The Lone Elm

The New York Times

Real Clear Politics refers us today to the New York Times editorial "Patriotism and the Press."  I would be interested and likely amused to read what the NYT has to say in its defense, but I am not going to register for their newspaper to read it.  If the NYT wants to stop the slide in their business, perhaps they ought to open up their on-line paper to the great unwashed masses.

Wal Mart Dialogue

Slate has a dialogue between Jason Furman and Barabara Ehrenreich, both liberal politically, regarding Wal Mart, and whether it is good or bad for American Society.  Furman makes a number of good points about how Walmart's efficiencies resulting in low prices has improved the standard of living for low income individuals. Ms. Ehrenreich questions Furman's data and the general effects of highly efficient, cost-competitive business on our economy and labor force.

Prior discussion on Wal Mart on this blog:

Wal Mart and Organic Food

Organic at Wal Mart

Empirical Analysis of Wal-Mart

Talking to Liberals....

Summer at Lake Tahoe

Victor Davis Hansen has interesting insights into Americans today, as he views society at Lake Tahoe.  All is not what it seems -- Hansen says, "[t]aste, perceived values, and lifestyle issues determine outlook as much or more than one's financial status."  And yet disparate groups of bicyclists/motorcyclists and sailors/motor-boaters do get along and are able to enjoy their leisure time as they wish. 

Katrina and our Tax Dollars

The New York Times explains in excruciating detail how the government can be a most inefficient supplier of aid and succor.  About $2 billion of waste and fraud is estimated to have occured in the efforts to support citizens post-Katrina - a massive 11 percent of the total aid of $19 billion.  GAO estimates that as much as 21 percent of the $6.3 billion distributed to individuals may have been improperly distributed. I don't see this as a Republican failure, or a spot that Democrats would have done better.  I think this is a general issue of what government can and can't do.  When the government is forced to throw money at a problem, this type of corruption is inevitable.

Annie Proulx's Brokeback Mountain

The Sapling and I listened to a reading of Brokeback Mountain while driving up to Maine yesterday (read by Campbell Scott).  Neither of us have seen the movie, but I think it is fair to say that we both thought the story was terrific.  The writing is incredibly strong, and Proulx does a wonderful job of bringing you into the world of the two cowboys.  Proulx discusses the story in an AP interview at Newsday.  The story is part of Proulx's short story collection titled Close Range: Wyoming Stories.

Good News on the Border

A "zero-tolerance" approach to handling illegal immigrants on the Texan border, is working according to a Washington Post article.  Immigrants are now captured, taken to court and sent to jail, and then deported. No more "catch-and-release." Morale of border staff has improved because we are actually enforcing the law!  However, to be completely effective, this program needs to be applied across the entire border.  Mark Thoma at Economist's View wonders if it isn't more effective to crack down on employers hiring illegals. Perhaps we need both!  Also, this is one of those situations where there may be the short-term disruption (ie. the difficulty of dealing with large number of illegals that have to be jailed and deported) that is then followed by a lower flow of illegals as they appreciate that the cost of attempting entry is too high.  After all, when police are active and vigilant on a road, cars are less likely to speed.  Further, as Parapundit points out, the enforcement agents are now able to catch and process more drug smugglers as a result of the deterrent effect.

Two Views of Iraq Situation

The juxtaposition of viewpoints can't be more stark.  Al-Qaida apparently thinks that they are on the ropes, losing Iraqi popular opinion, money and new recruits.  See Yahoo, Ralph Peters at NY Post, and ABC News.  Strategy Page discusses the coalition's rapid follow-up on Zarqawi's address book.  It is clear that we are, in fact, winning in Iraq.  Yet 153 members of the House of Representatives supported a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq just as we have the bad guys on the run! See New York Times for a write-up.  See commentary at Captain's Quarters.  It sure looks like denial to me. 

Deaths - Iraq vs. U.S.

The mainstream media tries to ensure that we are continually reminded of how dangerous Iraq is with the breathless reporting of every single car bomb or other violent event. For today's reporting see Washington Post and BBC for example.  It turns out, however, that Iraq may be a safer place to be than the U.S., if you look at the metric of deaths per thousand population.  The CIA's World Factbook provides 2006 estimates of the rate of death per thousand for the various countries of the world.  The United States is at 8.26 deaths per thousand, or ranked 107th highest of 226 countries.  The ranked list shows that a number of African countries top the list, while the lowest death rates are in the Middle East and some of the Pacific Islands.  Iraq's rate is considerably less at 5.37 deaths per thousand.  In fact the U.S. death rate is higher than a number of countries including China (6.97), Colombia (5.58), Iran (5.55), Mexico (4.74) and Syria (4.81).  One of the lowest is Kuwait with 2.41 deaths per thousand.  So, perhaps the media would be better off publicizing the nature and reasons for death in this country than keeping their incessant focus on Iraq.

Giuliani Books on Leadership

Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York, lists his favorite five top biographies of leaders at Opinion Journal. It is sad to say that I haven't read any of these.  I am particularly intrigued, however, by the contemporaneous bio of Lincoln written by his former law partner William Herndon, and by the bio of Churchill he suggests. And this may be enough to get me back into reading mode again.  Ann Althouse thinks the list is pretty plebian, and that Giuliani picked the "leaders" before he picked the books, keeping his political interests in mind.  Maybe so, it is still interesting, even for that reason!

Meteorite in Norway

Aftenposten reports that on Wednesday morning a major sized meteorite hit earth in northern Norway.  This news seems to have been eclipsed by the death of Mr. Zarqawi via man-made bombs dropped from the air.  The article has a photograph of the meteorite as it is entering the earth's atmosphere and leaving at trail in clear skies.  For those of you who read Norwegian (not me!) here is another article, along with what looks to be a photo of the impacted area titled "Her landet meteoritten" - click to look at the bigger version. Further Google searches haven't turned up any other references to this event.  Hat tip to Memeorandum.