I'm watching with amazement as the House gets ready to ram through the Waxman-Markey climate change bill that not a single member has likely read all the way through, let alone understands. I spent much of last week and early this week reading through the second iteration of the bill, the mere 946 page version (up from the original 650 page first draft). Then early this week the bill grew to 1,201 pages, and as of this morning, no one knows how long it is. That's because Henry Waxman dropped in a 309 page amendment this morning at about 3 am, and there is confusion as to whether it is substitute language for the existing bill, or 309 additional new pages. (It is apparently the latter, but it is hard to tell.) But why let that hold up a vote?

I'll have a paper out next week analyzing the most salient aspects of Waxman-Markey before it heads off to the Senate (I assume it will pass the House by brute force of the Democratic leadership), but my short summary is thus: It is the energy and climate policy equivalent of Sarbanes-Oxley financial regulation, guaranteeing extensive new bureaucracy and substantial economic cost to the productive economy while achieving few of its stated objectives. Just as Sarbanes-Oxley did little or nothing to expose and prevent the excessive risk and inflated asset values of the housing and financial sector, Waxman-Markey will do little to achieve genuine greenhouse gas emission reductions and curb the risks of global warming. The "cap and trade" system at the heart of the bill is riddled with so many loopholes that it should be considered more of a "hairnet and giveaway."

Stay tuned; this one will be a case study for decades to come if it actually passes the Senate and gets signed into law.

Woman Held Hostage Rescued by Bill Collector

VICTORVILLE -- A woman held captive for three days by her ex-boyfriend was rescued by a chance visit from a bill collector seeking a car payment.

A saleswoman from a local car dealership said she noticed the victim hadn’t made her car payment and decided to stop by the woman’s home to pick it up, according to San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Deputy Mark James.

She arrived at the home on the 16800 block of Winona Street and knocked on the door. When the victim opened the door, the saleswoman noticed scratches on her body, James said. The 30-year-old woman scribbled the word "help" and her ex’s name Miguel Rios.

When the debt collector asked if she was OK, the woman whispered Rios had a gun and was holding her hostage. The woman called police.

28-year-old Miguel Rios was arrested and booked for investigation of false imprisonment and making terrorist threats, among other allegations.

The woman, held since Sunday, had bite marks and bruises, including marks where Rios allegedly tried to strangle her.

Rios is a self-admitted gang member, according to sheriff’s authorities.

I feel for Gov. Sanford’s wife and children and do think that he stupidly (and sinfully) ruined his political future, such as it was.

Should people in public office be held to a high standard? Absolutely! If they can’t keep the most solemn promise they’re ever likely to make, then why and how can we expect them to keep their "faith" with their constituents?

But how is this just about social conservatives? Sanford hasn’t exactly embraced that label for himself, focusing rather on fiscal conservatism as his political hallmark. Of the others mentioned in the article, only Bill Bennett qualifies as a genuine social conservative.

If, on the other hand, the issue is hypocrisy--not doing as one says others should do--then there’s plenty of that to go around, though cheating on one’s taxes usually doesn’t yield the kind of salaciously interesting emails that cheating on one’s spouse does.

In a new study conducted by marriage counselor M. Gary Neuman, it’s estimated that one in 2.7 men will cheat.

"Read poetry every day of your life. Poetry is good because it flexes muscles you don’t use often enough. Poetry expands the senses and keeps them in prime condition. It keeps you aware of your nose, your eye, your ear, your tongue, your hand. And, above all, poetry is compacted metaphor or simile. Such metaphors like Japanese paper flowers, may expand outward into gigantic shapes. Ideas lie everywhere through poetry books, yet how rarely have I heard short story teachers recommending them for browsing.

My story, “The Shoreline at Sunset,” is a direct result of reading Robert Hillyer’s lovely poem about finding a mermaid near Plymouth Rock. My story, “There Will Come Soft Rains,” is based on the poem of that title by Sara Teasdale, and the body of the story encompasses the theme of her poem. From Byron’s, “And the Moon Be Still as Bright,” came a chapter for my novel The Martian Chronicles, which speaks for a dead race of Martians who will no longer prowl empty seas late at night. In these cases, and dozens of others, I have had a metaphor jump at me, give me a spin, and run me off to do a story.

What poetry? Any poetry that makes your hair stand up along your arms. Don’t force yourself too hard. Take it easy. Over the years you may catch up to, move even with, and pass T.S. Eliot on your way to other pastures. You say you don’t understand Dylan Thomas? Yes, but your ganglion does, and your secret wits, and all your unborn children. Read him, as you can read a horse with your eyes, set free and charging over an endless green meadow on a windy day."

Here is one I like by Tennyson.

Which gives me another excuse: Have you pre-ordered your copy yet?

A snippet:

Such is the logic of the Sex Vote—the population of practical liberaltarians for whom the exercise of erotic liberty in fulfillment of their capabilities far outweighs in importance any exercise of political liberty, so content are they with a government that delivers sexual freedom (and perhaps some minimum of attendant social services). For the Sex Vote, eliminating the day-to-day drudgery of citizenship itself counts high among social services: outsourcing the detail and difficulty of governance to distant, centralized experts is a feature, not a bug, of ‘unaccountable’ government. In its liberaltarianism, the Sex Vote would solve once and for all Wilde’s paradox (the trouble with socialism is it takes too many evenings). In the world that we live in, captivated by erotic liberty, such is the destiny of ’smart citizenship’ and representative government.

If you grant that sex is more important than politics, or that one of the principal purposes of politics is to protect and indeed enlarge sexual freedom, might you not be tempted to acquiesce in a paternalistic government that frees you from the drudgery of self-government so that you can have more time for private gratification?

I’d ask another question as well: doesn’t the pursuit of self-gratification in all its forms undermine the responsibility necessary for vindicating one’s liberty? Doesn’t self-government reuire character? Older libertarians were in a sense aristocratic in their assumption that genuine libertarianism was a pleasure for the few who had the backbone for it. Their younger counterparts lack any vestige of that old assumption, which libertarian theory already worked to undermine.

In 2002 total combined state revenue was $1.097 trillion.... In 2007 this figure had risen to almost $2 trillion. That’s an 81 percent increase, at a time when prices plus population increased 19 percent.

When Booker T. Washington visited Krakow, Poland, in 1910, he made a ­special point of paying tribute to Kosciuszko. He later wrote: "I knew from my school ­history what Kosciuszko had done for America in its early struggle for independence. I did not know, however, until my attention was called to it in Krakow, what Kosciuszko had done for the freedom and ­education of my own people. . . . When I visited the tomb of ­Kosciuszko, I placed a rose on it in the name of my race."

Kosciuszko’s will, amazingly, included a provision that some of his fortune should be used to buy the freedom of American slaves and to pay for their education. The scheme was not carried out by Jefferson who recused himself as executor and Kosciuszko’s estate was never used as he had hoped.

According to the Washington Post "U.S. officials say Obama is intent on calibrating his comments to the mood of the hour." I think I understand the American President�s calibration better than I understand this overly-calibrated statement from the Post reporter. I also think those who chastise Obama for not saying enough or doing enough have to make a serious argument regarding exactly what should be said or done before their chastisement has any validity. So far they haven�t done so. That an American President stands on the side of freedom, consent, and justice is true and in saying "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice," may be a rather elegant reminder that we stand for the laws of nature. Now we can dispute some of this, pull in some Lincoln, or John Quincy Adams, and so on; but by and large it�s not a bad statement, and his comments might well be called prudent rather than "calibrated." But, again, all this is rather clearly disputable. What is not disputable, as a general point applicable to all cases, is that in giving the American view that we side with freedom and justice over injustice and force, we must not give the impression that we mean to interfere in all such cases. I have never thought, for example, that the Americans should have interfered in the Hungarian Revolution (or the Hungarian-Soviet War) of 1956. American interest was not necessarily involved. And the Suez Crisis, and our interests in that, should also be noted. That the American Congress can pass tough-sounding resolutions makes sense; they can�t act, they are less responsible, so they can say anything. Statesmanship is less in play.

While the above is disputable, the one thing that is not is how bad the news reports from (or on) Iran have been, especially since the "Supreme Leader�s" speech on Friday shutting down the possibility of all reform of the current regime. CNN has been on during most of the day since that speech, and although I have been doing other things I have also paid some attention: CNN knows very little and yet gives the impression that it knows more. The so-called news reports are almost entirely dependent on internet reports, bloggers, amateur video, etc. (almost always anonymous) and then commentary of one kind or another. There is never any confirmation of reports. They keep repeating that their reporters in country are not allowed to report, must stay in their hotels, and are at a great disadvantage. So what? This is a reason to stop doing your job? This is the time to use your in-country contacts, telephones, e-mail, or just sneak out of your room and see something with your own eyes, etc. Is any of this being done? As far as I can tell, Iranian women have more cojones than CNN reporters. Shame on them.

The impression that CNN gives is that the country is in the midst of a revolution, that regime change is just around the corner. I hope this is true, but I doubt it. This turmoil is a good sign, but I have yet to be persuaded that it will succeed. I wish it would. I�m always on the side of freedom.