September 8, 2006

Sandy Berger not only said this — he said it without laughing at himself

Posted by Jon Sanders at 11:29 PM

"You can't fix it," Berger said on CNN. "You gotta yank it."

Guess that depends on what the definition of "it" is.

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Erk Russell, RIP

Posted by Jon Ham at 8:54 PM

Erk Russell, who was the University of Georgia's defensive coordinator for 17 years before taking over as head coach at Georgia Southern and winning three national championships, died in an auto accident in Statesboro, Ga., today. Russell's tenure coincided with my undergraduate years and many more after that of traveling to Georgia games. Watching him go head to head with his helmeted Junkyard Dawgs defense before each game, with blood streaming from his shaved head, is an image I'll never forget (see photo). Russell was one of many Auburn alums that Vince Dooley (also an Auburn alum) brought with him when he took over the program in 1964. But Russell was the most inspirational. Rest in peace, hairy dawg.

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What's so bad about business licenses?

Posted by Mitch Kokai at 4:23 PM

That's just one of the topics on tap for this weekend's Carolina Journal Radio. You'll hear Daren Bakst discussing that topic.

Terry Stoops will also update us on the Leandro school funding lawsuit, and Joe Coletti will chat with Donna Martinez about access to health insurance. 

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Major Development for Gay Marriage

Posted by Daren Bakst at 4:03 PM

In what may be the most important development ever in the history of the gay marriage debate, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have stated that they will not get married until everyone else can get married.

If this doesn't change the mind of opponents of gay marriage, I don't know what will.

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What did they do to stop UBL?

Posted by Chad Adams at 3:58 PM

With all the hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth that top Democratic leaders have shown over the upcoming ABC mini-series on 9/11, one would think that sainthood was hanging over the Clinton years.  Ok, so it wasn't exactly the way it was protrayed, but the events leading up to 9/11 left UBL on the loose.  And since when in the good old US of A is it improper to have an opinion about what might have happened.  Loose Change has been floating around for the past year with an almost cultlike following of folks who believe the Bushies orchestrated 9/11.  (These are the same folks who also believe the same administration is completely incompetent in almost every other way.) 

The real question is, "what did the Clinton Administration do to stop UBL after the embassy bombings, the first World Trade Center attack and the USS Cole attack?"

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Ok So Khatami's tour upsets some in Iran and some in the US....

Posted by Michael Moore at 12:20 AM

Former president of Iran, Khatami is on a US Speaking tour this week.  Its seems some in Iran are upset that he came over here, and some in the US are mad that he is here.  Bless His Heart for making the trip anyway! 

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Voter Watch 2006.

Posted by Michael Moore at 11:33 AM

From the Kernersville News, "Keep an eye on those judicial races."  

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Bryson City, NC: Former Mayor a man of all trades.

Posted by Michael Moore at 09:30 AM

This past week Mayor Bruce Medford of Bryson City, NC passed away.  He was a man of all trades and the last time I seen him he was working at the N.C. Clampitt ACE Hardware on main street in Bryson.  We could probably use some more officials that have real world experience like Bruce.  He was a small business man and restaurant owner, I know that 22 years ago this week he was about to deliver a baby boy in his restaurant, but my Mamma got to the hospital just in time!  He worked hard for the people of Bryson City, and he never forgot about that boy that about made him a baby deliverer.  Godspeed Mr. Mayor!

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That snappish dog

Posted by Paul Chesser at 08:25 AM

Rhode Island Sen. Lincoln Chafee's sudden new "hold" on the nomination of John Bolton as permanent U.N. ambassador reminds me of that not-so-charming "feisty quality" that the Ocean State has about it -- which I wrote about for The News & Observer three years ago.

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New York Times blockbuster expose'

Posted by Paul Chesser at 08:08 AM

Wal-Mart is helping fund conservative think tanks!

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More in the "crisis" of income inequality

Posted by George Leef at 07:33 AM

David Brooks debunks a lot of the mythology about our supposed crisis in income inequality in a recent NYT column. It isn't available except to subscribers, but here is a synopsis provided by NCPA:

Populists argue that rising income inequality is the result of a broken
market. The rules are rigged. The reigning ideology in
Washington must be upended. Unions must be revived.
Globalization needs to be reorganized. The problem with this
narrative is that it doesn't really fit the facts, says columnist David
Brooks.

For example:

o Workers over all are not getting a smaller slice of the pie;
wages and benefits have made up roughly the same share of
gross domestic product (GDP) for 50 years.

o Offshore outsourcing is not decimating employment; according
to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, outsourcing is responsible
for 1.9 percent of layoffs, and the efficiencies it produces
create more jobs at better wages than the ones destroyed.

o Jobs are not more insecure; workers are just as likely to
hold a job for 20 years as they were in 1969.

o Workers are not stuck in dead-end jobs; social mobility is
roughly where it was a generation ago.

Lastly, says Brooks, declining unionization has not been the driving
force behind inequality:

o David Card of the University of California, Berkeley, has
estimated that de-unionization explains between 10 and 20
percent of the rise in inequality, and that effect was
probably strongest decades ago.

o These days the working class is not falling behind the middle
or upper-middle class, instead, the big rise in inequality is
within the office parks, among people who were never
unionized; middle managers are falling behind top executives.

A much more persuasive school of thought on inequality holds that the
key issue is skills. Lawrence Katz, formerly of the Clinton
administration, now of Harvard, puts it this way: Across many nations,
the market increasingly rewards people with high social and
customer-service skills.

Source: David Brooks, "The Populist Myths on Income
Inequality," New York Times, September 7, 2006.


Note that final point about marketable skills. It undercuts the notion that in the "information economy," just about everybody needs a college degree. If you don't have good people skills by the time you're 18, the stuff you might learn in college won't be of much help.

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Baseball and movies

Posted by Paul Chesser at 07:14 AM

Two big advocates have been missing this summer.

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