Comfortably miserable. Yes, that about sums it up. The wind chill is a meager 4 degrees outside, the wind is howling and beating my truck around. But inside, I am running the heat and relaxing with a cup of coffee, some off-brand cookies, and a Bill Buckley book. I'm comfortable amidst the misery, which I might as well be since the road and weather conditions have me "stuck like chuck" (to use my daughter's favorite phrase), at this little gas station.

But watching the snow blow by, the cars slip and slide, the people lower their heads and lean into powerful gusts of blowing snow, I keep asking myself why? The people here are friendly. They offer a smile and a greeting to this stranger. But I keep hearing the words that Jeff Dunham's ventriloquist character Walter offered to a Wisconsin audience during February: "Hellooooo. The borders are open! You can leave!"

So to folks like Duane, or James Lileks, and any number of warm hearted people who don't just travel through these conditions but actually live and thrive in them: How do you do it? And why do so many people choose to do so in weather so cold that hurts?

I give New York ten years before the last float in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade dumps Santa for an enormous snowflake:

A politically correct West Village YMCA has fired Ol' St. Nick in favor of Frosty.

Kids who once thrilled at sitting on Santa's lap at the 14th Street McBurney YMCA's wildly popular annual holiday luncheon will now suffer the icy embrace of a talking snowman and his sidekick, an anonymous penguin, at today's event.

There’s also the appearance of a new seasonal character, the Talking Weasel:

"It wasn't replacing; it was transitioning," said John Rappaport, executive director of the McBurney YMCA. "We realized that change is sometimes good, and that Frosty is a great winter character who would appeal to a broader number of kids."

You only hope a greasy seed of self-loathing bloomed in his stomach when he uttered those words. It’s PR blatherplate nonpareil. Santa wasn’t replaced, he was caught on the diminishing side of a transition. Change is sometimes good even if everyone else not involved in the decision-making process disagrees.  This Winter Character has a non-denominational backstory, and hence he’s more inclusive. Now let’s all pass around a stick of fir and sing a song about the Solstice Rainbow.

You expect this from cities and malls, but from an organization with CHRISTIAN built right into the name, it’s dismaying. But not surprising.  For that matter, the entire name YMCA is exclusionary. It’s ageist. It’s sexist. It’s theocentric. And it is surely offensive to those whose social phobias prevent them from forming associations. Any suggestions what YMCA could stand for in the future?  Your Meaningless Cultural Attribute, maybe.  

Not long ago, I called on all Ricocheterians to come up with a line of clothing named after some law or another. The suggestions were fantastic, including Second Amendment tank tops (for the right to “bare arms”) and Fifth Amendment underclothes.

Once again, life imitates Ricochet.  Now this company has launched a brand of Fourth Amendment underwear.  The text on the underwear (i.e., the bit about unreasonable searches and seizures) is made with some sort of metallic  thread so that it will  be clearly legible to the TSA officials watching you on the backscatter machine.   Much more refined than “don’t touch my junk,” but basically the same message. (h/t Lowering the Bar).

The left's myth of Guantanamo Bay is finally dying.  My former Department of Justice colleague, Robert Delahunty, and I published a piece in the Wall Street Journal yesterday explaining why Congress cut off the funding for any efforts to shut down the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay or to transfer any al Qaeda prisoners there to American territory.  The most important reason:  an intelligence community report that one in every four detainees released from Gitmo has returned to the fight against us.  Unfortunately, freezing the status quo does not stop the distortions in the Obama approach to terrorism -- relying on drone warfare and civilian trials -- which has the effect of killing more innocents, losing intelligence, and burdening our fighting men and women in the field.

Stuck in the snow this morning in Illinois, I keep remembering a couple of phrases: "Keep your eyes moving." "Here comes a decision point." Those were the two phrases the passenger in my 18 wheeler used incessantly a little over a week ago. He is a driving instructor with the company I drive for and he was doing an annual evaluation to make sure I hadn't developed any unsafe habits in the last year. A driver with over one million accident free miles under his belt, he is worth his weight in gold to the company and to those drivers willing to listen and learn. Since we were in Atlanta, he made it a point to direct me to some of the most difficult intersections, the tightest turns with the most obstacles, the most narrow roads, and those little areas that are known to have the highest concentration of drivers who have taken complete leave of their senses even by Atlanta standards.

The interesting thing was that even after successfully negotiating a tricky intersection or turn, something unexpected would happen that reinforced the general stupidity of letting one's guard down. Don't pat yourself on the back because you made a sharp right turn without taking out the garbage truck on one side or levelling a telephone pole on the other, because you now have a city bus coming at you on your left and a pedestrian on your right, and your speed schedules you to meet them both on a narrow bridge. What to do? Change the schedule by applying the brakes and letting them cross the bridge first. I haven't read George Bush's book yet, but if it doesn't make the point that these "decision points" have a nasty habit of showing up unannounced and uninvited, he's missed a sterling opportunity.

I was remembering the admonitions the driving instructor made while listening to various news stories this week. A decision point was reached in negotiations about extending the current tax rates, for example. What does a two-year extension of current rates tell the job creators among us, other than that their rates will go up in two years? Does a two year extension really position them to make long term reinvestments in their businesses or ramp up their payrolls? Of course not. And yet, that's what passes for "predictability" in the tax debate. And in exchange for this small extension, we add billions to the deficit for more unemployment benefits, and any number of pet projects such as ethanol subsidies? Was this deal really reflective of the sentiment the voters expressed in November? Decisions have ripple effects far beyond what can be seen at the time the decision is made. What might be the effects of a deal that doesn't spur the kind of growth needed for recovery, yet adds still more debt?

Meanwhile, more decision points loom. As Professor Rahe has pointed out, the National Labor Relations Board, in the absence of congressional action, is preparing to implement a card check system that would deny employees the right to vote by secret ballot on questions of whether or not to unionize. Similarly, the EPA stands ready to implement its own version of cap and trade, again in the absence of congressional action. Meanwhile, Congressman Fred Upton, whose primary claim to fame thus far has been his role in what Ricochet member Kenneth famously calls the "55 MPH Light Bulb" law (where the feds presume to dictate what kind of light bulbs we may and may not purchase), is poised to chair the House Energy and Commerce Committee in the new congress.

My point is simple. Important decisions are being made now. The lame ducks in congress, the cuckoos in the administration, and the dodo birds in the new congress are all reaching decision points with major implications for our future and our children's future. And these decisions will be made regardless of our holiday schedules or competing priorities. This is no time to become complacent or allow ourselves to be distracted or diverted. As my instructor said, we should keep our eyes moving, scanning events, and stay engaged. Decision points don't take holidays.

The temperature in Istanbul is so miserably frigid today that I wouldn't be surprised to look out my window and see polar bears scaling the minarets. I'm wearing gloves indoors. I took them off to type this and my hands are going numb.

You know where I'd like to be right now?

Cancun! 

How about those clever climate change negotiators? Cancun in December. You've got to admire that.  

They are hardly ignoring the situation in Ciudad Juárez today. As for the emphasis of the article, I'm sympathetic to the reporter's decision that it might be a better idea to talk to local retail businessmen than to interview local drug kingpins, really I am. 

The Times is also reporting on the Kushchevskaya massacre in Russia and its implications--a hugely important story, and I don't think anyone else is covering it. 

On the other hand, the five-arugula-alert piece in the travel section about the next-big-thing in off-piste skiing in Switzerland does not precisely suggest a finger on the national pulse. 

Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt--another statesman laboring under the delusion that the gravity of his message is enhanced by its transmission on Twitter--has described the attack on Stockholm as "failed."  

"Most worrying attempt at terrorist attack in crowded part of central Stockholm. Failed -- but could have been truly catastrophic," Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said in a Twitter message on Saturday.

A Swedish news agency and police said they received e-mail threats against the Swedish people 10 minutes before the explosions, which killed one person and injured two others on Saturday.

I guess he's right. A few Swedes more or less, plenty more where they came from. I'm sure the people who were injured will have forgotten about it by tonight.

One of the biggest challenges facing someone running for the office of President of the United States is looking “presidential.” It’s often tough to imagine a person in that role until you actually see him there. However, in my opinion, not even all presidents look presidential. I was struck by that the other day when Bill Clinton stood beside Barack Obama urging Democrats to pass the tax compromise. It seemed to me that only one of the two really looked presidential, and it wasn’t the current Chief Executive. Regardless of party or politics, the office seems to minimize some men and maximize others, and that contrast was on stark display at the White House this past week.

Jimmy Carter was another man who never seemed presidential to me. I always felt as if he had accidentally stumbled onto a set of Oval Office keys and planned to stay there as long as he could get away with it. When Ronald Reagan ran against him in 1980, it was the challenger who looked presidential.

As good a man as he was, I never felt Gerald Ford exuded that presidential aura. Maybe that’s because he was never elected, or maybe it was because one of our most athletic presidents had been parodied as a clumsy oaf. George W. Bush may not have sounded presidential, but he looked comfortable in the office.

In my adult lifetime, some of those who ran for the presidency and lost had the right look, and some simply didn’t. I could never imagine Michael Dukakis in that role, nor Walter Mondale nor Bob Dole nor Al Gore nor John Kerry. However, I could see John McCain or Hubert Humphrey.

It’s all very subjective, I know, and it’s hard not to be blinded by politics. In fact, I’m not exactly sure what it means to say that someone looks presidential. But, like a lot of subjective matters, it becomes obvious when you see it. And it seemed obvious to me the other day that one president reveled in the office while the other chafed.

A few weeks ago, one of our faithful members--was it Paules?  Or Aaron?--said he wished I'd start a thread for each episode of Uncommon Knowledge.  I thought I'd give that fine idea a try.

Anybody care to comment on my interview with Matt Ridley, author of the best-selling volume, The Rational Optimist:  How Prosperity Evolves?  

The interview has been appearing this week at National Review Online, one segment at a time.  As of today, though, you can watch the interview in full.  Just click here.

Any thoughts you'd like to share?  Comments of Matt Ridley's you found especially perceptive?  Or, for that matter, particularly galling?  Questions you wish I'd had the smarts to ask?  Just open the little box on your computer screen and type away.

I'll be working this afternoon and evening--in addition to getting in a few licks on a couple of other assignments, I'll be prepping for my interview next week with Thomas Sowell; positively glowing, as I do so, with gratitude to everyone here at Ricochet who has suggested a question or two--but I'll check in every now and then.  

Say on!

The Wall Street Journal has a great roundup of the Madoff Ponzi scheme casualties, two years on.  In what can only be called "appropriate timing" (the phrase "good timing" seems insensitive) the article coincides with the suicide of Madoff's oldest son, Mark, who was found dead this morning in his apartment in Manhattan.

It's a complicated mess.  

The court-appointed trustee, Irving Picard, is busy suing everybody, including Madoff investors who got out early.  They're called "net winners," according to the trustee, and he wants some of those winnings back:

In the years before Bernard Madoff was exposed, December 11 was the day Harry Pech celebrated his granddaughter's birthday. Now, he calls it "the day I lost my life."

The account Mr. Pech had in Bernard Madoff Investment Securities with his son held $874,000 at the time of the Ponzi scheme's collapse, they thought. But Mr. Picard denied their claim.

Instead, in a lawsuit filed on Dec. 2, Mr. Picard demanded that the Pechs repay other victims $642,000, the amount he says they withdrew from the Ponzi scheme above their initial investments.

That makes them "net winners," says Mr. Picard. He has demanded that such investors must repay what they earned in "fictitious profits," instead of having their final account balances honored.

"Here is a guy who lost everything two years ago," said Mr. Pech's lawyer, Barry Lax. "And on the two-year anniversary of the money that was stolen from him, he is being sued by the trustee. It's just insult to injury."

Mr. Picard's stance toward net winners has been approved by a federal bankruptcy judge. That decision is on appeal.

Two years down and what looks like many years to come, at least in courtrooms and judges' chambers.  Those who knew about the fraud have yet to be brought to justice.  Those who profited from it are in the trustee's crosshairs.  Those who were "net winners" are being forced to give back their gains.  And Bernie Madoff sits in a North Carolina jail:

As for the imprisoned Mr. Madoff, says his lawyer, Ike Sorkin: "Under the circumstances, he's O.K."

Every once in a while, military research and development comes up with a revolutionary new way to dominate the battlefield and cut costs. Allahpundit:

the term “railgun” is a misnomer: This thing is actually a space-age missile launcher whose projectiles not only fly much, much faster and farther than current missiles do, but as a result they hit with more force — even though there are no explosives involved. (An important safety advance, natch.) And best of all, they’re more cost-effective than current armaments. It’s a quantum leap that can save money and tremendously improve our strategic advantage on the seas, especially now that China’s developing missiles to target U.S. aircraft carriers. Which is why I expect the movement to cut the program or ban such weapons outright to begin in about five minutes.

Sound military spending requires strategic decisionmaking. What we want -- says I -- is a future in which our air and sea power remains unchallenged and our ground forces transition fully away from the two-continental-wars model. (Because, in the future, we'll actually have some allies capable of a high quantity and quality of boots on the ground.) So the Crusader artillery program barked up the wrong tree...whereas this rail gun of ours...well...more, please.

Paul Kix, in the Boston Globe, reports on a challenge to the consensus view of suicide bombers:

The traditional view of suicide bombers is well established, and backed by the scholars who study them. The bombers are, in the post-9/11 age, often young, ideologically driven men and women who hate the laissez-faire norms of the West — or at least the occupations and wars of the United States — because they contradict the fundamentalist interpretations that animate the bombers’ worldview. Their deaths are a statement, then, as much as they are the final act of one’s faith; and as a statement they have been quite effective. They propagate future deaths, as terrorist organizers use a bomber’s martyrdom as propaganda for still more suicide terrorism.

But Williams is among a small cadre of scholars from across the world pushing the rather contentious idea that some suicide bombers may in fact be suicidal. At the forefront is the University of Alabama’s Adam Lankford, who recently published an analysis of suicide terrorism in the journal Aggression and Violent Behavior. Lankford cites Israeli scholars who interviewed would-be Palestinian suicide bombers. These scholars found that 40 percent of the terrorists showed suicidal tendencies; 13 percent had made previous suicide attempts, unrelated to terrorism. Lankford finds Palestinian and Chechen terrorists who are financially insolvent, recently divorced, or in debilitating health in the months prior to their attacks. A 9/11 hijacker, in his final note to his wife, describing how ashamed he is to have never lived up to her expectations. Terrorist recruiters admitting they look for the “sad guys” for martyrdom.

As so often in academia, what should be a discussion has been turned into a pointless turf-battle. If you think about it for even a minute, you'll see that the two interpretations are complimentary, not contradictory. Obviously there's a particular ideology at work here: Suicidal Wiccans don't strap on explosive belts and head for the nearest crowded subway. And it is also common sense to surmise that terrorist recruiters would take a particularly keen interest in kids who are already eager to shuffle off this mortal coil.

Especially in this light, I was gratified to hear from Salim Mansur this morning that Canada's parliament passed Bill S-215 today into law. This bill amends Canada's criminal code to cite suicide-bombing, explicitly, as a capital crime. Your first reaction to that sentence might be, as mine was, "I'm entirely with you in spirit, Canadian lawmakers, but I'm not sure you've thought that one through." But it actually makes sense. The targets of the legislation are the suicide bombers' sponsors, organizers, recruiters, financers and teachers--who would now be defined as accessories to a capital crime. The above-cited research suggests that they tend to be more attached to their lives than those they recruit, so deterrence is, indeed, a relevant concept here.

Keep watching until you get to the parody of Lula da Silva. I promise you it's worth it. 

Mexican federal forces finally nailed Gonzales, thank God, but it would be hard to conclude from this that the state is gaining control. 

The death of Nazario Moreno Gonzalez — nicknamed "The Craziest One" — is a major blow to a drug cartel that rose to national prominence four years ago by rolling severed heads into a nightclub and declaring that its mission was to protect Michoacan state from rival gangs and petty criminals.

The news reports are very sketchy, presumably because journalists with a sentimental attachment to their heads know better than to get anywhere near this stuff. But from what I can tell, Michoacan has entered real Heart of Darkness territory. Five federal police officers and an eight-month-old baby were killed in this gunfight, too. 

There's now an authentic refugee camp on the South Texas border. Ciudad Juárez is the murder capital of the world:

Last year, over 2,600 hundred people were murdered in Juárez. Since 1993, more than four hundred women and girls have been killed in sex crimes in the city, many of their bodies horribly mutilated, as if a whole platoon of serial killers were on the loose. People have been slaughtered in drug rehabilitation centers and in hospitals. Headless corpses have been hung from bridges and bodies thrown in churches.

I know America has a lot to worry about right now. Add this to the list, if it's not on it already. The portrait of Mexico drawn by US diplomats--now in the public realm thanks to guess-who--is especially ominous.

The world is really quite disturbing these days.  I think I'm going to go back to bed.  It seemed pretty warm and safe there this morning.

Forget health care, cap and trade, or taxes. This is the contrast that delights me the most in the transition from the Pelosi speakership to the Boehner era:

The Ohio Republican was spotted puffing on a cigarette in the Capitol on Thursday afternoon, smoke billowing around his head, as he presided over a GOP steering committee meeting in the Capitol Visitor Center. 

That would be a violation of a House rule that prohibits smoking in public rooms in the building.

I ask you, is there a single act more defiant of political correctness in the modern era than

lighting up indoors? Also, is anyone else picturing Nancy Pelosi lingering in the hallway affecting an exagerrated cough?

I suppose equity demands that I give Barack Obama some props for noncomformity too, but Bob Gibbs swears the President hasn't lit up in nine months. What's more, there's obviously some guilt when he does (no one who pays rapt attention to arugula prices at Whole Foods goes to flavor country without shame). That's why I'll take Boehner, who has both the voice and the attitude of J.K. Simmons' character in "Thank You for Smoking."

Of course, this could just be the ramblings of a bitter Californian. It's hard to keep perspective in a state where O.J. Simpson could have been convicted if only they had found a pack of Marlboros on him. 

I am in a German-speaking country right now and, thanks to this video, I finally know what a rush of honest-to-goodness shadenfreude feels like.  

Pop science is often admittedly junk science.  But get a load of this research from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, courtesy of Science Daily:

In a new study, UNL researchers measured both liberals' and conservatives' reaction to "gaze cues" -- a person's tendency to shift attention in a direction consistent with another person's eye movements, even if it's irrelevant to their current task -- and found big differences between the two groups.

Liberals responded strongly to the prompts, consistently moving their attention in the direction suggested to them by a face on a computer screen. Conservatives, on the other hand, did not.

Why? Researchers suggested that conservatives' value on personal autonomy might make them less likely to be influenced by others, and therefore less responsive to the visual prompts.

That's right.  We conservatives don't respond to gaze cues because we're misanthropic, socially awkward freaks who had no friends in high school.

"We thought that political temperament may moderate the magnitude of gaze-cuing effects, but we did not expect conservatives to be completely immune to these cues," said Michael Dodd, a UNL assistant professor of psychology and the lead author of the study.

Liberals may have followed the "gaze cues," meanwhile, because they tend to be more responsive to others, the study suggests.

"This study basically provides one more piece of evidence that liberals and conservatives perceive the world, and process information taken in from that world, in different ways," said Kevin Smith, UNL professor of political science and one of the study's authors.

I generally am not a fan of studies that reduce complex belief systems to the mere consequences of biology.  And yet, I think I could buy into the idea that biology may to some extent affect how individuals perceive the world.

This morning I posted a lengthy piece on BigGovernment.com entitled Economic Storm Clouds on the Horizon. I wrote it, to be frank, to sort out for my own understanding what I took to be happening economically. The starting point for my reflections was this chart depicting the trajectory of unemployment in each of the recessions since World War II, which first appeared on Business Insider and on Calculated Risk.

As you can see at a glance, what we are experiencing now clearly differs from the norm. The cause, if I am right, is that the current recession is less a consequence of the ordinary oscillations in the business cycle than of a growth over the last couple of decades in indebtedness on the part of home-buyers, consumers, investors, states, and municipalities so dramatic that, when the initial downturn took place, millions of Americans were caught short.

In some measure, of course, this happens in every recession. But rarely does it happen on this scale. The last such occurrence took place in 1929 after an extended period in which the Federal Reserve Board kept interest rates artificially low, and the prime cause of our current difficulties is arguably the easy-money policy followed by Alan Greenspan in the late 1990s and the early years of the current century.

In the circumstances, I argue, everything that the Obama administration has done – the “stimulus” bill, subsequent bills of the same sort, Obamacare – has made matters worse by aggravating federal indebtedness and reinforcing the desire of Americans to pay down debt and hoard money. In the process, if I am right, all that the government has done is to delay the day of reckoning and deepen the crisis.

As I point out, there are still something like 2.1 million houses in foreclosure. When the foreclosures go through and these houses come onto the market – and they will at some point in the next year or two – housing prices will drop further (especially, in California, Arizona, Nevada, Florida, and the like), and banks will have to stop pretending that all is well and recognize their losses. Then, even more Americans will discover that they owe more on their houses than these are worth, and they will be tempted to stop paying their mortgages and to abandon their houses – which will have further consequences for the banks.

At about the same time, Illinois, New York, and California will have to declare bankruptcy, restructure debt, cut salaries, restrict pensions, and lay off public-sector workers. Interest rates on government debt will then go up, and the federal government, which is overextended, will suddenly find itself in a fiscal trap. If I am right, we are by no means now out of the woods.

If you have the time and the inclination, take a look at the long version; and, if and where I am wrong, set me straight.

Today in my email, among the 3,467 press releases therein, I found a message that began thusly:

What if the “failure to launch” is actually an intelligent response to the challenges that today’s young adults face? 

Being the cultural junkie that I am, especially when it comes to the next generation of Americans, I clicked open the publicist's pitch letter about a new book:

In NOT QUITE ADULTS: Why 20-Somethings Are Choosing a Slower Path to Adulthood, and Why It’s Good for Everyone (Bantam Dell; December 28, 2010), Richard Settersten, Ph.D., and Barbara E. Ray shatter widespread stereotypes about today’s 20-somethings and issue a call to action.  'The great shake-ups that are going on in the transition to adulthood are transforming American life,' they write, 'and the reverberations will be felt by everyone.  These changes will demand new responses from governments, families, and society.'

Really? The transition to adulthood of America's children will "demand new responses from governments"? (I guess keeping 26-year-old adults on their parent's health insurance policies was just the beginning!)

I read enough of the publicity letter to prompt me to respond and ask for a review copy of the book, though I decided not to indicate to the publicist that my take on it probably won't be positive. To give you a sense of its conclusions, it appears the authors believe slowing down the progression to adulthood is a good thing, "helicopter parents" aren't such a bad thing, and going home after college to live in the basement may be a sign of successful launching, not failure.

Meanwhile, out of curiosity, I surfed around and landed on the blog of one of the authors, Barbara Ray, a Chicago-based writer and editor who already plans to follow up her new release with a book called "Generation R" -- "r" for recession -- about the impact of the current economy on young adults. (Which is funny because I'm also working on a book about America's younger generation, and for a while my working title was "Generation S" -- for socialist. Only it's not actually funny.)

Anyway, while visiting Ms. Ray's site, I learned about something called "Think 2040," a "vision for the future" that she says "clearly rebukes" the media-promulgated notion that the Millennial generation is "a bunch of spoiled slackers."

"Think 2040" is based on the "Blueprint for Millennial America," coordinated by the Roosevelt Institute Campus Network, "the nation's largest student policy organization."

Ms. Ray can hardly contain her excitement for the contents of this "blueprint":

Coming together in focus groups over the course of several months, Think 2040 participants mapped out their key concerns for the future and what to do about it. The resulting blueprint reflects this generation’s deeply held concern for equity, respect for individuals, belief in community empowerment and self-determination.

High on their list is for the United States to continue to be a moral beacon for  the world. This requires the US to fight global warming and work for greater social equity on many levels.

Starting at home, they want to reform the social safety net to a trampoline. They want to create a system that gives displaced workers the tools to bounce back after layoffs and retrenchment by lowering barriers to entrepreneurship, combatting intergenerational poverty, and rethinking our tax policies.

Reflecting their status as the most diverse generation, they want to rethink immigration policy to better retain the most talented students from abroad and efficiently funnel them to the top jobs. They also want to reframe the conversation we have about immigration to a more positive one, which reflects the many benefits that immigrants bring to these shores–and in doing so, bind us together rather than creating a second-class citizen tier.

They also want to ensure more equity by reducing the influence of money in politics.They want to give labor a larger voice, and they want to restore the vote to the disenfranchised, including felons. They also want to reduce the gap in educational outcomes between groups and make college more affordable.

Not surprising, given the state of the economy today, this generation is worried for their futures. They call for reforms that can reduce federal and household debt. A first start is reducing health care costs by focusing more on prevention–with, for example, programs to prevent obesity and diabetes. They also want to raise taxes on the wealthiest and reduce the cost of entitlement programs by restructuring the safety net.

Still reeling from the banking meltdown–a generational “where were you when Kennedy was assassinated” moment if there ever was one–they want banking reform. They want to limit bank size, regulate shadow banking industry, reform executive pay, and reform bankruptcy laws.

They also want to rebuild the country’s infrastructure in a more “green” and sustainable way and to support and expand the information-based economy.

To accomplish these goals, Millennials begin locally. This is not a generation waving the “let’s change the world” banner. They do not tilt at windmills. This generation is pragmatic, and they believe firmly in “acting locally.” This bottom-up philosophy, they believe, is how we spur America back to prosperity.

As the report says, “We are your children, your grandchildren, your neighbors, your co-workers, and your best bet at overcoming the 21st century challenges that we face with a comprehensive vision we can get behind, support, implement, and achieve.”

I for one am already inspired.

I, for one, am not.

And suffice to say, all roads lead to George Soros (the Roosevelt Institute Campus Network's partners? One Nation Working Together, the National Academy of Public Administration, the Center for American Progress and People for the American Way, among others). But anyway.

The Roosevelt Institute doesn't mince words about it's mission, given that the banner across the top of the site says, "Carrying forward the legacy and values of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt." Still, it's a little shocking to read the flowery, morally-superior prose that describe clearly and starkly the socialist utopia these perpetually "young adults" want to impose on America's future.

I don't want to hyperlink you into oblivion, but does anyone else see the dangerous connection between the premise of Ray's new book about the slow transition to adulthood and the obvious need for the  "Think 2040" nanny state that such a premise, once accepted, would require?

I was really thinking about this as I walked back from the gym tonight. When I began my career in journalism, it didn't occur to me that in ten years time, I'd be significantly worse off, financially. I thought I'd cracked the hard part--selling my first book--and after that it would be a steady uphill ascent. I figured that by the time I was the age I am now, I'd be reasonably financially comfortable, maybe I'd have some savings. I certainly didn't think I'd be worried about whether I could afford to buy a pair of used boxing gloves.

I'm actually doing okay, recession-wise; I never had any substantial investments, so I never lost them. But the global economy has lent to my life a permanent feeling of anxiety. I just don't have the feeling, one that I used to have, for sure, that there were a ton of wonderful professional opportunities out there and infinitely many interesting ways to make a living.

Now I just feel fortunate to have any work at all. 

What about you? How has it changed your life?  

Next Tuesday, I'll be taping an episode of Uncommon Knowledge with Dr. Thomas Sowell.  Our topic:  the new edition of his magnificent Basic Economics:  A Common Sense Guide to the Economy.  From the preface:

[T]here is a widespread desire for readable information on economics, as distinguished from the jargon, graphs, and equations that are all too common in many writings on the subject.  Through its various editions, the fundamental idea behind Basic Economics remains the same:  Learning economics should be as uncomplicated as it is informative.

At more than 600 pages, the book covers--well, everything.  Chapters include "Investment and Speculation," "Price Controls," "Productivity and Pay," and "International Transfers of Wealth." Which presents yours truly with a problem:  What should I attempt to cover?  What questions should I ask?

I have a plan--but I'm going to need your help.  

First take a look at this material on the dust jacket:

Why are homeless people sleeping on the sidewalks of New York in the winter, when the abandoned apartment buildings in the city have four tiems as many dwelling units as there are homeless people in the city?  Why did Russians have to import food to feed people in Moscow, when Russia itself had some of the richest farmland in Europe with easy driving distance...?  All these...puzzling and needless tragedies grew out of a failure to understand...basic economic principles.  Explaining these principles...in plain English...is the goal and the achievement of Basic Economics.

Now let me tell you my plan--and it's wonderfully cunning plan, if I do say so myself.  I'll ask Dr. Sowell simple questions, like the ones on the dust jacket, but about current issues--the economic questions we're reading about in the newspapers every day.  Here's one:  "Dr. Sowell," I'll say,

according to a recent report in the Wall Street Journal, "nonfinancial companies in the U.S. were sitting on $1.93 trillion in cash and other liquid assets at the end of September, up from $1.8 trillion at the end of June....Cash accounted for 7.4% of the companies' total assets--the largest share since 1959....Rather than pouring...money into building plants or hiring workers," corporate America has accumulated the biggest "cash pile...in half a century."  How come?

Deuced clever, what?

Which brings me to the reason I need your help.  The question above is...the only one I've got.  And I need at least ten more.

What questions--stuff about the economy that's been puzzling you--stuff that's based in fact, and, whenever possible, that arises from current controversies--would you like me to put to Dr. Sowell?

Ricochetoise, this is your moment!  (Which is another way of saying that I'm begging you.)

These photos of the Wikileaks HQ are described as fit for a Bond villain, and not without reason: it seems the designer was actually influenced by the great Lairs of Yore. Who wouldn’t want a Ken Adam-designed office? 

Bonus points to the first Ricochetian who can identify the object on the table in this photo.  Made me smile.

Pat Caddell sent this video around Friday, and while we all know US-bashing goes on, it's the sources, the sanctimony, and the setting that make this so special.

No doubt you've been wondering why I haven't weighed in on the Obama tax proposal, the Ryan Roadmap, or the Debt Commission report. But the computer was sick. It caught a common cold. That’s the best I can figure. For the past week, it would simply shut down after 3 or 4 minutes of work. Freeze up.

But the computer is fine today. It got gradually better over the past few days and now it’s fully functional. Go figure. The only support we called for was from above, and, in the end, our prayers were answered. Miraculous recovery. I sure hope our little computer wasn’t somehow being used as a zombie-drone in the great Wikileaks cyber-war. There’s nothing like 2,000 photos of babies to peak the interest of hackers, right?

In lieu of spending time on the Internet, I cooked, cleaned and went to lots of doctors’ appointments. I don’t have thyroid cancer. That’s good news. My daughter probably has celiac disease. Not so good news. The co-pay for her endoscopy on Monday is $200. Horrible news. I got a sudden request for a little contract education work this weekend. Relief.

My oldest (6) came home from school yesterday and asked, “Why don’t we have a cleaning lady?” I could have smiled sweetly and said with a wink, “But we have a cleaning mommy! Isn’t that better?” Instead I gave a long lecture in an irritated voice about how things cost money and it’s a tough time of year, etc. etc. Her eyes glazed over.

Lying in bed last night I wondered what might have inspired this question. Was the house looking exceptionally messy when she arrived off the bus? How would something like this just “come up” in first-grade circles? Is having a cleaning lady today what having the Barbie Dream House was in my day? This same little one ended the evening by melting down into tears and a few dramatic “you don’t care about what I think!” pronouncements after her father put the toilet paper on the roller “the wrong way.”

“They do it at school for me differently!” she insisted.

Well.

The queen must have what she must have. Sawdust in the toilet, too, m’lady? 

(Long ago, my mother worked at a non-profit which was honored to have a visit from Princess Anne. The toilets had to be filled with sawdust before her arrival. I suppose there’s nothing less royal than an echoing tinkle.)

My middle child (4) threw herself into the “no media” theme of the week by tossing her drink at the television this morning and breaking the flat screen. Now, we have fluorescent pink, red, and green stripes permanently blocking the right half of the frame. Paules? Peter? Bill? Is there anything handy to be done about this?

Finally, my little guy (2) has started to turn a few phrases on momma. Including, “Calm down,” and “Relax.” If he wasn’t also imitating my exasperated-mommy voice when he said it, I’d be more apt to listen. It’s good advice.

Driving through a tiny little town in east Texas and seeing that by far the nicest buildings there are the bank and the funeral home leaves me a bit unnerved somehow. Fortunately, there were no stop lights or stop signs to slow my exit.

From a recent Bloomberg poll, with a hat tip to the Daily Caller:

Americans want Congress to bring down a federal budget deficit that many believe is “dangerously out of control,” only under two conditions: minimize the pain and make the rich pay.

The public wants Congress to keep its hands off entitlements such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, a Bloomberg National Poll shows. They oppose cuts in most other major domestic programs and defense. They want to maintain subsidies for farmers and tax breaks like the mortgage-interest deduction. And they’re against an increase in the gasoline tax.

I'm against the gas tax, too.  But I don't see how we get out of this mess without major cuts in both entitlements and domestic programs.  And it's a useful and depressing reminder that despite all of the Tea Party agitation, and despite the work of people like Paul Ryan, people are still foolish enough to be hoodwinked by the Left's absurd (and mathematically impossible) solution of taxing the rich:

While they say they strongly support balancing the budget over the next 20 years, when offered a list of more than a dozen possible spending cuts or tax increases, majorities opposed every one of them except imposing a bigger burden on the rich.

On the other hand, there is some daylight in the poll:

Tea Party supporters, who played a key role in Republican victories in the midterm elections, are more likely to back strong action than are rank-and-file Republicans; a 49 percent plurality favors a dramatic overhaul of Social Security, compared with 41 percent of Republicans. Tea Party backers want a Medicare overhaul by 52 percent to 43 percent, while Republicans narrowly prefer to keep the current system.

But it's not a cheering portrait of the electorate.  

I don't think she meant it this way, but all you need to do, GOP, is sort of reverse-engineer this column. Basically, stand back, don't do anything stupid, and let the Left march itself off a cliff: 

Still, the rush to proclaim Obama the one, true progressive in 2008 was foolish, and I'd suggest that those who wound up disappointed in Obama think more about what they can learn from that race, rather than plotting to bring him down in 2012. Switching candidates now would be just another symptom of progressives' inability to dig in for a long haul of taking our country back from the plutocrats who now run it. It's tough work. I think, sadly, Obama is probably the most progressive Democrat who could be elected right now. (Admittedly, it's still early, and it's still theoretically possible for Obama to do something so outrageous as to change my mind.) I'd rather see liberals put time and money into electing courageous folks to the House and Senate than a quixotic attack on Obama, which would split the party racially -- almost 90 percent of African-Americans still support the president in most polls -- and probably hand the White House to Republicans.

Parenthetically, I am so glad that I'm not about to go to a dinner party hosted by San Francisco progressives who are wondering who needs to take the blame for their inability to dig in for the long haul and take our country back from the plutocrats who are now running it. Just thinking about that conversation makes me want to gnaw my own arm off.