Best of the Aughts

Everybody else is doing it, so why not me? It's list time. Separate posts coming for TV and films.

10 Best Albums:

I listened to less music as the decade wore on, but there's still a few I love.

My Morning Jacket - Live at Bonnaroo (Not released, but available at the link) - Best live album of the decade.

Boys and Girls in America - The Hold Steady - Name checks my favorite book in the first line, and then gets better.

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot - Wilco - Brilliant. Heard most of it live July 24, 2002, and it was awesome.

Ryan Adams - Heartbreaker - I could throw superlatives at it, but know this: I listened to this more than any other album this decade.

Kings of Leon - Only by the Night - Could easily have been Youth and Young Manhood, because both were great.

OutKast - Speakerboxxx/The Love Below - It's so much more than "Hey Ya!"

U2 - All That You Can't Leave Behind - When they became the biggest band in the world again.

Johnny Cash - The Man Comes Around - If for no other reason, and there are several, "Hurt."

Coldplay - A Rush of Blood to the Head - It's fashionable to hate, but "Clocks" is undeniable.

White Stripes - Elephant - The decade's best guitar solo: "Ball and Biscuit."

The return

Finals and Christmas are over, and better left behind, so it's time to blog again. Can we get to half a dozen by the end of Christmas break? One down, five to go.

"Welcome to Government Healthcare"

(Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)

On Sept. 13, Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of health and human services, said:

We are on track to have an ample supply rolling out by mid-October, but we may have some early vaccine as early as the first full week in October.

By my count, this would be the last week of October. Good luck finding a shot. And that line in the photo above? That's our future. Can't wait.

(h/t Instapundit)

UPDATE: Here's a gem in a statement from the president (via The Washington Examiner):

The foundation of our national approach to the H1N1 flu has been preparedness at all levels.

Um, yeah.

A Time For Choosing

My favorite political speech. I post it for two reasons:
1) For my buddy Steve.
2) Because it's always worth listening to again. It's 45 years old. If you take out a few of the dated references and change the names, it's as applicable today as it was then.

"You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man's age-old dream -- the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order -- or down to the ash heap of totalitarianism."

How sweet it is

The Phillies, for the second year in a row, are National League champions. If somebody told me that would happen two years ago, I would have laughed, then cried. That Pedro Martinez is involved: priceless.

The Market Provides

I subscribe to the Wall Street Journal, and stories like this one from yesterday (behind a pay wall) remind me why. The jist is that companies are seeing huge growth in India by providing the hundreds of millions of poor people there with cheap goods, such as tiny $2,200 cars and $70 refrigerators that run on batteries. There's a wood burning stove that gets hotter but produces less smoke for the low low price of $23. Maybe the coolest is a smartphone that doubles as a portable bank branch to serve dozens for $200.

Such inventions represent a fundamental shift in the global order of innovation. Until recently, the West served rich consumers and then let its products and technology filter down to poorer countries. Now, with the developed world mired in a slump and the developing world still growing quickly, companies are focusing on how to innovate, and profit, by going straight to the bottom rung of the economic ladder. They are taking advantage of cheap research and development and low-cost manufacturing to innovate for a market that's grown large enough and sophisticated enough to make it worthwhile.

Read the whole thing, which serves as a reminder that capitalism has done more than any other ism, by a increasingly wide margin, to help improve the living conditions of all people, especially the poor. Remember that the next time some politician talks about government is going to help the poor.

When people say we need more regulations ...

They should read this story from USA Today. Banks are going to start charging fees to people for paying their credit card bills on time. Crazy, right? Why would they do that?

These fees are the credit card industry's response to credit card legislation that will, among other things, restrict credit card issuers' ability to raise interest rates on existing balances. Credit card issuers are looking for ways to raise income before the new rules take effect in February. During the first quarter, 27% of credit card offers included annual fees, up from 18% a year earlier, according to Synovate Mail Monitor, a credit card direct-mail tracking service.

Curtis Arnold, founder of CardRatings.com, says he expected credit card issuers to raise annual fees after the legislation was enacted. What he didn't expect, he says, "was that good customers were going to be hit."

Among the many problems with regulations is unintended consequences. In this case, Congress passed a bill to "help" credit card users which has, in short order, hurt those users who are most responsible.

Increasing regulation is like trying to change the path of a river; the water's going to go where it wants to go.

(h/t the invaluable Cafe Hayek)