Krugman:
Why is the administration so uninterested in helping the economy? Here's my theory: The depressed state of the economy provides a convenient if bogus rationale for the huge, extremely irresponsible long-run tax cuts that, after Iraq, constitute this administration's principal obsession. To do anything else to help the economy would suggest that it's possible to create jobs now without putting the country's future solvency at risk--and that's not a message this administration wants to convey.

Our healthcare system gets another bandaid when what it needs is a complete restructuring.

While talking things out may help some folks, there is evidence to suggest that many others cope better through repression.

Dwight Meredith on what responsibility means to Bush.

Mr. Bush has made clear how he assesses responsibility. If possible, Bush blames Bill Clinton. If that is not possible, Bush blames the Democratic Senate. If there is no Democratic Senate, Mr. Bush blames the Republican Congress. Under no circumstances will Mr. Bush accept responsibility for any choice he makes.

Mr. Bush knows how to talk about responsibility. It is accepting responsibility that he finds difficult.

By 2050 there could actually be a decline in global population.

The future of computing: DNA computers. This model derives the energy it needs from the input molecules.

A Carnegie Institute takedown of Pollack. Lots of folks linked it for me.

Michael Tomasky on Howard Dean.The media doesn't get it. But I think many voters will.

TAPPED on just who those "economists" are that are endorsing the bush plan.
Now, one needn't be a credentialed economist to have an opinion on the Bush budget. But traditionally, you don't get to call yourself an economist without that sheepskin. If the White House wants to play a credentialing game to even out the P.R. battle, it won't do to pad out their list of "economists" with assorted businessmen, investment bankers, high-rolling GOP donors, Wall Street analysts, political hacks, policy entrepeneurs and at least one resume-inflating comedian.

In the horse today it's Ashcroft again.
Although Ashcroft has devised a long list of terrorist organizations to be carefully watched after September 11, 2001, the list conspicuously excludes one group.

Guess which one? It's a group with a very, very long history of terrorism.

It is the Ulster Defence Association, the largest and most lethal Protestant terrorist paramilitary force in Northern Ireland -- and precisely the group that attempted to murder Bernadette Devlin McAliskey and her husband in front of their three small children in 1981!

Under reactionary Protestant fanatic John Ashcroft, UDA murderers and terrorists are free to come to and go from the United States -- but Bernadette Devlin McAliskey, their victim, is not!

The Wampumblog points out some more Bush newspeak. Calling it flexibility, the regime is arranging for the states to get some extra Medicaid money until after a potential second term. At that time the states would have to repay in three years the extra money they received over seven years. The states are desperate and the regime sees nothing wrong with a little loan-sharking. Talk about a poison pill"

And via the Horse. It turns out that the ABA recommendation of Estrada was cooked. Why is it that every time people in this administration move their lips they come up lying? Doesn't it just make you sick?

Via Josh Marshall. John Judis on more internal struggles in the White House. The Dems should be able to use these schisms to their advantage.

Helen Thomas Bats for Dean. Go Helen!

What? You didn't know how much John Ashcroft hates women? Well, you know now.

The sad story of internal struggles in the White House. Of course a headless fish won't rot as fast as a fish with a rotten head.

There are more alternatives than either inspect or war. Before we jump into war it would be reasonable to be forcefully agressive in the inspections. The inspectors should be allowed to declare relatively small "freeze zones" from time to time. In one of these zones all traffic would be held at a standstill until suspect vehicles and facilities passed an inspection. An orbiting JSTAR would make sure that any non-compliant vehicles would be terminated.

Such missions may be provocative and heavy-handed but they would either avoid war by forcing Saddam to be fully compliant or would bring on a more justified war if Saddam chooses to resist the inspections with arms.

TNR speaks to a the old tradition of radical liberalism, as practiced by Abraham Lincoln.
For the ultimate goal of our present war--the only possible goal--must be to persuade tens of millions of people around the world to give up their paranoid and apocalyptic doctrines about American conspiracies and crimes, to give up those ideas in favor of a lucid and tolerant willingness to accept the modern world with its complexities and advantages. The only war aim that will actually bring us safety is, in short, the spread of liberal outlooks to places that refuse any such views today. That is not a small goal, nor a goal to be achieved in two weeks, nor something to be won through mere military feats, though military feats cannot be avoided.

Regulation of sexually explicit material on the internet has always been fraught with first-amendment difficulties. Furthermore, the perception that there is easy money to be had has led to the stuffing of email-boxes with unsolicited and unwanted tasteless junkmail. Finally real progress is being made as the merchants in the financial infrastructure such as VISA decide that there are some customers they can do without. By monitoring websites and refusing to provide their services for the types of sites with whom they would rather not be associated, they not only avoid getting involved with enterprises of questionable legality and even more questionable exploitation, but they also hinder the flow of money that makes exploitation profitable. And as a capper, they are turning over lists of websites that are trafficing in child porn to the authorities. That ought to chase more than a few of the scoundrels outta Dodge.

It's been a pet idea of mine that a way to limit the evils of sexual exploitation was to remove the money from the situation. Freedom of expression is one thing but one should not expect to make money from it.

The foreign investment alarm is ringing. Is anybody going to respond?