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That seems to make a bit more sense, and places a bit more sympathy on Benoit's part. A tragedy.

Tasteless joke removed.

CNN is reporting that the butler did it.

I saw it. It's very good. Very French. It's the kind of movie 'Coffee and Cigarettes' tried to be. It's basically a series of unrelated short sketches that are meant to leave you with a 'feeling' of the essence of Paris. I find it quite amusing because French culture is the complete polar opposite of American culture.

The situation is not helped when NGO's like Amnesty spend more of their resources condemning Guantanamo Bay and the mistreatment of terrorist subjects, than concentrating on genocide in Africa.

Do you have a source for this? Googling the quote will bring up hundreds of articles that use it. The book I got it from cites another secondary source so I can't give you the primary source. I already tried that and got nothing but right-wing blog posts. Given how often fake quotes circulate the internet, you'll understand why I'm skeptical. Understood. It's hardly surprising to see conservatives exploit the quote, but I'll try and hunt down its origin.

Do you have a source for this? Googling the quote will bring up hundreds of articles that use it. The book I got it from cites another secondary source so I can't give you the primary source.

The issue I was referring to was the battle between the communist system of governance and the market economy throughout the 20th Century. Schlesinger never really had a firm grasp on the subject. It kind of passed him by.

"Those in the United States who think the Soviet Union is on the verge of economic and social collapse are wishful thinkers." - Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. 1982 Following the collapse of the USSR less than 10 years later, Schlesinger would write that 'no one foresaw these changes'. The fact that such a prominant historian got the biggest issue of the 20th Century completely wrong has always prevented me in taking his opinions seriously, but despite this, he was one of the greatest wordsmiths in the field of history, and his style was immitated by thousands. RIP.

Don't you hate it when countries poke their noses into other countries politics? Invading is one thing, but to go ahead and CRITICIZE a guy....

If the majority of the people support slavery, why not support slavery? That's certainly the attitude a lot of US politicians took in the 18th and 19th Century. In contentious issue like the minimum wage, a site that is so dedicated to discrediting an opponent could at least argue the merits of the policy instead of bowing to popular opinion. In politics, sometimes you've got to take a stand. A leader to follows the will of the people can at times be slave to the tyranny of the majority. John Stuart Mill's 'On Liberty' dealth with that 150 years ago. You have to appreciate that one person who puts forward a different argument, because who knows, he might be right.

This has not, historically, been the case. It may seem to be 'common sense' but it doesn't happen. With all respect, you're not looking hard enough. It's happening right now where I live. You might be thinking of instances where small rises in the minimum wage haven't had a noticeable effect on overall employment. That's fair enough. There's a million factors that effect employment, and a small increase in minimum wages can occur at a time when the effects aren't noticable. All economists agree though that there's a ceiling that blocks any significant increase in the minimum wage, because eventually job losses will be significant. That's why minimum wage increases are rare and small. Because its a weak system. A similar argument goes with job creation and free trade, another issue that's hard to measure (how does a bureaucrat in Washington identify a job that's been created because of a decrease in a foreign intermediete good?). But look at the job protection in Europe, and in my country, and we all have higher unemployment rates that can never dip below 4 or 5 % because of the restrictions, be it minimum wages or other regulations that increase the cost of business. Having said that, what do you do? I have no problem with raising the minimum wage, especially since your federal one is so small, but don't even pretend for a second that its an effective poverty eliminator, because there's a hundred other reforms that could do the job better. The biggest crime of the minimum wage isn't job prevention but the almost religious admiration that people have for it as a symbol of fairness and prosperity. Your politicians would do better to focus on reforming the EITC. In the mean time, sure, raise the minimum wage. But accept the secondary consequences that goes with it. Here's an example of the Minimum Wage vs EITC debate. From a CBO report http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/77xx/doc7721/01...mumWageEITC.pdf So for $8.6 billion less you can achieve the same objective as the minimum wage increase, using the EITC program. That's $8.6 billion for run down schools, hospitals etc.

I think, at the end of the day, the minimum wage is a mediocre mechanism of eliminating poverty. If you raise it to a level like $10 - $15, you're going to have a significant amount of job losses and job prevention because of rising costs, so you're effectively making the poorest (i.e the people who need it most) unemployed. Having said that, eliminating the minimum wage is only an answer if its replaced by a better system. Evidence seems to suggest that the Earned Income Tax Credit (and similar systems) is a better mechanism that can provide additional income to the poor at the same level of the minimum wage, but at significantly lower cost. The concept of the negative income tax I think is a better way. Business owners need employees. Also, they have to follow lord-only-knows how many regulations and laws as is, so why not another? That's a lazy argument. Business owners might want all the employees in the world. Problem is though, one requires 'money' to pay for their labour. Big minimum wage increases mean there is less money to spend on extra labour (because you have to pay existing staff more money). And I won't even bother with the 'we have so many regulations already, why not another one!' argument. Everything has an affect on something.

I think, at the end of the day, the minimum wage is a mediocre mechanism of eliminating poverty. If you raise it to a level like $10 - $15, you're going to have a significant amount of job losses and job prevention because of rising costs, so you're effectively making the poorest (i.e the people who need it most) unemployed. Having said that, eliminating the minimum wage is only an answer if its replaced by a better system. Evidence seems to suggest that the Earned Income Tax Credit (and similar systems) is a better mechanism that can provide additional income to the poor at the same level of the minimum wage, but at significantly lower cost. The concept of the negative income tax I think is a better way.

I don't get why it isn't okay to point out that he doesn't support a very popular policy. A lot of people probably don't know that he opposes it. So every time the minimum wage is mentioned the site needs to trot out an economist or Bob Reich to point out its merits? Yes. Because it would take the site, like, all of 2 minutes to cite an argument on why eliminating the minimum wage is bad. Simply saying a policy is unpopular as a means to criticize a candidate is stupid, and assumes that conventional wisdom is always right, like when everyone thought the Earth was flat way back when.

http://therealmccain.com/ I don't like McCain, but just watching the first few minutes of the main video on that web page makes me like him a bit more. It never helps to spin things at a bigger rate than the person your trying to criticize. Every issue that video points to shows how full of crap McCain is. Point out one example of spin. I'll point out two. The first argument it makes in regards to McCains commentary on the Iraq War suggests that McCain advocated polar opposite viewpoints ('It will be easy - No one said it would be easy'). Though both comments are related to Iraq, they are on completely different matters. One is on the initial overthrow of Saddam and the institution of another government (that was easy), the other was quelling insurgency and ensuring a secure transition to a liberal democracy (not easy). I have no doubt that McCain probably did think that Iraq wouldn't have eventuated into such a struggle (like a lot of people on both sides), but the video takes the easy road and misquotes him instead. Slamming a republican over Iraq isn't rocket science, why does the site have to spin it In the video, McCain is scolding the American public for thinking Iraq was going to be too easy, when it was he & his neoconservative fellow travelers who made people think this! Did you actually read what I wrote? Having said that, I don't doubt McCain was mistaken about Iraq like most politicians. I don't think that makes him signicantly worse a candidate. However I do think the 'too easy' and 'too hard' comments were on different matters relating to Iraq, as explained in my previous post.

http://therealmccain.com/ I don't like McCain, but just watching the first few minutes of the main video on that web page makes me like him a bit more. It never helps to spin things at a bigger rate than the person your trying to criticize. Every issue that video points to shows how full of crap McCain is. Point out one example of spin. I'll point out two. The first argument it makes in regards to McCains commentary on the Iraq War suggests that McCain advocated polar opposite viewpoints ('It will be easy - No one said it would be easy'). Though both comments are related to Iraq, they are on completely different matters. One is on the initial overthrow of Saddam and the institution of another government (that was easy), the other was quelling insurgency and ensuring a secure transition to a liberal democracy (not easy). I have no doubt that McCain probably did think that Iraq wouldn't have eventuated into such a struggle (like a lot of people on both sides), but the video takes the easy road and misquotes him instead. Slamming a republican over Iraq isn't rocket science, why does the site have to spin it? The second is in relation to gay marriage, where again, it suggests that McCain contradicted himself. This is another classic example of having the opportunity to attack a politician for a weak argument, but again, resort to misquotation and spin. McCain doesn't mind 'ceremonies' of gay marriage, but as an event acknowledged and recognised by law, he does mind. A simple (but stupid) argument that the site could acknowledge for its simplemindedness. Instead, the site chooses to lie and suggest he contradicted himself - that they are in fact, one and the same. The worst example though was not the video but the little side board which criticizes him for supporting the elimination of the minimum wage, not because the policy is bad, but because a lot of people don't support it! What this proves is that the only thing these people know, is that they don't like McCain. They can't articulate a proper intellectual argument so they use simple minded spin doctoring to get their way. If that's all you have to argue against a McCain presidency, then you're not trying hard enough. End of story.

There are always specific moments when you make up your mind about someone. I don't know if anyone here has read Bastiat's famous parody of The Candlestick makers petition (http://bastiat.org/en/petition.html), but its one of the most famous free trade pieces ever written. Hilary, in act that surely wasn't designed to show off her economic credentials, endorsed a petition by American candlemakers to impose a 108.3% tariff on Chinese candlemakers.

Pity she doesn't have a clue when it comes to actual...y'know, policy and stuff.

http://therealmccain.com/ I don't like McCain, but just watching the first few minutes of the main video on that web page makes me like him a bit more. It never helps to spin things at a bigger rate than the person your trying to criticize.

Contrary to popular belief, other humans exist outside the North American Continent.

Scrotum: A documentary on scrotums.

That's correct if we assume that time doesn't exist. Fact: Oil isn't going to be the highly priced commodity it is at the moment, nor will it continue to be in such high demand forever. Unless Chavez takes the time to put his eggs in different baskets, the country is heading to a dead end.

Chavez is a ticking time bomb. Venezuala's poverty eradication program is ONLY sponsored through oil revenue. As soon as those prices drop, the poor are only going to go back to their original state. Chavez has only used said revenue to feed the starving and provide free services to those who can't afford it - a worthy cause, but one which fails to PREVENT people from becoming poor in the first place. He offers no ladder to climb out of the same poor cycle - no poor person in Venezuala can become rich. As soon as that oil revenue goes, that country will be left with nothing but a stinking pile of dead people, a failed dictator, and an American neighbour which will sit back and say ' I told you so'.

I think being a 'libertarian left' is like being a communist nazi. Doesn't quite work.