Alex Tabarrok spanks Paul Krugman, always an entertaining sight.

In other words, libertarianism can’t work because government sucks. I am tempted to comment further on this creative line of reasoning but that is unnecessary since Paul has misunderstood the facts of the matter.

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Andrew Sullivan is obsessed with homosexuality, both his own and that of others. He now demands to know whether Elena Kagan is a lesbian. I may be wrong, but my guess is that it is about as likely Ms. Kagan is a lesbian as it is that Sarah Palin is the mother of Trig, another deep question that Sullivan continues to ride into what should be his well deserved oblivion.

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Tourists last night described the camp as an “eyesore” and said it was “unbelievable” police had allowed the protesters, who have been joined by a number of homeless people, to remain.

Police have searched tents, but have not evicted the protesters, who said they had not applied for permission to hold a demonstration.

It is against the law to hold an unauthorised protest within a square mile of Parliament.

A spokesman for the Metropolitan police said that the force is having “ongoing dialogue” with the group and that they are monitoring the situation.

1. Thank God you don’t live in Britain.
2. Without eternal vigilance, it could happen here. Probably in D.C.

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It has never been more apparent than it is now. In just the past couple of months alone, examples of this attitude have uncovered that what was once perhaps just dangerous naivety, is now the purposeful ignoring of what should be basic knowledge. All in order to appease, accommodate and appear culturally sensitive. The fact that the very people for whom they are apologists want to, you know, kill them is somehow lost on them.

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(Other than on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, of course.)

Kagan, then, can be viewed as an elitist nominee in the bad sense. The eight Justices with whom she would serve could claim, when nominated, to be elite by virtue of what they had accomplished without any reference to an elite institution of higher learning. Such a claim by Kagan would be tenuous.

Harvard law school, and how one views it, is therefore an issue in Kagan’s nomination, not because she went there but because she remained there and ended up running it, and because her other credentials seem thin for a Supreme Court Justice.

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The worst attorney general ever? That’s what most folks in the U.S. are saying about the current guy sitting in the chair.

Me? I think it’s mostly a top-down problem. Holder can’t let past his lips anything that is not part of his Obama-derived marching orders. After all, the President is his boss. If our president, B. Hussein O., has dismissed the notion of “radical Islam” then no matter how often a member of his cabinet is asked directly to respond to a question about -gasp — “radical Islam” — that person will stonewall. After all, what can any interlocutor do to a cabinet member that BHO won’t execute in spades? He plays by Chicago rules.

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And get more respect.

My son, who is entering college this fall–as I’m preparing to sign big checks–told me that a classmate of his is opting to become a police officer rather than going the four-year college route. This reminded me of an exercise I conducted while in the lower depths of graduate school that compared the lifetime earnings of a college professor and a police officer–the police officer won.

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If you’re a computer programmer you might have found yourself describing a particular problem you are having to a colleague. Many times you’ll never even finish the explanation, or get any feedback before you uncover the solution to your problem. I’ve found that a colleague is not even necessary: you can talk to anything as long as your verbalize your problem.

I’m sure we’ve all had similar experiences.

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Your life under Islam. Don’t say that you weren’t warned.

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Not long ago, a team of researchers watched a 1-year-old boy take justice into his own hands. The boy had just seen a puppet show in which one puppet played with a ball while interacting with two other puppets. The center puppet would slide the ball to the puppet on the right, who would pass it back. And the center puppet would slide the ball to the puppet on the left . . . who would run away with it. Then the two puppets on the ends were brought down from the stage and set before the toddler. Each was placed next to a pile of treats. At this point, the toddler was asked to take a treat away from one puppet. Like most children in this situation, the boy took it from the pile of the “naughty” one. But this punishment wasn’t enough — he then leaned over and smacked the puppet in the head.

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Well, it turns out there’s a reason those comics and beer companies keep making those jokes. Many of the exciting advances in brain mapping and genetic research are proving that some of the oldest, most hackneyed gender-based stereotypes are totally true.

Say it ain’t so….

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Let me dissent sharply from that conventional wisdom and argue that what talking heads are calling “capitalism” is actually “crony capitalism” and that it is crony capitalism that is responsible for most of our current economic difficulties.

A useful reminder.

Check it out.

You, too, can hit the best-seller list.

Remember, the really silly plots are the ones you should use.

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Top military officials have continued to rely on a secret network of private spies who have produced hundreds of reports from deep inside Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to American officials and businessmen, despite concerns among some in the military about the legality of the operation.

When the official intelligence agency has succumbed to the Iron Law of Bureaucracy, and you’re in a war, there is little choice.

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The functional equivalent of a hammer for totalitarians.

I quoted the prescient warnings of the Anti-federalists, who warily regarded the proposed Constitution as affording a grant of powers that might lay dormant for some time, but which – in the midst of crisis – would be readily seized upon as providing the only means for remediation of whatever dire exigency might be facing the nation. Thus, Federal Farmer wrote, ” The lever by which power would ultimately be accrued was the use of powers not necessarily then required, but granted for future possible use as would be “necessary and proper.” Wrote the Pennsylvania minority, “the legislature of the United States are vested with great and uncontroulable powers, of laying and collecting taxes, duties, imposts, and excises; of regulating trade, raising and supporting armies, organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, instituting courts and other general powers…. And if they may do it , it is pretty certain that they will; for it will be found that the power retained by the original states, small as it is, will be a clog upon the wheels of government of the United States; the latter, therefore, will be naturally inclined to remove it out of its way.”

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Judges are of course entitled to have their own views about which things “right-thinking members of society” should “recognize” and which they should forget. But it seems to me that under the First Amendment members of society have a constitutional right to think things through in their own ways.

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Don’t ever say we don’t have useful stuff here.

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There’s nothing like imminent bankruptcy and the prospect of sovereign default to focus the attention of a national leader on what’s really important: gaining increased political power.

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The idea that four years of higher education will translate into a better job, higher earnings and a happier life — a refrain sure to be repeated this month at graduation ceremonies across the country — has been pounded into the heads of schoolchildren, parents and educators. But there’s an underside to that conventional wisdom. Perhaps no more than half of those who began a four-year bachelor’s degree program in the fall of 2006 will get that degree within six years, according to the latest projections from the Department of Education. (The figures don’t include transfer students, who aren’t tracked.)

The Other McCain points and laughs as the Nanny State becomes entangled in its own briar patch.

Of course, Newt Gingrich was saying this 15 years ago, and as a result liberals denounced him as a stooge for Corporate America who wanted to rape the planet.

Clive Crook is your typical lefty Brit journalist, but seems to have stumbled on some common sense.

When did a united Europe ever capture the imagination of many of its residents? The European project was an elite-driven, top-down affair from the outset. Its leaders took the view, often explicitly, that Europe’s voters did not know what was good for them and would have to be led to enlightenment. There was never any willingness to let public indifference or outright hostility moderate the pace. For the most part, voters were not consulted. When they were, and voted No in the occasional referendum on further transfer of power to Brussels, governments resolved to keep on asking until voters got it right. Germany adopted the euro despite a sustained majority opposed to monetary union. (Surely this helps to explain German anger over the bail-outs. “We were against this in the first place. Now see what’s happened.”)

Robert Samuelson looks to the future, and goes “Aaaaack!”

The welfare state is today’s equivalent of the gold standard. With aging societies, advanced countries have promised more benefits than their tax bases can support. Hence, high government debt. Greece is merely the canary in the coal mine. But politicians resist cutting popular benefits except under extreme pressure. It takes a crisis. Greece, again. Another unsettling parallel is the global economy. The United States’ leadership since World War II is eroding before China’s ascent. There’s a danger now, as then, of a power vacuum. Witness the long delay in coming to Greece’s aid. No one country acted decisively, even as markets grew nervous.

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The research suggests that when compared with the versions they replaced, the newest air bags, required in all vehicles beginning in 2008 and in some as early as 2004, may place belted drivers at greater risk of death.

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Is that portrait not the very image of a smug, supercilious jerk?

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Just in case you were wondering. I know I was.

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I blame ADD, but that’s me.

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Do you know someone who needs hours alone every day? Who loves quiet conversations about feelings or ideas, and can give a dynamite presentation to a big audience, but seems awkward in groups and maladroit at small talk? Who has to be dragged to parties and then needs the rest of the day to recuperate? Who growls or scowls or grunts or winces when accosted with pleasantries by people who are just trying to be nice?

I don’t, but my friends do.

If so, do you tell this person he is “too serious,” or ask if he is okay? Regard him as aloof, arrogant, rude? Redouble your efforts to draw him out?

Or perhaps just leave him the hell alone? (Nah, can’t have that.)

“It is very difficult for an extrovert to understand an introvert,” write the education experts Jill D. Burruss and Lisa Kaenzig.

That’s because extroverts are a bunch of clueless assholes. Just sayin’.

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What is this ‘find a gap, see the sky falling’ syndrome that causes the modern knee to jerk so badly?

So there’s a gap? Who the hell cares? In reality, gaps exist. Get over it.

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If you understood that headline, you’ll want this product.

If you didn’t, you won’t.

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Let that be a lesson to us all.

David Friedman is always worth reading.

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Let that be a lesson to us all.

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I can see how an Australian would be insulted by that. I imagine the Irish aren’t best pleased by the insinuation, either.

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Reesa Brown is the Significant Other of Stevn Brust, and is recovering from cancer surgery.

Steven Brust is one of my Recommended Writers (see sidebar on the right), and one of the best living writers of the English language.

Take whatever action you think is appropriate.

Megan McArdle cuts through the fog.

Meyerson identifies a lot of the procedural barriers that I frequently talk about–the bidding and environmental safeguards that make federal projects very slow to get off the ground.  But perhaps unsurprisingly, he doesn’t really explore a huge barrier to a WPA-type jobs program:  public sector unions.  They are not going to let you hire a bunch of cheap workers and run crews without civil service protections.

Just as generals famously prepare to fight the last war, governments prepare to handle the last crisis.

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I have two doctors that I see regularly, both are getting iPads and say that their colleagues are doing the same.

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A new report, commissioned by the federal government, finds the field is rife with poorly done studies, misdiagnoses and tests that can give misleading results.

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A consolidated list of leeches.

That anyone using the phrase “And I’m, like,….” is to be summarily executed.

It would make the world a better place. Really, it would.

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Never did like Nixon.

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Considering that L.A. is one of the world capitals of illegal immigration, that’s a win for Arizona.

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Who knew there were so may racists in New York?

Oh, wait, sorry … forgot that ‘Hispanic’ isn’t a race….

Enter the New York Civil Liberties Union: The organization has asked the board to rescind the ordinance.

Of course.

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Just in case you were wondering. I know I was.

George Will puts the boot in.

To understand the pertinence to America of events in Greece, notice General Motors’ most recent misbehavior. A television commercial featuring CEO Ed Whitacre demonstrates the institutional murkiness and intellectual dishonesty that result when the line between public and private sectors disappears.

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Will we at last have a Supreme Court Justice who can hit off of a slider?

(Hey, this is more substance than you’ll get anywhere else regarding Kagan.)

The Wall Street Journal hits a sore spot.

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Consumers are returning to old-fashioned ‘wartime’ foods as a result of the recession, according to a study of shoppers’ habits by MySupermarket.co.uk.

Spam, spam, spam, spam…..

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Well, you never know when you’re going to need some rice….