Follow this link to the  column by George Will that RichardH sent me.

George Will is quoting a Wall Street Journal editorial that castigates McCain for attacking the SEC Chairman.

The problem is that the Wall Street Journal (and all the main stream media) got it wrong.

If you just see the sound bite of McCain attacking Cox, you think it is baseless.  If you manage to read John McCain’s complete remarks, you find out that he nailed Cox for exactly the right reasons.

Follow this link to see an article that quotes all of McCain’s remarks and still gets it wrong.

The following are the comments that John McCain made that are exactly right.

The primary regulator of Wall Street, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) kept in place trading rules that let speculators and hedge funds turn our markets into a casino. They allowed naked short selling — which simply means that you can sell stock without ever owning it. They eliminated last year the uptick rule that has protected investors for 70 years. Speculators pounded the shares of even good companies into the ground.

Follow this link to see my comment on the article from which the quote above was taken.

Follow this link to my earlier post about the uptick rule.

You’re not going to believe this.

Follow this link to some trailers for a new movie coming out on October 17.

So you want to believe in conspiracy theories, do you?  Well here is one.

Follow this link to a claim that Dubai and Sep 11 may be involved here.

I don’t have any reason to doubt Minyanville, but hearing at the end that it was a comment on Faux Noise raised my level of skepticism.

Follow this link to the article by Christopher Carroll. Christopher Carroll is Professor of Economics at the Johns Hopkins University.

Richard H. provided the pointer to this article. He provided the following excerpts from the article:

Why does the economy perform so badly under Republican Presidents?

…

Maybe (…) capitalism works better when it is being held accountable to some external standard than when it is left to its own devices.

…

[T]he reigning Republican orthodoxy is a kind of smug pseudo-Friedmanism which believes that markets left to themselves can do no wrong; perhaps it is time for another breath of fresh air.

Of course,I find this article intriguing because it corroborates a number of things I have been saying and believing for some time.

Any system you can describe in words is just a model of the real world.  As such, there will necessarily be real world situations that are not covered by the model. You have to be able to adapt to these complexities that are not covered by your model.  You have to adapt faster than you can fix your model to explain the anomalies.

In my mind, this is one of the differences between science and engineering. In engineering, you have to make decisions even though you do not have all the information you would like to have. You try to build in margins of safety in order to protect yourself against Murphy’s Law. The believers in unfettered capitalism think that Murphy’s Law has been suspended like much of our Constitution.  Unfortunately, Murphy’s Law comes from a higher authority.

Follow this link for a news report video of a new third party presidential candidate.

Follow this link to a story on Obama Vows To Stop America’s Jobs From Going Overseas

Warning the above link is not suitable for viewing while in public. Do not, under any circumstances, click that link while you are at work.

and Freddie Mac.

Follow this link to the New York Times article that gives some details of the $2 Million salary that was paid to Rick Davis because he had influence with John McCain.

I have frequently noted that Republicans know what damaging charges to make against their opponents because it is frequently something that the accuser has done.  This shows that they know the difference between right and wrong when they do wrong.  That is exactly how they know that the accusation, if true, would have been damaging.  When will they learn that making such charges just gets people to investigate if the charge is something they, themselves, have done?

Follow this link to an article about AIG underwriting McCain’s think tank.

What do you expect the wolf to say when caught eating the chickens he was supposed to be guarding?  Probably something like, “I deplore the concept of wolves guarding henhouses.  Give me the power, and I will reform the system.”