“Let ’Em Gouge: A Defense of Price Gouging” is good libertarian, capitalistic stuff from Cato Institute.  For instance:

[M]any of those . . . who will curse a blue streak if you put them in front of a camera and ask them about “Big Oil” are as we speak putting their houses on the market and enthusiastically gouging the living daylights out of anyone looking for a new home.

Who, me?

Point: getting the highest price is what we have come to expect and practice.  Oil companies are a fat target, but

no one ever rages against real estate price gouging. In fact, the opposite is the case. Business reporters gush about returns and politicians pledge to do whatever it takes to keep the real estate bubble afloat.

What fools we mortals be.  In any case, gouging is

good for everyone in the long run. Gougers are sending an important signal to market actors that something is scarce and that profits are available to those who produce or sell that something.

Yes.  It’s signals like this that tell us where to invest our moola.  A planned economy leaves such figuring up to commissars, who are notoriously no good at it.  The conclusion is clear:

Blame not the price gouger. Blame the government that won’t let the price gouger do his job,

by controlling prices and rationing.  Tell commissars, czars, whatever we call them, to take a hike. 

Northwest Oak Park’s Catholics flock to and generously support St. Giles, which is a monument not only to Catholic faith and culture but to the rise (mostly) of the Irish from proles to bourgeois, and I don’t mean petit.  It’s a grand structure, a “plant” to warm cockles of pastors’ hearts for these 70 or so years.  But what of St. Giles the man?

It’s his day today.  Those in the know and on the go read Saint of the Day for their information, which is “shrouded in mystery,” but so what?  I love a mystery, and so do lots of people. 

Giles died in or around 710 (we think).  One thing is for sure.  He was “one of the most popular saints in the Middle Ages.”  He hosted pilgrims on their way to Compostella in Spain and the Holy Land in a monastery he built.  After he died, he was listed among the 14 Holy Helpers, who were good to pray to when sick or dying — when a fellow needs a friend, to be sure.  St. Christopher, who came a-cropper due to historians’ shooting down his existence, was one of the 14.

In any case, Giles was very big in Sweden, Hungary, and parts of Germany and eventually got a reputation for helping the poor and disabled.  He couldn’t save his monastery hostel, however.  It fell apart some centuries after he died.  It was a sort of sic transit experience (there goes glory), which shows saints have them too.  St. Giles, pray for us.

GW taps his father and Bubba to help in fund raising for New Orleans.  They worked the tsunami beat and have gotten to know each other and enjoy ea. other’s company, per reports.  Conservatives have asked what’s going on here.  Apart from fund raising for big causes, at which Bubba is probably pretty good, there’s the marginalizing of nutty Carter, with his certifying foreign elections of tyrants and thieves, not to mention other quirks and follies dating ‘way back.  Ignore the guy.  Do not add to his cachet in a slightest bit.  Keep him in Plains if possible.  He’s a nuisance and in his way a menace.

“I have consolation in knowing my son died a hero. And also we have a volunteer Army. No one came and forced my son, no one came and forced Casey. They volunteered for the mission. They were trained soldiers. They knew they weren’t going to Boy Scout camp. They knew. They had all written their wills. We said the I love you’s and be safe, don’t be a hero, and come home.”

That’s gold star mother Diane Ibbotson, of Albion, IL, talking to a Chi Trib editorial writer.  Her son died while trying to save Casey Sheehan, who had died trying to save others in the Baghdad Sadr City battle.  She has another way of grieving, helping her husband work their farm, volunteering at a church and nursing home.  Watching the History Channel account of  D-Day, she and her husband “take comfort in the idea that one day the battle that claimed the lives of their son, Sheehan’s son, and other sons will be remembered.”

Here’s a tale of two cities’ newspapers:  In Wash Times we read this head-plus-lede graf about Iraqi constitution:

Many hurdles ahead for Iraqi constitution
By David R. Sands
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published August 30, 2005

Iraq’s draft constitution faces a tricky but not impassable road to ratification in an Oct. 15 referendum that is seen as critical to the country’s political future and to the U.S. military mission.

Chi Trib did it this way:

IRAQ IN TRANSITION
Charter finished without Sunni OK
Shiites, Kurds risk rejection by voters

By Alex Rodriguez
Tribune foreign correspondent
Published August 29, 2005

BAGHDAD — Iraqi lawmakers finished drafting their country’s new constitution Sunday, ending a rancorous process that laid bare sectarian divisiveness impeding the country as it tries to forge a new democracy.

Do I detect a little pessimism here?  “Tricky but not impassable road to ratification” vs. “rancorous process that laid bare sectarian divisiveness”?  Which paper leans toward the dark side of the story?

Meanwhile, gas prices rise, but it’s Blago to the rescue:

Gov. Rod Blagojevich on Monday asked Illinois’ attorney general to investigate possible price gouging at gas stations as Hurricane Katrina battered the Gulf Coast, a crucial area for U.S. oil and natural gas operations.

More:

“While losing a significant portion of our nation’s domestic oil production will likely cause an increase in oil prices, it is critical that we ensure that no one be allowed to use this natural disaster as an excuse to exploit consumers,” Blagojevich wrote to Attorney General Lisa Madigan, also a Democrat.

But what are Blago and Lisa going to do about it?  Supply down, demand up, and prices with it.  Would they have us ignore that law?  Or don’t they believe in it.

I have a law that ought to be passed: all governors should take Economics 101 at the state campus nearest their home.

Blagojevich said that while most gas stations won’t use a natural disaster as an excuse to raise prices, “there are always a few bad apples.”

“Unfortunately, the actions of a those few bad apples could mean higher gas prices for drivers,” he said.

Well for cry-eye, it’s a few gas stations he’s worried about?  Why all the fuss?