If you really care about global warming, there are a whole bunch of things you probably think you shouldn’t be doing that you should, and vice versa. The environmental religion of the modern age, in which an angry Gaia will punish us for our sinful ways, but we can redeem ourselves by sacrifice and self-denial, has spawned a mythology of classical proportions. The problem is that many of those myths, spouted as accepted wisdom by an uncritical media and special-interest activists, appear to be just plain wrong.

Wired magazine goes to the actual science — remember science? — and makes some proposals for those who really care about climate change, and think not only that reducing carbon emissions will actually help, but delude themselves that it is possible to reduce them enough to make even a little dent in anticipated warming.

Here is its list, each of which is explored further in a separate article:

• Live in Cities: Urban Living Is Kinder to the Planet Than the Suburban Lifestyle
• A/C Is OK: Air-Conditioning Actually Emits Less C02 Than Heating
• Organics Are Not the Answer: Surprise! Conventional Agriculture Can Be Easier on the Planet
• Farm the Forests: Old-Growth Forests Can Actually Contribute to Global Warming
• China Is the Solution: The People’s Republic Leads the Way in Alternative-Energy Hardware
• Accept Genetic Engineering: Superefficient Frankencrops Could Put a Real Dent in Greenhouse Gas Emissions
• Carbon Trading Doesn’t Work: Carbon Credits Were a Great Idea, But the Benefits Are Illusory
• Embrace Nuclear Power: Face It. Nukes Are the Most Climate-Friendly Industrial-Scale Form of Energy
• Used Cars — Not Hybrids: Don’t Buy That New Prius! Test-Drive a Used Car Instead
• Prepare for the Worst: Climate Change Is Inevitable. Get Used to It

It doesn’t say all of these are good ideas, of course. There are excellent reasons to slash-and-burn overgrown, bug-infested jungles, to plant more productive crops, sure. But there are also plenty excellent reasons not to cut down old-growth forests. However, if your policy goal is to reduce carbon emissions, which seems to be the sole fetish of environmentalists and policy makers, then all of these points, including razing the rainforests, are valid.

Meanwhile, the US Congress is about to debate a cap-and-trade scheme that will vastly expand government powers and revenue, cost consumers trillions in bureaucratic red tape, tax and lost economic growth, and achieve very little indeed. In welcoming an open floor debate on these mushy measures, the Wall Street Journal writes:

The vehicle is a bill that principal sponsors Joe Lieberman and John Warner are calling “landmark legislation.” They’re too modest. Warner-Lieberman would impose the most extensive government reorganization of the American economy since the 1930s.

Ouch. Nothing like a fat bureaucracy to infringe on the liberty and prosperity of the people. Nothing like a first-country moral crusade to give developing-country leaders ideas to foist upon their long-suffering people. Nothing like an overbearing state to hold down the development of the poor.

As if $130 oil isn’t reason enough to consider more fuel-efficient cars, reduce energy usage in industry and invest in alternative energy sources.

While we wait for this legislative disaster, however, would the disciples of St Al please report to the consistory, so they can get cracking on Wired’s measures?

(Hat tip: Climate Skeptic.)

One of my favourite writers, William F. Buckley Jr, died yesterday at the age of 82. The founder, more than half a century ago, of the National Review, Buckley was a cheerful wit, an astute intellectual, a shrewd commentator and an articulate writer. The scourge of leftish sympathies in academia, elite society and the mainstream media, Buckley was a thinking conservative in the classical liberal tradition. He shunned the lunatic fringes of isolationism and protectionism, abhorred communism and totalitarianism, and espoused individual liberty and economic freedom. His passion and popularity made him perhaps the most influential post-war conservative of all, building an intellectual basis that would find its apogee only in the 1980s.

Ronald Reagan once asked Buckley what position he might like in the administration. Deadpan, he replied, “ventriloquist”. I think he got the job.

Other than the original announcement in the National Review, linked to above, notable obituaries and reactions include:

Up from Liberalism, on the Wall Street Journal Editorial Page.

William F. Buckley Jr. Is Dead at 82, by Douglas Martin at the New York Times.

William F. Buckley Jr., in The Times Online.

Conrad Black on William F. Buckley Jr., by, ahem, Conrad Black, in the National Post.

A remarkable man, by Joe Lieberman.

Shades of gray and Blackie, by Mark Steyn.

Bill was a great American, by John McCain.

But perhaps he is best remembered in his own words:

“Though liberals do a great deal of talking about hearing other points of view, it sometimes shocks them to learn that there are other points of view.”

“The best defense against usurpatory government is an assertive citizenry.”

“I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University.”

“Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality, the costs become prohibitive.”

“Government can’t do anything for you except in proportion as it can do something to you.”

And finally, what more can a mere mortal say about Buckley, when he said it all himself in a New York Times Book Review article on writing speedily? “I am, I fully grant, a phenomenon, but not because of any speed in composition,” he declared modestly. “I asked myself the other day, ‘Who else, on so many issues, has been so right so much of the time?’ I couldn’t think of anyone.”

And neither can I. As the WSJ said, Ave atque vale, Bill Buckley. Hail and farewell.

Fidel Castro, the dictator and oppressor-in-chief of communist Cuba, has resigned as president. At last!

For some years now, pundits have been speculating whether Fidel Castro really is still alive. A case in point is the Wall Street Journal’s resident funny man, James Taranto. Despite clear indications to the contrary, Taranto speculated in August 2006 that his condition might improve to such an extent that doctors may soon be able to pronounce him dead. The following January, he noted a headline that began, “Castro Reportedly in Grave…”, and bemoaned the fact that the next word was “Condition”. He wished the adjective were a noun.

I share Taranto’s disdain for Castro. Having overthrown the corrupt Fulgencio Batista almost 50 years ago with promises of liberation, he instead murdered hundreds of opponents, jailed thousands more, and established an oppressive, communist tyranny. The pretence of a glorious revolution for freedom and democracy didn’t last long. However, the cult of El Lider Maximo, as he became known, took on heroic proportions. First, the Bay of Pigs betrayal was spun into a glorious victory by Cuba over the evil Americans. Not long afterwards, the legendary stand-off between him, as proxy for Nikita Kruschev, and John F Kennedy cemented Castro’s reputation, and the secret deal that ended the Cuban missile crisis cemented his political survival and longevity.

Surprisingly, Cuban communism survived — but only just — the collapse of the Soviet Union. However, the real Cuba, described by people other than leftist propagandists led by the nose by state minders, remained rather less romantic than the fantasies of useful idiots would have it. Still, Cuba remains an icon of hope for people who love 1950s automobilia, or pine for the glory days of Soviet anti-capitalism. People like Thabo Mbeki, for example. Apparently, we have a lot to learn from Cuba. I’d agree. We can learn how not to run a country, or an economy, for example.

Here’s hoping Cuba rouses itself from its torpor and shakes off the bonds of Castro’s mind-numbing personality cult. Here’s hoping they reject the regency he has installed, in the person of his brother, Raúl Castro. Here’s hoping that when they do, they also renounce the destructive communist idealism of which El Lider Maximo was one of the last hold-outs. Here’s to the fall of Fidel Castro.

Update: Corrected an error, introduced by careless editing, which made the last sentence of the second paragraph refer to the wrong antecedent.

Mark Helprin has written an excellent piece on the opposition to John McCain from right-wing talk radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, and other thorns in the liberal side, such as Ann Coulter. The latter has threatened to campaign for Hillary Clinton if McCain wins the nomination, a show for which I want front-row tickets.

His writing is sparkling — note the line about “bloody ink of a dying industry” — but the most intriguing of his points concerns the ratings boost that would come from bitching about a Democratic presidency, as compared to relentless defence of all things Bush. I fail to see how campaining for Romney or Huckabee gibes with such a motivation. Either way, that allegation is also the point that Michelle Malkin takes the most exception to.

Here’s a cut version of Helprin’s column, followed by Malkin’s rebuttal. Great reading, on both counts. Now, where were the claims of some monolithic right-wing dogma, or some vast right-wing conspiracy?

What a kerfuffle! Half a dozen talk-radio hosts whose major talent is that, like hairdressers, they can talk all day long to one client after another as they snip, have decided that the presumptive Republican nominee does not hew sufficiently close to their gospel.

As anyone who has listened to them knows, the depth of their thought is truly Oprah-like. And if a great institution of the left can weigh-in as it does in the choice of a nominee, why not its fraternal twins on the right? It doesn’t matter that Mitt Romney, suddenly their Reagan, became a conservative in a flash of light sometime last year, or that their other champion, a populist theocrat, is in many ways as conservative as Vladimir Lenin. The task is to stop the devil McCain.

As a mere print person whose words are not electrified and shot through walls, automobiles, pine trees, and brains, I realize that what I write in the bloody ink of a dying industry may be irrelevant. But from my antiquated perspective, something is very wrong.

Ostracism following tests of “right thinking” is a specialty of the left. Not that it doesn’t exist on the right, blooming with great malice especially on the radio. But in light of their prospects, conservatives have no room for it. For by their neglectful forfeit they have lost the battles of culture and education, and to remain other than an occult force they must express their beliefs through politics, from which, after November, they may be for a time excluded.

[…]

[The protracted Iraq war] and the economy threaten to throw the conservative enterprise back to where it was before Ronald Reagan or even William F. Buckley. Along comes John McCain, who has an 80% positive rating from the American Conservative Union but who as a truly independent soul does not fit, at the margins, some of the transient notions of what makes a conservative. Because of his independence and flexibility, he is the only Republican candidate who has a chance of winning, and thus preserving the core principles of conservatism, in relation to which he is unimpeachable. They are national security (in particular the strength of the military after Iraq and vis-à-vis China and a resurgent Russia), Constitutionalism (as in individual vs. collective rights), and the economy (free markets vs. government industrial policy).

One can agree or disagree with his peripheral positions, but political orthodoxy is political death. If those who are in a hissy fit about Sen. McCain would rather have Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, they will get Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton … and they will wake up to a great regret, as if in their drunkenness they had taken Shrek to bed.

But, guess what? Even if, as the country veers left, living conservatives gnash their teeth and dead ones spin in their graves, a small class of conservatives will benefit. And who might they be? They might be those whose influence and coffers swell on discontent, and who find attacking a president easier and more sensational than the dreary business of defending one. They rose during the Clinton years. Perhaps they are nostalgic. It isn’t worth it, however, for the rest of us.

So, rather than playing recklessly with electoral politics by sabotaging their own party ostensibly for its impurity but equally for the sake of their self-indulgent pique, each of these compulsive talkers might be a tad less self-righteous, look to the long run, discipline himself, suck it up, and be a man. And that would apply equally as well to the gorgeous Laura Ingraham and the relentlessly crocodilian Ann Coulter.

And from RealClearPolitics, parts of Malkin’s response:

The most anti-conservative rhetoric against conservative talk radio these days is coming from supposedly free-market conservatives. It’s disgusting.

[…]

It’s one thing to hear such petty snark coming from the left. Outraged that conservative talk radio has succeeded in the marketplace while liberals have bombed, and unnerved that new media outlets have upended mainstream journalism’s monopoly apple cart, liberals have long crusaded against the medium. […]

But now, we have establishment Republicans parroting liberal ad hominem rhetoric: Talk-radio hosts are talentless blabbermouths. Their listeners are mind-numbed robots. Or, as supposed free-market conservative and McCain supporter Phil Gramm put it in his broadside against talk radio in the Washington Post last week: “They say they have principles, but some of it is their ego and power, too. They’re well-known, and they’re used to having power.”

Funny. These trash-talking GOP politicians and pundits had no problem when conservative talk-radio hosts used their “ego and power” to help kill Hillary Clinton’s massive government health care takeover in 1994. They had no problem when conservative talk-radio hosts used their “ego and power” to galvanize support for the Republican revolution, two Bush presidential campaigns and the war in Iraq.

[…]

Helprin accuses conservative talkers who oppose McCain of rooting for a liberal presidency because their “influence and coffers swell on discontent” and they are “nostalgic” for the Clinton years. Translation: They’re all just greedy self-promoters who care more about themselves than the good of the country. Gramm leveled the same attack: “They’re people who put their dogma in front of the interests of the country.”

Cocooned conservative establishment snobs denigrate talk-radio hosts for preaching to the choir. But these same critics have no problem using the medium to market their own work. Ask their publicists. The message of the anti-conservative conservatives dissing talk radio: Self-interest for me, but not for thee.

No need to wait for a Clinton to take the White House. Clintonism is alive and well among conservative talk-radio haters on both sides of the aisle.

Excuse me while I fetch the popcorn.

This Wall Street Journal editorial is an interesting read, about a country few of us know much about, El Salvador.

The core angle of the article is the threat of a return to socialism because El Salvador, which converted to the dollar several years ago, is being hit hard by the Fed-induced decline of the dollar. There are many other observations that are topical, however, especially for other emerging markets, like South Africa:

Since 1992, El Salvador’s democratic leadership has opened markets, reduced the role of the state in the economy, and created the conditions for competition in most economic sectors. In telecom, the government boldly went against the advice of a Washington consensus, which insisted that a 10-year private monopoly was the only way to transition from a state-owned monopoly. (That model set Mexico and Argentina back decades in telecom competition.) Instead, policy makers insisted on full deregulation, and competition has driven down prices and delivered top-notch service.

An untenable public pension scheme has been replaced by a privately administered, defined-contribution system; this removes a massive liability from the government’s books and increases the security of future retirees. Import barriers have come down, international competition now exists in the financial sector, and the economy has diversified into services and low-tech manufacturing.

Though official statistics estimate growth from 1989-2004 at 4.1% per year, former Finance Minister Manuel Enrique Hinds told me in an interview here that he believes it is much higher. He has published extensive research arguing that traditional methods of measuring Salvadoran growth do not capture changes in the makeup of the real economy. When these are factored in, he says, the average annual growth rate is 6.2%. Mr. Hinds’s estimates are supported by World Bank findings and also jibe well with the fact that, from 1991 to 2006, Salvadoran poverty was halved and extreme poverty went from 28% of the population to less than 10%.

I’ll quote the entire piece below the fold, because despite the fact that the WSJ Editorial Page is now free, I still can’t figure out how to navigate to yesterday’s articles, and whenever I click on a link someone else sends, I get to a useless “resubscribe” notice I can’t seem to bypass. I found the link at the top by checking my cell-phone browser’s history and typing in the article code. Hint, hint, guys.

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The 14th edition of The Heritage Foundation/Wall Street Journal Index of Economic Freedom has been released. Though its methodology is slightly different, it confirms the results of a similar project run by the Cato Institute and Fraser Institute.

There’s a good first-dip commentary on it by Mary Anastasia O-Grady over at the Wall Street Journal, which includes this table:

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This item, from James Taranto’s Best of the Web Today column in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, is one of the funnier contributions I’ve read:

How Clemenceau Crippled Clinton

A Los Angeles Times editorial ponders the difficulties of the onetime Democratic front-runner and blames them on … President Bush! Seriously:

For Clinton, the trouble is not emotion but, perversely, President Bush. So badly has this president performed that he has discredited not just his own administration but the very idea of Washington knowledge. Voters frustrated by the war in Iraq and anxious about the economy have turned on the man who brought us those troubles and on experience itself — and thus on Clinton.

But this is much too simplistic. After all, it’s not as if George W. Bush just sprang forth out of nothing. And if you look at history, it’s clear that the real culprit — perversely! — is Georges Clemenceau.

Clemenceau was the French prime minister in 1919 who at the Versailles conference pushed for the imposition of harsh peace terms on Germany, the loser in World War I. The hardships imposed by the Versailles treaty contributed to Hitler’s rise to power, leading to World War II.

World War II made a hero of Dwight Eisenhower (no wonder Mrs. Clinton can’t stand him), thereby making possible his election as president in 1952. This made it possible, 16 years later, for Ike’s vice president, Richard Nixon, to ascend to the White House.

If Nixon hadn’t been president, he would not have resigned, and Gerald Ford would not have entered the White House in 1974, which means he would not have been an ex-president in 1980, when Ronald Reagan invited Ford to be his running mate. Surely under such circumstances Ford would have accepted the offer rather than hold out for some ridiculous “co-presidency.”

If Ford had become vice president in 1980, George H.W. Bush would not have. It’s hard to see how George W. Bush could have ascended to the White House on the strength of daddy’s legacy if daddy were a mere former U.N. ambassador.

So you see, Clemenceau, with a little help from Hitler and every Republican president since World War II, caused George W. Bush to become president, thereby discrediting the very idea of experience. And to think, when Mrs. Clinton spoke of the vast right-wing conspiracy, people scoffed.

It’s also an excellent excuse to highlight the paper’s new online design, and the fact that the editorial page on free markets and free people is now, well, free. After all that ribbing about the New York Times’s failed TimesSelect subscription experiment, it’s about time the Wall Street Journal capitulated too.

2007 turned out to be a pretty good year for George W. Bush.

Late last year, voters turfed Republicans out of Congress over either lack of spending restraint or dissatisfaction with progress in Iraq or both, depending who you ask. (Robert Novak: war; Alan Greenspan: spending; Rush Limbaugh: both, and liberals suck; Reason magazine: both, and government sucks.)

This electoral loss, which meant Bush could no longer rely on a compliant Congress to send him only bills he likes, merely reinforced the view that Bush now is a lame duck, unable to govern effectively. (CNN: Is Bush already a lame duck?; Lou Dobbs: Beware the lame duck; The Guardian: ‘Lame duck’ Bush faces struggle to push through new agenda; The Telegraph: Allies desert ‘lame duck president’; Dan Froomkin: How lame a duck?)

A few voices ran against the media herd, but looked like wishful thinkers. (Christian Science Monitor: Bush’s lame-duck advantage.)

But on Friday, Stephen Moore of the Wall Street Journal, and Steve Huntley of the Chicago Sun-Times (apparently independently) noted that Bush hasn’t had a bad 2007 at all. Moore’s item is worth quoting in its entirety:

Bush on the Comeback Trail

Just as Newt Gingrich was the best thing that ever happened to Bill Clinton, so Nancy Pelosi has become a great political asset to George W. Bush. Mr. Bush is on a roll legislatively and even his poll numbers are inching up while Congress’s have sunk into the teens. There’s nothing like having a foil in Congress to rehabilitate a president. Just ask Harry Truman.

This time last year it would have been inconceivable that Mr. Bush would have a successful 2007, or that Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Congress would have fewer than one-in-four voters approving their performance. I’ve made a list of Mr. Bush’s policy victories over the Democrats:

1. S-CHIP — Mr. Bush vetoed the Democrats’ bill expanding middle-class health care subsidies and Democrats were unable to override that veto.
2. Alternative Minimum Tax — Democrats passed AMT reform without the offsetting tax hikes they had threatened.
3. Energy bill — What was a monster at the beginning of the year is now just a fairly harmless CAFE standards bill. Environmentalists are fuming.
4. Hate Crimes Legislation — Mr. Bush blocked it. The Congressional Black Caucus is furious.
5. War funding — Mr. Bush prevailed without any pull-out date. At the start of the year this looked impossible.
6. The Budget — Mr. Bush mostly prevailed on domestic spending totals.
7. No new taxes — all of the Democratic tax proposals were killed, including tobacco taxes, hedge fund taxes and energy company taxes.

It pretty much looks like the White House ran the table. Merry Christmas, Madam Speaker.

As I’ve noted before, US economic and foreign policies matter most to me as a foreigner: whether Americans permit gays to be married, guns to be carried or God to be harried doesn’t keep me up at night.

During the 2004 presidential elections, I said to a friend that perhaps the US needs a presidential term under a Democrat, if only to remind the people in general (and Republican voters in particular) that the Democrats aren’t very good at low taxes, low spending, light-touch environmental regulation and effective foreign policy. Either a John Kerry in 2004, or a Hillary Clinton in 2008, would achieve this goal, and as a result, cement the longer-term rise of the GOP. It now appears that Nancy Pelosi, the San Francisco leftist in charge of the ineffectual Democratic Congress, may have achievedachieve this in just two years. Especially if the Democrats nominate Clinton (admittedly, Dennis Kucinich would do too), my money’s on a Republican presidential election win just less than a year from now.

Update: Repaired a grammatic blunder in stating Nancy Pelosi’s term: either she “may have achieved it in just one year”, or she “may achieve it in just two years” — my phrasing was inconsistent, and the former may yet be undone by a sparkling Congressional performance in 2008 (when Martians may land and I may win the lottery).

I haven’t blogged much about the US presidential contenders, because in truth no candidate on either side of the aisle has really grabbed my attention to date. I’m lukewarm, at best, towards all of them. However, a WSJ survey of economists gives some useful pointers, and they point strongly in the direction of the GOP:

Asked which presidential candidate would be best for the economy, only half responded but most threw their support behind Republicans. Thirty-five percent said Rudolph Giuliani would be best, while 19% chose John McCain and 15% picked Mitt Romney. Hillary Clinton got the support of 8%, while John Edwards was the only other Democrat to register with 4% of the vote.

Whether Americans permit gays to be married, guns to be carried or God to be harried doesn’t much matter to me. Economic policy, on the other hand, does matter. A vote of confidence by people who’ve actually been to economics class — and who will therefore tend to disavow the populist economic fallacies that permeate so much public, academic and media opinion — matters.

(Via Greg Mankiw)

The Wall Street Journal had an interesting front-page story recently about Nicholas Negroponte’s One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project. This project isn’t about laptops, you understand — it’s about education. But mostly, it’s about laptops. Building little green-and-white machines called “XO” that look like toys, to be sold for $100 to kids in poor countries. Problem is, the XO isn’t turning out to be very popular. So who do we blame? Microsoft, of course! And Intel!

With a subheadline one might expect from a newspaper that engages in left-wing editorialising, rather than hard business reporting, the Wall Street Journal agrees with him: “How a Computer for the Poor Got Stomped by Tech Giants”.

How, you may ask? Well, by supplying computers for the poor themselves. This, you see, is a bad thing. It appears to be less about computers for the poor than it is about who gets to wear the halo. Can’t have corporate profiteers nick Nick’s halo, now can we?

Mr. Negroponte’s ambitious plan has been derailed, in part, by the power of his idea. For-profit companies threatened by the projected $100 price tag set off at a sprint to develop their own dirt-cheap machines, plunging Mr. Negroponte into unexpected competition against well-known brands such as Intel Corp. and Microsoft Corp.’s Windows operating system.

Negroponte does say he thinks it’s a good idea for people to sell cheap laptops:

“I’m not good at selling laptops,” Mr. Negroponte has told colleagues. “I’m good at selling ideas.”

“From my point of view, if the world were to have 30 million” laptops made by competitors “in the hands of children at the end of next year, that to me would be a great success,” he said in a recent interview. “My goal is not selling laptops. OLPC is not in the laptop business. It’s in the education business.”

Good thing too, because as the article makes clear, Negroponte’s laptop actually costs $188, and prospective customers are balking, turning to alternatives such as Intel’s Classmate, which doesn’t cost much more, is backed by a large company, and comes with Microsoft Windows. Other companies are also eyeing the huge untapped markets in the developing world.

“The Intel machine is a lot better than the OLPC,” says Mohamed Bani, who chairs Libya’s technical advisory committee but doesn’t have the final say on buying laptops. “I don’t want my country to be a junkyard for these machines.” Libya has decided buy at least 150,000 Intel Classmates. The future of the One Laptop program there is now uncertain.

… Nigeria, for example, so far has failed to honor a pledge by its former president to purchase one million laptops. That’s partly because they no longer cost $100 apiece, says Tomi Davies, a Nigerian-born technology entrepreneur who helped Mr. Negroponte set up talks with Nigerian officials.

… The higher price also has made the laptop vulnerable to competition from sellers of more traditional, Windows-based machines. For many education ministries, “it’s a no-brainer you go with Microsoft,” says Mr. Davies.

But that doesn’t stop him from complaining about the competition from alternatives such as Intel’s Classmate laptop:

Mr. Negroponte says he communicated this month with Intel’s chief executive, Paul Otellini, and demanded that Intel stop selling the Classmate. Intel, which says there is room in the market for many machines, has refused, according to a spokeswoman.

… “We can’t compete,” complains Ayo Kusamotu, One Laptop’s attorney in Nigeria. “The minute we started getting some traction, they [Intel] intensified their effort.” Nigeria recently agreed to purchase 17,000 Intel Classmates.

In May, Mr. Negroponte appeared on CBS’s “60 Minutes” and blasted Intel, suggesting it was trying to drive his nonprofit out of business. Intel’s Mr. Barrett called that idea “crazy.” Two months later, Intel announced it was joining One Laptop’s board. The agreement included a “nondisparagement” clause, under which Intel and One Laptop promised not to criticize each other, according to Mr. Negroponte.

He claims, disingenuously, that the competition actually raises prices by not permitting his projects to achieve the anticipated economies of scale. What I’m seeing is that even his higher price point of $188 is sufficient to drive the prices charged by other producers down.

I’d think, if the purpose of the OLPC project is not to sell laptops, but to promote education, Negroponte would be delighted that so many private companies have picked up on his idea and realised that they can, indeed, provide cheap computers to developing-country customers. After all, a non-profit surely exists to serve a public purpose, not to compete against the private sector.

He may well dispute the arguments by customers about why the competing machines are better, and he may well have a point. I’d recommend open source software for educational computers myself. If he’s unable to deliver on his promises, when private companies can, the market is no longer failing. If he’s unable to convince prospective buyers, on price, performance or features, bitching in the press about competition strikes me as a desparate act to retain control of the market. Why try to shut up companies that are merely trying to promote their own products, unless you don’t think your own product can win on merit? Such tactics are hardly consistent with the supposedly altruistic motives of a non-profit organisation.

He’d gain a lot more respect from me if he’d stopped at declaring victory: “See? I told you it could be done!” But sadly, his slip is showing, and he just has to go on to reinforce the canard that non-profits are good and for-profits are bad. All he does is show that academics and non-profits are pathologically prejudiced against the power of free enterprise. Even when the empirical evidence in the market contradicts them.

Think people who over-borrow and now claim to be in a debt trap they can’t afford to get out of should be cut some slack? That fat-cat banks and “irresponsible” lenders should buck up and take a hit to prevent bankruptcies, repossessions or foreclosures? That’s exactly what Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick thinks.

According to the Boston Globe, he “plans to introduce an ambitious program … to assist Massachusetts communities in preventing foreclosures by pressing lenders to accept losses on their mortgages so that homeowners are able to sell their properties and pay off smaller loan balances.”

Making himself an unlikely but unambiguous contender for next year’s Nobel Prize in Economics, the Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto not only spots the elementary logic failure, but follows it ad absurdum:

Of course! It’s that simple! People can’t afford to pay their mortgages, so government just steps in and presses the lenders to accept losses, and voilà! Problem solved.

This could work for other problems too. Health-care costs too high? Just have the government press doctors, hospitals and insurance companies to operate at a loss. Three-dollar-a-gallon gasoline putting a crimp in your budget? We’re from the government, and we’re here to help! Just press the oil companies to sell gas for 50 cents a gallon (plus tax, of course). Food too expensive? The government can press stores to give the stuff away.

The only problem with this is that it is expensive for the companies involved, and it wouldn’t do anyone any good if they all went out of business. The government should do something! What about labor costs? Perhaps the government can press employees to work free. All this would require is the repeal of the 13th Amendment [abolishing slavery].

Hey, come to think of it, Patrick’s program is an ambitious one!

Quod erat demonstrandum.

Here’s a story: “U.S. fire scatters crowd after Afghan bomb: witness.” Sounds serious, doesn’t it? I mean, read the intro:

BATI KOT, Afghanistan (Reuters) - At least one U.S. soldier opened fire to scatter a crowd of civilians and police on Thursday after failed suicide bomb attacks on a U.S. military convoy, the U.S. military and witnesses said.

Them US thugs, there they goes again. Indiscriminately killing civilians, just because they panicked. It takes Noor Mohammad Sherzai, the self-serving idiot who wrote the piece, until the sixth paragraph to point out that they were actually two warning shots, not aimed at the crowd, designed to disperse them after one suicide bomber had already failed and a second was thought to be approaching.

Why use the pejorative term “idiot”, or describe said idiot as “self-serving”? Well, besides noting the misleading reporting that once again goes on at Reuters, guess who the “witness” of the headline is?

“I saw the fire brigade vehicle rushing to the area at top speed. Somehow its brakes failed and hit one police vehicle and coalition vehicles, then the Americans started firing,” said Reuters correspondent Noor Mohammad Sherzai.

In Best of the Web Today, James Taranto has a funny response, under the headline The Lone Reuter:
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