The Transformational Figure

Not just any messiah but ObamaMessiah

Hat tip: RedMassGroup

A little Tolstoy for the quants on Wall Street

If only the smart set on Wall Street could see things as clearly as the common man:

"The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.'"

I'm trying to determine whether Tolstoy's remarks are the same as saying: "You can tell a Harvard man but you can't tell him much."

The Ghilarducci Plan

They haven't taken over all three branches of the federal government yet but the idea merchants of the Democratic Party are contemplating ways to raise revenue. So much for the ownership society.

Under Ghilarducci’s plan, all workers would receive a $600 annual inflation-adjusted subsidy from the U.S. government but would be required to invest 5 percent of their pay into a guaranteed retirement account administered by the Social Security Administration. The money in turn would be invested in special government bonds that would pay 3 percent a year, adjusted for inflation.

The current system of providing tax breaks on 401(k) contributions and earnings would be eliminated.

“I want to stop the federal subsidy of 401(k)s,” Ghilarducci said in an interview. “401(k)s can continue to exist, but they won’t have the benefit of the subsidy of the tax break.”

Under the current 401(k) system, investors are charged relatively high retail fees, Ghilarducci said.

“I want to spend our nation’s dollar for retirement security better. Everybody would now be covered” if the plan were adopted, Ghilarducci said.

Government obviously doesn't like middle-men. Strip their business model away and you too can create a redundant social security system. How does the current Ponzi scheme known as Social Security work for you? Or to phrase it another way, given its potential insolvency, how will Social Security work out for you?

As long as I don't have to migrate to Vista!

Ars Technica takes a look at Windows 7 Quote:

"The user interface has undergone the most radical overhaul and update since the introduction of Windows 95 thirteen years ago."

A great institution adapts

The Christian Science Monitor will evolve into a weekly. It will still be a great newspaper. Period.

What to read if you want to understand the financial crisis

You should really know what you're talking about if you are very eager to declare the end of libertarianism. Thank you, Lynne Kiesling for a one-stop slam on the very smug Jacob Weisberg!

Professor Charles Whalen doesn't think much of libertarianism either.

R.I.P. Dean Barnett

Dean Barnett has died. From a great blog post by Dean two years ago:

At one point during my interview, the questioner asked me if I expected to see a cure to CF in my lifetime. I answered no, but that it doesn’t really matter. When you see death up close, a couple of things become clear. One is that we all die, and that death is just part of the deal. The other is that life is such a blessing, that’s it just so great, even though you know the inevitable might be near you still want as many bites of the apple as possible.

Tampa Bay Rays make it to the Big Show

The Tampa Bay Rays, who last year had the worst record, are 2008 American League Champions.

I didn't think they could come back from that devastating loss in Boston last Thursday. But they did and with a lot of verve. Plus, David Price is one clutch pitcher.

The church of the insipid

The Episcopal Church is in trouble. And its woes go beyond the controversy around the ordination of gay men. For other reasons, some theological, the liberal or progressive wing of the Church of England has turned a great sect into an insipid modernist church. Flannery O'Connor, the Catholic novelist once said "You have to push as hard as the age that pushes against you." On the march, liberals roll over the traditions -- pushing modernity to all the edges of belief. That's too much for some people including Tony Blair, who are turning for something with a little more chest, and the full throat of purpose. George Will scales the diminishing returns of the progressive church with a dismal future.

Who needs Office? SaaS cuts into the behemoth

In a Web 2.0 world, who needs a full-blown word processor and spreadsheet?

Google Apps "don't have the best word processor or spreadsheet we compete with; we get more competitive pressure from OpenOffice and StarOffice than we do from those guys," Ballmer said. OpenOffice, from OpenOffice.org, is an open source office software suite that goes head to head with Microsoft Office. It is based on StarOffice, which is offered by Sun Microsystems at a lower price than Microsoft's offerings.

Responding to Gartner analyst Smith's comment that half of 400 users surveyed by Gartner yesterday said they were using Google Apps, Ballmer replied "the real statistics are people try, they don't use."

However, Ballmer tacitly conceded that Google Apps are hurting Microsoft in at least one area. University students, who are "the leading edge of all consumerization phenomena" use Office but "when it comes to sharing stuff they use Google Apps, which is why we're moving to Office Live," he said.

More here.

A riff hard to forget: Smoke on the Water

An all-star cast pumps up the volume!

Let's not get to far of ourselves!

Usury and paper money should go says Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi a cleric and apparently a major theoretician. Why should we listen to him or his guests in Jerusalem?

"The Western system has collapsed and we have a complete economic philosophy as well as spiritual strength," he said at Sunday's opening of a conference on Jerusalem.

"All riches are ours... the Islamic nation has all or nearly all the oil and we have an economic philosophy that no one else has," Qaradawi said.

He urged Muslims to "profit from the crisis to bring about the triumph of the (Islamic) nation, which holds the spiritual and material resources for victory."

The sixth conference on Jerusalem is being attended by around 300 people representing political parties as well as Muslim and Christian NGOs, from various countries.

It is staged by Al-Quds (Jerusalem) International Institution, which is dedicated to the conservation of the holy city and its sacred places.

Participants include Khaled Meshaal, exiled head of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, and Ali Akbar Velayati, a top adviser to Iranian spiritual leader Ali Khamenei.

The three-day conference will look at ways of protecting Jerusalem and its holy sites, which participants believe are threatened by Israel.

I think people ought to take a deep breath if they are intent on re-enacting the dark ages.

Need insurance, go get some!

Harvest Time

My mom's tomato sauce, very Italian!

Sending a message

The voters may choose their own "taxpayer bailout."

Pretty good analysis

With 'change' ringing in their ears, the voters are buying Obama's message. They will have buyers remorse to be sure, but the voters are tired and worried.

In this election, voters are leaning towards Obama because:

(1) they have convinced themselves their lives will be so much improved with 'Change',

(2) they have convinced themselves they can afford the purchase (it helps that Obama is selling 'Change' as being cost-free to 95% of America),

(3) they have convinced themselves that Obama can deliver this 'Change' (remember, it doesn't matter whether we believe he can (or will), what matters is whether the voters think so, and it is pretty apparent that they do), and

(4) there's nothing about Obama (family, past activities, friends) that so sours them that they're willing to do without this 'Change'.

They're not concerned with his past, and, despite GOP thinking, it isn't because they don't know of his past associations. They're not concerned with Obama's past because they have feel it is irrelevant to Obama delivering the 'change' they so desperately want (a desperate want is, by definition, a need). Put another way, they don't care if he did X or Y when he was younger, they just want this 'change' he's offering.

Thus, if McCain wants to go after Obama, he has to forget about attacking Obama on #4. Even without the MSM running interference for Obama, there is nothing that McCain could ever say about Obama that would make enough voters decide to give up their chance to get 'Change'.

Likewise, there's no benefit in going after #1; with the markets dropping on a daily basis, McCain is not going to persuade voters they really don't want 'Change'. Nor will it do McCain any good to try and 'Out-Change' Obama; Obama was there first, he occupies that particular real estate, and McCain just doesn't have enough time to dislodge Obama from that spot, even if he did have something nice to try and sell to voters. And finally, since voters think they're getting Obama's 'Change' for free, McCain's not going to get anywhere trying to convince voters he is offering just as much 'Change' as Obama, but at a more reasonable price; you can't sell something for less than zero.

In other words, McCain can't undercut Obama's pitch. And that's why he'll probably end up losing.

At any price, Democrats will do what it takes

Nice group that ACORN, right?

State authorities on Tuesday raided an organization that registers low-income people to vote, alleging that its canvassers falsified forms with bogus names, fake addresses or famous personalities.

The secretary of state's office launched an investigation after noticing that names did not match addresses and that most members of the Dallas Cowboys appeared to be registering in Nevada to vote in November's general election.

"Some of these (forms) were facially fraudulent; we basically had the starting lineup for the Dallas Cowboys," Secretary of State Ross Miller said. "Tony Romo is not registered to vote in Nevada. Anyone trying to pose as Terrell Owens won't be able to cast a ballot."

Agents with the secretary of state and state attorney general offices served a search warrant on the headquarters of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, at 953 E. Sahara Ave. shortly after 9 a.m. They seized voter registration forms and computer databases to determine how many fake forms were submitted and identify employees who were responsible.

They also sought information regarding current and past employees and managers.

Who says the natural state is equalitarian?

Why left intellectuals despise Richard Epstein of the Chicago School: Because he's one smart legal scholar and a very good political philosopher.

Now that yesterday's market nosedive shows the disappointing Congressional bailout has not calmed markets, let the post-mortem begin. Disasters like this latest financial meltdown don't just happen. Mistakes this huge require an impoverished political philosophy to grease the skids. Fannie and Freddie didn't design their horrific lending policies by chance. No, behind this lending fiasco lay the strong collective preference for the "patterned principles" of justice that Robert Nozick attacked so powerfully in his 1974 masterpiece, Anarchy, State, and Utopia.

Believers in patterned principles hold that there is some preordained social order that is more just than others. Accordingly, the function of the state is to use the levers of powers to manipulate behavior to achieve the desired outcomes. These patterned principles stand in opposition to historical principles of justice, which are content to establish the rules of the game and then let the legal moves by individual players determine the social outcomes. For Nozick, the key rules were rules of justice in acquisition (to set up the initial property rights) and justice in transfer, whereby those rights (and others derived from them) could be exchanged or combined through voluntary transactions.

Because Nozick was no utilitarian, he did not dwell on the powerful efficiency features of this system, which shine through for ordinary real estate transactions. The key function of the legal system is to minimize the transactional barriers and increase the velocity of voluntary exchanges, all of which generate mutual gains for the parties. So long as one is sure that the given distribution of resources is obtained by legal moves from the original position, don't worry about the relative positions of one person vis-à-vis the others. Don't, in other words, use state coercion to create a distinctive pattern of rights deemed ever so desirable in the eye of some political beholder.

Out of the cold, more facts on the attempt on John Paul II's life

The Soviet Communists have long been accused of having a hand in the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II through Bulgarian proxies. Back then, the international left didn't believe that narrative choosing instead a long run fantasy that included "that free-market economists like James Buchanan and Friedrich Hayek created 'a simplistic model of human beings as self-seeking, almost robotic, creatures [leading] to today's idea of freedom.'" I know that last piece is just a small detail in left's habit of applying fanciful non sequitur thinking to a wrong headed world view.

But the story is becoming clearer years later.

It is increasingly certain that it was a Soviet operation. Historian Nigel West, author of a number of important books on Soviet intelligence, and the Italian government long ago determined that the KGB, via its proxies in Bulgaria, were deeply involved in the planning and execution of the assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II. Back in 2005, the report produced by an Italian government commission was buttressed by a cache of files found deep in the East German Stasi archives.

Not blockheads, blockbuster writers

The top ten authors who make serious money.

1. JK Rowling - $300m (£170m)
2. James Patterson - $50m (£28m)
3. Stephen King - $45m (£25m)
4. Tom Clancy - $35m (£20m)
5. Danielle Steel - $30m (£17m)
6. John Grisham - $25m (£14m)
6. Dean Koontz - $25m (£14m)
8. Ken Follett - $20m (£11m)
9. Janet Evanovich - $17m (£10m)
10. Nicholas Sparks - $16m (£9m)
Source: Forbes magazine