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Politics : Right Wing Extremist Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: calgal who wrote (56107)	10/4/2007 4:08:02 AM
From: calgal	Respond to of 59480

Random Thoughts By Thomas Sowell jewishworldreview.com \| Random thoughts on the New York Yankees: The Yankee bullpen has some young pitchers who could throw a baseball through a brick wall — if they had enough control to hit the wall. More than one-fourth of the American League pennants in the 20th century were won by the New York Yankees — and they didn't win their first pennant until 1921. The major league records for the highest batting average by a catcher (.362), the most runs batted in by a first baseman (184) and the most home runs by a third baseman (54) were all set by Yankees — Bill Dickey, Lou Gehrig and Alex Rodriguez, respectively. The Yankees got rid of Babe Ruth when he was over the hill. Why are they still sticking with Jason Giambi, who is a serious liability in the field? Let the man retire and spend his time counting his millions. There is no excuse for major league outfielders running into each other, when for generations center fielders have had the right of way. The Yankees' young center fielder Melky Cabrera doesn't hesitate to wave off the other outfielders when he goes for the ball, even when these are veterans with big salaries. During Alex Rodriguez's great season this year, he became the first player in a quarter of a century to have more than 152 runs batted in. But Lou Gehrig had more than 150 RBIs in 7 of his 14 full seasons. That's the record. Even Babe Ruth had only 6. Gehrig was probably the greatest clutch hitter of all time. Even though more than 20 players hit more home runs during their careers, Gehrig still holds the lifetime record for the most home runs with the bases loaded. In addition to being one of the great relief pitchers of all time, Mariano Rivera is a throwback to the great poise and professionalism of the Yankees of old. Everybody remembers Willie Mays' great catch in the Polo Grounds during the 1954 World Series but Joe DiMaggio made a great catch in the Polo Grounds, even deeper in center field, in the 1937 World Series. Babe Ruth was easily the greatest ballplayer of all time, for he mastered every aspect of the game. No one else ever led the league in home runs, batting average, lowest earned run average and highest winning percentage as a pitcher. He was said to be the best bunter on the Yankees and even stole home a few times. For all their greatness, the Yankees have never had a player with 3,000 hits in his career as a Yankee or a pitcher with 300 wins as a Yankee. Derek Jeter is easily the best shortstop in the history of the Yankees — and I have seen Yankee shortstops as far back as Frankie Crosetti. The Yankees have had two center fielders with identical lifetime batting averages of .325 — Joe DiMaggio and Earle Combs. But Combs played his career in the shadow of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. The Yankees once went 308 consecutive games without being shut out. That was the equivalent of two full seasons back in those days. The same pitcher shut them out on both ends of that streak — Lefty Grove. On the other hand, when Lefty Grove had his greatest season with 31 wins and 4 losses, three of those four losses were to the Yankees. The American League record for the most shutouts in a season by a left-handed pitcher is held jointly by a Yankee and a future Yankee — Ron Guidry and Babe Ruth. Back in the heyday of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, the Yankees often won the pennant by such a wide margin that there was little reason for fans to go to Yankee Stadium at the end of September. Even after he became the leading slugger in baseball, Babe Ruth pitched half a dozen games for the Yankees over the years. His won-lost record in these games was 6 and 0. During Babe Ruth's record-setting 60 home run season, if you walked him you faced Lou Gehrig, who was batting .373 with 47 home runs and 175 runs batted in. A Yankee player has led the league in home runs more years than players on any other team in the major leagues. jewishworldreview.com

To: calgal who wrote (56107)	10/4/2007 4:11:51 AM
From: calgal	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 59480

The GOP needs a survival instinct By Tony Blankley jewishworldreview.com \| The likely rout of the GOP in next year's elections proceeds apace. Last week, the Republicans, improbably taking their lead from President Bush, put down their marker against health care for America's kids. Don't get me wrong; I completely agree with the GOP policy. The SCHIP bill is a cynical effort to expand an unnecessary entitlement for middle-income and even upper-middle-income (more than $80,000 annual income) kids and young adults, funded by a tax on primarily blue-collar Americans (cigarettes). But politics is a cruel business, and about 75 percent of the public, according to the most recent Washington Post poll, opposes the GOP position. Even allowing for possibly sneaky phrasing of the question, common sense tells one that the GOP will be badly on the losing side of the PR fight about kids' health care. And health care, remember, is the most important domestic issue to the public. When a party such as the GOP has lost about 10 percent to 15 percent market share in the past two years (from national affiliation rates in the upper-40 percents to the mid-30 percents), it's no time to stand on a principle the party cannot even persuasively explain to a majority of its own remaining party regulars. Meanwhile, the GOP currently is trying halfheartedly to explain (correctly) how free markets will provide the best care for Americans. But the Democrats — who can read a poll, if not their conscience — are offering "free" health care to anyone stupid enough to believe such a thing is free. That number is now in the high-40 percents of an ever more dumbed-down public. Meanwhile, Hillary is offering to bribe the public to the tune of $5,000 per kid, using the tax dollars of working Americans to effectuate the bribe. While I admire the GOP's adherence to principle, I also admire a political party with a healthy instinct for survival. The congressional GOP has got it all backward: The time to be principled is when you are governing (as they failed to do for about eight years before they lost power). When in minority opposition, a party must think about winning — not whining about unpopular principles. It should campaign on principles it believes in, but it should not pick its least popular principles to highlight. The GOP is now less trusted than the Democrats on every issue except terrorism — and even on that issue, they are a point or two down. But on that most vital issue of supreme national interest, the GOP has the good fortune to be not only instinctively in the right, but to have the one presidential candidate in either party who genuinely is seen as the nation's leader on the issue. That would be Rudy Giuliani. He is the one candidate who the Democratic operatives privately fear. Moreover, as a social liberal, he would be competitive in such usually reliable Democratic states as New York, New Jersey, California, Oregon, Washington, Pennsylvania and others. So in this season of slow-motion GOP suicide, it is only logical that earlier this week, leaders of the party's social-conservative wing declared him not only unacceptable, but so unacceptable that they may run a third-party candidate if he gains the nomination. By doing so, they would assure the election of Hillary, who, notwithstanding anything she might say to get elected, surely will set in motion policies that will kill more unborn humans and advance more biblically prohibited policies than Rudy ever would. Moreover, she would appoint the most liberal judges she can find. Rudy would nominate the most conservative ones. I fail to see the moral high ground to which these divines claim to be climbing. They also would be walking away from a coalition that, since 1981 (and particularly since 2001), has delivered a higher percentage of their agenda than it has to any other part of the conservative coalition. Fiscal conservatives received tax cuts but not spending cuts. Hawk conservatives received assertive foreign policy but bad management of it and a dangerous running down of the Army. But social conservatives received first-rate Supreme Court justices, a real effort at faith-based initiatives, constant rhetorical support for biblical values, and in fact, they have been denied nothing of consequence that brought them into politics. It would be an act of historic ingratitude to sabotage the GOP candidate at this point. It also would be a short path to undermining everything they have gained in national politics in the past quarter century. Every faction within the GOP coalition should agree immediately to make no further demands of their party. Just as the liberals did in 1991 and 1992, the conservatives of 2007 and 2008 simply should let their strongest candidate campaign in a way most likely to gain victory. Every conservative principle thereby would be safer than if heavy demands yield a Hillary presidency. Given the grotesque irresponsibility of the national Democrats, keeping them out of the White House should be the first calling of every patriotic conservative. jewishworldreview.com

To: calgal who wrote (56107)	10/4/2007 11:04:31 PM
From: calgal	Respond to of 59480

jewishworldreview.com

To: calgal who wrote (56107)	10/4/2007 11:08:16 PM
From: calgal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 59480

This economist is a masochist with a sense of humor By George Will jewishworldreview.com \| CHICAGO — In his curriculum vitae, Austan Goolsbee lists as his "other interests" — other than teaching at the University of Chicago — two activities: triathlons and improv comedy. Evidently he is a masochist with a sense of humor, so he is suited to participate in presidential politics, which he is doing as an adviser to Barack Obama. Before they met in person, Obama, running for the Senate in 2004, asked Goolsbee a perplexing question. Obama's opponent, Alan Keyes, an African- American imported from Maryland by Illinois' shambolic Republican Party, had been asked whether he believed in reparations for slavery. Keyes said perhaps America could do what Rome did — exempt descendents of former slaves from taxes for two generations. Obama asked Goolsbee how much that might cost. Goolsbee's two answers were: Hard to say. And: Trillions. Goolsbee graduated from Yale and earned his doctorate from MIT before coming to the University of Chicago's business school, which gave to public life a giant of conservatism, George Shultz. The university's economics department has been adorned by the likes of Milton Friedman, George Stigler and Gary Becker, each a Nobel laureate, each a conservative by virtue of his inclination to expect more utility from markets than from government interventions therein. Is Goolsbee dismayed about widening income inequality? Yes, but with a nuanced understanding. The stagnation of middle- and working-class incomes, and the anxiety this has generated, is, he says, a most pressing problem, but policymakers must be mindful about trying to address its root cause, which Goolsbee says is "radically increased returns to skill." In 1980, people with college degrees made on average 30 percent more than those with only high school diplomas. That disparity has widened to 70 percent. In the same year, the average earnings of people with advanced degrees were 50 percent more than those with only high school diplomas; today it is more than 100 percent. FREE SUBSCRIPTION TO INFLUENTIAL NEWSLETTER Every weekday NewsAndOpinion.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". HUNDREDS of columnists and cartoonists regularly appear. Sign up for the daily update. It's free. Just click here. The market is shouting, "Stay in school!" and Goolsbee's conservative colleagues at Chicago say a high tax rate on high earners is "a tax on going to college." Conservatives say: Don't tax something unless you are willing to have less of it. But Goolsbee says: Conservatives often exaggerate the behavioral response to increased tax rates. The solution is to invest more in education, which will raise wages, reduce inequality and move toward equilibrium. The GI bill was, he says, so prolific in stimulating investment in "human capital" — particularly, college education — that for a while the return on it went down relative to high school. "Globalization" means free trade and various deregulations that supposedly put downward pressure on American wages because of imports from low-wage countries. Goolsbee, however, says globalization is responsible for "a small fraction" of today's income disparities. He says "60 to 70 percent of the economy faces virtually no international competition." America's 18.5 million government employees have little to fear from free trade; neither do auto mechanics, dentists and many others. Goolsbee's rough estimate is that technology — meaning all that the phrase "information economy" denotes — accounts for more than 80 percent of the increase in earnings disparities, whereas trade accounts for much less than 20 percent. This is something congressional Democrats need to hear from a Democratic economist as they resist trade agreements with South Korea and such minor economic powers as Peru, Panama and Colombia. As regards China, Goolsbee — who favors a tougher approach, especially through the World Trade Organization — notes that all imports are only 16.7 percent of the U.S. economy and imports from China are a small portion of all imports. Those from China amount to 2.2 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product. Mexico, he says, is genuinely stressed by China, whose exported products "overlap" with nearly two-thirds of Mexico's. China's exports overlap with 5 percent to 10 percent of America's economy. Rising imports from China predominantly replace those from other lower-skilled countries. Were China to be pressured into revaluing its currency in isolation, Goolsbee says, America would not start making the kind of toys it has been importing from China — America would import toys from Vietnam. Economics is the only academic discipline that in recent decades has moved in the direction that America and much of the world has moved, to the right. Goolsbee no doubt has lots of dubious ideas — he is, after all, a Democrat — about how government can creatively fiddle with the market's allocation of wealth and opportunity. But he seems to be the sort of person — amiable, empirical and reasonable — you would want at the elbow of a Democratic president, if such there must be. jewishworldreview.com