Sep. 27th, 2003

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via Calpundit:

the OMB has issued a report officially changing its mind about the impact of environmental regulations over the past decade:

The report, issued this month by the Office of Management and Budget, concludes that the health and social benefits of enforcing tough new clean-air regulations during the past decade were five to seven times greater in economic terms than were the costs of complying with the rules. The value of reductions in hospitalization and emergency room visits, premature deaths and lost workdays resulting from improved air quality were estimated between $120 billion and $193 billion from October 1992 to September 2002.


That's a big turnaround: the last OMB report estimated benefits at about $25 billion. Maybe they ought to take another look at greenhouse gases, eh?

But here's part two:

This year's report provided cost-benefit analysis on 107 major federal rules approved during the past decade dealing with agriculture, education, energy, health and human services, housing, labor, transportation and the environment. In all cases, the benefits far exceeded the costs of implementing the rule.


Did you get that? The regulations fall into eight major categories, and the benefits far exceeded the costs in every single category. This analysis includes every major federal rule enacted since around the beginning of the Clinton administration, and even given the fact that cost-benefit analysis is a very imperfect science, that's a remarkable finding. I can hear the libertarians going nuts already.



Next week, here on the internet, we will be showing The Silence of the Libertarians. Jodie Foster stars as Jane Galt, a young but intrepid investigator from the Federalist Society searching desperately for the madman who's skinning the american economy. Tension rises as she tries to get to him before someone stops him. Costarring Glenn Reynolds as the not-so-mad doctor who eats the breeding stock with fava beans and an Anchor Steam.
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The next week, columnist Robert Novak published an article in which he revealed that Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, was a covert CIA operative specializing in weapons of mass destruction. “Two senior administration officials told me Wilson’s wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate,” Novak wrote.

The White House has denied being Novak’s source, whom he has refused to identify. But Wilson has said other reporters have told him White House officials leaked Plame’s identity.

NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell reported Friday night that the CIA has asked the Justice Department to investigate whether White House officials blew Plame’s cover in retaliation against Wilson. Revealing the identities of covert officials is a violation of two laws, the National Agents’ Identity Act and the Unauthorized Release of Classified Information Act.



So what is it we have here? The not-completely-unconnected Andrea Mitchell leans hard on a story which is then brought to the attention of the CIA, who have just taken the so-extraordinary-as-to-be-unprecedented step of publicly confirming the identity of one of their operatives.

Now Justice has got to investigate, and even if they put Bob* over in Contracts (who's been having trouble with his wife lately and comes to work a couple of days a week smelling a little yeasty, if you know what I mean) on it he's going to find some messy things between now and the election.

I think Karl Rove may have forgotten that the cliff-dwellers in Washington have a great deal of recent experience getting rid of Presidents they're disenchanted with.


*If there's a real Bob, I don't know about him. I don't even know if Justice has a Contracts Department, although it seems to make sense that they would. No actual Bob is expressed or implied. No Bobs were harmed in the production of this post. Hail Bob.
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Senator Robert F. Bennett(R-LDS) has this to say about Senator Kennedy's accusations of international quid pro quo action from the White House to potential Iraq war "partners":

"To accuse the president of what is essentially an impeachable offense, to use those words, demonstrates a willingness to recklessness that is very disturbing," he said.



We grow too soon old, but too late smart.

oh, hee.

Sep. 27th, 2003 11:50 pm
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from the comments at Electrolite, the talking dog on mixed metaphors in political speech:

We shall go on to the cross-roads, we shall fight in fog, we shall, perhaps, fight on the seas and oceans (to the extent we can through the fog), we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air (despite the fog), we shall defend our Island (taking advantage of the fog), whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches (assuming anyone can find them in the fog), we shall fight on the landing grounds (and the cross-roads), we shall fight in the fields and in the streets (through the fog), we shall fight in the hills (hopefully, above the cloud line); we shall never surrender or retreat to the cross-roads, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving or shrouded in fog, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, assuming we select the right fork at the cross-roads and can find it in the fog, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old. Assuming, of course, it can find us in the fog.



I'm not entirely sure about the fog, though.

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