Just followed a link from the Hot Air blog to americansolutions.com, a site set up by Newt Gingrich and others as the main web presence of American Solutions, which is described as follows on the site:

American Solutions for Winning the Future is a new, non-partisan organization built around three goals: to defend America and our allies abroad and defeat our enemies, to strengthen and revitalize America’s core values, and to move government into the 21st Century. The General Chairman is former Speaker Newt Gingrich.

One of the organization’s key short-term initiatives is a petition to gather signatures in support of allowing drilling for oil in the US in areas where it’s currently prohibited by law. The wording of the petition is as follows:

We, therefore, the undersigned citizens of the United States, petition the U.S. Congress to act immediately to lower gasoline prices (and diesel and other fuel prices)* by authorizing the exploration of proven energy reserves to reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources from unstable countries.

I’ve just signed it. I have no idea what good it will do - when was the last time a petition really changed anything? But I think it’s a useful way to gauge support among the population at large for this cause, which is the greatest single opportunity for reducing the price of oil and gasoline in the medium to long term. They had over 500,000 signatures at the time I signed it, and I assume that number has been rising rapidly. Newt Gingrich has (or had) a knack for corralling public support for big picture programs (think the Contract with America). This organization seems to have grown out of his failed attempt to have himself anointed the Republican nominee for president without participating in the normal process, but he’ll be trying to parlay it into something else. As long as the focus remains promoting sound policy rather than getting Newt elected to higher office there’s a lot of potential for good there. I think he’s a far more useful figure as an organizer and campaigner than as an office holder at this point.

Note to those responsible for the site: provide a logo and other materials that can easily be embedded into blogs and other sites. The main logo on the site certainly doesn’t serve this purpose. You need to make it as easy as possible for your core constituency to get the word out. They do have some stuff but they’re banner ads rather than logos or widgets. The only thing remotely logo-like is a naff-looking little thing (see below).

The 24/7 news cycle and constant filming and audio recording of candidates means that every utterance, no matter how off-the-cuff or insignificant the candidate intends it to be, now takes on the same aura as only a formal speech would have in the past.

Case in point: this quote from John McCain, courtesy of Reuters:

“There’s nobody who represents me better today than Mitt Romney,” McCain said.

Are you listening, governor? That could be the sound of a vice presidential offer coming down the road …

It’s not quite clear from the context whether this line was spoken during a speech or during more informal time with reporters. However, you can bet McCain didn’t want the media putting the spin on it that the Reuters reporter/blogger does here. Even if that’s the case, though, it continues to be remarkable how complete the reconciliation between the two men has been since their rancorous exchanges during some of the later debates.

I’ve long been an admirer of Bjorn Lomborg and both his work and writing. His book The Skeptical Environmentalist was a fascinating read, and so down to earth about the subjects it tackled - neither alarmist nor vehemently critical of the global warming movement. And his work with the Copenhagen Consensus Project is also both interesting and refreshing. Both the book and the project are based in rational thinking but tackle subjects where so much of the discussion is political and therefore often irrational.

The Wall Street Journal has an editorial examining the latest round of the Copenhagen Consensus, which has thrown out results broadly similar to previous rounds. Global Warming is considered one of the least effective things to spend money on to improve the lot of the world’s poor in particular, while improved nutrition and other projects are considered far more worthwhile.

I found the video of his talk at the TED event provided a great summary of what the project is, the results it came up with and why it’s important. We need more people like Lomborg in the world - people who are willing to be rational and calm about the major issues we face, seeking out the best information and the best minds available, and bringing them together in a way that provides meaningful answers. We have quite enough Rush Limbaughs, Keith Olbermanns and the like already - shrill, over-simplistic and combative voices are plentiful in today’s world. Give me another Lomborg over another Hannity any day of the week.

Here’s another roundup of things I’ve seen over the past couple of weeks but haven’t had time to cover in depth.

First, a post on Politico.com from Jonathan Martin, which compares the approaches to economic matters of Mike Huckabee and Tom Coburn, and illustrates why Huckabee was never really a serious candidate for the Republican nomination and should never be considered as one:

[From Huckabee]

The greatest threat to classic Republicanism is not liberalism; it’s this new brand of libertarianism, which is social liberalism and economic conservatism, but it’s a heartless, callous, soulless type of economic conservatism because it says, “Look, we want to cut taxes and eliminate government. If it means that elderly people don’t get their Medicare drugs, so be it. If it means little kids go without education and health care, so be it.” Well, that might be a, quote, pure economic conservative message, but it’s not an American message. It doesn’t fly.

…

[From Coburn]
Compassionate conservatism’s starting point had merit. The essential argument that Republicans should orient policy around how our ideas will affect the poor, the widow, the orphan, the forgotten and the “other” is indisputable — particularly for those who claim, as I do, to submit to an authority higher than government. Yet conservatives are conservatives because our policies promote deliverance from poverty rather than dependence on government.

Compassionate conservatism’s next step — its implicit claim that charity or compassion translates into a particular style of activist government involving massive spending increases and entitlement expansion — was its undoing. Common sense and the Scriptures show that true giving and compassion require sacrifice by the giver. This is why Jesus told the rich young ruler to sell his possessions, not his neighbor’s possessions. Spending other people’s money is not compassionate.

Next, Jim Geraghty at National Review Online pokes fun at a recent introduction of Obama at one of his events, which is part Harry Potter, part Ephesians 6 (the parentheses are from Geraghty):

“The candidate of the people. Skinny young man. Big ears. Funny name. Armed with the experience of humble beginnings. Educated in Ivy League suites. Trained in legislative seats. Toughened in inner-city streets.”

(Okay, this is more like it.)

“Wearing the helmet of good judgment.”

(Uh-oh.)

“The breastplate of hope. Wielding the shield of unity. Carrying the sword of truth. And feet marching to the beat of change!”

Nice further evidence of the hysteria generated by the Obama charisma.

Thirdly, this piece from Hot Air, which takes a recent Washington Post article on Obama as its starting point. This is a topic I’ve covered before here and here. The summary at the end does a great job of capturing what’s going on here:

Obama doesn’t really have ideas of his own, not even an overarching governing philosophy as a prism through which policy could get made. He just wants to be President, and figures that he can charm his way to the White House.

Lastly, this ridiculous set of stories (once again captured by Hot Air) about the fact that Barack Obama and his wife did a “fist bump” at a rally. Watch the second video at that link and see how delighted Obama is when Williams asks him about it. “I got these guys hook, line and sinker” he seems to be thinking to himself… Is there anything this man does that the media doesn’t love?

You’ll have to forgive me my fascination with the middle class and bear with me a little longer. After reading yet another article about how we’re all worse off, I was prompted to go and read a little more about definitions of the middle class on Wikipedia.

Firstly, on that article. The focus is the statistic that Americans are “$1.7 trillion poorer” over the last quarter. Of course, this refers not to income but to assets, and the primary impacts are the decline in house prices and the decline in the value of stocks, mutual funds and so on:

The value of real estate assets owned by households and non-profits declined by $305 billion, while financial assets fell by $1.3 trillion, led mainly by a $556 billion drop in stocks and a $400 billion decline in mutual funds.

In other words, these are all declines that don’t really affect people’s spending money, as it were, since they’re assets that tend to be held for long periods of time. This drop is 3% of the previous quarter’s total wealth, but:

The first quarter’s decline follows a $530 billion drop in wealth in the fourth quarter of 2007. Until then, net worth had been rising steadily since 2003, climbing nearly 31% over those five years.

In other words, because these assets are held over long periods of time, the drop this quarter (and even several like it) are unlikely to have a significant impact over time. And of course, although this decline is painted as making “Americans” poorer, you can bet that if the trend was going the other way, and “Americans’ wealth” was increasing, the focus of the article would be on the fact that these gains were affecting only the wealthiest segments of society.

Wikipedia and the Middle Class

But I digress. Back to Wikipedia and its articles on the Middle Class. The main article is here. It seems to have been written partly (perhaps even mostly) by someone with mostly experience of the British class system (close to my own heart, certainly, but not that relevant to the current question). There is some interesting stuff there, but it mostly reinforces my own sense, that:

Social hierarchies and their definitions vary. There are many factors that can define the middle class in a society, such as money, behaviour and heredity. In many countries, it is predominantly the amount of money that determines an individual’s position in the social hierarchy. In other countries, social factors may have as strong an influence. These factors include education, professional or employment status, home ownership, or culture.

But, there is a separate article specifically on the American Middle Class here. This is longer, more scholarly (Wikipedia approves much more of the numerous footnotes in this one) and focused on the American experience. What strikes me about this article and also a Congressional report referenced in the first one which can be found here, is that, whereas in other countries, definitions of the middle class often encompass many factors, one of which may or may not be income, income is the primary driver of class distinctions in the US. Most studies attempt to define the middle class as being essentially synonymous with middle income, with the debate centering on how big the middle should be (the middle quintile, the three middle quintiles, etc.).

If you do take that approach, then of course the idea that the middle class is being squeezed, or changing size to any extent at all, is absurd - the number of people who are above or below average never changes, and the middle is always the middle. Only under more sophisticated definitions of class structures does this make any sense at all (though even there it’s clear that if the middle class is shrinking, it’s because some of its members are successfully climbing, not descending, the social ladder). Some of the more sophisticated definitions, which seemed to be embraced more by academics than politicians, involve the type of work someone does or the level of education they have attained. This, of course, takes away the “grading on a curve” element of class structure - it’s not possible for everyone to be above average, but it is at least theoretically possible for everyone to achieve high levels of education or to work in professional occupations.

For all Lou Dobbs’ bloviation on the topic of the shrinking middle class or the squeeze on the middle class, most of the evidence suggests that it is perfectly healthy, static in size according to some definitions and only shrinking because its members are getting wealthier according to others. There have been periods in the past when the middle class has shrunk because its members are becoming poorer in relative terms but this isn’t one of them. Of course, there’s the issue of relative incomes, which studies show is actually almost as important as absolute incomes, but that’s probably a topic for another time. And the idea that there is some kind of “gap” emerging between the very rich and very poor is particularly absurd. Depending on the definition of the middle class used, it encompasses somewhere between 45% and 60% of the population, which can hardly be called a “gap.”

I just read this piece by Mark Steyn, one of my favorite commentators, on Congress’s latest attempt to “fix” our oil problems, and found myself in complete agreement with everything he said. Here’s an excerpt:

“It shall be illegal and a violation of this Act,” declared the House of Representatives, “to limit the production or distribution of oil, natural gas, or any other petroleum product … or to otherwise take any action in restraint of trade for oil, natural gas, or any petroleum product when such action, combination, or collective action has a direct, substantial, and reasonably foreseeable effect on the market, supply, price, or distribution of oil, natural gas, or other petroleum product in the United States.”

Er, okay. But, before we start suing distant sheikhs in exotic lands for violating the NOPEC act, why don’t we start by suing Congress? After all, who “limits the production or distribution of oil” right here in the United States by declaring that there’ll be no drilling in the Gulf of Florida or the Arctic National Mosquito Refuge?

Precisely. Congress wants to “help” us with this problem? Don’t intervene more, or posture because you know that no intervention is really going to help. Get out of the way! Lift the restrictions on drilling and refining and shipping oil and oil products here in the US. Allow the oil companies to get more of the stuff that’s just sitting there under American soil and waters waiting to be dug up and poured into someone’s SUV instead of forcing us to put up with the unnaturally high prices caused by OPEC’s latest squeeze on supply. Ronald Reagan famously said that the nine most terrifying words in the English language were, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” How true that is in the case of this Congress.

Obama finally has left the Church that’s been causing his campaign so many problems. Interestingly, despite all the problems with Jeremiah Wright, he didn’t feel the need to leave before now. Only when a second priest with extreme racist views showed up in the public consciousness did it become clear enough that the Church itself and not just one rogue cleric is the problem. Of course, if it isn’t just one rogue cleric, then it should have been clear to Obama long before it became clear to all the rest of us that this was not a good organization to be part of, and he should have left a long time ago.

You get the sense that he’s been trying to walk a fine line between appeasing those who agree with the teachings of the Church while not frightening off those who find its doctrines disturbing. And this is probably exactly what he has been doing. Will this lose him votes with the first group now? Does his making it clear that he’s really a mainstream politician and not a representative of the fringe that brings us Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton lose him votes? Or does the fact that he clearly has a tin ear to the negative impact of the kinds of things we’ve been hearing for months now cause problems for him with a different constituency? Will the press call him on any of it? Probably not. They more or less gave him a free pass when he gave the super-speech absolving himself of blame for Wright-gate and they’ll probably give him a free pass this time too, once again praising him for his eloquence along the way.

But with every event like this Obama becomes more damaged, and Hillary’s supporters have a little more weight behind their suggestion that it’s good for her to stay in the race.

CNN (along with other major news outlets) has been trying to talk the US into a recession now for several years, and while the jury is still out on whether they’ve succeeded yet, they still aren’t letting up. Although this article has some admirable counter-points thrown in, it still relies mainly on anecdotal perceptions rather than the facts to examine the state of the economy.

The article also highlights one of the things which, as a Brit, I find most puzzling about American politics and economics - the definition of the “Middle Class” - which appears sometimes to include everyone except Bill Gates and Warren Buffett and at other times now includes apparently almost no-one because it is being “squeezed”. Where I come from, being Middle Class is about the kind of work you do - sitting in an office rather than working in a factory, for example - not about your level of income or what you can afford to buy with it.

At any rate, quoting from that article:

Only a few years ago, Americans who considered themselves middle class were scrimping to pay for their kids’ college education.

Now, many of them are struggling to cover far more basic needs - gas and groceries.

Take Stacy and Chuck Burris. The Pittsburgh, Pa., couple view themselves as solidly middle class. In recent months, however, they’ve felt anything but.

Burdened by high cost of food and fuel, they are having trouble balancing their budget even though Chuck Burris earns a “comfortable salary” as a software engineer. The parents of five children, three of whom are grown, have essentially stopped eating out and entertaining and are considering canceling the annual family vacation to Maine. They keep to a Spartan shopping list and have planted a larger garden. Instead of buying their 12-year-old daughter summer clothes, they are turning her pants into shorts by cutting off the legs and getting hand-me-downs from family.

Never before in previous recessions have they had to cut back like this.

Without wishing to belittle this or other families’ hardships, I find it hard to understand how current circumstances could be having such a significant impact on their financial status. The article says that:

Food prices, for instance, climbed 5.1% over the past 12 months and April’s 0.9% rise was the largest in 18 years, according to the Consumer Price Index. Gas, meanwhile, hit its highest recorded price of $3.937 on Monday, up nearly 21% from a year ago and 9.7% over the past month, according to AAA.

Well, assume the weekly grocery bill is $200 - not unreasonable, I would think - and the price has gone up by 5% - that would be a sum total of $10 per week extra, or $45 per month. If gas has gone up by 20%, perhaps the gas bill (assuming filling a 15-gallon tank once a week) has gone up by 20%, from $50 to $60, and that’s another $10 per week or $45 per month. Is there really a middle-class family that’s going to be pushed into cancelling its vacation by a $20 increase in spending per week? We’re never told what the household’s income actually is, but assume it’s $60,000 per year gross (which may be conservative since the salary is described as “comfortable”). That increase represents just 1.7% of gross income.

At the same time, the article says, housing prices are falling, but unless you’re actually trying to sell your house that shouldn’t really affect your current financial status. In fact, because the federal funds rate has fallen from 5.25% to around 2% in the last year many people’s mortgage payments should actually be falling during this time, probably by a rather greater amount than those small increases in food and gas payments.

My point here isn’t to argue the specifics of this case - because we’re not given them - but rather to suggest that it seems odd that truly middle class families should be suffering so badly because of the increases in gas and food prices, since these items are typically a small percentage of people’s incomes, especially in the middle class. And that makes this article feel more like further scaremongering from CNN than real reporting. How about emphasizing instead the factual evidence cited elsewhere in the article, and helping to turn around these perceptions, instead of leading with the perceptions and burying the facts halfway down the article and later? And how much are those poll results influenced by the fact that CNN’s been polling people about whether we’re in a recession for the last three years anyway?

CNN reports that Bill Clinton has been talking up a conspiracy against his wife in the Democratic primary:

“I can’t believe it. It is just frantic the way they are trying to push and pressure and bully all these superdelegates to come out,” Clinton said at a South Dakota campaign stop Sunday, in remarks first reported by ABC News.

Clinton also suggested some were trying to “cover up” Sen. Clinton’s chances of winning in key states that Democrats will have to win in the general election.

” ‘Oh, this is so terrible: The people they want her. Oh, this is so terrible: She is winning the general election, and he is not. Oh my goodness, we have to cover this up.’ ”

Clinton did not expound on who he was accusing.

I love that last line - you can almost hear the sneer from CNN.

Apparently, whereas Hillary found a vast right-wing conspiracy against her husband, he’s now returning the favor and calling out a vast (presumably) left-wing conspiracy against her. He appears to have bought in (or is doing a credible job pretending to have bought in) to the nonsense the campaign has been clinging to about her winning the popular vote (which he bizarrely calls “winning the general election”) which is no longer true even if you include the currently excluded Florida and Michigan results.

Now, I’ve argued before that there are reasonable arguments for her staying in the race, and I do think the media loves to push a winner over the top - enjoying the power it’s so far been largely unable to display in this election cycle. But I don’t think anyone even in our Obama-phile media is covering anything up here. Facts are stubborn things and the way things are going at present it really does seem impossible for Hillary to win. And this just adds further fuel to the fire around Clinton’s personality as an increasingly angry and bitter man who is frustrated at his inability to get his wife elected.

I read the Freakonomics blog on the NYTimes.com website frequently, and recently came across this posting by Steven Dubner. In it, he recites some of the responses given by West Point cadets to the opening phrase, “war is…”:

• Unfortunately war is necessary and has been for thousands of years.
• War is a tragic and hopefully unnecessary part of life. I pray that militaries may become deterrent forces only.
• War is a necessary evil.
• While war may appear to be the least beneficial thing to mankind and society in general, there are numerous aspects of it which further our development. Whether it be the liberation of oppressed people or simply the cooperation of two very different peoples, which results in new friendships between cultures, many positives are found amongst the tragedies.
• War is the most effective way to get things done.
• War is about protecting the innocent and fighting so others don’t have to.
• Fear leads to hatred and hatred leads to war.
• It is a horrible and necessary thing. We may as well be the best at it.
• I believe war is a necessary evil if there is a good enough reason (e.g., World War II).
• War is that in which humans grow most.
• I think war is a way to strengthen our country. It shows other countries that our country will not be stepped on and we will defend our country.
• War is a failure of diplomacy. As soldiers and officers we will manage and control the application of violence in order to protect the United States.

He goes on to say:

The 12 answers reflect the thoughtful, varied, and independent mindset that I have always encountered when dealing with folks at West Point, properly known as the United States Military Academy. It is a truly remarkable institution, and I wish the rest of the world knew more about it.

This echoes nicely the piece I wrote on John McCain’s views on war a while back. Both the speech that posting referred to and the quotes above do a good job of refuting this idea that soldiers and Republicans (presumably, especially Republican soldiers) are a bunch of warmongers. It’s refreshing to see this kind of accurate view of prospective officers’ sentiments on view out there in the open for people to see. Those who have fought or know they may be called upon to do so seem to develop a more nuanced view of war than those who sit on the sidelines, whether pacifists or warmongers. They realize the necessity of war but do not delight or glory in it. It’s ultimately a very realistic view of war and one more of us should adopt.