that The Guardian sees the last election as a vote against the Enlightenment or that they think the Enlightenment’s a product of leftism.

And, on the other side of the pond, through Europe. We don’t have so many Christian fundamentalists any more. Compared with the American religious right, Rocco Buttiglione, the withdrawn Italian Catholic candidate for European commissioner, is a dangerous liberal. But we do have Islamic fundamentalists, in growing numbers. And, I would say, we have secular fundamentalists: people who believe that to live by the tenets of Islam, or other religions, is incompatible with what it is to be fully human, and want citizens to be educated and the state to legislate accordingly. While I have been in America, the possible consequences have been played out on the streets of prosperous, pacific, tolerant Holland, with the murder of the filmmaker Theo van Gogh, and the counter-attack on an Islamic school. If America has its culture wars, its Kulturkampf, so do we. And ours could be bloodier.

So the expressions of European solidarity after the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks ( “Nous sommes tous Américains” ) should acquire a new meaning and a new context after the November 2 2004 elections. Hands need to be joined across the sea in an old cause: the defence of the Enlightenment. We are all blue Americans now.

(þ Political Theory Daily Review)

I read an article, which I received via Google News, about Gmail. When I finished reading I was surprised to find that it came from a high school paper in Maryland. Very well done.

Alex Tabarrok has an excellent post that explains the reason that the cost for most medical procedures skyrockets: third-party payers, including both government and private insurance.

Why the price decline in this market and not others?  Could it have something to do with the fact that laser eye surgery is not covered by insurance, not covered by Medicaid or Medicare, and not heavily regulated?  Laser eye surgery is one of the few health procedures sold in a free market with price advertising, competition and consumer driven purchases.  I’m seeing things more clearly already.

I’ve been a Steelers fan since childhood and still follow them to this day, though not as intensely as in the past. That’s starting to change, especially now that the election is over.

By the mid-80s I was wishing that Chuck Noll would disappear from Pittsburgh. He did some really great things, including creating the best football team of the 1970s. He was a phenomenal coach; he just overstayed his welcome.

Bill Cowher, at an unbelievably young 47, is not even near his prime and has shown a good ability to adapt that Noll didn’t have. Once the Steelers hit the skids in the early 80s he was unable to change with the times. Cowher has already proven he can adapt and I hope to see him on the Steelers’ sidelines for a long time to come:

Cowher’s career seems certain to end where it began, in his home town, where he and his wife, Kaye, have raised their three daughters, but with a contract extension and a team on a roll, that day isn’t likely to come soon.

“I don’t ever want to lose my passion for the game,” he said. “I love competing on Sundays. The losses are still agonizing. That never changes. But I still enjoy doing the work every day. I feel blessed to be doing something I love to do. I’ve got a great balance in my life right now, and I’m too young to stop. Anyway, they tell me retirement isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

Two former professors of mine from the University of Rochester, Ted Sider and Earl Conee, are collaborating on an introductory metaphysics text, Riddles of Existence.

The introduction and two chapters, “Personal Identity over Time” and “Why Not Nothing?” are online.

(þ Brian Weatherson.)

I’ve been reading about the weak dollar for more than two years and yet we have somehow managed to avoid economic armageddon. In fact, what’s concerned me more is the weird insistence on the part of China to peg their currency to ours at a very low value. Over the short term it hurts us by making China’s imports cheap and destroying jobs. Over the long term it causes China to destabilize their banking system by trying to maintain the peg against the dollar as it drops.

As I understand it (monetary theory is not my bag, man) the process involves printing additional yuan (or renmimbi) and simultaneously issuing new debt to soak up the new currency. I’ve heard these referred to as “wash transactions” or something similar. The additional debt that China must issue becomes untenable and destabilizes their banking system. Asset prices collapse, bank failures abound (because many debts are tied to asset prices) and the country enters a deflationary spiral, not unlike Japan in the 1980s. A spiral they have yet to recover from fully.

China raised interest rates for the first time since 1995 or 1996 a few weeks ago, so I was still under the impression that we were seeing 1980s Japan play itself out, only this time with China. Now, though, Robert Samuelson (and many, many others) is harping on it and I generally trust his judgment:

First, the American economy has grown faster than other advanced economies. Since 1990 U.S. economic growth has averaged 3 percent annually, compared with 2 percent for the European Union and 1.7 percent for Japan. America’s higher growth sucks in imports; Europe’s and Japan’s slower growth hurts U.S. exports.

Second, the global demand for dollars props up its exchange rate, making U.S. exports more expensive and U.S. imports cheaper. Indeed, many countries, particularly in Asia, fix their currencies to keep their exports competitive in the U.S. market. Instead of allowing surplus dollars to be sold on foreign exchange markets—lowering the dollar’s value—government central banks in Japan, China and other Asian countries have purchased more than $1 trillion of U.S. Treasury securities. Private investors have also bought lots of U.S. stocks and bonds. All told, foreigners own about 13 percent of U.S. stocks, 24 percent of corporate bonds and 43 percent of U.S. Treasury securities.

Up to a point, this arrangement benefits everyone. The world gets needed dollars; Americans get more imports, from cars to clothes. But we may now have passed that point. Hazards may outweigh benefits. The world may be receiving more dollars than it wants. A sell-off could spill over into the stock and bond markets and cause a deep global recession. Here’s how.