Round #1

And the early returns give a slight edge to John Kerry for Debate #1. Not only did the Bush InTrade numbers ease, but stock index futures also fell as Kerry eked out a thin margin of victory tonight. Last count: Dow down 20 points and S&P’s down 2 1/2, once again proving that free markets are unbeatable forecasting tools.

Win/Lose

A lot of pundits have been saying that Kerry must present a clear plan for how he would “win” in Iraq or at least provide for an “exit” strategy. If he can’t do that then he is through, say the pundits.

Well, Kerry is throughly screwed because he can’t offer a plan to “win” in Iraq.

On the other hand neither can Bush.

Nobody can provide a clear plan for “winning” in Iraq because the conflict in Iraq cannot be “won.”

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Meeting of the Leaders of Brazil, Germany, India and Japan on UN Reform

On 21 September 2004, H.E. Mr. Luis Inacio Lura da Silva, President of Brazil, H.E. Mr. Joschka Fisber, Vice-Chancellor and Minister for Foreign Affairs of Germany, H.E. Dr. Manmoban Singh, Prime Minister of India, and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan met in New York to discuss the reform of the United Nations. Following is the Joint Press Statement of the Meeting:

1. In order for the international community to effectively address the various threats and challenges that it presently faces, it is important to reform the United Nations as a whole.

2. The General Assembly must be revitalized, as it represents the general will of all Member States. We must also enhance the efficiency of the UN agencies and organs in the social and economic fields in order to effectively address urgent challenges.

3. The Security Council must reflect the realities of the international community in the 21st century. It must be representative, legitimate and effective. It is essential that the Security Council include, on permanent basis, countries that have the will and the capacity to take on major responsibilities with regard to the maintenance of international peace and security. There also has been a nearly four-fold increase in the membership of the United Nations since its inception in 1945, including a sharp increase in the number of developing countries. The Security Council, therefore, must be expanded in both the permanent and non-permanent categories, including developing and developed countries as new permanent members.

4. Brazil, Germany, India and Japan, based on the firmly shared recognition that they are legitimate candidates for permanent membership in an expanded Security Council, support each other’s candidature. Africa must be represented in the permanent membership in the Security Council. We will work together with other like-minded Member States towards realizing a meaningful reform of the United Nations, including that of the Security Council.

Let’s look at this statement in detail and see if we can determine its meaning. We’ll take them in order.

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Check-Kiters for a Clue

Mickey Kaus is a centrist Democrat, a good reporter, a good writer and an all around smart guy which is why his posting today on the Check 21 law is so revealing of a generalized leftist mindset.

The Check 21 law frees banks from the requirement to keep paper checks in existence after they have been scanned and inputed into an electronic format. The law makes the electronic format the legal equivalent of the paper check for all purposes. Banks are still free to do everything the old fashioned way but the law will no longer require them to do so.

Kaus believes that the Check 21 law could be used by the Democrats to demonstrate how they approach economic issues and regulation compared to Republicans and I think he is right. It demonstrates that Democrats like regulations driven by the ordinary person’s vague and largely emotional understanding of how an economic entity works (in this case banks), substituted for the detailed, market-disciplined understanding of people who work closely with that entity every day.

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Objective Media?

Before the 1920s, the idea of an “objective” or “non-partisan” media did not exist. The previous 100 years had seen the reign of the newspaper as the primary news medium and newspapers of that era never portrayed themselves as objective or non-partisan.

Newspapers evolved from the pamphleteers who considered themselves polemists. Their goal was to propagandize for their side. Most newspapers in the golden era of newsprint were publicly associated with a major political party or faction. Many newspapers had the words “Democrat” or “Republican” in their names. It was considered normal. Everybody who bought a paper knew what its biases were.

This standard began to change in the 1920s with the arrival of radio and the socialization of broadcast spectrum. Instead of auctioning off broadcast spectrum the dominant ideology of the time led to the creation of a system wherein broadcasters functioned as public utilities. The government decided who could and could not broadcast, using a politically sensitive process.

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