Bolter bolter bolter - Boy, I can't get enough of the PBS show "Carrier." Maybe I can get the DVD for Father's Day.

Home court advantage? - So far, Obama has won the delegate vote in every state that borders Illinois. But his lead over Hillary is slipping fast in Indiana and he's going to get crushed in Kentucky, if the contest goes that long.

Don't negotiate, legislate!

I think cars are too expensive. I blame the greedy car companies and I want Michigan congressman John Conyers to set the price of automobiles. While Congress is at it, let's set the price of gasoline since there's no greater success story in world history than government intervention into free trade. In today's Boston Globe, Jeff Jacoby suggests that Congress has no business telling the credit card companies their business:

As card transactions have grown more popular, interchange fees have skyrocketed. They now amount to $35 billion a year, and some retailers want the government to compel Visa and MasterCard to lower them. Legislation sponsored by US Representatives John Conyers, Democrat of Michigan, and Chris Cannon, Republican of Utah, would require the credit-card associations to enter into formal negotiations with retailers; if agreement weren't reached, it would authorize a three-judge panel to unilaterally impose interchange fees.

And why would retailers, who surely wouldn't want government bureaucrats telling them what to charge for coats or computers or Cracker Jack, want Visa and MasterCard to be told what to charge for credit-card services? Because, they claim, the card networks have so much power that they are immune to the market pressures that would be driving interchange fees down in a truly competitive market.

But Visa and MasterCard are hardly monopolies, and merchants are not without other options. No one is forced to accept Visa and MasterCard; retailers are free to take only American Express or Discover, which operate on a different model and don't charge interchange fees. Online vendors have even more choices, such as PayPal or Google Checkout. And, of course, there are the old standbys: cash and checks.

Cash? Do people still use that?

Maybe college isn't for you - Well, this article is pretty depressing, and all but calls higher education a scam. The conclusion seems to be that less-prepared students should think twice, otherwise they'll find themselves much poorer and not much smarter.

Extra - Maggie's Farm: "The most overrated product"

Whoops, lost my powers! - 8 (Pointless) Laws All Comic Book Movies Follow

Screech: not funny.

Rev. Wright's Sanjaya moment

I listened to Barack Obama's former pastor's entire speech on C-Span Radio today and I don't think I've ever witnessed a more ham-handed, solipsistic, self-aggrandizing attempt to extend 15 minutes of fame since American Idol's Sanjaya wrapped his hair into a ponytail Mohawk. Naturally, I'm late for the party, but super-Obama supporter Andrew Sullivan has it right:

Obama needs not just to distance himself from Wright's views; he needs to disown him at this point. Wright himself, it seems to me, has become part of what Obama is fighting against: the boomer, Vietnam era's obsession with its red-blue, white-black, pro and anti-America fixations. That is not what this election needs to be about; and Wright's massive, racially divisive and, yes, bitter provocation requires a proportionate response.

Reverend Wright reminded us that this isn't about Reverend Wright; that it's not Reverend Wright being attacked but the Black Church. To which my reply is: that Black Church is crazy.

Those jerks in the Chamber of Commerce hate Americans - This editorial from the Boston Globe supports a workplace entitlement of paid family leave, subsidized with a new payroll tax. There's nary a word as to how businesses would react overtly or covertly to this new benefit and maybe it's not a terrible idea, but the Globe only shows one side of the story and makes you feel like you're kicking Grandma to the curb if you disagree.

The downside of affluence - It seems that the days of sitting around the pub for hours on end with a pint of Guinness are coming to an end in Ireland. According this Boston Globe article, a thousand rural pubs have closed on the Emerald Isle because the economy is so strong that people would prefer to just go home and watch TV. Nut quote from an old-timer: "Where can we go after a funeral? After work? Where would we all meet?" Blimey!

Scroll down for comments - At some point, Amazon must have listed this HP printer with a price tag of $50,000,000. This then led to a conga line of customer reviews like this: "At $49,000,000, this would be a bargain. At $50,000,000, this is simply too steep. I'm sure you can find this at Costco or Sam's Club for a more reasonable price." (HT: Fark)

"Swoon" or "doom"? - Looks like it's "swoon" based on the reaction at Power Line: "Obama showed, once again, that he is a rare political talent." I missed the interview (church) but the transcript can be found here.

Speaking of Sunday morning - Here's the talkshow lineup and it's all Democrats. Undoubtably, the hot ticket will be Obama's facedown with Chris Wallace.

Obama's negatives climb - From Marc Ambinder: "One of the more problematic results for Obama was that four in 10 of registered voters (including Republicans and independents) now have an unfavorable opinion of him--and the same number said there is "no chance" they will vote for Obama if he becomes the nominee."

It will be interesting to see how Obama's numbers move after his much-anticipated interview on "Fox News Sunday" tomorrow. Will it be "swoon" or "doom"?

Back from Boston - The lowlight of my trip was a stroll through Boston Common, interrupted by a half-dozen (obvious) drug addicts, loudly cursing at each other as tourists looked on, mortified. C'mon, kids, let's see those swan boats!

Also, here's something I didn't know: Paul Revere's house, built in 1680, is the last original building in Boston left over from the 17th century. I figured there would be some original buildings from Harvard (est. 1638) but they must have been renovated in the intervening 370 years.

Unintended consequences, enter the "butt-leggers"

From today's Boston Globe: "Beacon Hill's gift to the black market"

Massachusetts is awash in bootleg cigarettes.

High state cigarette taxes have turned packs of cigarettes into pots of gold for criminals, spawning a massive black market supplied by both smugglers and thieves who can quickly unload stolen cigarettes for cash.

Legislators on Beacon Hill are now planning to almost double the criminal profit margin by hiking the state cigarette tax by another buck a pack. This will only place more citizens in harm's way.

You would think Massachusetts would learn from her mistakes:

The Bay State is no stranger to cigarette tax-induced crime. Soon after the state tax was enacted in 1939, legal, tax-paid sales fell, as cigarettes were smuggled in or diverted from tax-free stocks and sold in the ordinary market. Merchants in neighboring states also began advertising the tax-free prices available in their stores.

Massachusetts tax authorities responded by stationing agents in neighboring states to photograph border shoppers lured by bargain smokes. That failed, and so did more frequent audits of wholesalers and retailers.

But, much like Barack Obama's wisdom that higher taxes on capital gains are meant to be punative rather than revenue-generating, the high cigarette taxes serve some government sense of "fairness" even if tax revenues drop and organized crime flourishes.

Hey, they tried to do the right thing.

Freedom trail! - I'm heading to Boston for the weekend to teach my kids about Paul Revere and stuff. Keep the comments clean, patriots.

What's wrong with us? - Obama''s favorite Rev. Wright says we just don't get him. Oh, and Obama's just putting on a show because he's a politician.

A must for the trivia buff - Wall Street Journal: "If you have ChaCha and a cellphone, you have answers." Just for laughs, I called and asked "Who won the Lenox Industrial Tools at New Hampshire Speedway last year?" About 20 minutes later, I got a text message with the correct answer: Denny Hamlin. Cool!

Unintended consequences, again

In "Bailout of the Year" Opinion Journal explains how Congress forced banks out of the student loan business so now Washington wants to bail out the banks: "To summarize: Congress mandated a return on student loans that is too low to attract private capital in the current market. So Congress will now use your money to create artificial investor demand. Taxpayers will bear more risk so that Congress can fashion a new business model to replace the one it just destroyed. The Bush Administration, unwisely but typically, has endorsed this approach."

Oh we all hate the inequities of capitalism, until we try to fix them. Here's Sir John Cowperthwaite, first Financial Secretary of Hong Kong: "In the long run, the aggregate of decisions of individual businessmen, exercising individual judgment in a free economy, even if often mistaken, is less likely to do harm than the centralised decisions of a government, and certainly the harm is likely to be counteracted faster."

Yet, over and over, people are taken in by the siren call that government can make everything right. For example, here's a review of Hillary Clinton on Keith Olbermann's show when asked about high gas prices:

What can the president really do to bring down gas prices? Clinton seemed slow to respond. (Maybe she was as surprised by the question as I was?) But she followed up with a long, nuanced answer. She started by offering a few short-term fixes: investigating possible market manipulation, tapping the strategic petroleum reserve, and taxing the oil companies and using it to finance a consumer tax holiday (something I hadn't heard before). She then acknowledged the limits of this strategy and said the real answer was encouraging energy independence over the long term.

There's absolutely nothing there that has a hope of bringing down oil prices. Taxing the oil companies? Oh, I'm sure they won't pass on the cost to drivers, no more than the cigarette companies pass on the cost to smokers. And while the Saudis rake in the cash on $100+ barrels of oil, we don't dare upset the Alaskan caribou and forge a path to energy independence. The percentage of oil imported into the United States is now much, much higher than the level in 1973 when OPEC shocked the American economy into submission.

Please, no more help from the government.

Extra - The government tries to "help" with ethanol, too.

Before Mickey Mouse