It certainly feels that way [links mine]:

When the dust settles over the 2008 election, will Hillary Clinton have helped or hindered women’s advance toward the US presidency?

Right now, Hillary is in Godzilla mode, refusing to accept Barack Obama’s looming nomination and threatening to tie the Democratic party in legal knots until the August convention and beyond.

Those who think she will withdraw gracefully in a few weeks are living in cloud cuckoo land. The Clintons are ruthless scrappers who will lock their bulldog teeth in any bloody towel.

Read Camille Paglia.

The Wall Street Journal editorializes on the Fed:

So the Federal Reserve is signaling that its rate-cutting binge may finally be over, and we can be grateful for that small favor. The consequences of its easy-money bender will roll through the economy for years to come, however, so it’s important to draw the right lessons.

All the more so because the Fed’s most senior officials continue to insist that recent price increases have almost nothing to do with . . . monetary policy. Imagine that. The latest to wash his hands of responsibility for the value of the currency is Donald Kohn, the Fed’s current Vice Chairman and long-time resident intellectual. In a speech in New Orleans this week, Mr. Kohn acknowledged soaring oil and food prices, but he blamed them on global supply and demand for corn, oil and so on.

“As interest rates in the United States fell relative to those abroad, the dollar declined, which could have boosted the prices of commodities commonly priced in dollars by reducing their cost in terms of other currencies,” Mr. Kohn explained. “But the prices of commodities have risen substantially in terms of all currencies, not just the dollar. In sum, lower interest rates and the reduced foreign exchange value of the dollar may have played a role in the rise in the prices of oil and other commodities, but it probably has been a small one.”

If Mr. Kohn really believes this, we’re in more trouble than we thought.

You can say that again.

Read the whole thing here.

More here.

UPDATE: I should also point out that just because the Fed has indicated that they are going to stop lowering rates, doesn’t mean that there’s going to be an end to inflation any time soon. Rates are still too low. They should be up around 5% at least. We can expect inflation to continue until such time as the Feds raise rates back up to normal levels.

Peggy Noonan takes on Hillary Clinton’s claims of being done in by sexism:

So, to address the charge that sexism did her in:

It is insulting, because it asserts that those who supported someone else this year were driven by low prejudice and mindless bias.

It is manipulative, because it asserts that if you want to be understood, both within the community and in the larger brotherhood of man, to be wholly without bias and prejudice, you must support Mrs. Clinton.

It is not true. Tough hill-country men voted for her, men so backward they’d give the lady a chair in the union hall. Tough Catholic men in the outer suburbs voted for her, men so backward they’d call a woman a lady. And all of them so naturally courteous that they’d realize, in offering the chair or addressing the lady, that they might have given offense, and awkwardly joke at themselves to take away the sting. These are great men. And Hillary got her share, more than her share, of their votes. She should be a guy and say thanks.

It is prissy. Mrs. Clinton’s supporters are now complaining about the Hillary nutcrackers sold at every airport shop. Boo hoo. If Golda Meir, a woman of not only proclaimed but actual toughness, heard about Golda nutcrackers, she would have bought them by the case and given them away as party favors.

It is sissy. It is blame-gaming, whining, a way of not taking responsibility, of not seeing your flaws and addressing them. You want to say “Girl, butch up, you are playing in the leagues, they get bruised in the leagues, they break each other’s bones, they like to hit you low and hear the crack, it’s like that for the boys and for the girls.”

And because the charge of sexism is all of the above, it is, ultimately, undermining of the position of women. Or rather it would be if its source were not someone broadly understood by friend and foe alike to be willing to say anything to gain advantage.

GO PEGGY!

Read Peggy Noonan.

So a friend and I were discussing American Idol over IM, and I told him for my concept of a derivative show. Here’s the concept: it’s called American Shatner. The idea is to seek out contestants who want to do spoken word versions of popular songs, in the manner of William Shatner. I think Jeff would make a good MC ala Ryan Seacrest, and Tyler from Pandemonium should be at least one of the judges. Not quite sure who else should judge. Winner gets to record a duet with William Shatner himself.

So what do you think? Should we pursue this as an Internet show, or pitch it to the networks?

So I get this Google ad in my gmail:

Think you’re liberal? after you read this there will be one less of them, one more of us.

So should I surmise that Google thinks I’m liberal, and need to be re-educated? Hmmm…

So I’m on the train this morning, and this crazy woman boards at Park St, and starts chanting “Hey Hey, Ho Ho, Boston pimps have got to go…” clapping all the while. Everyone just sort of ignored her, but it occurred to me that it might have been very funny had the entire train started chanting along with her. I wonder if she’d get confused, angry or encouraged.

Mark my words: Ted Kennedy is faking it. This seizure or stroke or what have you is a contrivance to draw attention to how old politicians can be frail, to make people skeptical about electing McCain for president.

I’m not even kidding.

UPDATE: So it appears Ted Kennedy has a brain tumor. Man was I wrong on that one. That’s a affliction I wouldn’t wish on anybody. Let’s hope it’s not really malignant.

Adam Shostack’s blog, Emergent Chaos, was listed by the Industry Standard as #6 in their list of 25 B-Z list blogs on the Internet. Go congratulate him and his co-bloggers.