way that will change is if every nation represented here directly and urgently makes it clear that Russia and China will pay a price. Because they are holding up progress, blockading it. That is no longer tolerable.”…

I like the “pay a price” part. I think if Hillary Clinton said I was going to pay a price if I didn’t straighten up and act right, I’d believe her.

Wouldn’t you?

You can see video of her address here.

Here’s hoping her tough talk will have a good effect. Just as her apology to Pakistan (which has really had touchy inferiority complex ever since we killed bin Laden in one of their suburbs) did earlier in the week. Sometimes you need to make nice, other times not so much.

Only 80,000 — low jobs figure depresses markets, casts pall on Obama’s re-election

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No virtual front page today, because there’s not much I’d willingly put on a front page. The biggest story of the day by far is the softer-than-expected jobs numbers — which, combined with bad news out of Spain, has sent global markets plunging.

(The only thing competing for the front with that is Hillary Clinton talking tough to China and Russia about Syria. I might do a separate post about that.)

The BBC does the basic overview:

US shares have fallen after official data showed firms had created only 80,000 new jobs in June, leaving the jobless rate unchanged at 8.2%.

Job creation remains below the 100,000 judged necessary by the Federal Reserve for a stable job market, according to the US Labor Department.

Shares slipped after the news, with the opening Dow Jones index falling 1%.

President Barack Obama said the rise in employment was “a step in the right direction”.

Campaigning in the swing state of Ohio on Friday, President Obama acknowledged that “it’s still tough out there” for ordinary Americans…

Republican White House candidate Mitt Romney said from Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, that the jobs data underlined the need for a new president, adding “this kick in the gut has got to end”…

Other angles include:

String of Weak Jobs Reports Likely to Set Tone for Voters (NYT)
Obama Promotes a Long View on Jobs (NYT)
Jobs Report And Politics: The Monthly Spin Cycle (NPR)
Jobs report makes it tougher for Obama to tout progress (WashPost)

As you can see, the political angle is getting heavy play. Although the Post did manage to show some concern for the actual economy in its lede headline: Weak jobs report adds to worry of faltering recovery.

The European problems feeding into the drop in markets is at least briefly discussed in this WSJ story. Here’s some more, courtesy of The Guardian.

Torture memo guy marvels at Obama’s ruthlessness

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Looking at Foreign Policy‘s recommendation of a book titled “Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power,” I’m reminded of something I read in the WSJ this morning.

It was an op-ed piece by John Yoo. You know, the Torture Memos guy.

It says in part:

The administration has made little secret of its near-total reliance on drone operations to fight the war on terror. The ironies abound. Candidate Obama campaigned on narrowing presidential wartime power, closing Guantanamo Bay, trying terrorists in civilian courts, ending enhanced interrogation, and moving away from a wartime approach to terrorism toward a criminal-justice approach. Mr. Obama has avoided these vexing detention issues simply by depriving terrorists of all of their rights—by killing them…

This is kind of like Luca Brasi saying that Michael’s even tougher than the old Don. He should know.

Of course, he goes on to criticize, likening Obama’s personal selection of enemies to kill to LBJ’s micromanagement of bombing targets in Vietnam. He also accuses the administration of politically motivated intelligence leaks way worse than those laid at Scooter Libby’s feet.

So he didn’t mean it in a nice way.

Then, suddenly, the economy got worse faster than you can say ‘Polish death camp’

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This hasn’t been a good week for Mr. Obama. First there was the “Polish death camp” thing that wouldn’t go away. (Hey, I understood what he meant, didn’t you? But just try explaining it to the Poles…)

Today, there’s this:

Worst U.S. Job Data in a Year Signals Stalling Recovery

A dismal job market report Friday gave a resounding confirmation to fears that the United States recovery has markedly slowed, reflecting mounting evidence of a global slowdown.

The report, which showed the smallest net job growth in a year and an unemployment rate moving in the wrong direction, was a political game-changer that bodes ill for President Obama as he faces re-election.

It provided traction for his Republican rival, Mitt Romney, at a time when politicians have been deeply divided over the most effective way to strengthen the economy. And it put increased pressure on the Federal Reserve to take further action to stimulate growth.

The United States economy gained a net 69,000 jobs in May, according to the Labor Department. The unemployment rate rose to 8.2 percent from 8.1 in April, largely because more people began looking for work. And there was more unexpected bad news: job gains that had been reported in March and April were revised downward…

Yow. Now the president knows how John McCain felt when the economy got shot out from under him. OK, not that bad. But still not good.

What do y’all think? Is it a blip, or a negative trend? Because I remain convinced that the health of the economy depends in large part on what y’all — all 300 million or so of y’all — think about it. Yeah, there are some things we can’t help, like the Euro mess, but largely we have the ability to stimulate the economy by ourselves. Hey, that sounds kind of dirty, doesn’t it? Well, that’s not how I meant it. Or maybe I did. Talking about money stuff makes my mind wander…

Whites not the majority? Nothing new in that…

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Did y’all see the “news” the other day — ironically, the day before my grandson was born — that white babies are no longer the majority? I first heard it on NPR’s Talk of the Nation. Quoth Neal Conan:

We’ve known for years this day would come, but here it is. The Census Bureau announced today that nonwhite births now make up a majority in the United States. Data gathered in 2011 show that nonwhite, Hispanic, African-American, Asian, Native American, mixed race and others combined for 50.4 percent. That’s the first time that white births were not a majority in U.S. history, and that raises some questions about policy – from education to social services programs – and about how we see ourselves as a nation….

Perhaps this is a good time to inject a bit of historical perspective…

I’m still off-and-on gradually making my way through Charles C. Mann’s 1493, while reading several other books at varying rates, and every time I read a stretch in it, I learn something startling. For instance, I refer you to the fact that for most of the history of Europeans in the Americas — up to the mid-nineteenth century — there were far more people of African descent in the Western Hemisphere than there were white. Way more. An excerpt (I hope the publishers will excuse the length of this quote. I share it within the context of urging you to run out and buy this book; there are many other things in it that will surprise you, and enlarge your understanding of our world.):

This was surprising to me for a couple of reasons. For instance, I had long known that before and after the Civil War, South Carolina had a larger black population than white. Which means that before 1860, most of the state’s population was enslaved.

I used to think of that as anomalous. I thought of it as helping explain the fact that South Carolina slaveholders were more fanatically devoted to their Peculiar Institution that the white elites anywhere else. Hence that firing on Fort Sumter thing.

But as it turns out, if you look at ALL post-Columbian immigration across the hemisphere, not just English, you see that far, far more were brought here as slaves from African than came here, either free or indentured, from all Europe. By 1860, this balance had changed in many places (thereby making SC somewhat anomalous), but for most of the time from 1492 until then, a larger black population had been the norm. (Of course, for that same period, there remained more Indians than whites or blacks, in spite of the way native populations had been decimated by European and African diseases.)

I also found it surprising because I spent part of my childhood in Latin America, and it did not prepare me for this statistic — even though I studied history in Spanish in school (Mann’s references to Columbus as Cristóbal Colón seem very natural to me). In Ecuador, where I lived for two-and-a-half years, it was very unusual to see anyone who looked at all African. I knew that Brazil had imported vast numbers of slaves during the colonial period, and that you could see the results on the streets of Rio. I would have said the same of the islands of the Caribbean.

But for there to be that many more blacks than whites across all the Americas? I had no idea. We all are aware that black labor largely built this country, but I guess I thought that was because those workers were owned by a white majority. I was wrong. At least from a hemispherewide perspective.

In any case… whites not being the majority? Nothing new about that on this side of the world.

Och! Wee bairns to be forced to work to 77

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Admittedly, I’m mostly posting this for the opportunity to say “wee bairns” — which Walter Russell Mead beat me to, over on Twitter.

But I thought it interesting to put a bit more of a face on “austerity,” the concept that’s getting such a workout over across the pond:

Pension Crisis in Scotland?

U.S. states aren’t the only places facing pension crises at the moment: Underfunded and unsustainable pensions are wreaking havoc in Europe too. The Scotsman, in particular, is up in arms over new rules tying retirement to life expectancy; the paper describes the future under the rule changes as “a grim picture of aged toil.”

The gradual ratcheting up of life expectancy means that future retirees in the UK may be forced to continue working well into their seventies. And within the next decade, retirement age will rise from 65 today to 67. These changes will become more drastic as time goes on. Today’s toddlers may work until they turn 77, and their children are projected to work until they are 85.

The Scotsman (and others) shouldn’t forget the rather shiny silver lining to this supposedly ominous forecast: People may be forced to work longer, but that’s only because they are living longer too, and the new pension plan guarantees 20 years of coverage. Today’s youth may have to work until they are 77, but they can also expect to reach the ripe old age of 97 on average…

I’m with Mr. Mead. As austerity measures go, this one makes perfect sense. We should be be thinking more along those lines in this country.

Yeah, 77 is well up there. But it’s hardly the “grim picture” that the Scotsman would have it.

Happy V-E Day, and can you keep a secret?

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The P.M. flashes his famous V-for-Victory sign. We can't tell, from this photograph, whether he was flashing an "E" sign with the other hand.

After The Times played down its advance knowledge of the Bay of Pigs invasion, President Kennedy reportedly said he wished we had published what we knew and perhaps prevented a fiasco. Some of the reporting in The Times and elsewhere prior to the war in Iraq was criticized for not being skeptical enough of the Administration’s claims about the Iraqi threat. The question we start with as journalists is not “why publish?” but “why would we withhold information of significance?” We have sometimes done so, holding stories or editing out details that could serve those hostile to the U.S. But we need a compelling reason to do so.

— Bill Keller, then-executive editor
The New York Times
June 2006

Germany surrendered to the Allies 67 years ago today. A few days ago, we saw a little footnote to that milestone. The Associated Press apologized for firing correspondent Ed Kennedy in 1945 over one of the biggest scoops in AP history. Kennedy reported the unconditional surrender a full day ahead of the competition, defying military censors to do so. The AP publicly rebuked him, and quietly canned him.

The apology came a bit late for Kennedy, who died in a traffic accident in 1963.

This is not to confuse him with another Kennedy who also died in 1963, and had earlier persuaded The New York Times to back off the Bay of Pigs story for national security reasons. (See Keller quote above.)

The icing on this tale came today, when we learned that the AP knew last week that the United States was closing in on Underwear Bomber II in Yemen — but withheld the news at the request of the government. That’s what the WSJ reported this morning, anyway:

U.S. officials had known about the plot for about a month, and President Barack Obama was briefed on the plot in April. White House officials had persuaded the Associated Press, which had an account of the plot in hand as early as last week, to hold off on publishing because the intelligence operation was still under way.

This is fascinating. It was one thing to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with government censors in 1945, when the entire country was united in the all-out effort to win WWII, and cooperation with the censors was reflexive.

But today? When it is fashionable to call the War on Terror the “so-called War on Terror”? When, as Keller mentions above, the leftward side of the political spectrum persists in excoriating the media for not being skeptical enough prior to the Iraq invasion? For a major media entity to respond with a snappy salute to a government request to be discrete is decidedly remarkable.

This will no doubt spark dark rumblings — and probably already has; I’m not bothering to look — among Republicans about whether the AP would have agreed to this request if it had come from the Bush administration.

Interesting question.

What do you think about all of this? Oh, you want to know what I think. Well, I don’t know enough to have an opinion yet. I’d like to know what the AP knew, and what it was told before it made the decision to hold back on the story. The default position for a journalist is to report a story when you know it’s true, as Keller reported. But this sounds like it’s one of those rare cases in which lives may have been saved by holding back — which would justify the decision to wait.

Romney Gay Shocker!

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Just ran across this exclusive from Jennifer Rubin at the WashPost:

Richard Grenell, the openly gay spokesman recently hired to sharpen the foreign policy message of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, has resigned in the wake of a full-court press by anti-gay conservatives.

In a statement obtained by Right Turn, Grenell says:

I have decided to resign from the Romney campaign as the Foreign Policy and National Security Spokesman. While I welcomed the challenge to confront President Obama’s foreign policy failures and weak leadership on the world stage, my ability to speak clearly and forcefully on the issues has been greatly diminished by the hyper-partisan discussion of personal issues that sometimes comes from a presidential campaign. I want to thank Governor Romney for his belief in me and my abilities and his clear message to me that being openly gay was a non-issue for him and his team.

According to sources familiar with the situation, Grenell decided to resign after being kept under wraps during a time when national security issues, including the president’s ad concerning Osama bin Laden, had emerged front and center in the campaign…

And I couldn’t believe it.

I know what you’re thinking: What? Romney had an openly gay adviser? Even for a second?

Yep, that’s what I was thinking, too. Who’da thunk it?

Suddenly, Obama appears in Afghanistan…

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I was just this minute repeating to one of my ADCO colleagues my oft-state theory about how Bush was Sonny Corleone, and Obama is Michael. Bush was the blusterer who telegraphed his moves and failed to get his enemies. Michael’s the nice, reasonable, I-want-to-negotiate, blood-is-a-big-expense guy who turns out actually to be far more aggressive than his predecessor. Just when you think he’s totally absorbed in domestic policy (the equivalent of the old Don puttering about in his tomato garden), WHAM!, he whacks some guy in a country where you didn’t even know the U.S. was operating. No seeking permission from the U.N. No paving the way rhetorically. Just bada-BING! and we get another terrorist’s brains all over our nice Ivy League suit.

Anyway, I had just been saying all that, and my iPhone buzzed, and I got this headline:

Obama in Afghanistan to sign security pact

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — In an unannounced trip, President Barack Obama has arrived in Afghanistan to sign an agreement cementing the U.S. role in the country after the war ends in 2014….

He’s like the Spanish Inquisition! Nobody expects him; he just turns up!

Right now, he’s probably sitting down with some Taliban leader who think’s he’s safe because his bodyguard is a police captain, and the Taliban guy is saying, “Try the veal; it’s the best in Kandahar.” And Obama is excusing himself to go to the men’s room, where they’ve got one of those old-fashioned toilets — you know, the kind with the chain…

Good one from Robert today

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I don’t have anything in particular to say about it. I think it’s one of those cartoons that just works all around, whatever your political position. As long as you have a sense of humor and ability to appreciate the way real life mocks us all.

Jon Huntsman marvels at inadequacy of 2012 presidential field, compares GOP to Chicoms

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In this file photo from last summer, Henry McMaster points to the one GOP presidential candidate who might have impressed Jon Huntsman.

Just ran across this over at HuffPost:

Jon Huntsman leveled harsh criticism at his party on Sunday evening, BuzzFeed’s Zeke Miller reported, comparing the Republican Party to communist China and questioning the strength of this year’s presidential field.

During an event at the 92nd Street Y in New York City, Huntsman spoke candidly about his party’s flaws, lamenting the Republican National Committee’s decision to rescind an invitation to a major fundraising event after Huntsman called for a third-party candidate to enter the race.

“This is what they do in China on party matters if you talk off script,” Huntsman said.

Huntsman, a former Utah governor who dropped out of the GOP primary in January, served as U.S. ambassador to China under President Barack Obama.

He also criticized the Republican candidates’ foreign policy stances, particularly in regard to China.

“I don’t know what world these people are living in,” Huntsman said…

Huntsman also spoke on Sunday about his presidential candidacy, revealing that he was less than impressed by his fellow candidates when he attended his first debate in August.

“Is this the best we could do?” Huntsman said he asked himself.

Turns out that Huntsman, whose SC followers largely did not follow his lead in endorsing Mitt Romney when he dropped out, is also rather lukewarm on his fellow Mormon.

Of three political rules broken, two involved SC

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National media may get South Carolina wrong, but on the whole, I find the British press more readable. So it was that I enjoyed this piece in The Guardian, which took a hard-eyed look at political precedent.

You know how analysts over here like to say things like “If Obama wins/loses re-election, it will be the first time that a Democrat ever did so in a year ending in the numeral 2,” or some other such meaningless nonsense — as if every election weren’t distinct, and decided on the basis of millions of reasons scattered across the electorate.

It’s political analysis on the level of sports color commentary — Well, Tim, if he swings at this and misses, it will be the first time that an American League right-hander, facing a left-handed reliever in the bottom of the seventh with men on first and third, has ever, yadda yadda.

In this piece, Harry Enten demonstrates that this election, however it comes out, is destined to break all sorts of records — as does every election.

You should go read it.

But the part that jumped out at me, and that I want to share with you today, is this passage:

At least one of these rules, and likely more, are going to be broken in 2012. The conventional wisdom will be turned on its head: 2012 will indeed be a “unique year”. Believers of this idea can also point to the primary season for the uniqueness that is 2012.

Here are three of them that have since gone the way of the Linotype.

1. No Republican candidate had ever won the South Carolina Republican primary without winning either Iowa or New Hampshire – until Newt Gingrich.

2. No Republican had ever won the nomination without winning South Carolina – until Mitt Romney.

3. No non-Protestant candidate had ever won the Republican nomination – until Mitt Romney.

Yep, of the three unprecedented things that happened in the GOP primary season in 2012 involved South Carolina.

Sometimes, we even shock ourselves.

What if Malthus was actually right for once?

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Not that I think for a moment he will be — no one in the history of ideas was ever more spectacularly wrong (the poor fellow argued that resources would never be able to keep up with population growth even as an agricultural revolution led to much faster growth in food supplies than in population).

But some still predict that he will be. Andrew Sullivan drew my attention to this:

Grain yields are beginning to hit a “glass ceiling” in many countries, Brown said, where farmers have already taken advantage of what science has to offer for improving yield. As more and more countries hit an upper limit on productivity, the world grain harvest will begin to plateau, even as demand for food continues to rise, causing a rise in prices. More worrisome, the global food market is vulnerableto external shocks such as prolonged drought. “We don’t have idle land, we’re flat out,” says Brown. “We don’t have [food] stocks. We’re living harvest to harvest. The question becomes, what if we have a major shortfall in the world?”

Of course, if Malthus were ever proven right, that would be an extraordinarily bad thing. So I continue to root against him, even as I occasionally worry: Have you bought a bad of “topsoil” lately? It’s like all chunks of bark and stuff…

Stiff upper lip, mate: Coping with austerity in Britain

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On a previous post, Bud and Silence had an exchange about Britain’s austerity measures, with Bud painting a fairly dismal picture:

Check out the results of the austerity approach in Great Britain. It’s been a disaster with GDP declining a full 2 years after the US began to grow. They’re approach a full blown depression.

Well, I don’t know about all that, but I do know that when I was there at the start of last year, all the buzz was about the steep increase in the VAT, which took effect while I was there. Everywhere I went, businesses had signs out about sales and such that appealed to people’s worries about the tax increase. The newspapers were full of back-and-forth between Labour pols attacking the increase and Tories defending it.

Personally, I didn’t notice the difference — everything was a little more expensive over there than here before the increase, and I didn’t feel a few more few bob here and there. Besides, when you’re on vacation you don’t count pennies the same way — especially since pennies there are different from here to start with.

I did appreciate the sign in front of The Crown Inn in Woodstock (a short bus ride from Oxford). We went in and had lunch, and I enjoyed a couple of VAT-increase-free pints. But then, I would have anyway. It was (we were told) the oldest pub in town, and we got a nice table next to the fireplace. Cheers!

Even more LINsane in Chinese

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