Rasmussen has polled the public on whether they agreed with President Bush’s characterization of capitalism as the “highway to the American Dream.” Only 44% voiced support for capitalism, 33% were undecided and 22% expressed opposition. A grim finding. Only Republicans marshaled an absolute majority of support for the system, commendably voting 4:1, independents had a [...]

A bit of old news I didn’t have a chance to mention, but it seems that grotesque little terrorist William Ayers won’t be speaking at my beloved UNL. Good for us. addthis_url = 'http%3A%2F%2Fasecondhandconjecture.com%2Findex.php%2F2008%2F11%2F20%2Fnebraska-boots-ayers%2F'; addthis_title = 'Nebraska+Boots+Ayers'; addthis_pub = '';

(via: Inkcinct) addthis_url = 'http%3A%2F%2Fasecondhandconjecture.com%2Findex.php%2F2008%2F11%2F20%2Fon-market-forces%2F'; addthis_title = 'On+Market+Forces'; addthis_pub = '';

Italian economist Loretta Napoleoni (of Rogue Economics fame), blames the lingering financial crisis in part on the American War on Terrorism, which inaugurated an allegedly “suspicious attitude…toward Muslim investors.” She goes further though, and argues that the only solution to the turmoil lies in embracing the financial rules mandated by the doctrines of medieval Islamic [...]

In a Q&A session at the University of the Pacific in October, Dinesh D’Souza was asked about the moral dimensions of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act. I don’t agree entirely with the causality he posits exists between irresponsible consumer behavior and irresponsible governance, but it’s an interesting take. Particularly in how he adapts certain complaints [...]

Russ Roberts:”Oh Please-President Bush has lost the right to say this.” Also, he has a great Mea Culpa on why he missed this, and a discussion that fits right into my theme about how many missed this meltdown, and advice for those of us who did and might think too much of ourselves: I should mention first [...]

Boy, I love this charming ad for the Washington state secret tax on the poor lottery. addthis_url = 'http%3A%2F%2Fasecondhandconjecture.com%2Findex.php%2F2008%2F11%2F17%2Fflight-of-the-flightless%2F'; addthis_title = 'Flight+of+the+Flightless'; addthis_pub = '';

Mike Huckabee’s new book is coming out, and in it he takes some pretty heavy shots at libertarian and economic conservatives who don’t share his populist big government views. The real threat to the Republican Party is something we saw a lot of this past election cycle: libertarianism masked as conservatism. And it threatens to not [...]

The insufferable Peter Schiff has a video going around, which frankly, is just brilliant. He may be unpleasant at times, but he nailed this thing, and took mounds of abuse while doing so. More importantly, I KNOW HOW HE FEELS! The resentment, irritation, condescension and, at times, outright hostility to my Cassandra act makes me wish [...]

In commenting on Barack Obama’s renewed pledge to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, Con Coughlin observes that most of the assembled army of Al Qaeda jihadists currently confined there would likely be released for lack of evidence, if the United States mandated their transfer to the civilian court system for trial. He then wonders [...]

Given the topic of tonight’s podcast I thought a little visual data might help. First, the explosion in US debt: Henry Blodget explains: From the early 1920s through 1985, the average level of debt-to-GDP in this country was 155%. The highest peak in history (until the recent debt boom) was in the early 1930s, when debt-to-GDP [...]

Pretty neat video visualization of edits to the Barack Obama Wikipedia entry from 2005 to election day. addthis_url = 'http%3A%2F%2Fasecondhandconjecture.com%2Findex.php%2F2008%2F11%2F16%2Fediting-obama%2F'; addthis_title = 'Editing+Obama'; addthis_pub = '';

The premier of New South Wales, Mr. Nathan Rees, was reportedly surprised to discover that an illegal brothel was in operation above his offices, in a commercial building in the Seven Hills area outside Sydney. Unfortunately for the brothel’s owners, Mr. Rees is taking steps to have the rather obtrusively titled “Tiantian Chinese Massage Shop” [...]

Malaysia’s National Fatwa Council issued a warning to human rights groups yesterday that should they criticize its efforts to repress “tomboy behaviour” among Malaysian women, it could result in…further repression. One has to marvel at this sort of thinking. How dare you accuse me of being repressive and insane, I’ll show you by being repressive and [...]

The less widely known corollary of elephant memory. addthis_url = 'http%3A%2F%2Fasecondhandconjecture.com%2Findex.php%2F2008%2F11%2F15%2Felephant-memory%2F'; addthis_title = 'Elephant+Memory'; addthis_pub = '';

The subject of the bloody 1965 Indonesian mass murder of suspected communists is not often openly discussed history even in today’s Indonesia. Given the pervasive silence, estimates vary on the actual number of people killed, but it’s generally accepted as being somewhere between 250,000 and 500,000. Yet so infected with fear is the subject of [...]

It seems the marriage of David Pollard and Amy Taylor is heading toward divorce, due to Pollard’s virtual affair with a virtual prostitute, uncovered by a virtual private detective hired by Taylor. It occurs to me that the key thing William Gibson, Neal Stephenson and the 80s cyberpunk movement got wrong when they were conjecturing about [...]

According to research conducted in the UK, women find men with facial scars more physically attractive, if the scar appears to be the result of violence. Unfortunately it may be a brief affair for the scarred, as some theories suggest that the scars only stimulate women’s interest in a short-term relationship, as a facial scar [...]

If you care any about the future of the Republican party and conservatism in general, you need to be reading The Next Right. addthis_url = 'http%3A%2F%2Fasecondhandconjecture.com%2Findex.php%2F2008%2F11%2F14%2Fthe-next-right%2F'; addthis_title = 'The+Next+Right'; addthis_pub = '';

Modern pessimists of the human condition often see the loss of mankind’s dignity deriving from deviation from traditional religious orders. Their secular opponents see the fall conditioned by a retreat from scientific rationalism. They can have their debate. For my own part, I think the death of human dignity results from becoming an adult LARPer. [...]

Not sure how true this is, but here’s what the London Times says about how close Putin came to over throwing the Georgian government. With Russian tanks only 30 miles from Tbilisi on August 12, Mr Sarkozy told Mr Putin that the world would not accept the overthrow of Georgia’s Government. According to Mr Levitte, the [...]

I was sitting in an airport lounge yesterday and got to chatting with a member of the self-described “oilfield trash” who was bound for Lagos, and then for an FPSO in the Gulf of Guinea. These are rough and ready guys who lead the sort of perilous commercial-adventurer lifestyle that one has the mistaken tendency [...]

When you think of the numerous problems routinely facing residents of Mexico City, things like an astronomical violent crime rate, standstill traffic, urban poverty, collapsing infrastructure, chronic water shortages, claustrophobia-inducing overcrowding and toxic pollution might come to mind. Even aircraft falling out the sky might reasonably have joined your list of hazards confronting the city’s [...]

From the comments at Financial Times: Nov. 13 (Bloomberg) — In a surprise move today, Whoopee Cushions Inc was approved bank holding company status by the Fed to enable the company access to the recently revised TURD scheme. Imported far-eastern whoopee cushions have decimated the domestic industry over the past two decades, leaving former giants of the [...]

Michele Catalano writing at Pajamas Media yesterday, defending Obama’s call for (at one point) mandatory community service,  gets it completely wrong. To backtrack a little bit for those who haven’t been paying attention the last week or so, at President Elect Obama’s website, www.change.gov, there’s an agenda section. At one point part of it read [...]

I’m signed up to recieve emails for Zogby Polls so I too noticed the strange questions a reader at Clayton Cramer’s blog did. If you knew Barack Obama supported a plan to place a 75% excise tax on the sale of firearms - where a $500 rifle would now cost $875 with tax, would that have [...]

Don’t complain to me if there aren’t any new posts on ASHC. I’m sitting on a beach in Miami and thus completely out of the necessary frame of mind to bitch about Obama and triumph of statism. Now, these other writers on here have no such excuses I note. In fact, they’re probably sitting at [...]

Our friend Steve Newton picks up on my post of Rudius Media’s forum rules, and applies it to the comment management of Delaware Liberal. addthis_url = 'http%3A%2F%2Fasecondhandconjecture.com%2Findex.php%2F2008%2F11%2F08%2Fapplied-russian-bride-rule%2F'; addthis_title = 'Applied+Russian+Bride+Rule'; addthis_pub = '';

You may have noticed there’s an ugly and unfortunate current developing in some of the protests against Proposition 8 in California. Namely white gays, blaming blacks for its passage. Even Andrew Sullivan, who has been blaming blacks for a couple of days now, has noticed that perhaps things are getting a little out of hand. Altogether, [...]

Scientists have developed a process for turning tequila into diamonds. I’m more of a whiskey man myself. addthis_url = 'http%3A%2F%2Fasecondhandconjecture.com%2Findex.php%2F2008%2F11%2F07%2Ftequila-into-diamonds%2F'; addthis_title = 'Tequila+into+Diamonds'; addthis_pub = '';