At first it would appear that Nicolas Sarkozy, the front-runner to be the conservative candidate for French president next year, has committed a political blunder by declaring himself a "friend of America" during his trip to Washington last week. He even posed for a grip-and-grin photo with President Bush and extolled the U.S. way of life.

Mr. Sarkozy's stance elicited the predictable howls of outrage. His Socialist rival, Segolene Royal, told French television: "My diplomatic policy would not consist of going and kneeling in front of George Bush." Her colleagues went further and ridiculed the French interior minister as "Bush's future poodle." French president Jacques Chirac, who is a Sarkozy adversary even though they are both members of the same party, was reportedly furious with Mr. Sarkozy, telling aides that his pro-U.S. moves were "irresponsible" and "lamentable."

But Mr. Sarkozy returned the fire. "I'm not a coward. I'm proud of this friendship and I'm happy to proclaim it," he said. Aides said his outreach to America was designed to appeal to those in the French electorate who live outside Paris and have always been more pro-U.S. than the Parisian elite.

BetFair gives Sarkozy a 52% probability of being elected French President next year (in May). Small volume: $4,182.

The U.N. address by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has had an unexpected impact - on the best seller lists of Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com.

At the start of his talk Wednesday, during which Chavez referred to President Bush as "the devil," Chavez held up a book by Noam Chomsky, "Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance," and recommended it to everyone in the General Assembly, as well as to the American people.

"The people of the United States should read this ... instead of the watching Superman movies," Chavez later told reporters.

As of Thursday afternoon, "Hegemony or Survival," originally published in 2003, had jumped into the top 10 of Amazon, where it was ranked 20,664 the day before, and Barnes & Noble.com, from a previous ranking of 748.

Angelina Jolie is set to star in the film adaptation of Ayn Rand's iconic tome "Atlas Shrugged" for Lionsgate. Howard and Karen Baldwin ("Ray"), who hold the rights to Rand's most ambitious novel, are producing with Media Talent Group topper Geyer Kosinski, Jolie's manager.

Jolie, a longtime fan of Rand's, was eager to play the role of Dagney Taggart, the most powerful female character in any of Rand's books.

A movie version of the Russian-born author's novel, which runs more than 1,100 pages, has been long in the making. For years, producer Al Ruddy tried to bring "Atlas Shrugged" to the bigscreen, attracting the interest of Clint Eastwood, Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway along the way.

Also producing are Lionsgate vice chair Michael Burns and president of production Michael Paseornek, who were instrumental in bringing the project into the indie studio.

The Baldwins acquired the film rights in 2003 upon leaving Crusader Entertainment, a partnership between Philip Anschutz and John Aglialoro's company.

Jolie will next be seen in Robert Zemeckis' "Beowulf" and "The Good Shepherd," directed by Robert De Niro. She's about to start filming "A Mighty Heart," based on the book by Mariane Pearl, widow of murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. In addition thesp will lend her voice to animated pic "Kung Fu Panda."

Give it up, for your own sake. You're just humiliating yourself further...

Brad, you haven't exactly covered yourself with glory when it comes to Krugman [How could he -- there's not enough glory in the world to cover him!]. But in this case you're right. I have to admit it, and I have said as much on my blog.

Representatives of the governments of the world, good morning to all of you. First of all, I would like to invite you, very respectfully, to those who have not read this book, to read it.

Noam Chomsky, one of the most prestigious American and world intellectuals, Noam Chomsky, and this is one of his most recent books, 'Hegemony or Survival: The Imperialist Strategy of the United States.'" [Holds up book, waves it in front of General Assembly.] "It's an excellent book to help us understand what has been happening in the world throughout the 20th century, and what's happening now, and the greatest threat looming over our planet.

The hegemonic pretensions of the American empire are placing at risk the very survival of the human species.

Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore on Monday suggested taxing carbon dioxide emissions instead of employees' pay in a bid to stem global warming.

"Penalizing pollution instead of penalizing employment will work to reduce that pollution," Gore said in a speech at New York University School of Law...

"Instead of discouraging businesses from hiring more employees it would discourage business from producing more pollution," Gore said.

Those who love Krugman for his Bush bashing should not take his word on the economy, any more than those who hate him for it should reject everything he says on that topic. In the latter group, National Review on-line [sic] columnist Donald Luskin unfortunately makes it seem as though distaste for Krugman’s economic reportage must split along party lines (not true in my case, since I voted for Bush’s Democratic challengers both times).

Late Tuesday, TradeSports' futures contract for GOP House control was trading at 53.8 — a 53.8% chance. TradeSports gives an 80.3% chance that Republicans will hold onto the Senate...

The prediction markets tend to do better than polls because they are able to capture "the wisdom of crowds" and consider questions a pollster wouldn't think to ask, said Don Luskin, chief investment officer at TrendMacrolytics.

When real money is at stake, those making predictions are more likely to integrate and weigh all the evidence.

This generates "a holistic view" that isn't skewed by personal bias, he said.

Republicans shouldn't be breathing easily, however. Luskin figures the markets will have much better predictive power closer to Nov. 7. He notes current readings basically signal a 50-50 contest.

What's noteworthy is that these markets suggest Republicans have revived from "a near-death experience," Luskin said. In early September, the markets gave Republicans only about a 40% chance of holding the House.

The Blogosphere as a whole: These are the results if you add all the niches together:

Male: 69%
Female: 31%
***
White/Caucasian/European: 73%
Black/African: 9%
Asian: 10%
Middle Eastern/Arab: 1%
Latino/Hispanic: 6%
Native American: 1%...

Conclusions:

1. The only niches where females outnumbered males were Sex Blogs, Gossip/Fashion Blogs, Feminist Blogs, and Food Blogs.

2. White males make up the largest group within the blogosphere as a whole.

...it's logical to ask what effect baby-boomer retirements will have on real estate and financial markets. The question is logical, but it puts the emphasis on the wrong side of the equation. The real future value of U.S. assets won't be determined by retirements, but by policy decisions on education, taxation, regulation, immigration, international investment and the environment.

Baby boomer asset liquidation isn't really a financial market issue because (1) there's plenty of liquidity in the global economy; (2) as the rest of the world becomes wealthier, people outside the U.S. will own a greater percentage of global assets and they'll want to keep a share of their net worth in America; (3) liquidity will grow in both developed and developing nations as they adopt recent American financial innovations and market structures; (4) as baby boomers live longer and healthier, their new mantra will become "Who wants to retire?" and (5) most assets won't need to be sold.

Jewish Economic Theory and Practice: Why the Distaste for Economic Liberalism?

Milton Himmelfarb, one of the most well-known sociographers of the American Jewish community, definitively summed up the American Jewish political paradox with his famous aphorism, Jews earn like Episcopalians and vote like Puerto Ricans. American Jews, it seems, tenaciously refuse to be part of any empirical regularity that links higher income levels with more conservative, or economically liberal (in the European sense), political positions. So why is it that American Jews suffer from (or perhaps enjoy) a particularly acute case of champagne socialism? The most popular answer to this difficult question involves the impact of Judaism on the belief system of American Jews, and Judaism's emphasis on aggressively pursuing social justice (Fuchs (1956)). The conventional wisdom is that Judaism motivates Jews to be highly educated and succeed professionally but to also fervently support collectivist social policies and other forms of aggressive government intervention for shaping an ideal society.

In this paper, we will attempt to cast serious doubt on the plausibility of this theory. In our view, the fundamental problem with the standard answer is that it is not at all true that Judaism is a set of principles that endorses income redistribution and other progressive social programs. In fact, we will try to show the exact opposite, that Judaism is a system of thought that more naturally aligns itself with the basic principles of economic liberalism. Jewish economic theory does not explain the widespread distaste amongst Jews for a free market political agenda.

The push for a target also comes as Fed officials seem uncertain about how inflation works and are divided over how quickly to bring it down.

Not a few people made the calculation that if Monica Lewinsky hadn’t been on pizza duty during the government shutdown of 1995 (and Clinton not so predisposed to share the snack) there might never have been a Bush Presidency at all, or a hyped case for war in Iraq, a botched occupation, a skyrocketing budget deficit, a morally and bureaucratically bungled reaction to Hurricane Katrina, and a loss of American prestige around the world. His kingdom for a slice!

Update... reader John Seater suggests, "Maybe because it wasn't 'many' but only one -- himself."

Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 9:11 AM | link  

Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 9:09 AM | link