On Friday Governor Haley Barbour defended pardons for the four murderers who had impressed him with their repentance and redemption while working as trustees at the governor’s mansion. In an interview with Fox Insider’s Bret Bair, Barbour used a line of reasoning based on Christian forgiveness that was lampooned in the Coen brothers’ O Brother, Where Art Thou as an ignorant misunderstanding of the relationship between religion and one’s debt to society.

[Bumped]
I just searched for last minute gift ideas and realized that the search results are dominated by folks who don’t have your best interest in mind. So here’s my list of easy to find locally, cheap, and much appreciated last minute gift items.

Manly man gloves, for the guy who would never spend $25 on gloves.

If your man is a home owner with any kind of yard he will love these Sears Craftsmen $25 work gloves that are now selling for $16.87 in store or online–that is if he doesn’t already …

In this video, we consider what might happen when researchers get results that make everyone who signs their paycheck look bad.

Study Accidentally Reveals Psych Differences of Liberals and Conservatives
A study by researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) shows that there are measurable psychological differences between liberals and conservatives. However, don’t expect to get a fair reporting of the results from Scientific American or even from the researchers themselves. Both have published comically contorted interpretations of the data.

If you haven’t heard of Toms Shoes, they are viral marketing to the young. At Squidoo.com is this article on their “One Day Without Shoes” campaign.
One thing they do is to publicize when customers customize the plain canvas versions of the $40 canvas casual shoe with their own artwork. They post pictures of custom shoes on their web site. It is now a genuine phenomena that can be seen on campuses around the country. There is such interest that third parties will customize your Toms Shoes for you.

This interview withToms Shoes founder, Blake …

Maggie Haberman shares a byline on the Herman Cain Politico scoop. When she talked to ABC News this morning she didn’t have time to carefully choose her words. So she described the agreement that included a payoff to one of Cain’s accusers in surprisingly different terms than in the original article. Watch the 30 seconds here from ABC News as she first describes the agreement as “a formal resolution” but when asked for specifics gives a more enlightening answer.

In this morning’s mail was a note from Compass BBVA’s Jon Mulkin telling us some bank fees are changing. It’s a maddening letter that claims to communicate “in a clear and transparent manner” but then uses this paragraph to say that the $2,000 minimum for free checking has been raised to $5,000
Effective September 30, 2011, this charge will not apply in statement cycles during which one or more of the following requirements is met:
- Maintain a $5,000 combined average daily collected balance….
The delta change from $2,000 to $5,000 is impossible …

Jeffrey Carter has been a commodities trader since 1992. He has been on the board of directors of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Today he wrote this:
“Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is a schmuck. He is a career bureaucrat and there is nothing we can do to get him out of there until November of 2012. To add insult to injury we will owe him a pension. The President is incommunicado since last Thursday. He is not deft when it comes to economics. He can get shown the door in November of …

Congratulations from all of us to any of you who have had a hand in making policy in Washington over the past 20 years! At a time when some doubt the impact a single person can have on the world, each and every one of you can claim partial responsibility for Standard and Poor’s downgrade of the once-world’s greatest economy to an AA+ long term rating.
I know some of you may be coy and say we citizens had something to with this. But let’s look at what kind of stuff …

Isn’t it frustrating that we never get to see the idiotic decisions made by congress shoved back into their faces? We talk about them over the water cooler and listen to others talk about them on the radio, but we never hear the other shoe drop. We never get the Hollywood finish in which the big spending politician realizes with horror what suffering he has brought into the world because of his fiscal irresponsibility.
There are occasional hopeful moments: we hear some particularly galling bit of rascality described by Mark Steyn, …

Below are the finalists as they are being announced. At PowerLine John Hinderaker provides background and insight into the goals of the PowerLine Prize.  Check back for updates.
A favorite of the judges that fell just short of the top 10: “Goldfish”
 
#10: Talking Babies.

#9: Doomed by Debt

#8: Weight

Here is another entry that just missed the top ten, a haunting yet resolve-strengthening song by Fabian Chavez.

Here are the lyrics (copied from PowerLine):
American Dream
The man on TV said my hope should lie in him
No need for faith above we are the ones we …

At the conclusion of the Mock the Spending marathon there were surprises on both sides of the computer screen. Some folks were surprised to see young people recognize waste, inefficiency, and muddled thinking when they see it.

Believe it or not, almost all of the “Mock the Spending” videos are our attempt to explain some of the simple realities of free markets that have made the U.S. the envy of the world. These are summarized below. Also, see the table below for links to the references shown at the end of each video. You or your students can read from the original sources what makes a free economy so successful.
Competition and nothing else is what should run the economy. The economy has to be based on something. …

The Mock the Spending Marathon is now Live. For 24 hours we will try to produce 100 videos on topics suggested by anyone via YouTube comments, twitter, and facebook. Here are the appropriate links. Hope to see you join in.
The Mock the Spending Marathon of 100 Videos in 24 Hours
Videos are at: http://youtube.com/bulletpeople
Details are at: http://bit.ly/pkMEDb
PowerLine Prize info: http://www.powerlineprize.com/
We are on facebook at: http://on.fb.me/pLLYhA
and on twitter: #bulletpeople
Inspiration: http://www.youtube.com/oldspice#g/c/484F058C3EAF7FA6 (Old Spice viral social media event in July 2010.)
UPDATE: The Marathon is over. We broke a light. We lost a lens …

UPDATE: The marathon is over. Here is the “Mock the Spending” playlist, where each video plays one after another. Our entry tied for 3rd/4th place in the PowerLine Prize contest.

And at the BulletPeople YouTube channel you can watch some of our other videos.
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Starting this Thursday 14 JUL we are launching the “Mock the Spending” video marathon when we make 100 videos in 24 hours that mock what’s going on in Washington. Read more about it here.

Mark Twain said there’s only “one really effective weapon–laughter. Power, Money, Persuasion–these can lift at a colossal humbug,–weaken it a little: but only Laughter can blow it to rags and atoms at a blast.”*
Is there anything being done in Washington nowadays that you would like to see blown to rags and atoms? We hope so, because this Thursday we start our “Mock the Spending” video marathon.

We have two goals: