Links and stuff.

• Popular Mechanics opines on Ethanol.
• A Chinese man talking to my wife, as I stood near, suddenly starting talking in English to her.  He had the urge.
• Who can you trust?
• That Clinton and Monica thing was ten years ago. How time flies!
• Tony progress report:  He can now use his hands to pull the soother out of his mouth.  Also, I gave him two rattles to play with.  I put one in each hand.  He banged them together.
• I am spending the afternoon with the Toner as the wife and her mother go out.  I was playing with the Toner in the bedroom and watching the third season of the Wire on DVD.  He has fallen asleep so I can blog.
• My obsessions these days besides Tony, Castro dying and Al Gore are the NFL playoffs and the U.S. Presidential Race.  In the NFL, it looks like a Patriots coronation.  The only drama will come from the Giants and Packers game.  I think the Giants have a good chance of taking it.  In the Presidential Race, you have  differing contests in the two parties.  The Democratic side is about personalities.  Will the black man or the woman, who happens to be a wife of the ex-president, win?  The Republican side may be a bunch of white guys, but it's race is more about the ideas of the candidates.  John McCain, a veteran and so a military guy, represents a natural constituency of the Republicans, but he is getting hammered for his legislative record.  Huckabee, an evangelical, is getting hammered by Republicans for his leftist ideas on economic policy and foreign policy (All the Democrats see is that he is an evangelical).  Ron Paul, a libertarian, is criticized by many Republicans because of his foreign policy ideas.  Rudy G, a hero of 9/11, is criticized by Republicans for not being enough of a social conservative.  Mitt Romney, a Republican hero for being governor in Massachusetts, is criticized for his flip-flops on positions.  And so it goes. 
• My list of preferences for the Republican nomination:  Number 1, Rudy G because he seems a capable administrator and very intelligent - I have always been impressed by him, and he wears a dress sometimes; Number 2, Fred Thompson because his statement about the Iranians and their boats is endearing - it is nice to see an American talk tough for once; Number 3, Mitt Romney because he is a capable administrator and conservative - he has the National Review and the King of Wuxi endorsements; Number 4, John McCain, he supported the war in Iraq but I think he is not much of a libertarian; Number 5, Ron Paul, he is so right on economic policy (a libertarian he is)that it is a shame that he is an isolationist - America has a moral duty to look after the world because there is no other power capable (U.N. ha!); and last, Huckabee, his religion does not so much scare me as his being a leftist in too many ways and you can't trust people from Arkansas (He is from the same state as Bill Clinton).
• China's consumer is stymied by lack of credit.
• Why does India lag behind China economically?