Couldn’t Help But Notice (111207)

I’d love to see the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) repealed, but unconditionally and without offsets involving new taxes. If the “paygo” crowd wants offsets, they should reduce spending. That is why the AMT repeal passed last week is totally unacceptable. I believe that AMT repeal would mostly pay for itself (unlike the cap gains and dividends tax cuts, which have totally paid for themselves) in additional tax revenues from increased economic activity.

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Michael Medved continues the stunning roll that he is on:

….. one of the most common (and ignorant) indictments of the Iraq War ….. (has) ….. angry critics of Bush policy emphatically insisting: “This is the first time in history we ever attacked any country that hadn’t attacked us first.” In fact, virtually all our major wars began without some clear-cut attack by the enemy on American soil: the French-and-Indian War, the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Spanish American War, World War I, Korea, Vietnam and the First Gulf War claimed a total of tens of thousands of American lives based on incidents or interests, but without any undeniable mass assault. In 230 years of history only the Civil War (where Lincoln cleverly lured Southern forces into the initial bombardment of federal property at Fort Sumter) and World War II (where Japan struck at precisely one of those outposts of empire in distant Hawaii that anti-imperialists often decry) commenced in response to enemy strikes.

Read the whole thing.

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It looks like we’ll still have Antioch College to kick around. Run some of the numbers at the article, though, and you’ll see that the school, whose enrollment is now smaller than my high school senior class, will probably need eeeeevil capitalistic help to survive.

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This type of campus-victim hoax is all too frequent (HT Taranto at Best of the Web, who notes big differences between the campus newspaper story just linked and this WaPo article).

The frequency of these incidents is a red-flag indicator that the punishments are usually too light. Why the students are able to remain at the school after such serious betrayal is hard to fathom.

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Peak Oilers must deal with more “bad” news (HT American Thinker):

Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Brazil’s state-controlled oil company, said its Tupi field may contain as much as 8 billion barrels of oil and natural gas, an amount that could boost the country’s reserves by 62 percent. The company’s shares rose the most in more than nine years.

In an update at the American Thinker post, Ed Lasky mentions a reader’s clarification that what is recoverable is far less. Fair enough, but if the past is any guide, the estimate of how much oil is there is probably low.

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Somebody ought to figure out the imputed value of this:

The big broadcast networks have treated the Democratic frontrunners like celebrities worthy of intense coverage, while the Republican candidates have received far less TV time. A new Media Research Center study of the ABC, CBS and NBC morning news shows has found that in the first 10 months of 2007, the networks spent more time covering the Democratic race and spent far more time interviewing the Democratic candidates than the Republicans. And those interviews were much friendlier to the Democrats, with the morning show anchors emphasizing a predominantly liberal agenda.

All three networks spent more time covering the Democrats’ nomination race than the contest for the GOP nomination. Overall, 431 out of the total 797 campaign segments (54%) focused on the Democrats, compared to 247 (31%) devoted to the Republicans. The remaining 119 stories (15%) either dealt with both parties about equally, or dealt with a nonpartisan campaign topic, such as the growing use of YouTube by all candidates.

The indefatigable Media Research Center, for whom yours truly is a Contributing Editor at its NewsBusters blog, has extensively chronicled this (”Rise and Shine on Democrats“), with an accompanying Executive Summary.