Moonbat

Lawyer Facing Terror Charge Cites Need for Violence by Michelle Garcia

A New York lawyer facing charges of supporting terrorism told a federal jury that she viewed violence as essential to dismantling institutions that perpetuate "sexism and racism."

As a federal prosecutor questioned her statements and support for a "people's revolution," Lynne Stewart, 65, testified that her lifelong philosophy included fighting "entrenched ferocious capitalism that is in this country today."

Now they tell us

Pace of Job Growth Was Never in Bush's Hands

The Long Tail

Chris Anderson's The Long Tail is fascinating. He claims the new business model for the arts will not be confined to megahits

Forget squeezing millions from a few megahits at the top of the charts. The future of entertainment is in the millions of niche markets at the shallow end of the bitstream.

I have long hoped that something like this would happen.

Savings apocalypse?

In Taxes and Consequences: The Second Term Begins, amid the sensible questions Daniel Altman asks about Bush's economic plans, he puts in this one about the mooted privatization of Social Security:

President Bush said he wants to give workers an opportunity to divert part of their payroll taxes to individual investment accounts, in the hope that the financial markets would pay higher returns than the existing Social Security system....[W]ho would choose where workers could put their money? Would they have been able to invest in Enron?

There are many questions about Bush's economic policies in general and about Social Security privatization in particular, but even I understand that one could very easily design this kind of privatization to give people only a limited set of options, such as a few different kinds of mutual funds and a money market fund. If Altman refuses to even make such a proposal, I wonder how qualified he is to discuss the other policies. In fact, Altman is opposed to the entire idea of encouraging people to save by cutting taxes on investments.

The neoconomists didn't invent these models—that was the job of theorists whose work sometimes looked more like physics than economics—but they quickly grasped the implications for policy.

So he admits that academic theory is behind the proposal, but dismisses the theory as work that "sometimes looked more like physics than economics."

They used the models to postulate the following chain reaction:

1. Government cuts tax rates on savings and wealth.
2. Saving by households—bank accounts, stocks, bonds, etc.—increases.
3. More money becomes available to American businesses, since they're the ones offering the bank accounts, stocks, bonds, etc.
4. Businesses spend more on machinery, software, and other capital, as well as on research and development.
5. The nation's output of goods and services grows, and technological innovation accelerates.
6. Incomes and living standards rise more quickly for several years and perhaps forever.

...there is no assurance that the positive chain-reaction the neoconomists envision will actually occur. [R. Glenn Hubbard and Lawrence B. Lindsey]'s strategy has never been tried in a large, wealthy economy.

...even if the Bush administration succeeds, its policies could create two problems that could undo all their positive effects: rising inequality and a drastic change in incentives.

Wealthier people derive more of their income from returns on saving—both in dollar terms and as a proportion of income—than poor people do. When taxes on the return from savings suddenly disappear, the wealthy benefit the most. It may be that people who depend on their jobs for income will benefit, too, in the long run, thanks to an expanding economy and rising wages. But for several years, in all likelihood, the income gap will continue to widen.

That income gap poses some real dangers to the economy and even to the earnings of the wealthy. With rising inequality, it's harder for poor people to obtain economic opportunities, because chances to get education and training, or to bring ideas to market, depend on money as well as talent, and because the number of these opportunities is limited...

His conclusion is that if the rich get richer, the poor will inevitably get poorer, but he offers zero evidence for this. After all, the economy is not a zero-sum system.

Perhaps more important, abolishing taxes on saving would give people every incentive to receive all their income from financial assets rather than wages and salaries. For some, spending all day adjusting one's portfolio might make more sense than taking a job. Even people who work will seek ways to avoid taxes, for example by being paid solely in stock options or high-interest bonds.

Even though he is concerned that "there is no assurance that the positive chain-reaction the neoconomists envision will actually occur," he is confident to predict that those who can afford to invest will only be the wealthy, and that despite their investments, they are simply parasites. In fact, even today there are many people whose wealth mainly resides in stocks, who still take jobs anyway. I'm looking online for a rightist discussion or rebuttal of Altman, but mostly see only leftists cheering him on. That suggests to me that Bush will lose this battle. And besides, even someone like Tyler Cowen, "on the conservative side" is cited in the Wall Street Journal as opposing the plan:

I wish to privatize many things, but forced savings is not one of them. The so-called privatized accounts would be regulated rather than truly private in the libertarian sense. They will channel benefits to government-approved providers, thus leading to bureaucracy, regulation, and costly commissions. We could even imagine a government trying to direct those investment funds to particular sectors. And if anyone's account goes bust, a secondary safety net would likely bail them out. What if the whole market went bust for about 10 years' time, as it did in the 1970s? Imagine a replay of the S&L crisis but on a larger scale.

And that's not to mention how to pay off current recipients.

Savings apocalypse, part II

Also in the NYT, Ben Stein tells people How to Avoid Living Like a Poor Student at Age 70. (It's by saving money!)

Moral values

Terence P. Jeffrey writes, It's the Culture, Stupid

While there were many important issues in last week's historic election, the single most important one for the largest bloc of voters was not the economy, the Iraq War, or the Terror War. It was the cultural war.

Democrat John Kerry was defeated by a resolute army of voters who marched out in massive numbers to strike a peaceful blow at the ballot box for a traditionalist vision of American society.

Another cultural conservative similarly argues it's A question of values

It stunned the Democrats and many in the media, but it shouldn't have. Voters who care about moral values delivered the election to President Bush. Even with an uncertain economy and problems in Iraq, Mr. Bush rode social conservatism to victory.

Come on, it was one of a number of issues. On the other hand, as Jim Rutenberg writes, Poll Question Stirs Debate on Meaning of 'Values', liberals are afraid that the Republicans will use this as a "mandate":

...some Democrats and independent pollsters say these assumptions are largely based on a flawed polling question that has skewed the results to make it seem as if cultural matters had a more powerful effect than they actually did. Though they acknowledge that cultural issues were important in Mr. Bush's re-election, they say they worry that that Republicans and Mr. Bush will act forcefully on a false mandate...

Bill McInturff, a Republican pollster....said that if "moral values" was really a "catchall" with a confused meaning, then more Democrats would have picked it. Of the 22 percent who chose "moral values," 80 percent were Bush supporters, 20 percent were Kerry supporters. "It's self-selected by people for whom these issues are very important for their votes," he said, adding that the margin by which Mr. Bush carried these voters arguably made the difference in the election.

The Economist wrote:

All 11 states that held ballot initiatives to ban gay marriage approved them. Together with the Republican success at turning out the base, that suggests Mr Rove’s ambition to win the 2004 election by using social issues to mobilise 4m "missing" evangelical Protestants (who, he says, could have voted for Mr Bush in 2000 but did not) worked triumphantly.

Yet there is counter-evidence. When asked directly about their attitudes to abortion, the responses this time were no different from 2000: 55% said it should be always or mostly legal. On gay marriage, 26% approved and 35% supported civil unions. So it is possible that "moral values" are not just a matter of social conservatism but also code for trust in the candidate, or respect for a man’s willingness to take a stand—where Mr Bush won easily. Mr Kerry never quite managed to persuade voters of his leadership qualities.

But "moral values" is awfully broad. I find CBSNews.com's Dick Meyer's Moral Values Malarkey more nuanced. He cites the exit poll questions

Which issue mattered most in deciding how you voted for president? Here are the results:

	KERRY	BUSH
Moral Values (22%)	18%	80%
Economy/Jobs (20%)	80%	18%
Terrorism (19%)	14%	86%
Iraq (15%)	73%	26%
Health Care (8%)	77%	23%
Taxes (5%)	43%	57%
Education (4%)	73%	26%

Analysts and commentators have been stunned that moral issues would trump the other biggies. From this single result, where moral values trounced economy/jobs by a whole two percentage points, both gloaters and mourners have extrapolated a fatal flaw in the Democratic Party and all it encompasses. An industry of values voter literature has mushroomed in just the few days since the election. It’s misguided.

While the nexus of issues boiled into the words "moral values" certainly were a big factor in this election, it’s being exaggerated partly because of the oddities of the poll itself and partly because the Big Theory conforms with what Republican strategists want you to believe.

First, the poll: If the poll had been worded or constructed only slightly differently, moral values would not have been the top issue. We’re building a worldview out of a small, odd vista.

If, for example, one of the issues on the list was a combined "terrorism and Iraq," it would have been the top concern of 34 percent of the electorate and nobody would be talking about moral values.

If "taxes, jobs and the economy" was on the list as one item instead of two, it would have been the topper at 25 percent.

If, say, abortion rights, gay marriage and moral values were all on the list separately, the numbers would be very different.

...since it is now an accepted crisis for the Democrats that the values voters who were 22 percent of the electorate went for the Republican by an 80-18 margin, it must follow that it’s a crisis for Republicans that the 20 percent who care most about the economy and jobs went 80-18 for the Democrat.

Is it a crisis for the Republicans that the huge, 45 percent slice of the electorate that describes itself as moderate went for Kerry 54-45?

Is it a crisis for the Republicans first time voters went 53-46 for Kerry? Doesn’t that make an ominous sign for the future?

It’s argued that the Democrats are in hot water because the rural voters who made up 16 percent of the electorate went 59-40 for Bush. Is it a crisis for the Republicans that the 13 percent that live in big cities went 60-39 for Kerry?

The voting behavior of Americans does divvy up into some pretty stark and feuding neighborhoods. Rural voters and heavy church-goers vote Republican. City people and church-avoiders vote Democratic. These cleavages have persisted in several elections.

Those divides may be a crisis for the country; they may describe a culture war, at least for the politically active. It is not an inherent crisis for Democrats alone. And the inability to win the allegiance of people who care most about the amorphous thing currently called moral values is not at the top of the Democrats problems. Republicans, however, want people to believe that the Democrats are simply categorically different than the good people who care about moral things.

After debunking this theory du jour with such vitriol, permit me the Kerryesque weakness of making a few qualifiers.

I do think many active Democrats – appointees, consultants, volunteers, and partisans – have a deep disrespect for religious people, old-fashioned people and country people. It’s palpable and it’s deplorable and Democrats deny it. And it means that party activists and related groups bring to forum issues that are in fact unpopular, like support for gay marriage.

I also think many active Republicans are just as snotty, they just pretend better.

And I think many religious people, old-fashioned people and country people have a profound disrespect for "liberals" and people they disagree with and people who aren’t like them. But that is sort of reverse snobbery so it’s okay.

Democratic politicians – at least the ones who score big in national politics – have a fundamental conflict; they always purport to represent people who aren’t very much like them; they are rich and white and pedigreed and claim to represent the poor or the working class or gays or minorities. Republicans don’t have that problem; they tend to represent themselves and their kind.

Similarly, in The Values-Vote Myth David Brooks writes,

As Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center points out, there was no disproportionate surge in the evangelical vote this year. Evangelicals made up the same share of the electorate this year as they did in 2000. There was no increase in the percentage of voters who are pro-life. Sixteen percent of voters said abortions should be illegal in all circumstances. There was no increase in the percentage of voters who say they pray daily.

It's true that Bush did get a few more evangelicals to vote Republican, but Kohut, whose final poll nailed the election result dead-on, reminds us that public opinion on gay issues over all has been moving leftward over the years. Majorities oppose gay marriage, but in the exit polls Tuesday, 25 percent of the voters supported gay marriage and 35 percent of voters supported civil unions. There is a big middle on gay rights issues, as there is on most social issues.

Jim DeMint

The Economist wrote,

Rather than paying homage to the textile barons, [Jim DeMint] is an unabashed free-trader who has called [South Carolina's textile barons] "malcontents and hypocrites". He points out that 25% of South Carolina's jobs are tied to exports and that the state is one of the most reliant on foreign investment creating jobs. In 2001, he cast the decisive vote that gave Mr Bush trade-promotion authority.

The boldness goes well beyond trade. Mr DeMint wants to change the tax code radically (he has backed 11 bills in Congress that push reforms from the flat tax to a sales tax); he has sponsored an ambitious bill to create personal retirement accounts; and he has pushed hard for health-savings accounts. Small wonder that he is the darling of Washington's conservative think-tanks.

At the same time, Mr DeMint is fiercely socially conservative. Pro-life and pro-gun, he caused a ruckus in the first debate when he argued that gay people should not be allowed to teach in public schools.

The Economist's Zanny Minton Beddoes called the choice between him and his opponent Inez Tenenbaum a choice between "big ideas and bigotry" on the one hand, and "protectionist scare-mongering coupled with more moderate social views" on the other. This was a little like chosing between Bush and Kerry. For me, the economic issues trumped the social ones.

Maag lost double

Karmeier win means big changes in Madison County, presecutor says [sic] by Paul Hampel

The election of a Republican to the Illinois Supreme Court on Tuesday was a disaster for the Madison County plaintiff's bar, says longtime prosecutor Don Weber...

Weber called Karmeier's victory a "cataclysm" for personal-injury lawyers, and said the biggest impact would be in the area of forum shopping in civil cases.

For decades, the Madison County court has attracted damage lawsuits from around the United States because of the county's reputation for generous verdicts.

Weber said he expected defense attorneys to begin filing more motions to dismiss such out-of-state claims with the confidence that Karmeier will agree to hear their appeals...

Brad Lakin, of the Lakin Law Firm in Wood River, where Maag once worked as a personal-injury lawyer before becoming a judge, conceded on Wednesday that Karmeier's win posed problems for trial lawyers in regard to venue.

"I think it's a major setback, but not a catastrophe," Lakin said. "I expect we
will see more of those (motions to dismiss), but once the cases are argued and
the facts laid out, I think venue will usually be found to be appropriate."

The race set a national record in campaign contributions for a judicial contest...

Maag, a Fifth District appellate judge...also lost his appeals court seat in Tuesday's election...

State Senate Republican leader Frank Watson, R-Greenville, who has been among the leading advocates for so-called tort reform, said that the Karmeier-Maag contest amounted to a referendum on the issue.

"It was a referendum on the fact that doctors are leaving the area, and the reason is the high cost of medical malpractice insurance," Watson said Wednesday. "Both candidates tried to tie themselves to (the issue), but it didn't stick with Maag. It was obvious from where the money was coming from in his election. He tried to be a part of the medical-malpractice solution, but it didn't work."

The future belongs to Europe?

In a subscriber-only article, Mary Dejevsky writes,

The American dream is fading - and the future belongs to Europe; The United States has passed the high point of its success and is doomed to decline due to its internal weaknesses.

She singles out

the contradiction implicit in its claim for the universality of its model with the de facto racial and social segregation it practises at home, and the narrowing of its cultural horizons. Falling American life-expectancy, disparities in health and the rise in poverty...[and] a malign aspect to the flag-waving and monolithic patriotism of the media that followed the 11 September attacks.

One of her authorities is Jeremy Rifkin, who

hazards that the European Union could supply an alternative model of development.

Writing back in December 2003, she said,

the fact that Britain, Spain, Italy and Poland have troops in Iraq, whereas other EU states do not, has disguised two other facts: that Europe is united in calling for the UN to oversee Iraq and that, little by little, Washington is being forced to accept its terms.

In another subscriber-only article, dated July 9, 2001:

...the Republicans lost their bare majority in the Senate, thanks to the defection of a New England Republican, James Jeffords, who became an independent. With control of the Senate went control of the legislative agenda and timetable, control of the committees - and the iron discipline that the White House had exerted on Congressional Republicans. From then on, nothing seemed to go right.

Mr Bush's legislative agenda, including his diluted education bill, is now stalled. Even some promised tax cuts may be delayed because of new budgetary concerns; the once-booming stock market is flat, or falling. He also risks alienating public opinion if he carries out his threat to veto a popular bill that allows aggrieved patients to sue health organisations for denial of treatment.

Worse, perhaps, some of his hugely experienced and trusted lieutenants seem, if not out of their depth, then out of date and poorly attuned to current public concerns, whether on the environment, energy policy, military reform or missile defence. The defence and treasury secretaries - millionaire former chief executives both - are testy with Congress and evince scarcely disguised frustration at the constraints on their power.

The strength of opinion on the environment, including among Republicans, has taken the White House by surprise, and forced another retreat: this time on oil -drilling off Florida. "Where have these environmental Republicans sprung from?" one senior official asked in an unguarded moment.

Mr Bush has faced other unwelcome distractions. First, his twin daughters, visibly chafing at the diminution of their privacy, were fined for underage drinking. Then his Vice-President went into hospital for the third time since the election to have a pacemaker fitted for his suspect heart. Every subsequent public appearance by Mr Cheney - who was back at his desk less than two days after his operation - is a reminder of the administration's fragility...

Seesh. Just because you want something to happen, doesn't mean it will. And the US may very well be surpassed by another entity, but I don't think it's Europe. As Wim Kok (via Jeremy Slater) argues,

the gap between Europe and the US has widened and not narrowed in the past five years...

One of the main reasons for this failure to boost growth...is that unanimity is needed for the European Union to go forward on just about any economic project.

The Downside

Except for Bost, Bush, and Karmeier, everyone else I endorsed lost. (Maybe I shouldn't have written on their backs.)

Now it's time to bite my nails over what Stephen Green calls the downside:

Bush's lame-duck judicial selections -- especially with an increased Republican Senate majority -- might just give one pause. Will Bush stick to his promise of nominating strict constructionists, or might he feel free to nominate fundamentalist judges? I'm no worrywart convinced that Republicans are out to overturn Roe v Wade, but you can never be too sure. Even if the courts remain in good hands, a second Bush term might mean further intrusion on stem-cell research.

Republicans increased their majorities in the House and Senate. One thing majorities like to do is keep things exactly as they are -- and the safest way to do that is to keep buying votes… er -- keep increasing spending. Bush refused to veto a single spending bill in his first four years, and it's hard to imagine him becoming more susceptible to popular pressure to reign in spending during his lame duck term. You can also bet that those new Republican Congressmen and Senators will feel the need to prove their abilities to bring home the pork. Buh-bye, fiscal sanity.

And don't even get me started on Bush's insane Medicare expansion from last year. If that's an indication of how he intends to deal with our growing health care crisis, then there's hardly any difference any more between Democrats and Republicans.

Also at TCS, Uriah Kriegel suggests getting rid of Ashcroft & Rumsfeld and bringing in people like Giuliani & McCain, and even "a hawkish Democrat".

Bush must also make a significant step by way of compromising on one of the central tenets of his agenda. Raising taxes is clearly out of question for him. But a bombshell announcement on, say, stem cell research or immigration, may do wonders to mollify his more intense critics and go some distance towards reunifying the nation. Hopefully, such a move can be sold to his base precisely as such -- as a token of respect for the other half of the nation. Such a gesture would betray another type of genuine patriotism.

I don't think it'll happen, though. On the other hand, in Last chance for the Democrats? the Economist's Lexington argued the Republicans had more to gain from a victory in this election, because

they think they can use a second Bush term to turn themselves into America's de facto ruling party....[T]he Republicans have put emasculating the Democrats at the very heart of their second-term agenda. They plan to reduce its footsoldiers by contracting out hundreds of thousands of federal jobs, to reduce its income through tort reform (which may slim down the lawyers' wallets) and right-to-work laws (which will allow workers to opt out of union dues). And they plan to boost the number of people who own shares—and hence a stake in the success of the capitalist system—by beginning to privatise Social Security.

But then Buttonwood argues,

the re-election of George Bush does nothing to ease Buttonwood’s long-term fears. That would take an administration with far greater intellectual clout and economic literacy than the bunch that has just kept control of the White House.

The Warring States Period

Colby Cosh:

"There is a tiny but not negligible chance that we will never know who won, and that the republic will devolve into a bloodied quilt of warring statelets..."

Dibs on Confucius.

"Red States" versus "Blue States"

David N. Mayer writes that it's the networks that gave us these colors:

...in their coverage of the 2000 election, in which the states carried by Bush were colored red while the states carried by Gore were colored blue. I noted that the new color coding switched the traditional use of blue for states carried by Republicans and red for states carried by Democrats – a use that was long-standing (blue for Republican and red for Democrat was the general rule as far back as I can remember – and I've been watching network coverage of presidential election returns since 1964). The traditional color-coding also was more logical, given that red is a color most associated with Communism, and that the Democrats' party is the one most obviously socialistic in America today.

Also a tidbit about "fine, centuries-old word[s], rooted in the Anglo-Saxon origins of the English language – and often the most appropriate word[s] one can use to fully express oneself."

Get the lead out

Alex Tabarrok asks, "Ever notice that the politically correct attack any discussion of IQ as unscientific and racist, until the discussion turns to lead?"

No, I didn't. I appreciate the irony, but I'm sad that there was too much lead in my water.

Oops?

China Plays Down Election Eve Barb Against Bush By Benjamin Kang Lim

Experts said they believed China preferred the stability of a second Bush administration.

They said it was odd Beijing would become involved in a U.S. election and even odder for this to happen when the outcome is so close.

No kidding.

Wolfe at the door

In The liberal elite hasn't got a clue, Tom Wolfe says

I would vote for Bush if for no other reason than to be at the airport waving off all the people who say they are going to London if he wins again. Someone has got to stay behind.

Funny enough. And if Kerry wins?

He is a man no one should worry about, because he has no beliefs at all. He is not going to introduce some manic radical plan, because he is poll-driven, and it is therefore impossible to know where or for what he stands.

I'm not a fan, by the way. Wolfe is an obnoxious poseur. (via Michael Totten)

Creative Destruction

In our farmer's market I asked one of the local farmers if the shortage of tomatoes (why is that link "funny"?) would be good for him. He replied that for several years now, they only wanted huge quanitities that he couldn't provide, and indicated unhappily that mass marketing was the way things went now, and that imports could always solve the problem. I didn't ask him why he didn't just get out of farming. It's no fun to be on the receiving end of creative destruction.

Who will be president...?

...of Islamic militancy?

In My Endorsement and Osama's Video, Christopher Hitchens writes,

I could be mistaken but I was struck by the remark of one analyst quoted in the New York Times who said that Bin Laden was running for re-election as the president of Islamic militancy. In that case, he might have been aware of the rival candidacy of Abu Musad al-Zarqawi, who began his career of crime with a declaration of war on the Jordanian ruling house.

Then there was the guy on the other tape who claimed to be an American, but if he won't show his face, how can he get elected?

Read it and Weep

Who I support:

• For President: George W. Bush; I'm about 51% in favor of the war in Iraq, and also in favor of a stakeholder economy, including his social security reform proposals, and in favor of free trade; Kerry seems to be against these.
• For United States Senator: Libertarian Jerry Kohn; he hasn't a hope against the anti-trade tax & spend Obama, but Keyes is a joke (without a hope, either).
• For Representative in Congress: Erin R. Zweigart; she's a little too rabidly anti-abortion for me, but she supports finishing the job in Iraq, unlike Walter B. Steele, the Libertarian who's OK, if a little too rabidly anti-government. (Anyway, neither one has a hope against the incumbent Jerry F. Costello, who's a conservative on social issues, and a liberal on fiscal ones. Ugh.)
• For Representative in the Illinois House of Representatives: Mike J. Bost. Partly because of this, but also against our Democrats.
• For County Sheriff: John Sytsma, partly because of his experience, but again to stick it to the Democrats.
• For Circuit Clerk: Christy Clutts-Hale, because the incumbent came out in support of Maag (see below).
• For Judge of the Supreme Court: Lloyd A. Karmeier; partly because of things like this, and his rating from the Illinois State Bar Association, and the fact that he favors tort reform, but also to stick it to the Democrats.
• For Judge of the Circuit Court, Jackson County: P. Michael Kimmel; he got a better rating from the Illinois State Bar Association than his opponent.
• To be Retained in Office as Judge of the Appellate Court: Gordon E. Maag; NO. See above.
• To be Retained in Office as Judge of the Appellate Court: Terrence J. Hopkins; Yes. (see the Illinois State Bar Association)
• To be Retained in Office as Judge of the Circuit Court: William G. Schwartz; No. Because as the local paper put it:

The state agency that polices judges has charged a Jackson County circuit court judge with improperly banning Southern Illinois University Law School students from practicing in county courts in retaliation for the law school's refusal to admit his stepson.

You wonder how he got a "recommended" rating from the Illinois State Bar Association.

Update

A physician friend of ours has a very low opinion of Thomas Kupferer, the incumbent coroner, so I'll be voting for Steve McBride. Even though he's a firefighter and arson investigator with the Carbondale Fire Department, not a doctor. According to The Southern Illinoisan,

McBride will argue that it is not necessary for the coroner to be a physician, because all coroner's inquests that happen inside a county have to be done by a physician outside of the county, according to state law.

That said, I don't think it would be a disaster if all of my choices lost.

Prices, not quality

An entrepreneur friend of ours who works with a manufacturer that sells through Wal-Mart says that Wal-Mart is so intent on pushing down prices that it forces the manufacturer to produce articles that are of lower quality. He refuses to patronize Wal-Mart and Aldi, saying they are full of rednecks, although he regularly patronizes Sam's. Part of the problem may be the concern about quality. True, one doesn't go to Wal-Mart or Aldi for high quality, but I go there all the time, because of the prices.

Think twice

China Criticizes Bush Ahead of Election by Joe McDonald

The strikingly pointed criticism from a government that Washington calls a key anti-terrorism ally was a departure from China's past refusal to comment on the U.S. presidential candidates.

It came in a commentary in a state newspaper by Vice Premier Qian Qichen, who criticized what he called the "Bush Doctrine" as a policy of pre-emptive military attack and a Cold War relic.

This is somewhat disturbing, because of what it says about the Communist government's primary concerns. It means that they care more about curbing American military power than taking advantage of trade with us. (Admittedly Bush isn't always a free trader, but he certainly sounds better than Kerry, who chose a rank protectionist as his running-mate.) So if Chen Shui-bian thinks that economics matters more to the Communists than military concerns (and Taiwanese independence), he'd better think twice.