Scriptorium. We are all Merton fans here. A quote from that link:

The most dangerous man in the world is the contemplative who is guided by nobody. He trusts his own visions. He obeys the attractions of an interior voice, but will not listen to other men. He identifies the will of God with anything that makes him feel, within his own heart, a big, warm, sweet interior glow. The sweeter and the warmer the feeling, the more he is convinced of his own infallibility. And if the sheer force of his own self-confidence communicates itself to other people and gives them the impression that he really is a saint, such a man can wreck a whole city or a religious order or even a nation. The world is covered with scars that have been left in its flesh by visionaries like these.

Every day I feel more steamed about this "stimulus." This is no stimulus. Dear readers, we are in the process of getting scammed, hoodwinked, tricked - in a way that Bernie Madoff could only dream about doing in his wildest dreams. The statists are literally trying to pull a fast one over on me. It's the biggest money and power grab since Lyndon Johnson, and nobody knows all of the details, implications, or the long-term consequences - not to mention the undiscussed or unintended (or quietly-intended) consequences.

It's a trickster's delight. Are we such easy marks? I hope not. They hope most of us are uninformed morons and will defer to their superior wisdom. The House bill goes far beyond the usual pork. It changes the role of the federal government in our lives, and is intended to do so. This is no short-term stimulus for an ugly recession; this is long-term change via centralization of power and money using today's fears about the economy as a convenient excuse.

Why is it long-term? Heck, it's not just long-term; this stuff is forever. How difficult is it to "cut" a program? Well, no more difficult than trying to take a lollypop out of a kid's mouth. The socialist ratchet wrench has no reverse setting.

Yes, I am not pleased with hopey-changey thus far.

 From WSJ's Look at the Time:

That's what the stimulus bill was about—not knowing what time it is, not knowing the old pork-barrel, group-greasing ways are over, done, embarrassing. When you create a bill like that, it doesn't mean you're a pro, it doesn't mean you're a tough, no-nonsense pol. It means you're a slob.

That's how the Democratic establishment in the House looks, not like people who are responding to a crisis, or even like people who are ignoring a crisis, but people who are using a crisis. Our hopeful, compelling new president shouldn't have gone with this bill. He made news this week by going to the House to meet with Republicans. He could have made history by listening to them.

Via NRO:

To call the economic legislation now moving through Congress a stimulus bill obscures its full implications. The measure represents the most ambitious effort in decades to swell public spending on domestic priorities such as education, infrastructure, and scientific research that many Democrats consider the foundation stones of sustained prosperity.

The Democratic plan . . . provides the biggest surge in long-term public investment since President Johnson's Great Society in the 1960s. . . .

[T]he bill also emphatically expands programs targeted more at the far term than the near term — from aid to schools in low-income areas ($13 billion) to expanded college loans ($16 billion) and scientific research ($10 billion). In normal times, Congress might never enlarge so many programs at once. But, as with Reagan's tax cut, the crisis-induced demand for action may suspend the normal laws of political gravity — and allow Democrats to redirect federal priorities as boldly as Reagan did. "This is a once-in-a-25-year opportunity to [implement] a lot of our agenda," a top House Democratic aide says.

How big is the "stimulus"? Bigger than any program or war in history.

The stimulus will undo two decades of welfare reform.

Via Insty:

For the amount spent we could have given every unemployed person in the United States roughly $75,000.

We could give every person who had lost a job and is now passing through long-term unemployment of six months or longer roughly $300,000.

There has been pork barrel politics since there has been politics. The scale of this pork is beyond what had ever been imagined before — and no one can be sure it will actually do much stimulation.

Wall Street didn’t have Obama’s chutzpah. And it didn’t do nearly the damage to the nation that this bill will do. (Via Dan Riehl).

Via SDA:

The U.S. National Debt was $930 billion in 1980, or 33% of GDP. Today it is $10.7 trillion, or 76% of GDP. The National Debt has grown by 1,150% in 28 years. With the planned fiscal stimulus (taxing future generations), the National Debt will reach 100% of GDP during the Obama administration. When Argentina’s economy collapsed in 1998, their National Debt as a percentage of GDP was 65%. The Great Deniers say we are not Argentina. They say we are safe because the U.S. dollar is the reserve currency of the world. This is like jumping off a 20 story building and as you pass the 10th floor someone yells out the window asking how you are doing. You answer, “Good, so far”.

From Nyquist's American Imperialism, Part 2, one quote:

The war initiated by Japan, first by invading China, then by declaring war on the United States and Great Britain, resulted in more than 24 million deaths in allied countries – 23.8 million of them being Chinese. The loss of life to other countries included: 106,000 Americans; 86,000 Indians; 57,000 Philippinos; 52,000 British; 17,000 Australians; and 12,000 Soviets. The logic of invading and declaring war on so many countries had to do with securing resources for Japan’s economic self-sufficiency.

As the Emperor explained, it was merely incidental that Japanese self-preservation and self-sufficiency required the killing of more than 24 million foreigners. It was this unfortunate byproduct of Tokyo’s policy that unleashed “American imperialism.”

Read the whole thing. We Americans tend to be isolationists unless we are poked with sharp sticks. Whether at home, in our towns, in our states, or in our country, we like to be left alone to lead our lives as best we can.

The OED may never be republished in print.

But you can use it online, by subscription.

The etymology of the word "fair." Language Log

Is Scots a language? Yes it is. Or was...

I thought he was elected to run the city, but he seems to prefer controlling what we put in our mouths. Fats, smokes, soda pop - and now salt!?!

What an idiot. There is not a darn thing wrong with salt. Furthermore, food without salt tastes like cardboard. As a lover of NYC, I have had it with this nanny Mayor. Let's go back to a normal machine sleazebag Dem who will rip you off and pad his pocket and pass money to his buddies - but won't tell you what to eat or drink or smoke. Towns like NYC are for people who want to be free to do what the heck they want, and are not terrified by death.

This Bloomberg guy is a nut. Rich, but still a control freak and a crank. Dietarily-obsessed, too, it seems, with a mild form of eating disorder which causes him to be concerned with what other people do. He's neither my doctor nor my nutritionist nor my Mom, even though he seems to imagine that he is and that I want him to be.

What will be next on his list? Meat? Alcohol? Coffee? Chocolate? Broccoli (which raises cancer risk)? Greens (whose folate raises risk of cancer recurrence)?

...it seems that the model we are following is this one: government and lobbyists use regulation and innovation to stop the market from innovating; government and lobbyists perceive need for that market innovation; government pays market to implement innovation by paying costs of regulation and litigation from taxpayer funds; government and lobbyists finally say the market has failed and only government can provide genuine progress.

Quoted at Tiger