The attack on Turkey also poses challenges for the U.S. and, even more so, the Europeans. Are we willing to stand by our ally, with consistent rhetoric as well as military and diplomatic agreements of mutual convenience? And can the Europeans genuinely accept a secular state and Muslim nation as one of their own, challenging both European "Christendom" and their own Muslim fundamentalists? The Guardian article is a must read. (Via Andrew Sullivan.)

Of all the problems Japan faces, the one bound to have the greatest effect on its future is not North Korea’s budding nuclear program, its own unending recession, the dispatch of Japanese forces to a restive Iraq, or even the prospect of a new natural disaster like the earthquake that devastated Kobe in 1995. No, what really threatens Japan’s future is the country’s shrinking population and, more fundamentally, the astonishing disconnect between Japanese men and women that underlies it.

Though Japan’s demographic problems may not be news, the figures are astounding. The number of children the average Japanese woman bears has declined almost continuously since peaking at four during the postwar baby boom. As of last year, it had fallen to 1.32--far below the rate required to maintain current population levels. In three years, Japan’s population will crest at 127.5 million and then begin a long, slow slide to about half that level by 2100. The consequences for the economy--falling production, plunging land values, and soaring taxes--will be dire.

Even more troubling is the cluelessness of the men who run Japan about the cause of this demographic decline. They have never been interested in why Japanese women shun marriage and motherhood; in fact, when Japanese women point out the difficulties they face, men dismiss their complaints as a twittering of birds, unworthy of male attention.

The joys of traditional values.

Among the other articles: Fed Governor Ben Bernanke on the dangers of deflation and an examination of the growing role of anti-semitism in the antiglobalization movement (a trend that cries out for the ideological framework provided in The Future and Its Enemies).

I'm not a Libertarian For Dean, though I have to admit I enjoy his ability to annoy the Democratic party establishment. (I realize that this is petty of me.) But most of the libs I know who support Dean would give a different answer: They want divided government, and Dean strikes them as someone whose worst instincts -- unlike Bush's -- could be contained by a Republican Congress.

I'm a fan of divided government myself and was rooting for Senate Democrats to derail the Bush administration's plans to vastly expand Medicare. Too bad their filibuster failed. Of course, they wanted to expand entitlements even more. I'm hopeful they'll torpedo the awful energy bill. (For tons of info on the energy bill, see Lynne Kiesling's blog.)

In happier news, mazel tov to Jesse and his new wife.

The stakes in that region could not be higher. If the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place of stagnation and anger and violence for export. And as we saw in the ruins of two towers, no distance on the map will protect our lives and way of life. If the greater Middle East joins the democratic revolution that has reached much of the world, the lives of millions in that region will be bettered, and a trend of conflict and fear will be ended at its source.

The movement of history will not come about quickly. Because of our own democratic development -- the fact that it was gradual and, at times, turbulent -- we must be patient with others. And the Middle East countries have some distance to travel.

Arab scholars speak of a freedom deficit that has separated whole nations from the progress of our time. The essentials of social and material progress -- limited government, equal justice under law, religious and economic liberty, political participation, free press, and respect for the rights of women -- have been scarce across the region. Yet that has begun to change. In an arc of reform from Morocco to Jordan to Qatar, we are seeing elections and new protections for women and the stirring of political pluralism. Many governments are realizing that theocracy and dictatorship do not lead to national greatness; they end in national ruin. They are finding, as others will find, that national progress and dignity are achieved when governments are just and people are free.

The democratic progress we've seen in the Middle East was not imposed from abroad, and neither will the greater progress we hope to see. Freedom, by definition, must be chosen, and defended by those who choose it. Our part, as free nations, is to ally ourselves with reform, wherever it occurs.

Perhaps the most helpful change we can make is to change in our own thinking. In the West, there's been a certain skepticism about the capacity or even the desire of Middle Eastern peoples for self-government. We're told that Islam is somehow inconsistent with a democratic culture. Yet more than half of the world's Muslims are today contributing citizens in democratic societies. It is suggested that the poor, in their daily struggles, care little for self-government. Yet the poor, especially, need the power of democracy to defend themselves against corrupt elites.

Peoples of the Middle East share a high civilization, a religion of personal responsibility, and a need for freedom as deep as our own. It is not realism to suppose that one-fifth of humanity is unsuited to liberty; it is pessimism and condescension, and we should have none of it. (Applause.)

We must shake off decades of failed policy in the Middle East. Your nation and mine, in the past, have been willing to make a bargain, to tolerate oppression for the sake of stability. Longstanding ties often led us to overlook the faults of local elites. Yet this bargain did not bring stability or make us safe. It merely bought time, while problems festered and ideologies of violence took hold.

As recent history has shown, we cannot turn a blind eye to oppression just because the oppression is not in our own backyard. No longer should we think tyranny is benign because it is temporarily convenient. Tyranny is never benign to its victims, and our great democracies should oppose tyranny wherever it is found. (Applause.)

Now we're pursuing a different course, a forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East. We will consistently challenge the enemies of reform and confront the allies of terror. We will expect a higher standard from our friends in the region, and we will meet our responsibilities in Afghanistan and in Iraq by finishing the work of democracy we have begun.

The part about "tolerat[ing] opression for the sake of stability" sounds aimed not only at the Saudis but at Bush 41, who was such an advocate of stability that his administration didn't even want the Baltic republics to leave the Soviet Union. That instability worked out pretty well. Middle Eastern stability didn't.

The week after Thanksgiving, I'll be in the Carolinas, speaking in Greenville, SC, Charlotte, and Raleigh. For more information, see the book tour page.

I'm not sure what you all are reading back home, but it is simply not the case that the UK -- or even London -- is rising up in anger over the Bush visit. A (small) majority supports the visit, even if a (slight) majority oppose him and the war. Not that different than, say, New York or Washington. My impression is that most Britons -- and even most Londoners -- are no more irritated by the President than by the "protesters."

Sensible people with jobs have better things to do with their time than protesting in the street. And sensible people who actually want to change policy have more effective ways of persuasion.

The National Post review is here, but only for a few more days.

The December issue of Metropolis has an interesting review, but it isn't online.

After years of government deregulation of energy markets, telecommunications, the airlines and other major industries, Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean is proposing a significant reversal: a comprehensive "re-regulation" of U.S. businesses.

The former Vermont governor said he would reverse the trend toward deregulation pursued by recent presidents -- including, in some respects, Bill Clinton -- to help restore faith in scandal-plagued U.S. corporations and better protect U.S. workers.

In an interview around midnight Monday on his campaign plane with a small group of reporters, Dean listed likely targets for what he dubbed as his "re-regulation" campaign: utilities, large media companies and any business that offers stock options. Dean did not rule out "re-regulating" the telecommunications industry, too.

He also said a Dean administration would require new workers' standards, a much broader right to unionize and new "transparency" requirements for corporations that go beyond the recently enacted Sarbanes-Oxley law.

The specifics are all rather vague, but the underlying attitude is clear. Dean is running as a guy who wants to control the economy from Washington and who sees business as fundamentally bad. "Any business that offers stock options" covers a lot of companies, including some of the economy's most promising and dynamic.

Regulation tends to be relatively invisible to the general public, in part because it's mind-numbingly technical. That makes it much more difficult to reverse, much easier for interest groups to manipulate, and much more dangerous to the general health of the economy than the taxing and spending that attract attention from pundits.

It will be interesting to see how--or if--self-described "libertarians for Dean" respond to his re-regulation campaign. Are they simply looking for an antiwar candidate, and accepting Dean as the best alternative on their top issue? Are they genuinely upset with Bush's less-than-stellar record on issues like free trade, in which case Dean would be worse and should be no more appealing? Or are they just trying to hang with the cool kids?

In fact, of course, the American South knows what it's like to lose a war, and to be occupied, which may possibly explain why the American South is also far more military-minded than other parts of the United States -- or, for that matter, than London. And the American South certainly didn't like being occupied. Reconstruction was very unpopular, and my grandmother can still tell stories that she heard from her grandmother about Union soldiers passing through and stripping the place bare of everything except what they were able to hide, and of the years (decades, really) of privation that followed the war.

Southerners are, and were, extremely proud and prickly, which made the whole losing-and-occupation experience particularly unpleasant. (Taking offense at being dissed is not a black thing. It's a southern thing that blacks have only recently been allowed to express without fear of violent reprisal.) But, as Glenn notes, our ancestors eventually rejoined the Union and even became devoted to it. He doesn't note another effect, which helps explain his views and mine: If war is coming, Southerners know that it's better to fight on the other guy's territory.

Actually, most Americans are descended from refugees (or prisoners) from occupied lands of one sort or another. It's a tribute to the power of American identity that nobody notices.

My name is Michael Demmons and, like yourself, I write a blog. I recently linked to your site via Independent Gay Forum. I have to say that I am very happy to have stopped by. I am a Canadian who works in the United States. I am also gay. My partner and I went to Ottawa, Canada a couple weeks ago and got married--legally married. It was one of the happiest days of my life. I met Robert three years ago and we have been together ever since.

One of the things that keeps me awake at night is that I am here on a temporary work visa. It matters not whether Robert and I are married. If I lose my job, I have ten days to pack and leave the country. No questions asked. No choices. I leave my house, my life, my husband. Robert would have to stay here initially to ensure that everything got straightened out. Presumably, he would attempt to find a job in Canada and move there. However, with the currency exchange rate between our two countries, it is much more advantageous for him to stay here, at least for awhile, to pay off his student loans in USD$$.

I want you to know that I appreciate your opinions on the subject, and I'm glad that someone of your popularity and "straight" orientation is not afraid to espouse them. Hopefully, marriage will become an "equal opportunity" institution here in the United States and I will not have to pack and go on short notice some day.

A government-recognized secular "family registry" of the sort proposed by blogger Bill Ernoehazy in this reaction to the Massachusetts decision would also solve the problem. But I think we'll get gay marriage long before we get legal recognition of families as matters of contract rather than status.

Opposition to gay marriage has increased since the summer and a narrow majority of Americans also oppose allowing gays and lesbians to enter legal agreements that fall short of marriage. Moreover, despite the overall rise in tolerance toward gays since the 1980s, many Americans remain highly critical of homosexuals--and religious belief is a major factor in these attitudes.

A 55% majority believes it is a sin to engage in homosexual behavior, and that view is much more prevalent among those who have a high level of religious commitment (76%). About half of all Americans have an unfavorable opinion of gay men (50%) and lesbians (48%), but highly religious people are much more likely to hold negative views.

Religiosity is clearly a factor in the recent rise in opposition to gay marriage. Overall, nearly six-in-ten Americans (59%) oppose gay marriage, up from 53% in July. But those with a high level of religious commitment now oppose gay marriage by more than six-to-one (80%-12%), a significant shift since July (71%-21%). The public is somewhat more supportive of legal agreements for gays that provide many of the same benefits of marriage; still, a 51% majority also opposes this step.

A new national survey of 1,515 adults, conducted Oct. 15-19 by the Pew Research Center for The People & The Press and the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life finds that homosexuality in general --not merely the contentious issue of gay marriage --is a major topic in churches and other houses of worship. In fact, clergy are nearly as likely to address homosexuality from the pulpit as they are to speak out about abortion or prayer in school, say people who attend church regularly.

The clergy in evangelical churches focus considerably more attention on homosexuality-- and address it far more negatively--than do ministers and priests in other denominations. Two-thirds of evangelical Protestants who attend church services at least once a month say their ministers speak out on homosexual issues, compared with only about half of Catholics (49%) and just a third of mainline Protestants (33%). And compared with others who attend services where homosexuality is discussed, substantially more evangelicals (86%) say the message they are receiving is that homosexuality should be discouraged, not accepted.

The poll finds that people who hear clergy talk about homosexuality are more likely to have highly unfavorable views of gays and lesbians. This is especially the case in evangelical churches. Fully 55% of evangelicals who attend services where the issue of homosexuality is addressed have very unfavorable views of homosexuals. This compares with 28% of those who regularly attend services in non-evangelical Protestant and Catholic churches where clergy discuss homosexuality. Similarly, evangelicals who hear sermons on this issue are much more apt than others to believe that gays and lesbians can change their sexual orientation and to view homosexuality as a threat to the country.

The survey underscores how the debate over societal acceptance of homosexuality has shifted since the mid-1980s. The public has moved decisively in the direction of tolerance on many questions; in particular, discrimination against homosexuals is now widely opposed.

As I've said before, saying that homosexuality is wrong has increasingly become the defining public characteristic of evangelical Protestants. Publicly disapproving of gays separates them from popular culture--and, hence, reinforces religious commitment--while exacting little personal toll. When I was a kid, evangelical churches disapproved of dancing, of rock music, of working women, of divorce. Now they incorporate all of those elements in their church programs. (They still don't like divorce--who does?--but today's evangelical churches not only have programs for divorced members, they even arrange their buildings' security so non-custodial parents can't swipe the kids.) What's left? Gays. That's why pastors tend to talk so much about them.

"I have great respect for Wes Clark," Mr. Kerry said, "but his proposal to rely on Saudi commandos to go into Pakistan to find Osama bin Laden just won't withstand scrutiny."

Mr. Kerry said in a statement that the Saudis had supported the Taliban in Afghanistan and often turned a blind eye to Al Qaeda and added, "I fear operational collaborations with the Saudis in Pakistan and Afghanistan would create serious intelligence and security risks."

Or, to put it in plain English, Are you crazy?

Both left-wing and right-wing commentators lament media bias. The right wing cites the predominant Democratic orientations - often 80 to 90 percent - of major journalists. The left wing cites the right wing pundits, such as Rush Limbaugh, or the growing success of Fox News.  

Why do the major media sometimes slant to the left, and other times slant to the right? The answer is simple: viewers want them to. We look to the media for entertainment, drama, and titillation before objectivity. Journalists, to get ahead, must produce marketable stories with some kind of emotional slant, which typically will have broader political implications. The result: it looks like media bias when in fact journalists, operating in a highly competitive environment, are simply doing their best to attract an audience.

I think there's also some self-selection bias on the supply side. Particularly opinionated people--Paul Krugman and Bill O'Reilly are pictured on the TCS site--are attracted to opinion journalism. People suspicious of institutions are attracted to investigative journalism. And people who want to hit it rich go into other fields.

But Tyler's point is absolutely true: You may hate certain types of commentary or certain types of stories, but generally they're wildly popular with someone. Read his story here.

But President Bush's steel tariffs, which were intended to score political points in key manufacturing states, have already proven to be bad economics in California. They've hurt a slew of small, struggling manufacturers and even threatened to bust the budget for retrofitting the Bay Bridge.

Worse, if the president refuses to lift the tariffs, which the World Trade Organization ruled were illegal on Monday, locally grown produce from avocados to oranges, lemons and rice, could end up rotting in shipping containers, the victims of retaliation in a looming trade war. Other California products such as clothes and machinery could be held hostage as well.

The steel tariffs were always about electoral politics -- not economics. They amounted to a giveaway to antiquated and inefficient steel producers in states such as Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and West Virginia, which Bush needs to win to get re-elected. In the tug of war between the president's economic advisers, who opposed the tariffs, and his political advisers, who favored them, the latter prevailed.

The tariffs have given breathing room to some beleaguered steel markers and saved some jobs in that industry. But they've hurt the makers of everything from washing machines to auto parts, who have had to pay higher prices for steel. The higher prices dampen hiring and, ironically, accelerate the migration of jobs overseas.

The Rove Tariffs, as Andrew Sullivan calls them, don't just hurt California, a state Bush won't win anyway. The tariffs hurt the American economy as a whole, they hurt America's credibility abroad, and they definitely hurt the administration's credibility on economic issues. If there's one thing Candidate Bush appeared to believe in his heart of hearts, it was that free trade is good. If you can't trust him on a small, obvious policy issue like this one, how can you trust him on more difficult questions?

President Bush is scheduled to travel Sunday to Britain to spend three days in Buckingham Palace as a guest of Queen Elizabeth. No doubt he and Prime Minister Blair have much to discuss at this critical juncture of the war on terror. Nevertheless, we have to face some unwelcome facts. President Bush is not widely popular in Britain. He will not receive a warm welcome from the larger British public. Meanwhile, a vociferous and often violent minority is planning massive protests in central London.

British police have responded to the threat of unrest by banning demonstrators from the area immediately around Parliament. But the cameras will follow wherever the protesters go, and the images those cameras will broadcast – of enraged masses hurling themselves at barricades to be beaten back by police – will look equally awful whether the protests take place 100 yards or 100 blocks from Big Ben.

For a tourist, three days is a very short stay. But for the President of the United States to spend so long in one foreign country represents a huge commitment of time: It’s as long as a G-8 meeting for example, the most important summit of the year. The president will surely use the time well. But so will the protesters. And the British, American, and global viewing publics will be treated to every screeching minute of those raucous 72 hours.

David, who knows Bush better than I ever will, suspects p.r. sabotage within the U.S. government. But maybe Bush is just stubborn--not one to back down in the face of protests. Texans are a stiff-necked people.

As is gratifyingly common in Dallas, locals are organizing to raise money to help the family. My D Magazine colleague (she actually works there) Jennifer Chininis blogs about an upcoming fundraiser:

A few weeks after September 11, 2001, Vasudev Patel, a Hindu immigrant from northern India and U.S. citizen, was shot and killed in his convenience store/gas station in Mesquite. Since then, his wife Alka has bravely kept the convenience store open and has been raising their two children by herself. Susie Priorie, Carol Brettell, and D Magazine contributing photographer Nan Coulter want to help Alka and her family, so they are holding a fundraiser on Sunday, November 23, from 5-7 p.m., at Susie's restaurant, Iris. Please join them for Indian food, Indian music, wine, and conviviality. Admission is a $50 donation at the door to the Children of Alka Patel Fund.

Given my travel schedule, I'm not sure I'll be able to attend, but if you're in the area, it sounds like fun for a worthy cause. Here's info on Iris, the restaurant where the fundraiser is being held.

In March, I have unrelated trips to Clearwater Beach, FL, and Santa Fe. If you have a group in either area that would be interested in sponsoring an event while I'm in town, please contact me.

I'm doing my best to make the list comprehensive, so if I've missed something you know about, please let me know. When I have more time--this is a hectic travel week--I'll respond to a few of the more interesting and/or aggravating reviews.

with due respect, l apologize for intruding as we have not known ourselves or met previously. Despite that, I am constrained to write you this letter because of my present situation.

I am Mrs. Amina Amin, the widow of the late Military Head of state of Uganda Present Idi Amin; He died at 8:20 a.m. Saturday 9th of August 2003[1:20 a.m. EDT] at King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Saudi Arabia.

In spite of the above, I am presently receiving treatment in a specialist hospital at Cotonou in Republic of Benin for a chronic heart disease that has almost paralyzed me and affected my immune system, and as a result of my present condition l have decided to seek for your help in assisting to concluding a pending business arrangement. The funds to carry out this project are presently deposited with a Finance company abroad.

The funds emanates from Kickbacks from contract , which my late husband has executed with Saudi Arabian Government for export of Crude Oil. Amin's rule was marked by extreme nationalism, as thus the international communities saw my husband's leadership as bad governance, and this led to the imposition of sanctions on members of our families. Having been going through agonizing and excruciating circumstances which have given rise to my very poor state of health, l now seize this opportunity to seek in confidence your assistance in fronting as a close family ally in receiving the funds on my behalf as all the documents to formalize this project would be made available to you upon the receipt of your consent.

If my confidential terms are ok by you, you must promise me that you will use a certain percentage of the money as donation to charitable organizations in your country, while part of the money will be used to support same programs in Africa. L have a daughter who is Fifteen years of age and my share of the fund will be made available to her when she becomes of age. If you are ready to act accordingly in this manner, l will give you the co-ordinates of my lawyer to enable you liaise and sign the agreement documents, before handing over the full information that would enable you conclude this project on my behalf.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Mrs. Amina Amin

I can't feel too bad for people who fall for this particular scam.

Like Wal-Mart, Home Depot wants to go into urban markets and, like Wal-Mart, it's finding that urbanites have higher aesthetic expectations--in this case, not just for the stores' exteriors but for inside as well. Here's an account from Engineering News-Record.

These stores don't fit into Home Depot's typical format. Inner-city logic dictates a smaller store than the usual 150,000-sq-ft concrete box, as well as a more aesthetic interior, free from the cracked, dusty floors and low-level lighting of some older stores.

Ironically, many of the rough-looking warehouse features of older Home Depot properties were part of the company's original marketing objective. In earlier years, Home Depot lured do-it-yourselfers and small contractors by making them feel as if they were in a warehouse serving "professional contractors." In reality, professionals only make up about one-third of total sales, although the company says it is trying to attract more with special services.

The gimmick paid off in billions, but one competitor, Lowe's, Wilkesboro, N.C., is closing in with annual revenue of $26.5 billion and shoppers are flocking to buildings that are navigable, organized and well-maintained. "The customers today aren't looking for skidmarks and sawdust anymore, they're looking for a bright, clean store," says [Rich] Marshall [Home Depot's vice president of construction].

Over time, I expect the better-looking stores to spread beyond the cities to revamped suburban "big boxes."

CHILDREN's toys lay among the shattered concrete that littered the road. Sofas, baths and beds hung precariously from half collapsed buildings, while charred palm trees and twisted car metal surrounded the deep crater that lay at the heart of the once-peaceful Saudi housing compound yesterday.

The number of people killed in Saturdayï¿•s attack on the Muhaya residential compound in Riyadh was still uncertain last night. Saudi authorities said it was 17; diplomats said it could be between 20 and 30 with more than 100 injured, the majority of them children. Many of the adults from the compound were out having dinners and parties late into the night, relaxing after the day-long fast of Ramadan, when the bombers struck.

These kids were Arabs and Muslims:

Initially, Britons and Americans were thought to be among the casualties but last night, it appeared all the victims were Muslims from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Sudan and Egypt.

Gaby Kallas, 44, from the Lebanon, said he heard gunfire and three explosions when the ceiling of the compound cafeteria where he and his friends were meeting collapsed. "I rushed home about two blocks away and found my family OK," Mr Kallas said.

"Oh God, this is unbelievable, heartbreaking," cried another young Lebanese businessman who moved into the compound only four months ago. "I feel like I am lost. Everything is gone. I survived the Lebanese war for ten years and I never saw anything like this.

"I know a lot of beautiful people who left their homeland to build a future here.

"There was an amazing community spirit. We lived together and prayed together. It was unbelievable. This was the place we could come home at the end of the day and just forget where we were. Now, it’s gone."

I wonder if Al-Jazeera had its usual gory pictures? Here's the network's online English-language report.

Dan Darling at Winds of Change has a great post on the bombing, with lots of background and links. (Via InstaPundit.)

WASHINGTON — The physical therapists on the fifth floor of Walter Reed Army Medical Center have a bulletin board they call their Wall of Heroes. It is crammed with photos of young soldiers in their care — soldiers wounded in the war in Iraq.

The images of the amputees and burn victims stand out, a tragic irony of an important advance in military protective gear.

The new armored vests that soldiers are wearing in this war protect the human torso and have saved countless lives, but often at a terrible price. One day last week, all but 20 of the 250 beds at the center were taken up with casualties of the war. Fifty of them have lost limbs, often more than one. Dozens more suffer burns and shrapnel wounds that begin where their armored vests ended.

On average, they are 23 years old.

Many would have died except for their Kevlar vests, which stopped rounds from a Kalashnikov rifle, a 9-millimeter handgun or fragments from a grenade. There have been more wounded — and over a longer period — than the hospital expected....

A half hour away, at Andrews Air Force Base, the tennis court and gymnasium of the fitness center have become a medical staging facility for those evacuated from the war zone. More than 7,500 have come through since April.

In addition to the nearly 1,900 who have gone on to Walter Reed, another 1,500 have been sent to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., which treats the injured from the Navy and Marines. Several thousand less seriously wounded soldiers have been sent directly to some of the military's dozens of smaller hospitals and clinics around the country.

After reports surfaced last month that the level of care being given at one of those smaller facilities was substandard, the Army took steps to improve services there and began an evaluation of the care at other regional hospitals.....

"We've seen a number of patients that, in our minds, in 'Nam they would not have lived," Mayer, the veteran who volunteers at Walter Reed, said. "One comes to my mind. You see how his wounds stop like a sunburn line right where the body armor started. As soon as you see him, you know that it was the body armor that saved his life."

Twenty-five years ago, I took my first economics class. Like many other college students, I wanted to understand why the economy of our teenage years was such a scary mess, with inflation and rising taxes eroding our parents' paychecks, interest rates soaring and unemployment an ever present threat.

By my freshman year, inflation had morphed into "stagflation," combining rising price levels with relatively high unemployment. For most economists, stagflation was a puzzle. There was supposed to be a trade-off--the so-called Phillips curve--between inflation and unemployment. If you had one, you weren't supposed to have the other.

The "Great Inflation" of the 1970's challenged and permanently altered economic theory. It vindicated the once-controversial analysis of Milton Friedman, then at the University of Chicago.

"Friedman's monetary framework has been so influential that in its broad outlines at least, it has nearly become identical with modern monetary theory," said the Federal Reserve governor Ben S. Bernanke, at a recent conference at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

Not to take anything away from my article, but if you want the full story, you can download a .pdf file of Bernanke's speech here. It's quite well written.

Reading your blog entry regarding Wal-Mart, I wanted to drop an anecdote about Sam's Club. Until recently, the last time I'd shopped at one had been about 10 years ago--all I remember of that store was gray cinder-block and unfriendly lighting. I recently went to a new (18 month old) Sam's Club, and it was a much more welcoming warehouse, with the outer walls hidden by high shelving and white sheetrock and cooler cases in the grocery section. Lots of colored signs hung high in the grocery section, too, and low aisles in the middle of the store gave a spacious feel. If the old Sam's Club was like Home Depot, the new one was like Lowe's. Plus, bulk Halloween candy was cheap.

I've never been to Sam's Club, but I understand the difference between Lowe's and Home Depot. It's subtle but significant and has paid off mightily for Lowe's. In the face of competition, even utilitarian environments can't be downright ugly.

From the story:

Several Border Patrol agents along the Arizona-Mexico line said that although they have become increasingly vigilant toward the possibility of terrorists using established people-smuggling routes, they have found none.

"The people who are coming across this border are people who can only pay $1,500 to a smuggler. A terrorist can pay $30,000 or $40,000 and go to the northern border where we don't have the resources to stop them," said agent Matt Roggow.

He navigated his Humvee across ranchers' dirt roads in the hilly desert near Tucson, leaning out the window to "cut sign": search for footprints in the soft dirt that betray the paths of desperate migrants through the vast desert. He knows well how difficult the trip is.

"l'd be willing to bet that a terrorist isn't going to take the chance of coming across this border," he said.

Read the whole thing. As InstaPundit warned within hours of the 9/11 attacks, fighting terrorism provided an all-purpose justification for previously moribund--and previously unrelated--policy proposals.

Photographs of suggestively shaped engine covers have even begun to supplement shots of cars on curvy roads in the marketing materials of automakers. Infiniti's promotional materials, for instance, feature the styled cover of the 4.5-liter V-8 engine from its flagship Q45 sedan. In a photograph, the sculptured black engine cover is softly lighted to make it look as if it is carved from basalt. Light plays over the stone's surface, suggesting the gravitas of the Black Stone of Mecca or the monolith in "2001: A Space Odyssey.""

Under-hood appearance has been an issue for Nissan for about 10 years, although we've really gotten serious within the last four to five," said Sheldon Payne, a product design manager at Nissan Design America, the company's California studio. "Engine covers have been an easy way to address part of our concern, especially since so little routine maintenance is now required. We can create a nice impression with relatively low cost by designing a cover to hide the 'mess.' Our intention is to reassure customers that things have been seen to."

In the days when there was enough room around the engine to see the ground below, the engineer alone ruled the space under the hood. When Mr. Laituri was hired by G.M., he was fresh out of industrial design school. "It was just me, a couple of kids and two old guys left over from the Frigidaire division," he recalled.

But the concept of applying a styling theme to areas not always in the customer's view was beginning to catch on.

"Design had recently cleaned up trunks and glove compartments." Mr. Laituri said. "We rethought the motor and came up with a theme: a diamond on a black velvet pillow. That meant blacking out everything possible around the engine--all the wires and pipes--and covering the engine with a faceted shape bearing the Cadillac crest and shield. The idea was to emphasize high technology. It was not going to be just an engine. It was a power plant."

Posted by Virginia at 06:04 PM