Politics

Brad DeLong, Ph .D. is reading Suskind’s The Price of Loyalty so you don’t have to. Go check out his weblog. It’s good to read commentary from a good economist on the book.

As Pandagon tells us, the National Review is selling a college guide written by morality maven Bill Bennett.

Buy it for those you love so that they know what schools NOT to attend.

I meant to do this earlier, but I have added The Blogging of the President: 2004 to my blog links page.

Matt Stoller, of To The Point — he started blogging because of me! — has a great interview with an American reporter in Iraq.

You know it’s time to get nervous when Warren Buffett starts warning about our trade deficit and says

Through the spring of 2002, I had lived nearly 72 years without purchasing a foreign currency. Since then Berkshire has made significant investments in—and today holds—several currencies. I won’t give you particulars; in fact, it is largely irrelevant which currencies they are. What does matter is the underlying point: To hold other currencies is to believe that the dollar will decline.

Both as an American and as an investor, I actually hope these commitments prove to be a mistake. Any profits Berkshire might make from currency trading would pale against the losses the company and our shareholders, in other aspects of their lives, would incur from a plunging dollar.

But as head of Berkshire Hathaway, I am in charge of investing its money in ways that make sense. And my reason for finally putting my money where my mouth has been so long is that our trade deficit has greatly worsened, to the point that our country’s “net worth,” so to speak, is now being transferred abroad at an alarming rate.

In my latest Amnesty International magazine, there is a brief article about the fact that Patrick Stewart funds scholarships for students interested in working on human rights issues. For eight years he as funded about 20 students annually, with grants up to $1800. Cool.

From Ray Sanchez, Newsday’s MTA watchdog:

In approving its 2004 budget, the MTA cut the subway and bus workforce by 857 positions while increasing the workforces of Metro-North and Long Island Rail Road by 304. City subways and buses receive only 63 percent of state transit aid while moving 84 percent of the state’s riders. Metro-North and LIRR move just 5 percent of riders but get 23 percent of state transit funding.

No More Mister Nice Blog has a nice post on the National Review’s David Frum telling us that

itÂ’s becoming increasingy difficult to doubt that God wants President Bush re-elected.

Too bad God had to kill all of those people on 9/11 as part of the plan.

The Statue of Liberty is still closed, for “security reasons”, 27 months after 9/11. It sends a nice message about our priorities, don’t you think? There is a campaign to raise private donations to re-open it, since our government can’t afford the $5 million to re-open it. I just saw a banner ad on My Yahoo!

$87 billion for Iraq, $5 million for the Statue of Liberty. Think about it. I guess President Flight Suit’s handlers don’t want a photo op in front of a symbol that might make people think of France or immigrants.

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Statue of Liberty image from Great Buildings Online

Bush is unelectable.

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What’s Google Bombing?