Neo-Marxist Arundhati Roy seems to think that war against these Communist insurgents, who have bullied, tortured, and killed the very rural villagers they claim to be saving, is “war on the poorest people in the country.” (c.f.: “Minutemen and freedom fighters.”) So exactly what is it when the Communists kill these civilians?

Well, it would work out pretty well if the government weren’t easing the money supply and encouraging fiscally unsound lending to cause (1), Sen. Dodd wasn’t destroying the capital that startups need to experiment with alternatives to (2), and if the existing government regulations actually prevented (3). Yeah, looks like that hands-onny thing isn’t working so well, either.

For years, James Taranto quoted novelist and journalist Mark Helprin in a running gag called “Homeless Rediscovery Watch”. In that quote, the latter (correctly) predicted the media would suddenly, magically, rediscover social problems that mysteriously disappeared from 1993 to 2001. Similarly, I’d like to introduce a new segment on this blog which will highlight things I predicted on Election Night to someone very close to me, when she asked why I wasn’t happy about something so “historic” happening. She can corroborate my story, though I no doubt bored her to tears with my sermon.

Today’s thing I predicted: the Obama administration and its Democratic Congress, despite being backed by tech pundits and the venture capitalists whose investments keep the employed, will destroy the capital necessary to keep the tech revolution going. The new bill proposed by retiring Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) will tightly regulate the financial instruments of any company it deems risky to the financial system. As the WSJ notes, that fly-by-night venture Apple Computers was once deemed too risky by state regulators:

[B]efore 1996, certain initial public offerings of stocks were subject to merit review in certain states, where the state decided if a security is a “bad” investment and thus not appropriate to be offered to its citizens. In fact, this is exactly what happened to Apple Computer when it first went public in 1980. Massachusetts prohibited the offering of Apple shares because they were “too risky,” and Apple did not even bother to offer its shares in Illinois due to strict state laws on new issues. What if federal bureaucrats had had the power to impose their judgment on a “risky” financial product (such as an IPO) on a nationwide scale, or every state followed Massachusetts’ lead? Would Apple have become the successful company that it is today?

So now we’re going to put this power in the hands of the Feds. Yeah, this is going to end well.

Despite more than 20 years of eradication efforts, two strains of polio have spread out from northern Nigeria and northern India — both places where many Muslims have resisted vaccines because of rumors that vaccine efforts are a Western plot to sterilize them.

Pretty sure that’s not the case, but the religious leaders in question make a very good case for selected sterilization.

Fairey’s lawyers said in papers filed at a New York court Wednesday that the artist’s use of the photograph is protected by the First Amendment as well as by fair-use laws.

But the real attention-grabber was Fairey’s assertion that the AP itself violated copyright laws when it used a photo of the artist’s “Hope” poster without getting permission. In other words, he’s arguing that the AP can’t reproduce an image by Fairey that the artist himself appropriated from the AP.

The AP’s case probably has merit (Fairey certainly pushes the bounds of fair use), and Fairey’s case is clearly a sarcastic stretch being used to make a point, but I can’t help but laugh at a wire service that clearly does not get it.

Deficit spending, the issue of the day, has always struck him as fantastically evil, and in his congressional period he even quoted an early 19th century Scottish theorist on why government spending can force a democracy to collapse. Social Security is another bad idea, he argues in his book, and it needs to be replaced by personal retirement accounts.

Never mind that Frank’s own fetish for nineteenth century populism comes from the trust-fund-brat son of a nineteenth century industrialist, or that his own preferred choice for president is now looking at Social Security privatization. And the reference earlier in the article to South Carolina nullifiers is a nice touch. But the column’s main theme is that Gov. Sanford is either naive or cold and calculating because of his quaint idea that Washington’s fiscal imprudence is due to an entrenched pork-packing political machine:

Besides, a “citizen legislator” in a hair shirt is an American stock figure every bit as phony and pretentious as a self-important senator being ferried about in an Air Force jet. Think of William Henry Harrison, propelled to the White House in 1840 in a gust of log-cabin-and-hard-cider folksiness. Or of down-home Huey Long. Or of the amazing succession of fake cowboys and pseudo-populists who have presided over Washington in the past 30-odd years. And now compare those politicians’ aw-shucks ways with the massive concentration of wealth they engineered.

Oh, you mean like, say, a fellow who campaigns on an ethereal pledge to unite across race and income divides using hope and a vague desire for change? Oh yeah, I seem to have heard about that procession. Obviously, the problem isn’t Sanford’s naivete. It’s his quaint desire not to trust the government more than the individual based on a century of evidence.

The true legacy of Governor Eliot Spitzer is Governor David Paterson.

Karol:

Actually, no, it’s getting caught with hookers.

But we are committed to the goal of a re-tooled, re-imagined auto industry that can compete and win. Millions of jobs depend on it. Scores of communities depend on it. And I believe the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it.

The first internal combustion engine was designed in Switzerland; the modern automobile—powered by either a gasoline or diesel internal combustion engine—was invented in Germany. What, now we have to bail out their auto industries, too?

But, hey, I won’t begrudge his economically vacuous rhetoric. It’s really just an excuse to spread other people’s wealth across our fifty-seven states anyway.

President Obama plans to appoint current Federal Trade Commission member Jon Leibowitz to lead the agency, which partially enforces antitrust laws and has taken a recent interest in online advertising.
. . .
“Industry needs to do a better job of meaningful, rigorous self-regulation, or it will certainly invite legislation by Congress and a more regulatory approach by our commission,” he said earlier this month.

In November 2007, Leibowitz suggested that Internet companies should take an “opt in” approach to cookies instead of the current “opt out” approach, a requirement that would have roiled the industry. He also suggested the idea of a “Do Not Track” list for Web surfers.

In contrast to spam, which is a hellspawn phenomenon that should die a thousand bloody deaths, cookies are what enable perfectly legitimate organizations to see if you’ve ever been on their site before, and then customize content accordingly. It’s what enables web analysts (like yours truly) to track visitor behavior and improve site traffic, and what enables Amazon to recommend products to you. Leibowitz essentially wants me to fill out thirty registration forms before I can allow a site to track my browser. (I steadfastly refuse to fill out the one that the WaPo asks me to.) Now that’s the way to help improve online innovation!

Also, buried deep in almost all articles, was this note:

Leibowitz previously worked as a lobbyist for the Motion Picture Association of America. Before that, he was chief counsel and staff director for a Senate antitrust subcommittee.

A former lobbyist, and for an industry organization that had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the digital age? That’s the change I was believing in!