Ron Paul is the Cato of our time: a man who favors principles over political success. That alone is enough to give him my support. I could give a lot more reasons, though, but Andrew Sullivan has done it far more eloquently than I can in this post.

Cleveland has managed to keep winning. It was only 8-0, but the important thing was that they are still in the playoff hunt. Even better, Pittsburgh lost. So, Cleveland has a realistic chance of winning the division. For more on the win, see Bitter Fans.

Robert Scoble has a post on preparing for the coming recession in 2008. My take is that a recession has been likely since early in 2007, and it became inevitable with the credit crunch of late August, 2007. In any event, I think his advice is coming a little late. In particular, his suggestion to make sure that you are in the top 10% of employees to avoid a lay-off. If you aren’t in the top 10% already, I doubt you are capable of just turning it on now. The truth is, the people who are going to be ready for a coming recession are already prepared. Last minute changes of lifestyle aren’t going to be enough.

If you wonder where the economy is going in 2008, you can start here: Too Much Like 1929. It’s going to be a cruel year.

Articles like this one in the New York Times continue to make me nervous about where the food I eat is coming from. It’s like an Asian version of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. The real problem I face in avoiding food like this, though, is when I eat at cheap restaurants. The workers often have no idea where the food comes from, but you can be sure it is somewhere cheap. It’s almost enough to start making me bring lunch to work.

Currently, I am the 23rd result on Google for the query “collapse of an empire lessons for modern russia.” I know this, because it drove a referral to this blog. Shows the power of Google.

I read No Country for Old Men on the plane ride(s) to Huntsville. Cormac McCarthy can write, but since when did it become a requirement that all books have no ending? The book just peters out. Add to that the ridiculous “can’t make a mistake or be killed” nature of the anti-hero of the book, and it just gets worse. This book is thoroughly unsatisfying. I was going to go see the movie, but I hear it is faithful to the book. Usually, that speaks well of a movie. In this case, it speaks ill. Should you want to waste your time reading it, here’s the Amazon link. I wish I had gone there and seen the review that began “Another McCarthy novel, another overstylized pretentiousness,” before I wasted my money on this book.

So, the Browns lost to Arizona. They should have tied the game on a last hail-mary, but the referees jobbed them. In the end, though, it was the turnovers that killed them. Since, it looks like the Bengals can’t beat the Steelers, the Browns will end up two games back in the division with four games to go. That’s not a good place to be. For more reaction see bitter fans

I finished reading Collapse of an Empire: Lessons for Modern Russia last night. It’s a fascinating look at the economic and budgetary problems that destroyed the USSR. Essentially, Gaidar blames the eventual collapse on Stalin’s decision to collectivize agriculture in 1929. The most striking thing, though, is how quickly the USSR unraveled once it’s economic underpinnings collapsed. There’s a lesson here for the USA. Once things start going bad, the end can come quickly. A reversal of foreign investment in the US could be just as dangerous for our future.