Superb commentary at Cato by Patrick Basham on US relations with Russia at this crucial time.

Says Basham:

I am currently hosting my so-called "French Sister". She is the youngest daughter in a family with whom I lived in France during my junior year of undergrad. It wasn't a pre-determined arrangement by some agency...just chance. I was studying and living in Avignon in my own apartment when I met a young man (through a mutual friend) at school who would become one of my best friends to this day.

The cost of energy is a big concern on people's minds and naturally figures heavily in the electoral rhetoric heading into November and it will only get heavier. But, of course, that's about all it will do. The blunt reality of it all is that nothing either McCain or Obama have in mind will lower energy costs in the short term....and pretty much for the longer term. This is of course is not really a shocking revelation to many but it does put on damper on the hopeful and uplifting feeling many will get when listening to their preferred candidate speak on the matter.

While Democrats of all kinds are humming along in upbeat fashion toward what they hope will be a triumphant return to the White House this fall, there's a very underdiscussed facet of it:

WHO exactly is on board in this wave toward hopeful victory and what exactly are they expecting?

I love old stuff...so a hearty hat tip to Tyler Cowen for pointing to Andrew Sullivan who points to this priceless collection of color photos.

Sullivan also provides a link where you can scroll through many on one page....St. Louis, Baltimore, Altanta, Wichita and many more.

I'm not enthused in any way about the fall election and for many, many, many reasons. The ham and jelly vs. peanut butter and cheese sandwich choices (from my POV anyway) when all I want is a damned "ham and cheese sandwich" leave me opting to skip lunch...so to speak. But, I guess all I can do is favor ham or cheese and tolerate the rest.

So, whether you want to label foreign policy "ham" or "cheese" is kind of irrelevant in the analogy but whichever it is is the one that matters more right now.

I support free trade....or at least as free as possible. If two competing measures over trade come up in Congress, it's 99.9% likely that I'll support the measure which nets free-ER trade than the status quo...even when the option of Free-ER trade in some managed and messy trade agreement like NAFTA or CAFTA. Why? Because if the option is NAFTA or the maintenance of barriers or more barriers, I'll side with NAFTA. If it's between NAFTA and the abolition of all tariffs, I'll choose the latter (but that never seems to be the choice, sadly).

This is interesting.

I didn't know this. Fuel subsidies in emerging economies are helping to keep world oil prices from falling. In such countries with less disposable income and more political pressure to keep gas affordable, governments have been stepping up subsidies to keep pump prices from shooting up like they have here. So, in case you were wondering why record level oil prices weren't stunting demand and bringing prices down, now you know part of the reason.

I usually don't write about foreign affairs. It's not because of a lack of priorities or interest. Indeed, I find it to be vastly more important when discussing presidential politics than most other issues. The problem is that I find it so obvious in terms of proper courses of action that I really never have much to add. In general, hawkishly myopic and simplistic thinking on foreign policy seems a far easier romantic seduction to avoid than grand top-down socio-economic adventures on the domestic front.

I don't know if anyone of you have seen Pickens' timely (think: ELECTIONS) TV Ads about a "plan for energy independence" and reducing "dependence on foreign oil". They struck me as sophistic as soon as I heard them and rife with appeals to mechantilism and benevolent, nice-sounding cronyism. Being certain it was simply that, I just rolled my eyes and didn't give it much thought.

Well, Jerry Taylor of Cato has given it some thought and it's just what I expected.

Says Taylor: