Cleavage, Obama, etc.
The Clinton Cleavage Clamor As everyone knows, The Scrap-book is a dedicated chronicler of the wayward press, and faithful student of journalistic tropes and tics. Case in point: The curious habit...
...Our colleague Stephen F. Hayes, author of a terrific new Cheney biography (Cheney: The Untold Story of America's Most Powerful and Controversial Vice President), tells us that the man caricatured in the mainstream media as Darth Vader stayed home and wrote a letter to his grandchildren...
...Sims writes about a change he had been noticing: "In New York, it is much easier for me—a black male in my 40's—to get a cab...
...Ted Stevens...
...If the cabbies refuse to pick them up, they are fined...
...The experience of Sims's friends, it turns out, is similar...
...I ask of you as my grandchildren what I asked of my daughters, that you always strive in your lives to do what is right...
...It's a better climate today for everybody in the city to catch a taxi than it was back then, no matter what your race," New York City's taxi commissioner tells Sims...
...That's the lesson from Calvin Sims's October 15, 2006, New York Times article, "An Arm in the Air for that Cab Ride Home...
...The program sends undercover policemen out to hail cabs...
...Oh, one more thing: The city began Operation Refusal in 1997...
...Maybe someone should tell Sen...
...The letter is signed: "May God bless and protect you...
...At first Sims speculates it may have something to do with getting older...
...So far as we are aware, the senior senator from Alaska is not famous for his leering comments, or roaming hands, or (since the name Clinton has come up) fooling around with interns...
...Well, let's try it anyway: "If you're giving a speech on higher education, as Clinton was, you don't want Ted Kennedy thinking about—and you certainly don't want to think about Chris Dodd thinking about—your cleavage...
...However, there are three major reasons why it's actually likely to be better...
...Said Obama: "You know, when I'm catching a cab in Manhattan, in the past, I think I've given my credentials...
...Obama...
...When you pay living farmers not to farm, you deter them from engaging in productive activity that might benefit society as a whole...
...For a long time their favorite was Trent Lott—probably because he was for some years GOP leader, and from Mississippi, too—but other names get used in this singular way...
...Those ungrateful peasants might be tempted to do some illicit farming on the side in order to make an extra buck or two...
...If you're really unlucky, the case might even go all the way to the Supreme Court, and then you're talking really big litigation expenses...
...You don't have to worry about any of that when you pay the dead...
...Case in point: The curious habit of left-wing columnists—females, in particular—to name a prominent Republican senator when in need of a generic name for any icky older male...
...At the very least, paying the dead not to farm isn't worse than paying the living to do the same "job...
...Once you start subsidizing the living, they will have strong incentives to lobby for ever larger subsidies and to reward politicians who hand them out, while punishing those who refuse...
...As you grow, you will come to understand the sacrifices that each generation makes to preserve freedom and democracy for future generations, and you will assume the important responsibilities of citizens in our society...
...The Scrapbook has its candidate for the next secretary of agriculture...
...Obama Watch At last week's Democratic debate, a YouTube questioner asked Barack Obama whether he was "authentically black...
...So what was Dick Cheney up to during the two hours of his acting presidency...
...By contrast, enforcement costs are rarely a problem when it comes to the dead...
...We thought of this last week when Ruth Marcus, a rookie columnist at the Washington Post, wrote a most peculiar essay in reaction to an earlier Post feature (by fashion editor Robin Givhan) that had analyzed the appearance of Hillary Clinton's decolletage on C-SPAN...
...The Scrapbook couldn't find any flaw in Somin's (tongue-in-cheek) case for paying dead farmers not to farm: It's hard to deny that dead farmers can do just as good a job of not farming as living ones...
...But he is 83 years old, and a Republican—and for Ruth Marcus, that's apparently enough...
...Which is doubly mystifying, since there are, in fact, a handful of Senate personalities whose names would have been considerably more credible than Ted Stevens as creeps and lechers...
...I. Lower Enforcement Costs...
...But then he conducts some research that suggests a city program called "Operation Refusal" may be responsible...
...We owe a special debt of gratitude to the members of our armed forces, intelligence agencies, law enforcement agencies and others who serve and sacrifice to keep us safe and free...
...perhaps even better...
...The mayor at the time...
...But they're Democrats...
...You may even have to file a lawsuit to get them to stop their nefarious black market farming...
...I'd prefer that we abolish subsidies for not farming entirely...
...When you pay living farmers not to farm, there are going to be enforcement costs...
...You reduce the production of food and raise the cost of living, especially for the poor...
...As I write this, our nation is engaged in a war with terrorists of global reach...
...Economists call this "rent dissipation...
...The compliance rate among cabbies in 2006, Sims says, was 96 percent...
...Richard B. Cheney Acting President of the United States (Grandpa Cheney)" ? Old MacDonald, R.I.P Ilya Somin, a professor of law at George Mason University, dissented at the volokh.com blog from the "predictable outrage" that greeted the Washington Post's July 23 expose, "Deceased Farmers Got USDA Payments...
...Less Rent-Seeking...
...The good news: the vicious cycle of rent-seeking, lobbying, and rent dissipation is not a problem if subsidies for not farming are confined to the dead...
...The letter is written on Cheney's official letterhead and it closes with a personal request...
...In defending Senator Clinton's choice of wardrobe, Marcus wrote the following: "If you're giving a speech on higher education, as Clinton was, you don't want Ted Stevens thinking about—and you certainly don't want to think about Ted Stevens thinking about—your cleavage...
...The Bottom Line...
...What (Acting) President Cheney Did Dick Cheney was acting president for about two hours on Saturday July 21 (while the president underwent a medical procedure...
...When it comes to minorities and New York cabbies, however, things are a little more complicated than that...
...But if we have to have them, I hope as much of the money as possible goes to the dead...
...The vigilance, diligence and unwavering commitment of those who protect our Nation has kept us safe from terrorist attacks of the kind we faced on September 11, 2001...
...Lower Deadweight Losses to Society...
...Dear Kate, Elizabeth, Grace, Philip, Richard and Sam," he began...
...Rudy Giuliani...
...It's a line Obama has used before, and the audience at the Citadel burst into applause at the candidate's caricature of New York City taxi drivers as racist...
...Many of those payments, of course, effectively pay farmers not to grow crops...
...Yes, it was a front-page story...
...This activity increases deadweight losses by deterring ever-more productive activity, and also by diverting resources to the unproductive activity of lobbying and away from the socially useful purposes...
...My principal focus as Vice President has been to help protect the American people and our way of life...
...To the surprise of Cheney haters everywhere, he didn't seize the opportunity to start a war, pardon Scooter Libby, or ship Carl Levin to Gitmo for questioning...
Vol. 12 • August 2007 • No. 44
