Yes, There IS Such a Thing as Left-Wing Authoritarianism

Paul Krugman reveals just how far he has gone in a totalitarian direction. Angus and I have long believed P-Kroog has sold out, but I at least have had the sense that there is some underlying part of his brain that still perceives some part of reality.

I am no longer sure. P-Kroog apparently believes that Obama does not, in fact, have enough midi-chlorians, and so (I'm not making this up) wrote a post called "He Wasn't The One We've Been Waiting For." Yes, he did. Russ Roberts gives the appropriate response, a combination of confused surprise and dispositive counterarguments. Will W also is incredulous, and rightly.

And he also wrote this unbelievable op-ed. I really thought that this was from the Onion at first. As my man Don B put it:

Polls show that health-care ‘reform’ of the sort the Senate passed is now overwhelmingly unpopular. Indeed, as Scott Brown’s victory makes clear, it’s unpopular even in Massachusetts – perhaps the most ‘Progressive’ state in the union. And the President and members of the House obviously believe these polls, otherwise they wouldn’t have so quickly run away from the Senate bill.

For Mr. Krugman nevertheless to insist that “the nation is waiting” for final legislative approval of this ‘reform’ reveals that Mr. Krugman’s arrogance has reached such Brobdingnagian proportions that he mistakes his own desires for those of the American public.

So, to Mr. Overwater: There IS such a thing as left-wing authoritarianism.

Irish University System Does Something Smart!

Irish university system aboishes the center! Let a thousand flowers bloom. And save a lot of money, at the same time you get rid of central bureaucracy.

The objection of the center:

"We produce all their degree parchments and also run awards competitions, from the undergraduate to the postdoctoral level," she said. Those awards allow the university to promote comparability of standards and reward academic excellence as a central unit. The university also supports academic publishing and gives grants to individual scholars, she said.

We produce all their degree parchments?

(At this point, Angus sticks his right fist in the air, sticks his thumb out between his ring and long fingers, wiggles his thumb, and yells, "ARRRRRRRRRR!")

(Nod to Tommy the Brit)

Glen Beck is Afraid

Wow, Glen Beck is pretty much all upset about Scott Brown. "A dead intern...."? Really? That's pretty extreme.

My wife, the good LMM, has expressed....let's call it "admiration," since this is a family blog, for Scott Brown and his photo. Fine with me: doesn't matter where you get your appetite, as long as you eat at home.

(Nod to Anonyman, who also has a yummy "treasure trail." Or, that's what I hear)

Poll Cats

Interesting horse race from HotAirPundit, on who were the real poll cats and who stunk.

Blue Mass Group had Coakley +8? Even Kos played it straighter than that, calling it a toss-up. What did Blue Mass Group do, talk to everybody's mom? That's not a very random selection algorithm.

And Zogby...really?....what the heck?

(Nod to the NCM)

A Little Happy, A Little Sad

Watching this made me miss Storchbier, and Eva and Sebastian, and Frau Uhlich, and Herr Kauffmann, and Martin, and Hajo, and der Geist, and lots of people.



In Franconia, where I was, it would be Fastnacht; in Western Germany (esp. Koln) it would Karneval; and in the rest of Bavaria and Austria, Fasching. In any case, as Stephen rightly says: Prosit!

El Mercurio

Bill Galston and I fuss at each other about Prez Obama, in El Mercurio, newspaper of Chile's capital, Santiago.

El problema es que hasta ahora los intentos de reforma y la implementación de planes económicos han dado malos resultados políticos: los congresistas han perdido respaldo en sus distritos y la popularidad de Obama ha caído significativamente.

Michael Munger, profesor de la Universidad de Duke, sostiene que los demócratas interpretaron mal el mandato con el que llegaron al gobierno. El voto por Obama fue para el político carismático y no para todo su programa, asegura.

La mayor desilusión ha sido para sus seguidores. "Por años, él hizo campaña asegurando que reduciría la polarización política", comentó a "El Mercurio" William Galston, analista de la Brookings Institution. Pero durante su gestión la brecha entre los partidos ha crecido, dijo Galston, y se ha visto poco del bipartidismo prometido.

For some reason, it tickles me to think of Bill Galston as an "analista." I'm just sayin'.

Book 'Em, Danno!

Oh, so now it's "Who has the bigger bookshelf?", is it. It's not the size of your books, it's how you USE them, or something like that. Anyway, let's do this. Side wall....

















The back alcove....






















Finally, the window wall. And, yes, the fridge has beer in it, some fine hefeweisse and a couple of local micro-brews.


And, let me share this: in grad school, Angus and I shared an office. The office had four desks, but because I was "elected" Prez of the Grad Student Association, I assigned offices, and I felt like the two of us in an office for four would mean we would be more comfortable.

Angus at one point attempted a coup, by ballot stuffing. But I Chavezed all down his leg, by declaring the election to be void, and announcing I would be President for life. Since that meant he got to keep the office, Angus converted to being a Mungista again.

Anyway, I remember one day I came back from the bookstore, with about 10 or 12 new Poli Sci books. Angus went through them, increasingly incredulous. "Stupid...stupid....REALLY stupid (A Gary Jacobson book, I think)...stupid...." Not one of the books impressed him as worth having.

Angus didn't realize that political scientologists don't actually READ these books. We just use them as an excuse for ending conversations: "It was here somewhere...let me look for it and get back to you...I know I JUST saw it...." With all the books I have, I almost never have to talk to anyone.

I may be an ingrate, but I am NOT illiterate!

Wow, I am taking a beating in the comments. BR points out that I don't seem to have any books in my office and Mungo mashes me in the forehead with a driver, Mrs. Woods style, for not having invited him to visit Soonertopia. I have no defense against the latter but against the former I can say that I do indeed have books in my office. Here is a picture to prove it:



They are mainly on Macro/growth, econometrics & bayesian statistics, and political economy, with some finance and international econ thrown in.

Maybe some day I will be able to post a picture of Mungo riding the Sooner Schooner!

Liberty Wins! Liberty Wins!

That's my Harry Caray imitation.

The Supreme Court comes through. Stupid freakin' campaign finance law! Yay! Here's the ruling. I can't believe our side actually WON for once.

"My" amicus brief in the case, if you are interested....(Allison wrote it; I just signed it).

UPDATE: For you half-wits commenting (i.e., everyone who disagrees with me), check this!

Left and Right agree: soak the "rich"

Tyler reports on health care contingency plans from the right and left sides of the blogosphere and they have one thing in common; the rich should pay.

M. McArdle:   "eliminate the tax-deductibility of health insurance benefits for people making more than $150K a year in household income, $100K for singles."

E. Klein:  "Revenue comes from a surtax on the wealthy."

Yikes!!!!

How about increasing the supply of medical providers? How about allowing insurance companies to compete for clients across state lines? How about eliminating the tax-deductibility of health insurance benefits for ALL people? How about experimenting more with the Mayo clinic type model which is not (in my understanding anyway) a fee for service model? How about encouraging people to exercise more, eat better and stay healthy? How about tort reform?

Of course the best thing would be to somehow reduce the hysteria about access to health care. Most health care doesn't actually work, and our society wastes billions of dollars annually on the health care game. How about a subsidized national pool for catastrophic coverage insurance and the rest is up to you?

It is a very disturbing trend to see individual groups getting singled out for benefits or tax hits. Unions getting exempted from the "cadillac tax", big banks singled out to repay the TARP money that went to GM and Chrysler, the rich to pay for increased health care coverage, Nebraska getting exempted from having to pay for expansion of Medicaid in the state.  I don't think we can expect good results from continuing this method of getting agreements or financing expenditure in the long run.