Keith Burgess-Jackson

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz makes the same point I’ve been making in this blog. I’m glad to have him aboard.

Carlos sent a link to this video, which shows someone playing the lead guitar parts of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird.” As a guitar player from way back, I’m impressed.

Addendum: Now that you’re warmed up, here is “Saturday Night Special.” Here is “Melissa,” by the Allman Brothers. Here is “Jim Dandy,” by Black Oak Arkansas. Here is “Fooled Around and Fell in Love,” by Elvin Bishop. Here is “Ode to Billy Joe,” by Bobbie Gentry. Here is “Dueling Banjos,” which is breathtaking. I hope you enjoyed this tour of Southern music. Have a great weekend.

Somebody explain to me what is wrong with this advertisement. I think it’s a terrific way to show people what sort of character Barack Obama has. Michelle Malkin has commentary here.

Paul Krugman’s¹ latest column sheds light on his puzzling support for Hillary Clinton. What makes his support for Clinton puzzling is that most academics support Barack Obama. Krugman thinks Clinton’s health-care plan is superior to Obama’s. He also thinks Obama is a lightweight, policywise. Krugman wants a candidate who has experience in fighting Republicans. He knows that Obama will be torn to shreds by supporters of John McCain. Clinton knows what Republicans will do to her and how to respond to it. That, as far as I can tell, explains Krugman’s support for Clinton. Am I missing something?

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¹“Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman has the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults” (Daniel Okrent, “13 Things I Meant to Write About but Never Did,” The New York Times, 22 May 2005).

I told Carlos to be nice to Hillary Clinton, since he’ll be supporting her soon.

Here.

Here is Peggy Noonan’s latest column. Here is Peg Kaplan’s next-to-latest post. Does it seem to anyone besides me that Noonan is obsessed with airports? She thinks women her age should get a pass when it comes to security. How convenient!

To the Editor:

One could hardly guess, from David Brooks’s escapist rhapsody, that medieval Europe has serious lessons to teach us here and now.

Two of them might be useful to conservatives trying to wriggle free of the disaster their party has inflicted.

First, crusading could not have worked any better in our world than it did in the past. The failure of medieval crusades was well known in 2001, for few historical subjects have been so well studied.

Second, just when Europe was full of unfettered violent bullies, some resourceful people invented government to serve the public interest, together with the taxes required to support it. They rightly thought government to be a “good thing.”

At a time when medieval history—a huge and hugely relevant subject—is being squeezed out of college curriculums, it would help our public interest to put its useful lessons foremost.

Thomas N. Bisson
Cambridge, Mass., April 22, 2008
The writer is emeritus professor of medieval history at Harvard.

Note from KBJ: That government is best which governs least.

The ultimate political struggle is for control of the definition of “the political.”

(John Rodman, “The Dolphin Papers,” The North American Review 259 [spring 1974]: 13-26, at 15)

This column by Roger Kimball is almost three years old, but it’s worth a few minutes of your time.