MORE ON THOSE OVERGENEROUS / UNDERFUNDED PUBLIC PENSION PLANS: Pittsburgh retirement plan’s value has decreased $124 million this year. “That leaves the fund with just 29 percent of what it should ideally hold to cover its long-term commitments, according to state standards.”
Meanwhile, look at the situation in California. It’s gotten so bad that some people are even suggesting that public employees will have to share the pain.
(Via PensionWatch).
A BUNCH OF RECOMMENDED stocking-stuffers for kids.
NO MOB VETO. (Via Rand Simberg).
GEE, DO YOU THINK? How Much An Industry Gives May Affect The Chance Of Its Getting Bailed Out. Can you have a healthy country and economy when the return-on-investment for political donations vastly exceeds the return on any actually productive activity?
LIFE WITH FLUORESCENT BULBS. Sorry, but this kind of wonky no-sacrifice fixit nostrum reminds me of Al Gore, or Jimmy Carter’s sweaters, and I don’t think it’ll play well, or deliver as promised. And I say that as someone who’s boosted compact fluorescent bulbs to a considerable degree.
“I know he can get the job, but can he do the job?”
MORE FINANCIAL PROBLEMS FOR BIG MEDIA: Tribune Hires Advisers to Help Stave Off Bankruptcy.
UPDATE: Virginia Postrel comments:
If anyone should fear a Depression, it should be journalists, who are already the equivalent of 1980s steelworkers. But instead, they seem positively giddy with anticipation at the prospect of a return to ’30s-style hardship–without, of course, the real hardship of the 1930s. . . . Oh the thrill of imagining a Great Depression. It’s an opportunity for Great Design and Really Cool Government.
And in 1914, a lot of the same sorts of people were giddy with anticipation for the war, because they expected a transformative and purifying experience. It was transformative.
ANOTHER UPDATE: What’s Wrong With This Picture?
MORE: Related thoughts from Dan Riehl. And some worrisome China news that you may have missed.
MORE DRUG WAR IDIOCY.
XCOR SUBORBITAL ROCKET TICKETS are now on sale.
MANUFACTURERS VS. RETAILERS on minimum pricing.
THIS IS PROBABLY A GOOD SIGN: “It’s no fiction: Scientific fact has usurped science fiction as TV’s favorite inspiration for prime-time story lines. And to keep everything on the up and up, show writers and producers are hiring scores of researchers and technical consultants to get the science straight.”
CAROLINE KENNEDY TO REPLACE HILLARY IN THE SENATE? Jane Hamsher says thanks but no thanks. “It’s a truly terrible idea.”
YOU CAN APPLY TO WORK at Reason TV.
A LIST OF THE top 50 Blu-Ray discs of the year.
TEDDY BEARS in space.
IT’S NOT JUST YOUR IMAGINATION: “The research – to be detailed tomorrow in the most comprehensive report yet published – shows that a host of common chemicals is feminising males of every class of vertebrate animals, from fish to mammals, including people.”
AT AMAZON, THE Twelve Days of Christmas Holiday. “12 Days of Holiday?” What does that even mean? Besides someone not wanting to say “Christmas,” that is. (Via Mark Steyn). “Holiday” is not, in fact, a synonym for “Christmas.”
UPDATE: Reader Rob Maida writes:
Glenn,
I can’t define “12 Days of Holiday”, but a quick look at Amazon sites in Canada, the UK, France, and Germany show that they have no problem with the dreaded “C”-word (Christmas). Seems it’s only the US site where it’s banned.
Regards,
RobP.S. I still love Amazon and really wish they wouldn’t do stuff like this.
Yeah, me too. I did notice that the Amazon.co.uk site is headlined “Best Buys For Your Christmas Stocking.” Meanwhile, reader Kenneth Mitchell writes: “Glenn, I’m Jewish. I don’t ‘do’ Christmas. But my attitude has always been, just because it’s not _my_ birthday, that doesn’t mean that I can’t help friends celebrate!” And Mike Twain writes: “QVC.com is perfectly willing to have a 12 Days of Christmas promotion…then again their target demographic isn’t quite as ‘sophisticated’ as Amazon’s.”
Or the QVC marketers are more sophisticated. I mean, I don’t want to go all John Gibson here, but this sort of circumlocution is just lame. If you’re cashing in on Christmas — as all merchants are — you shouldn’t be afraid to say the word.
A LOOK AT MICHELIN’S “active wheel” technology for electric cars.
A LOOK AT AMERICA’S successful missile defense program.
IN THE MAIL: From Tanya Huff, A Confederacy of Valor, which is her first two Confederation novels in one fat-and-cheap paperback. (Hmm, we seem to be seeing a lot of that lately; are SF publishers girding for a recession?) Good, rousing space opera, though it seems to me that Huff is more into her Blood Price series of fantasy novels.
WITH THE CHRISTMAS SHOPPING SEASON WELL UNDERWAY, and lots of gloomy econ-talk in the news, it’s time for another exciting Insta-Poll!
ERIC POSNER: Was Bill Ayers a terrorist? Pretty much. “Under current law, Ayers was a terrorist. This definition is not idiosyncratic; similar definitions can be found in the laws of foreign countries and in international treaties. Ayers seems to think he ought to be excused for violence because his motives were good, but that is the excuse that terrorists always offer.”
WILLIAM “FREEZER CASH” JEFFERSON is defeated: “Indicted U.S. Rep. William Jefferson suffered what may be the final blow of his storied political career in the most improbable way Saturday, when an untested Republican opponent took advantage of Louisiana’s new federal voting rules — and an election delay caused by Hurricane Gustav — to unseat the nine-term Democrat. With the upset victory, Anh ‘Joseph’ Cao, a eastern New Orleans attorney who fled war-ravaged Saigon as a child, becomes the first Vietnamese-American in Congress. He will represent a district that was specifically drawn to give African-Americans an electoral advantage and one in which two of every three voters are registered Democrats.”
“A DATE WHICH WILL LIVE IN INFAMY.”
Some related thoughts from Randy Barnett.
AN ACCOUNT OF hypocrisy in higher education.
ED DRISCOLL: Updating the Army of Davids’ Toolkit.
Ed reviews the various Adobe Creative Suite products as they’ve been upgraded. While you get a lot of bang for the buck, it’s a pretty expensive set of products for the average user — affordable for most folks who really want it, but not cheap. There are a lot of very good, and much cheaper, products out there, too. Maybe Ed can do a follow up on those.
For example, Pinnacle Studio 12 or Vegas Movie Studio 9 are much cheaper than Adobe Premiere Pro. And there are some good cheap photo editing programs out there, too.
UPDATE: Ed Driscoll emails that he reviewed Pinnacle already. And for cheap photo-editing he recommends the free Irfanview.
DOUG FEITH: India Is a Key Ally in the War on Terror.
Barack Obama, by the way, would be well-advised to take a break from reading books about FDR and read Feith’s War and Decision. Now that the politicking is over, that book will likely get more attention, and it deserves it. Our podcast interview with Feith is here.
Grand Cayman, BWI.
Grand Cayman, BWI. Bob McManus wrote asking for a picture of an “offshore tax haven.” That would be the whole island, I think, but most of that kind of thing goes on in these fairly unremarkable buildings in downtown Georgetown.
UPDATE: Dan Mitchell on why tax havens are good for the global economy. More here and here. (Via, er, Dan Mitchell, who also has a book on tax competition and why it’s good.)
Grand Cayman, BWI.
MICHAEL S. MALONE: Has the time come at last to live a Microsoft-free life?
FOND MEMORIES OF the 1985 Honda CRX.
Grand Cayman, BWI.
BUSH HATRED on the wane?
DAVE KOPEL: Free Plaxico Burress!
KATIE GRANJU on moms with guns, and nosy pediatricians.
REIMAGINING THE AMC GREMLIN for the 21st Century. Er, but why?
AS A KID I’D LOVE TO GET THIS TRUCK. As a parent, I’d never forgive anyone who gave a toy this noisy to my kid . . . .
THE IMMIGRATION DEBATE MAY HAVE SETTLED DOWN, but Mickey Kaus remains on the case.
MAKING BIODIESEL from spent coffee grounds. It wakes you up — and it gets you going! Is there anything coffee can’t do?
BUILDING A spectrometer out of a cereal box.
SO I’M IN THE AIRPORT AT GRAND CAYMAN, where there’s free wi-fi, and Delta has mysteriously lost our seat assignments despite confirming them the night before we left. Jeez.
IN THE MAIL: Rich Brother Rich Sister. From Robert Kiyosaki, author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad and a host of other books, but including his sister, a Buddhist nun.
Grand Cayman, BWI.
My Bar, Grand Cayman. Shot handheld with the Panasonic LX3.
MISUSE OF STATE DATA: Worker says ‘Joe the Plumber’ cover-up was forced upon her. I hope this investigation will continue.
RIDICULOUS — MOST OF THE PEOPLE WHO WOULD GET THE MONEY DON’T EVEN MAKE CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS: Gingrich Backs Two-Month Tax Holiday to Replace Further Wall Street Bailout.
STRATEGYPAGE: Saddam’s spies survive in America. “As U.S. troops became more familiar with Iraq, and the details of Saddam’s foreign espionage efforts came to light, it became known that Saddam had some U.S. citizens on the payroll. Over a dozen suspects were uncovered, and most were charged, if not prosecuted, for espionage. In Michigan, where the largest concentration of Arab-Americans live, four U.S. citizens have been prosecuted in the last few years. Some of Saddam’s agents even took jobs as interpreters in Iraq after 2003.”
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRES: A new episode of Poliwood with Roger Simon and Lionel Chetwynd. It’s free to everybody with no registration.
MIKE HUCKABEE’S BOOK, DO THE RIGHT THING, is now up to number four on the New York Times bestseller list. I credit his Glenn and Helen Show appearance!
Grand Cayman, BWI. Fidel Murphy’s Irish Pub.
Image test
FRAT BOYS for Obama.
IN CALIFORNIA, A MOVE TO freeze the salaries of high-paid state employees. I suspect we’ll see more stuff like this.
NEW RULES ALLOWING firearms possession in national parks. Another small, but real, step for civil rights.
BRUCE BARTLETT: What would Keynes do?
MORE RECOMMENDATIONS: The hottest toys in the “big present” category.
2008 TO BE coolest year of the decade. I believe it. I’ve been diving in a hood.
THEY SPENT LIKE THERE WAS NO TOMORROW, BUT NOW IT’S TOMORROW; California may be out of cash in February.
ARE WE MORE OR LESS FREE than 40 years ago?
SAM VENABLE on the latest news involving gastrotransmitters.
GHOSTBUSTERS: THE VIDEO GAME. A trailer.
IF YOU’RE A STUDENT WITH A BLOG, don’t miss the A.F.F. College Blogger Contest.
MEGAN MCARDLE ON strange new respect for Smoot-Hawley. “That it is stupid, does not mean that the government will not do it.”
Grand Cayman, BWI. Even here, Christmas involves reindeer, snowmen, and evergreens. No, really.
HEH: “When the conspiracy theorists were calling Obama some kind of ‘Manchurian candidate’ they never considered he would not be one for Al Queda or the Red Brigades, but instead, the Club for Growth.”
AN ENTIRE BLOG devoted to TV Anchorbabes.
IN THE MAIL: Norah Vincent’s Voluntary Madness: My Year Lost and Found in the Loony Bin. Long-time InstaPundit readers may recall that Vincent spent a year living as a man for her book Self-Made Man: One Woman’s Year Disguised as a Man. The book was terrific — our interview with Vincent about that is here — but apparently living as a man was stressful enough to induce a nervous breakdown. I can understand that . . . .
Grand Cayman, BWI.
SOME OUTDOOR TIPS FOR garden and yard tools.
A WEBSITE DEVOTED TO nanomedicine.
GOT AN UNPUBLISHED NOVEL? Check out Amazon’s Breakthrough Novel Award.
EUGENE VOLOKH will debate gun policy in West L.A. this afternoon.
GIANT CAMERA tracks asteroids.
Grand Cayman, BWI. Last time I was here, people asked for some reports on island life beyond diving. Shot with the Panasonic LX-3, which seems to do very well in this kind of setting.
A THIRD TERM FOR BUSH, sartorially?
The view from my window, early this morning.
DUPONT ENDORSES butanol fuel for cars.
A LOOK AT nanotechnology in Turkey.
GOOD POINT: “The high-cap magazine term is a place where the pro-gun side allowed the other side to frame the debate. 20 and 30-round magazines aren’t ‘high’ capacity, they’re ‘standard’ capacity.”
THEY TOLD ME THAT IF I VOTED FOR MCCAIN, WE’D SEE A THIRD BUSH TERM. Obama drops proposal for windfall profits tax.
SUN PLUS WATER EQUALS FUEL? “With catalysts created by an MIT chemist, sunlight can turn water into hydrogen. If the process can scale up, it could make solar power a dominant source of energy.” Faster, please.
EXERCISE IMPROVES CIRCULATION in aging brains. If there were a pill that did as much for people as exercise does, everyone would take it.
MARC RICH’S man at Justice.
TALK OF racism at Trinity College leads to interesting discovery.
DUDE, HERE’S YOUR RECESSION: Oil tumbles below $44 a barrel, gas hits new low.
A FLYING AEROCAR from 1956.
THE TRUTH ABOUT semi-automatic firearms.
QUANTUM OF ANNOYANCE: When product placement goes horribly wrong.
MY LATEST POPULAR MECHANICS COLUMN: Why I hope there’s no life on Mars.
SHOULD WE PAY DETROIT to bring their gas-sipping foreign cars home to the U.S.A.? Maybe.
CHARLES RANGEL RESPONDS to the New York Times. Are you persuaded? Time for an Insta-Poll!
IN THE MAIL: Lois McMaster Bujold’s Miles, Mutants and Microbes. Includes her Falling Free, which isn’t a Vorkosigan story at all, but which was my first exposure to Bujold. If you’ve never read the Vorkosigan stories, you might want to start with Young Miles, which collects the earliest Miles Vorkosigan stories in one fat-but-cheap paperback. They’re good fun.
CALIFORNIA’S POLITICAL CLASS looks out for Number One.
THE PERILS OF “healthy” food.
FROM POPULAR MECHANICS, some tool-and-gadget gift advice.
IF YOU’RE IN D.C., there’s a 40th Anniversary happy hour for Reason Magazine scheduled for tonight.
