Assorted Items

Atrios argues that "McCain lies to Fox about who is going to attend his town hall", while Huffington Post  says Fox amended that to say "the audience was actually "made up of invited guests and supporters".  They attribute that to a Democratic National Committee statement. 

Funny, I happen to know that the McCain campaign invited at least one Democrat:  Barack Obama.  

But  I'm not sure what McCain is supposed to have lied about.

• Tickets were distributed by...
  
  • The McCain campaign
  • Independent groups
  • Mayor Bloomberg
• Contra the report they're citing, Bloomberg is not, in fact, a Republican, registered or otherwise.   He's an independent....and not exactly a ringer for Republicans.
• Obama complains about being questioned on the campaign trail.  Meanwhile, McCain has taken a very open (and patient) approach to questions and audiences throughout the campaign. 
• McCain is even doing blogger calls with Democrats.

Of course, the Obama campaign could have distributed tickets and brought their own audience, too.  If Obama had been willing to show up. 

Paul Krugman wants our food system to "go back to the way it was after Teddy Roosevelt, when the Socialists took over."  He is anxious for this to happen because...it seems to him there's been a lot of news about food safety issues lately.  

Except, as Tyler Cowen points out, there haven't been.

Like the "Shark Attacks" of 2001, or the rash of kidnappings of recent years, "more media attention" does not equal "bigger problem".  This is the "one is a coincident, two is a trend, three an excuse for regulation" theory of progressive government.  

The truly strange thing isn't that Krugman and progressives engage in this "speculative frenzy in regulation" - when all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail - but that they have so much faith in regulatory agencies in the first place.  Krugman's argument is that regulation would work just fine...if we just assume angels will be running the agencies.  As if regulatory capture is a reality you can avoid by caring deeply enough.

Effective and minimal regulation of actual harm and fraud can be important.  But the existence of a problem does not imply the need for, or marginal benefit of, regulation.

Megan McArdle and Tyler Cowen both have important thoughts on this subject, as well.