The Exercise of Vital Powers

“Change” is not a guy who has been a Senator longer than I’ve been alive. Heck, McCain was still in Hanoi when Biden was elected to the US Senate.

From Cato-at-liberty

With fuel prices surging, commercial airlines have started charging passengers for once-gratis amenities (sodas, the first checked bag, pillows-n-blankets) and have increased fees for other amenities (alcoholic drinks, additional checked bags). A recent editorial ["Pillows and Planes," August 13] describes these fees as “picking passengers’ pockets” and “idea[s] to separate you from your money.”
Are you kidding me? Those amenities weigh down the plane. The fees therefore distribute higher fuel costs to passengers who consume more fuel. As important, they allow passengers to avoid getting their pockets picked by avoiding those amenities. (Don’t want to pay for checked baggage? Pack light.) The only people those fees hurt are the free-riders whose amenities were being subsidized by everyone else. The fees don’t allow pocket-picking; they put an end to it.
The next time I hear a temper-tantrum coming from the main cabin — or first class? — I’ll know it’s a Post editor who had to pay $14 for his vodka tonic and pillow.

Credit crunch may take out large US bank warns former IMF chief – Times Online
In an ominous warning, he added: “We’re not just going to see mid-sized banks go under in the next few months, we’re going to see a whopper, we’re going to see a big one — one of the big investment banks or big banks,” he said.

Oh please let it be Bank of America, please let it be Bank of America.

Testing posting via the iphone client

May he spend the rest of his days in a federal prison:

In a seven-count indictment handed up Tuesday, federal prosecutors said Veco Corp., which gave Stevens about $250,000 worth of home improvements, has simultaneously asked him for numerous federal grants and contracts benefiting the company, its subsidiaries and business partners.