Averting a slump: it's the politics, stupid

As we gleefullycautiously discussed last week, Senate leadership has dropped any and all discussion of carbon tariffs in their latest attempt at 2010 energy legislation.  Today, the OECD issued a new report further explaining why opponents of carbon tariffs (like me) were happy with the new Senate bill's big omission:

The British military's dependence on information technology means it could be "fatally compromised" by a cyber-attack but the government seems unprepared for such an event, lawmakers warned Wednesday. Parliament's defence committee heard evidence that cyber-attacks could disrupt military communication and information systems, radars and satellites, and leave combat units such as airplanes or ships dysfunctional.

Japanese officialsn have little to say about a government appointed Japan Broadcasting Corporation executive who said that the Nanking Massacre of 1937-1938 never happened, the South China Morning Post reports.

from Dean Baker Doing policy work in Washington, I tend to be around people who are highly educated and think of themselves as very intelligent. Many of them think of ordinary Americans as being stupid and ill-informed. After all, they understand little about politics and the government; in their view this reflects a lack of […]

Very few people actually had the opportunity to work with Steve Jobs. And those who did hardly talk about it. 

A few months after President Obama's 2009 decision to impose steep tariffs on Chinese tires under Section 421 of US trade law, I noted that it was looking to be an abject failure in terms of its core (and only) objective: helping the US tire industry and its workers.

People are fond of saying 'it's the economy, stupid' whenever they talk about politics. But I wonder if we should say 'it's the culture war, stupid' whenever we talk about economics. Recently, Redstate's Erick Erickson started a new tumblr called ?We are the 53%? as a counter to the??'We are the 99%' tumblr that has ...