la cosa nostradamus

Apparently everybody is making Sopranos predictions. I've never seen the show, so I may be at a disadvantage. Still, I'm game. My prediction: Tony is revealed to be a horcrux. Stay tuned for the real finale 7/21/07.

Also: Regarding predictions, in the prediction markets for the Republican presidential nomination, Fred Thompson (~28%) has now opened up a gap on Giuliani (~25%) and Romney (~22%), with the deathly hallows starting to ring for McCain (~13%, once over 40%).

Also-also: Regarding HP, as longtime readers know, I haven't actually read any of the books, but instead have listened to all of them as audiobooks. I see that HP&tDH is 17 compact discs. Even if I order it for release-day delivery, I wonder what the chances are that I will actually get to listen to the whole thing by the time somebody somewhere thrusts spoilers into my sensory stream. I'm trying to decide if this time I should just buy the book and hole myself up and read it.

annals of attention markets

Back when I was in college, I remember the campus newspaper ran this cartoon whose caption was "Madonna: 20 Years Later." The drawing was of some scary-hagly-looking-woman with the hint that she was doing something sexually outlandish (like something you'd hear about in a particularly adept telling of "The Aristocrats" joke) and there was a giant thought bubble coming out of her head that just said "LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME." While twenty years have not yet passed since this cartoon, and it's not like Madonna hasn't had her share of artistic and psychological failures, she hasn't done that badly at maintaining her dignity as she has aged. The same cannot be said for Ann Coulter.

Presumably at some point Coulter is going to say something that causes everyone on the conservative carpet--who knows about the conservative fringe--to dissociate themselves from her for real this time and when this happens, I can see conservative males murmuring to each other, "Plus she's long past being hot anyway."

i am sure this was the result of extensive polling and focus group work

Hillary Clinton's website refers to her just as "Hillary" whenever possible and only uses "Clinton" where it is more or less necessary. "Rodham" is nowhere to be found.

Again, the official JFW position is not so much to endorse a particular candidate at this point as to anti-endorse whatever Democratic candidates Republicans are really enthusiastic about seeing win the nomination. While "Hillary" does not bring quite the same GOP glee as a second Kerry candidacy, it's close.

you don't have to be an economist to see the problem...

"I am required by law to negotiate with you over the price of this car. I am also required, at the end of the day, to buy this car. I see that the sticker price is $23,000. How about we start the negotiations at $17,000?"
"How about we end the negotiations at $23,000?"
"Um, $19,000?"
"$23,000."
"The law says I have to buy this car! $21,000 is not my final offer!"
"$23,000."
"Okay, $23,000."

This, as far as I can tell, is what the Democrats are offering as their plan for how the government will use its "power" to negotiate lower prices for prescription drugs with Medicare. NYT has critics making the point here.

That said, my guess is the government will be able to negotiate lower prices, which will be partly apparent [lower prices compared to what?] and partly real, just so this plan can be called a success and there will be no pressure to enact a plan where the government has true leverage and could force a much stronger deal.

It's a little like invading a foreign country without enough troops to do the job properly, except that, over the long-term, more Americans will be killed by suboptimal drug policy than by the war in Iraq.

To clarify: (1) some negotiation can't be worse than the Republican plan allowing no negotiation, but (2) this is still much better from the perspective of the pharmaceutical industry than what the Democrats could have done. Given how much money the pharmaceutical industry spent trying to defeat Democrats, it does make one wonder if part of the purpose is to neutralize this lobby by being ungenerous but not unfriendly toward them.