Looks Like He’s Running NEW YORK — Ralph Nader, the consumer advocate who ran for president in 2000 as a Green Party candidate, will enter the 2004 race for the White House as an independent candidate, advisers told Fox News on Friday. An egotistical footnote. By deciding to run, Nader has guaranteed that that’s how […]

The Irresponsibility Tax What are the costs of Bush’s rampant deficit spending. Dwight M. does some number-crunching and concludes that … if everything goes right and we do not slip back into recession before 2009 and we do not have any other wars, and there are no costs in Iraq or Afghanistan after this year, […]

The Economist on Outsourcing For more argument about why the US shouldn’t worry unduly about outsourcing (though agreeing that we must still take steps to help out those individuals who will undeniably be adversely affected), you may be interested in the cover story of this week’s Economist. Agree or disagree, I think it’s a thought-provoking […]

New Inflation Data The BLS released its January estimate of the CPI this morning . Here’s the updated graph of the 12-month percent change in the core (i.e. excluding food and energy) CPI and PPI. It shows no major changes in the inflation rate from the previous few months. (The news stories will talk about […]

Question So the recession is now all Clinton’s fault. Does that mean that Clinton gets the credit if the economy hits the job growth numbers that the administration now claims were a “goal” rather than a “forecast”?(*) AB (*) It was Table 3-1 in the Economic Report of the President (page 98) that started the […]

Bush’s Campaign Strategy It’s quite simple really. He gave us a preview during his visit to the Fort Polk National Guard base in Louisiana the other day: FT. POLK, La. — President Bush warned on Tuesday that the country should not become complacent about the danger of terrorism, telling a spirited audience of National Guard […]

Emperor Hadrian Webb’s claims in the first two paragraphs quoted in the previous post remind me of this quote, provided by commenter Megamike: “Beyond the Euphrates began for us the land of mirage and danger, the sands where one helplessly sank, and the roads which ended in nothing. The slightest reversal would have resulted in […]

Not Mincing Words In today’s USA Today, James Webb (“Secretary of the Navy during the Reagan administration, and a Marine platoon and company commander in Vietnam”) leads with some harsh criticism of Kerry, paticularly Kerry’s involvement with Vietnam Veterans Against the War (Conason summarizes and casts doubt upon the attacks against Kerry.) But Webb’s greatest […]

The Truth About Kerry The Poor Man has the partial truth here; retrogrouch has the full truth here. Follow the links, you’ll be glad you did. AB

More Republican Science-Quashing In the spirit of AB’s post about the Bush administration’s bastardization of science, allow me to draw your attention to this article from the Cleveland Plain Dealer last week, about the Ohio state board of education’s vote to teach a competing theory to evolution: State panel backs disputed lesson, infuriates supporters of […]