The near-hurricane disaster "Gustav" and the choice of Gov. Sarah Palin as Sen. McCain's vice presidential nominee have pushed the situation in the Caucasus off the media monitor. Good. Now there is a chance to get on top of a potentially perilous situation.

Here is my take on the current situation, borrowed from Discovery's Russia Blog.

Reactions to Sen. McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as Republican Vice Presidential nominee have revealed again the extent to which the presidential race--now completing its second season on TV--has turned into soap opera. The most interesting policy aspect of Palin as candidate is the Alaska governor's extensive knowledge on energy, the campaign's surprise hot topic. Whether people agree with her advocacy of mixing more energy supply with more energy conservation, people who have heard her speak on the subject are favorably impressed.

But you are not hearing much about Sarah Palin in connection with energy, are you?

Instead you're hearing about the governor's unfashionable hair-do and her stint as a beauty queen twenty-five years ago (nothing sexist about those topics, of course).

And about the governor's husband's DWI, once upon a time. And about the governor's questionable effort to get a state trooper fired for alleged mistreatment of the governor's sister--his ex-wife--and the sister's son. Supposedly, he tasered the kid. That is worth a whole TV episode by itself.

But most of all, inquiring minds want to know about Bristol, the governor's unwed 17-year-old daughter, and the baby that she's keeping and will be birthing in four months. They make whole movies about such subjects, really.

Even without daughter Bristol's pregnancy, hunting enthusiast Palin's selection was sure to make vegans and PETA pals see red. But it's Kickapoo joy juice for gun owners everywhere. Not since "Bull Moose" Theodore Roosevelt has there been a national candidate who was such a genuine big game hunter. Finally Republicans have a candidate--Pistol Packin' Palin, Alaska's Annie Oakley--to jolt the NRA back into action.

She is a political maverick, too, like her new best friend, John McCain, and a boat-rocking reformer in his mode, too. She opposed the abuse of federal earmarks when that was risky, and never mind that the mainstream media are attempting to make her out to be a hypocrite for having sought earmarked funds for Alaska. They apparently can't tell the difference from seeking federal grants, which is normal, and abusing the system, which is not.

She will motivate fellow small business owners, who are not notably over-represented in national politics, where Wall Street normally beats out Main Street in both parties. And she excites fellow social issues conservatives, evangelicals and traditional Catholics alike, who have been feeling seduced and abandoned recently. She is a Feminist for Life, which of course, drives liberal feminists into frenzy.

But most of all there is crass fascination with that baby.

Sen. Obama is being careful about the subject and has warned his campaign advisers to do likewise. But do his friends get it?

In 1952 the Republicans hired a Madison Avenue advertising firm to run their campaign. Democrats said it was reducing politics to the level of soap sales. Then, in 1956, both parties hired ad firms. That very year a satirical novel called The Golden Kazoo, by John G. Schneider, came out that showcased a race set four years later, in 1960. In it the Republican candidate surged to victory after his wife became pregnant during the campaign. The fictional GOP side hyped sentiment shamelessly with a "Vote for Baby" theme.

Ridiculous, you young'ns say, except that in early1960, Democratic candidate John Kennedy's wife, Jackie, had to be excused from campaign appearances because it turned out that--yes--she was pregnant (with "John-John"). It wasn't as transformative a development as in The Golden Kazoo, but it certainly became a Camelot moment. Anyhow, Jack Kennedy won.

So be careful about campaigning against motherhood, even if the baby belongs to be the as-yet unwed daughter of a vice presidential candidate. Democrats are supposed to sympathize with human frailty and rail against moralists. Republicans, it always turns out, are just like everybody else. In real life, everyone has problems and, if they don't, someone they love does. Republicans just reach different conclusions about it.

But nobody escapes the soap opera treatment.

Here we seem to have another story of a man who is deranged, but because he refused help, was not placed in the protective confines of a mental hosptial. Now he has killed six people.

When is someone going to run for office calling for a return to compulsory hospitalization for mentally ill people who are lively danger to themselves and others? The process of decision making for such hospitalization should be carefully hedged by reviews. But the "reforms" of the 70s that led to de-institutionalization went too far and made it impossible to instigate involuntary institutionalization and/or treatment until a person demonstrated how dangerous he was by actually killing or injuring someone. This kind of "reform" was the equivalent of a political crime, allowing liberals to preen as libertarians and conservatives as cost-cutters. But there actually are huge losses of liberty and huge costs. Think of the six dead people and their families. What about their liberties and their livelihoods?

More than anything else, the film "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" led to a bogus, over-wrought, counter-productive reform in state after state.

Again, where are the candidates who will raise the issue of real reform? How does it benefit society--or even people like Isaac Zamora, not to mention his truly pitiful mother--to let dangerous madmen loose?

Call+Response, a new documentary on slavery and human trafficking by musician Justin Dillon, hits theaters this fall.

The film is fantastic--although if you do not like contemporary music, you may not care for the concert-like quality of film. It features performances by some of my favorite artists like Cold War Kids, Matisyahu, and Switchfoot. In addition to musicians and celebrities like Ashley Judd, several policy experts on human trafficking are interviewed including Gary Haugen and Discovery's own Ambassador John Miller.

The film is one of the most creative pieces of public education I've seen. If you want to learn more about modern-day slavery--where perhaps as many as 27 million people are in bondage--and yet do not want to pay to see a dry, boring documentary, this is the film for you: Half concert, half conscience-raiser.

All the film's profits will be donated to charity. Go here to see the trailer, and find it in a theater this fall!

It turns out that the media and the prime-time Left just can't restrain themselves from foolish attacks on Gov. Sarah Palin's gender and role as a mother. They have now gone so over the top that Sen. Hillary Clinton's aides are begining to defend Palin. That is really instructive.

While the left gets itself into political trouble with ordinary Americans, Republicans would be wise now to emphasize the energy issue and have Gov. Palin make a policy speech on it. Gov. Palin has a good personal story as a "hockey mom" in politics and she is great in attacking the opposition. But she also has a positive public service record and agenda to describe. Largely it relates to energy, the galvinizing topic of this campaign. The subject is crucially important to the economy and nearly as important to national security. It is the issue that gave Sen. McCain a lift in the polls this summer.

The Alaska governor has a personal story to relate to the energy topic, also, having served on the state oil and gas commission before running for governor and having persuaded both parties in Alaska to support a new gas pipeline to the Lower 48. She has a vision of what can be accomplished, I'm told by George Gilder, who heard her speak this summer, so let us all hear it now.

You don't see it yet in the polls, but recognition of George W. Bush's strong performance as Commander in Chief, and therefore as President, is growing. The Woodward book, The War Within, is out and the first stories are very favorable to an understanding of what GWB has accomplished in Iraq. It reflects well on him, his non-partisanship about the war and his essential tenacity. It evokes Reagan, frankly. The Gipper was dispised in the media during almost all of his presidency and only started getting credit for his role in winning the Cold War long after he left office. That may happen to G. W., too.

Add in the supreme court appointments and the tax cuts, and many galling oversights on domestic policy probably will be forgotten in history's estimate of this presidency.

Read The Washington Post piece by Bob Woodward, then Pete Wehner's view from Commentary.

Update - Woodword's book apparently misses the point, afterall.

Disinformation about earmarks is being widely disseminated by some politicians and the media, but if most people are by now confused, that is no reason you should be.

Members of Congress get frustrated when programs they promote are administered in ways they never intended. Unelected government employees who live no more than a few miles from the U. S. Capitol often wind up having far more to say about how federal money is specifically spent than do the elected officials who appropriated it with their home states in mind. Once federal administrators get a hold of them, the funds effectively are theirs to deploy on the basis of criteria they interpret. It may come as a shock to you, but it happens that some bureaucrats have their own pet projects and their own agendas.

That is how earmarks came about. Congressmen and senators whose seniority or other committee positions provide them influence on the passage of a bill negotiate to make sure that the post office construction program they were funding includes the building the member from Texas or California believes has been too long neglected in his state. It probably happens too often in defense spending and leads to inefficiencies that have incensed presidents going back to at least Franklin Roosevelt. The multi-billion dollar highway bill is especially notorious as a Christmas tree for powerful members who want to assist the transportation needs of their communities. The chairman of the committee in each house typically gets the lion's share of top project picks, and the ranking member of the opposition party also gets a small number as a way of assuring bi-partisan passage of the bill. Less significant members scramble to get their state's favorite projects established.

To the left - Artist's rendition of the "Bridge to Nowhere." And...."Nowhere"

Regardless, earmarking is sometimes a good thing. Elected officials often do have a better feel for the public good than bureaucrats, especially when the subject is something innovative; say, a new way to produce energy, a model historical preservation project or a pilot program for increasing traffic flow. The representative who comes up with a fresh idea understandably wants to have something to say about how--and where--it is implemented. When you are that representative, and you have been urged by constituents to provide leadership on some key concern in your state, having the bill you managed to pass turned into something very different at the executive level is past irritating. It leads you to get your state's project specifically included in the enacted bill.

The hypocrisy of campaigning "against earmarks"--or of media deriding them in principle, when the same media often have demanded specific action from local elected representatives in the past--is also past irritating. It is downright unfair. If earmarks are bad, per se, then, by all means, let the exposes begin on all the earmarks proposed and adopted by today's Congressional leaders. Immediately you would hear cries of, "Oh, but that particular highway connection, or museum, or whatever is very desirable and needed!" In other words your "pork" is my "wise investment".

So, realistically, the problem with earmarks is mostly that their use got completely out of hand in recent Congressional sessions. The sometime habit became a dangerous addiction. In the 90s when Republicans came to power, their political base of conservative voters expected them to cut costs, but GOP leaders who had chaffed for years as the Democratic majority employed earmarks to gain electoral advantage, vowed to equal or surpass their free-spending Democratic colleagues. They also were more distrustful of the generally liberal bureaucracy in Washington and its priority-setting than was the previous, Democratic majority. Therefore, instead of restraining the earmark habit, they decided to indulge it. Earmarking was expanded and, ultimately, abused. Maybe if Democrats were still doing it, nobody would have cared. But Republicans did it and people did care. It was a mistake. But that's politics.

Surely someone could cover this issue in a serious, nuanced way. "Bringing home the bacon," after all, is a time-honored political accolade for any party, almost any time. Republican Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, who is now reviled for over-indulging in earmarks, obviously learned at the feet of such giants as Democratic Sen. Warren G. Magnuson of Washington and their long-serving, still-kicking colleague from West Virginia, Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd. When whole federal government offices are resettled in the mountains and dells of Byrd's home state, observers just chuckle.

But opinion began to turn against earmark abuse two years ago with publicity about the "Bridge to Nowhere" that the Alaska delegation sought as one of its public works trophies. It was a bridge too far, as many editorialists said. And Stevens got stuck with the blame. Instead of graciously giving up, he expressed outrage at the hypocritical resentments raised about the project. He was right that the $398 million project did have merit, since it would have given mountain-locked Ketchikan a link to the island where its airport is located and would have opened up the island for development. It was just far too expensive to justify and should have been abandoned.

Congress ultimately got rid of the specific earmark, but still allocated the money it represented to Alaska to spend. It could have gone to the "Bridge to Nowhere," after all, but Gov. Sarah Palin turned against the project and reprogrammed the funds.

Why would anyone be surprised that a governor initially supported the award of funds to help her state? Why would anyone be surprised that the savvy governor later would realize that the point of excess had been reached and called for reform? It's not like a change of position on a moral issue, but rather a recognition that a defensible political tactic had gotten out of hand.

Unfortunately, in the next two months you are not likely to hear the kind of modulated position I have just stated, but, ironically, it is what almost everyone--including leaders of both parties in Congress--holds.

I suspect that even Sen. Stevens wishes now that he had taken it, too.

Meanwhile, you can be sure that come January and a new Congress, there will still be earmarks, regardless of which party is in charge.

The rampant over-reaction of the mainstream media and the political left to the nomination of Gov. Sarah Palin has been helping the Republican ticket. It is mobilizing conservatives to work harder. it also is making them chuckle.

One reason is that the critics clearly don't know what they are talking about. Here you have silver screen tough guy Matt Damon saying how "terrified" he is of Palin. He demands to know if she really believes dinosaurs lived four thousand years ago. He doesn't even wonder why he imagines that she does believe such a thing. The poor man supposes that speculations by liberal commentators and Internet hysterics constitute reliable sources for Palin's views.

The daily papers are filled with article after article that seek to find chinks in Palin's armor. Investigative reporters from New York and Washington are helping to elongate the Alaska tourist season as they try find dirt on Palin, or some tundra scruff that can be made to look like dirt. Hostile, sarcastic reporters on Cable TV chastise Sarah for not letting them interview her. They even ruminate that she probably fears they will try to set her up with some gotcha quote ("Who is the prime minister of Uzebekistan?"). That just helps readers and listeners to do some ruminating themselves: "The media really are out to get her!"

Most of all, Damon-like liberals replace factual comment with what is known as "projection". They conjure up the views that would most discredit a conservative and then assume the targeted politico must hold such opinions. They don't have any conservative friends to give them a reality check, apparently, and just let their paranoia run away with them.

Then they are shocked when their public attacks backfire.

Conservatives are finding this almost too good to be true. The media are doing a jujitsu move on themselves.

The September 15 issue of Forbescarries one of its signature stories, this one a list of the 100 "Most Powerful Women" in the world. There are some obvious international business CEOs and heads of state on the list, but also some curiosities. Among the latter are Katie Couric of CBS (# 62), Barbara Walters of ABC (#63), Diane Sawyer of Good Morning America (#65), and Christianne Amanpour of CNN (#91).

Notably missing: Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska.

The magazine probably went to bed with this story weeks ago, one supposes. Still.

Minor oversights like this notwithstanding, Forbes remains the best business magazine out there and Steve Forbes' columns on business, finance and politics are essential reading. Publisher Rich Karlgaard is both an insightful businessman and a principled futurist.

Both presidential candidates are slated to say nice things today about the idea of National Service. McCain supports it, but lacks specifics (I am told), while Obama has another large program in mind, the kind that inflates the dollar as it inflates the federal budget.

Service is wonderful, a gift to one's fellow beings. But service loses something, doesn't it, when you pay for it? When it is is required, of course, it not service at all, but a form of involuntary tax on time. No national candidate is proposing compulsary "service" these days, but once you get a system that seeks universal compliance, compulsion won't be far behind. After all, it nominally is cheaper. With compulsion, the budget costs are all indirect, and the front end costs (foregone income, for example) are borne by the hapless "service person".

My case against National Service goes back (dare I mention?) over forty years, to the campaign against the draft in the 1960s. I wrote a book called The Wrong Man in Uniform in 1967 that sold remarkably well, especially when the paperback came out just as the draft became the national high school debate topic of 1969!

This issue comes up from time to time now, but not in connection with the military. No one doubts that our volunteer military is far superior to the old Selective Service System. Instead, social engineers of various stripes use the National Service romance as a means to change society to reflect their aims for other people's lives.

When we last went through this debate, in 2002, I wrote a piece for The Brookings Institution that summarizes the negative argument on National Service. Read it before your misguided idealism gets the better of you.

Last week's "Beyond Oil" conference, organized by the Cascadia Center of Discovery Institute, showcased the kind of positive, bi-partisan spirit of creativity that I wish characterized more of the national election campaign.

Conference planners Steve Marshall and Bruce Agnew brought together brilliant inventors like Shai Agassiz, whose plug-in hybrid auto system has been accepted for a nation-wide roll-out in Israel, and strategic analysts like Jim Woolsey, former CIA director. There were nearly 20 electric and natural gas-powered vehicles, on display outside the Microsoft conference hall, and inside were many examples of other breakthrough products, including Microsoft's own transportation and energy-conservation software.

In addition to the ideas described in the Cascadia report linked above, I'd like to report the way participants focused on the need for a diversity of solutions to the energy shortage (the "all of the above" menu) and the multiple benefits (preparing for natural disaster, fighting dependency on foreign oil, lowering inflation) that accrue from such adopting an approach.

Needed now is a demonstration program in the U.S.--we would suggest the Cascadia region itself--to prove the conference themes.

Meanwhile, the conference suggested to my mind a healthy stream of questions for further investigation by the Cascadia Center. These include: 1) How to miniaturize future energy production so that every home, starting with each new home, has an independent way to provide energy and not merely rely on the grid; 2) ways to build on progress in telecommuting as a tactic for lowering energy use and traffic congestion; 3) energy source security in an age of vulnerability to terrorism.

The political silliness up North was not much different this week from the silliness in the United States. The Conservative Party had to pull an internet ad that showed a bird dropping a load on the shoulder of the Liberal Party candidate for prime minister, while in America the Obama camp fielded statements of purported outrage from Republicans over the Democratic candidate's reference to putting "lipstick on a pig", a quip supposedly directed at that most-un-piglike vice presidential nominee, Sarah Palin.

One can laugh because none of that kind of stuff matters. It is political wheel spinning.

What does matter is the bald reality that Canada only began its national campaign on September 7 and yet will hold the election on October 14. Canada's prompt and considered decision will come three full weeks before the United States' campaign stumbles to its completion, following two years of fund raising, fulsome rallies where crowds only come to life for the cameras and dissipated lifetimes of cable-heads shouting interruptions. Whether November 4, really is the elections terminus, of course, depends on having an outcome that is not close. Otherwise, as in 2000, the lawyers take over the next morning and you can add another month of nerve-jerking anxiety.

In America, we have made national campaign politics the chief activity of public life. Canadians, with their simple system of party voting, will know the results of their election soon after the polls close.

America's presidential selection process is muscle bound, demoralizing and wasteful. A billion dollars is being raised by the lead presidential campaigns, and that doesn't include the untold bucks invested by noxious special interest groups and para-partisan advocacy causes that have no accountability (thank you McCain/Feingold).

Campaigns bring out bad qualities in otherwise good public leaders, but while that means a rough couple of months in Canada or in most other civilized nations, we stew on the political stove indefinitely. Our leaders have a hard time showing anything other than their bad side.

A couple of liberal stars of Congress, Jim McDermott of Washington and Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, have so lost their composure that they are calling for impeachment of President Bush, even as the current POTUS is lassoing up his last hurricane crisis and ridin' for the ranch. How long do they think a trial would take? Would Dubyah have to come back from retirement in Crawford to face re-retirement? McDermott and Kucinich remind me of the frustrated inquisitors in the Middle Ages who had dead men dug up so the corpses could be properly drawn and quatered.

But then there is Canada, where the myrid opponents of Prime Minister Stephen Harper have a hard time developing a sincerely nasty description of him. The anti-Harper case seems to reduce to his reputed dullness and lack of imagination. What a joy for Harper!

Seriously, "dull" in politics is usually a blessing. Dull incumbents tend to get returned to office. Dull means they can't find much worse to say about you.

But in the US of A, the button and banner printers probably are planning to follow their past two years of non-stop production with either "Impeach McCain" or "Impeach Obama" campaign materials, depending on the November 4 returns. It's a rush job. They need to be ready for sale by Christmas, at least a few weeks before the unfortunate winner is sworn in.

Both Republicans and Democrats promise "change" and "reform". Well, how about "change" and "reform" of the interminable presidential election process?

The best ideas for "transforming transportation" involve new technologies and, as Shai Agassi notes in the following speech at "Beyond Oil", the conference of the Cascadia Center of Discovery Institute, every economic crisis in the past 150 years has ended with new, transformative technology in transportation and/or energy.

The stakes for the economy and national secuirty, not to mention the environment, are huge.

Agassi is introduced by Tom Alberg, Seattle venture capitalist in the tech sector.

Iraq's Parliament has capitulated to pressure from Shia and Sunni extremists to punish the man who is one of freedom's bravest advocates in that country, parliamentarian Mithal al Alusi. After al Alusi attended an annual international conference on terrorism in Herzliya, Israel last week, and thereby offended the long-standing anti-Israel policy of Iraq, the Parliament banned him from foreign travel, ousted him from legislative activity and deprived him of the immunity from prosecution that parliamentarians enjoy.

Alusi at the funeral of his two sons who
were killed in an assassination attempt in
Baghdad in 2005.
Photo: AP

Al Alusi is calling the actions unlawful and citing the likely behind-the-scenes role of Iran.

The demogogic assault on al Alusi, which puts him and his family at physical risk, should be rescinded promptly and Mr. al Alusi reinstated in his parliamentary office.

The present treatment of a genuine Iraqi patriot is particularly shameful in light of al Alusi's principled sacrifices. In 2004 he also attended the Herzliya conference and subsequently was ousted from his political party, the Iraqi National Congress, and deprived of his legislative protections upon arriving home. His security detail was removed, making him an immediate target of repeated terrorist attempts on his life.

Eventually al Alusi was able to form a new political group, the Democratic Party, and raise support for personal protection. His fresh election to Parliament was a major vindication of his views.

Nonetheless, he has paid a very high price. One of the many attacks on him and his family resulted in the death of his two grown sons, his only children. He and his wife have been raising their grandchildren on their own since then. This summer, however, terrorists succeeded in blowing up al Alusi's house. (This information has not yet seen print, to my knowledge, but was emailed to friends and contacts recently.)

The crime for which terrorists hate him and craven fellow-parliamentarians are prepared to destroy him is al Alusi's sensible view that Iraq should have peaceful and official relations with Israel. Last week he even suggested that Iraq should work with Israeli as well as American intelligence to fight al Qeda and Iran's agents among the Shia.

Al Alusi's reasonable political position on regional cooperation is not too far from that of the private views of the Kurdish minority and of other Sunni--and perhaps some Shia--secularists. It happens to make great sense if the Middle East is ever to make the transition to lasting peace.

But, meanwhile, what has happened to al Alusi is a blight on Iraq's standing as a democracy. The United States no longer calls the shots in Baghdad, but surely its officials in Iraq can try to protect this brave elected official and secure his release from the sanctions just levied unjustly against him. He could not get a fair trial in the current environment and, if convicted, he would be a likely murder victim in prison--where he has many terrorist enemies among both al Qaeda and pro-Iranian prisoners. His death would be a warning to others who have resolutely stood up to terrorists.

It was another terrible day on Wall Street, the Dow down 449 points, and oil prices are up slightly in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike and the temporary closure of Gulf Coast refineries. But, overall, oil prices are down by about 38 percent from their high in July. The precipitous oil price drop is still getting processed through the system, but it already has been a quiet, nearly unreported boon to consumers, plus such industries as food and transportation.

Inflation has to be a long term concern as the federal government prints money to bail out major corporations. However, the bite is not being felt now. The dollar finally has begun to strengthen. For example, the value of the Euro has dropped since July from 1.56 to the dollar to 1.42 today.

These are small, but real, consolations. The oil spike was one major reason for the economic problems of the country. Now the drop could begin to help a recovery.

Before we forget the ravages of Hurricane Ike (not that Texans are likely to do so soon), there is a lesson for state governments that apparently still needs to be learned. Simply put: when electricity fails after a natural disaster all filling stations should be required to have a standby generator. Gas pumps rely on electricity, just like everything else, and when it goes out and gas stations have to stay closed people can't get back to driving. Ironically, they can't even buy gas from the perfectly well-stocked stations to use in their own home or business generators.

This thought was stimulated last week from front page photos of drivers lined up at one of the few gas stations in Houston that went back to serving customers as soon as the winds died down. All stations need to be so prepared.

In Florida after the 2005 hurricanes, Governor Jeb Bush and the state legislature enacted a law that should greatly improve preparedness response in that state after the next disaster. Following the 2006 law, "all newly constructed and substantially renovated motor fuel retail outlets" were required to be "pre-wired for alternative generated power". As of 2007 many other pre-existing motor fuel outlets were to have generators, too.

It makes so much sense, but it is an example of one area where regulation is needed--and yet often neglected. You don't think about it until the crisis arises. Then, when the crisis is over, one tends to forget what a problem it was finding gas for a few days. If I were a governor almost anywhere I would insist that my state enact such a law in the next legislative session.

Everyone tells us that individual depositors should not worry if their bank
fails, because their deposits are insured by the government's Federal Deposit
Insurance Corporation for amounts up to $100,000.

That means $100K per customer, not per account, unless the accounts are
under different names. Thus, you might have one account for $100 K and your
wife might have another for $100K and, we are told, they both would be
covered. But, if you have one account with both names on it and over $100K
in the account, the amount over 100K might be gone after the bank fails. If
that is your circumstance and it worries you, you might want to move some of
your money into a new bank.

But, now comes the really tough question. As a practical matter that
probably would completely absorb your attention if and when your bank
really does fail, how hard would it be for you to get your money ($100K or
under) that is insured by FDIC after the bank fails?

We called the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to find out. You may be
relieved to hear that, historically, the FDIC has been very timely in its distribution
of insurance payouts. Their goal is to complete insurance reimbursements
within two business days. According to the official we spoke with, that goal
is usually met, either by transferring money to a healthy bank or by paying
the depositor with a government check.

But this raises another worry. The FDIC was created in the Depression. We
haven't had massive bank failures since then. If many banks or even one or
two big national ones fail, why should we think that the Feds will be able
to pay out sums of up to $100K all at once? Is there some majestic software
program that will do that? Isn't there a chance they will be overwhelmed?

And might not the federal government suddenly find out that there are
"issues" with some of these accounts? Maybe someone will raise the
possibility of fraud. Maybe, in other words, the federal government--for all
the best possible reasons, mind you--will decide to take a while to
investigate the situation and pay out the money "responsibly."

Meanwhile, might you not wind up on the phone, in lines, filling out papers,
maybe even going to court, for weeks, months or years? And what does one do
in the meantime if that happens? There are bills to pay.

Prudence might seem to argue at least for having more than one bank.

(This post was co-authored by Bruce Chapman)

1) How big is the $700 billion proposed financial bailout? It is just about as big as the sum the U.S. spends every year on imported oil. The difference is that the bailout money at least will be spent mostly in the U.S. The money we send overseas to buy oil just goes to undermine the U.S. economy and help precipitate the need for bailouts.

2) A solution that many individuals and businesses have found to ease their anxiety is to buy Treasury notes and other government-backed securities. They don't make any interest worth noticing, but they are really secure. Since millions of people are coming to this conclusion at once, the money that is hemoraging out of banks and Wall Street seems be going largely into the Federal government.

Isn't that cool? This way the Feds will have more money to back the bailout of the banks and Wall Street.

The answer, George Gilder tells me, may be hedge funds.

The disappearance of Lehman Brothers and the transformation of Morgan and Goldman Sachs into heavily regulated commercial banks presents an opportunity for entrepreneurial risk taking by someone else. Such as hedge funds. New technologies make it possible for them to stay in touch with clients and handle trades quickly.

The turmoil in the markets world-wide disagregates the economy and makes new entitites possible. Dispossessed "animal spirits" will surely find a new home.

It is worth pausing here to recall that Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac helped over several decades to get home ownership up to 70 percent in this country. Very good, up to a point. They were distinguished by one advantage, government guaranteed money, and one vice, greed (or, if you prefer, self-serving ideological pride). Financial organizations looked at this situation and saw opportunities to build huge new leveraged edificies on top of it. They and Fannie and Freddy went overboard.

The "mark to market" regulation, meanwhile (for all you who love regulations) quite possibly has made the current situation seem worse than it needsto be. No one really knows what the price of a house is if it isn't selling, so the mark to market exercise is conducted with far too little knowledge. Now we see through a glass darkly.

Overall, is this not a political problem as much as an economic one? Is not the risk of posturing members of Congress now at least as big a scare factor as the housing market and financial markets?

Apes will have "human rights" in Spain and now Mother Nature can be defended by anyone in Ecuador who feels the old dear's interests have been violated. It is a perfect collusion by environmental and trial lawyer extremists. Discovery Sr. Fellow Wesley J. Smith explains.

Leave it to the English to try to rescue fine old words that have fallen on hard times.

My favorite in this collection is "skirr", the whirring sound of birds' beating wings. Give that to a poet as a present. He'll thank you.

"Recrement" also seems serviceable. After all, "waste matter" is not always sufficiently, shall we say, redolent of the reality. "Griseous" is a happy discovery worthy of revivification, don't you think? "Streaked with grey" is just too cumbrous a synonym.

For my own part, I would like to propose a few dear old words that reside in the Chapman Home for Semi-Retired Words. With a little exercise and refurbishment they could be put back on the road. There is, for example, "pullulation", the busy action of many participants; as, for example, what an ant hill does. (E.g., "The campaign office pullulates with volunteers.")

Another underappreciated latinate word is "scrofulous", an appearance of disease or contamination. It is the sort of thing that eventually might characterize the uncleared "recrement" in your kitchen sink.

Was the policy of easy credit for home ownership worth it?

Even as of April this year, according to Census Bureau numbers, home ownership--the American Dream--was falling below a rate of 67 percent, down from a high of 68 percent a year earlier.

It stood at 64 percent in 1995 when loan policy emphasis in the Clinton Administration was radically liberalized. With often no-money down and few questions asked, home ownership increased, along with supposed home values. But the modest improvement rested on an illusion, a bubble. The crisis did not originate in the Bush Administration.

So, to get what turned out to be a net three percent bump in home ownership since 1995 the entire financial system has been put at risk. If you insist, put some of the blame on irresponsible banks that took advantage of the new incentives. Also blame the tactics of slicing and dicing mortgages so that nobody specific was held accountable, though now we see that that was because everybody--the public, through the government and through a declining economy--is being held to account.

Regardless, home ownership is likely to sag further this year and next. The poor who were supposed to benefit will be worse off in a deteriorating economy, while middle class stockholders already are watching their retirement evaporate.

It is a sad story for go-go regions like Southern California, Las Vegas and South Florida, but at least those areas seem likely to recover. In the past decade most families in California have been priced out of any home ownership, regardless of mortgage conditions. So falling prices may help many of them in the long run.

But, as the Canadian television has been showing, it is a different story in places like Detroit and Cleveland where boarded up houses in marginal neighborhoods are signs of speeding decline. It is a particularly bitter story for citizens in such places who have kept up their house payments and now watch their values plummet because of imprudent neighbors--or, one should say, former neighbors--and the public policies that encouraged imprudence.

Why is that on Canadian television, you ask? Because Canada doesn't have our no-down payment mentality and laws, so fewer houses are in danger of foreclosure there. Even though Canada's economy is greatly affected by ours, their pain in this downturn is likely to be less. Understandably, they are fascinated with the contrast.

So, again, will someone ask whether Washington's policy of easy money for housing was worth the resulting consequences? If the answer is "no" (or maybe, "NO!"), then maybe it also is time to think about real reform. Few in Washington want to admit that too-easy credit was and is a false bargain and should be reigned in.

Peter Wallison, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury and General Counsel to President Reagan, is now a senior fellow at American Enterprise Institute, offering this much-needed reposte to the fallacious claims that the credit crisis was caused by deregulation. The truth is more complex, but not the sort of thing the media want to report, apparently.