Friday, January 23. 2009
Broadway, 1894. More here. h/t, Theo
Touching it makes you want it.
The myth of the business cycle, and why Greenspan is bewildered.
The Wilders prosecution persecution. Front Page
A trillion bucks but they cannot promise a single job.
Obama to press: Kiss my ass
Do you want these interrogation centers closed?
What the Left is saying these days. Thompson. Good grief.
Mr. Free Market remembers Rorke's Drift
Still perpetuating the lie of Leftist "compassion"
Declaration of Dependence:
"We hold this truth to be self-evident, that all men are endowed by their government with the unalienable right to be taxed, subsidized, regulated, lectured, scolded, herded, harassed, and otherwise ruled in whatever ways work."
Thursday, January 22. 2009
From guest poster Bruce Kesler:
Murtha's Latest Pork - Guantanamo
Never missing an opportunity to bring pork to his congressional district, the porkmeister Congressman Jack Murtha says he’ll be pleased to relocate the prisoners at Guantanamo to his district.
The news report notes: “Murtha only has a minimum security prison in his district. But he says he'd have no reservations about holding detainees there in a maximum security prison.”
The construction cost of a maximum security prison is upwards of $110 million, and operating costs in US prisons run an average of almost $100 per day per prisoner, and higher for maximum security. Plus there will be all the extra costs of housing and officing the government lawyers needed. Then, there’s the boon to the local hotels and restaurants from all the defense attorneys and reporters. Murtha’s constituents might disagree with Murtha’s comment that, "They're no more dangerous in my district than in Guantanamo." But, hey, there’s jobs and profits involved. I wonder which friend or contributor of Murtha owns the site that would be sold to the government. I wonder how close the site may be to Murtha’s house.
I don’t wonder anymore at Murtha’s gumption to bring home the pork, er or whatever it might be renamed in respect to Moslem food sensitivities.
Heads up, cousins. Jonah is coming! (The author of Liberal Fascism - if they still permit you to read such radical and subversive books.)
Of course, the Brits are already experts on liberal fascism. They live it.
Gummint rules keep WH in dark ages
Docs have to treat anybody? No, they do not. They can treat who they want, when they want, and how they want.
Tax cheat to head IRS. It's "change."
Prosecuted for criticizing Islam. Good grief. Seems like everybody criticizes some religion or other these days.
What we don't know about Obama. Politico
Insty:
STEVE CHAPMAN: “We all know how we got into this economic mess. We spent too much, borrowed with abandon, and acted like the bills would never come due. So what’s the prescription for getting out? Spending more, borrowing more, and acting like the bills will never come due.”
Yeah, that’ll work.
Tiger:
... if Republicans did nothing but expose pork and keep their own noses relentlessly clean for two years -- a tall order, I admit -- they would rehabilitate their reputation as the guardian of the hardworking, taxpaying non-complainer who puts his shoulder to the wheel every day whether he likes it or not, and vastly improve their chances in 2010 and beyond.
Sad to say, I'm not holding my breath.
More good stuff later, busy today. No recession in my biz. Counter-cyclical is good.
Reality check: Your career in IT
Why major in Econ? Mankiw
Brave TV. Ex-Jihadists talk about why.
Did the dinosaurs die out quickly?
The Oprahfication of Obama. I never saw Oprah. What exactly does she do?
Remembering Fr. Neuhaus. Acton Inst.
Back to a spending orgy. Michelle
Good luck demonizing John Kasich. We love the guy. Demonization is the new political tool.
From Rick Moran:
On my radio show last night, Rich Baehr of the American Thinker pointed out that in the last decade we have freed Muslims from persecution and tyranny in Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Praytell why is it the United States who should be coming hat in hand to the Muslim world? What more could we possibly do to prove our “respect?” Time for the moderate Muslims to stand up and start reciprocating. That is the true way forward with US-Muslim relations.
From Barone on Obama's speech:
...when Obama says, "We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth," he's not far away from plugging the multicultural idea, more prevalent in Western Europe than here in America, that every culture has the same moral worth—except maybe ours, which is worse. That's a very dangerous and wrongheaded way of thinking. And it's directly contrary to the way our first black president—and our first Catholic one—won their elections. Kennedy excelled and Obama excels at speaking the English language. The civic culture they mastered was our Anglo-Protestant culture, despite the fact that one went to a Catholic church and the other's father was a citizen of Kenya (and not, I think, as people tend to say, an immigrant: I presume he was in the United States on a student visa, and we know that he went home to Kenya and participated in politics there). Kennedy and Obama won because they did not fit the negative stereotypes of their ethnic groups, just as Margaret Thatcher won in Britain not because she was warm and cuddly but because she was the Iron Lady. Kennedy seemed more like an English lord than an Irish pol (one of his sisters was engaged to the marquis of Hartington), and Obama seemed more like a law professor than a ghetto protester.
Wednesday, January 21. 2009
Leonhardt, in The NYT. Makes sense to me. I was there. In my view, some folks hype the badness simply to rationalize government power and money grabs.
The Big Three car-assemblers are dead men walking, and have been for years. I do have a concern about the banks, however, because when governments end up owning them, politics ends up running them. That is even worse than having politics run medical treatment.
Maybe it's a query: Which is worse: Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, and Nancy Pelosi controlling your doctor - or controlling your bank?
Most from the US, second most from Canada. From The Myth of America's Oil Addiction:
The United States consumes about 21 million barrels of oil a day. Just over a third is domestically produced, while the rest is imported from a diverse array of sources from Latin America to Canada to Africa and the Middle East. The top five sources are geographically diverse: Canada, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Venezuela and Nigeria. If Americans want to wring their hands in fear of being held hostage to oil imports, they might worry about a Big Five conspiracy: a secret Riyadh-Ottawa-Mexico City-Caracas-Lagos cartel that turns off the tap one day. If that sounds impossible and ridiculous, it’s because it is.
Photo: The Englishman's place, this week. Love the pic. But where's all the snow?
Everybody has his or her own critique of Obama's speech. I thought it was OK. Why is this such a big deal? The guy got a promotion. I had collected a bunch of interesting comments about it, but it's really not important so I decided not to link them.
Horowitz on conservatives and the inauguration
Kenyans waiting for their free stuff. Me too.
GM: We're still dying. NYT: We're still dying. They had to go to a loan shark? Also, the banks are bankrupt. There isn't enough money in the world to rescue all these dying things.
Wonderful Thank You George Bush photos.
Who is this obnoxious a-hole? Oh, he's Obama's Chief of Staff, putting away childish things.
Stimulus = pork.
Want influence in the new Admin? Be George Soros.
Ace's honeymoon is over. Well, when I heard that white and right thing I said things outloud that I cannot post at Maggie's.
On Obama's first day, he calls for repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act. First things first, right?
Obama channeling Fred Astaire?
Also not drinking the Kool Aid.
Non-political: parents of autistic kids try anything. Sadly, they are easy prey for quacks and mountebanks.
 Orangutans threatened by Green Movement (h/t Jungleman). Orangs are almost people, aren't they? Without clothing, haircuts, etc.? See our photo of a well-groomed female Orang lounging at the beach.
The Great College Hoax. (h/t, Dr. Helen)
How is your fastball reaction time? (h/t, Theo)
If movie posters were honest (h/t, Wall St. Fighter)
Checklists for everything. I could not live without them. Especially my travel checklists. Without them, I'd end up at the beach without my flip-flops, in the woods without camera and ammo, in Italy without walking shoes, and in Nantucket without my red shorts.
Tuesday, January 20. 2009
 Good luck to the new Pres, and all the best to George Bush with our thanks for taking on a thankless job (photo from Anchoress). These people are only human...and, for better or worse, there happen to be three equal branches of the federal government. It's a bully pulpit, though, if one knows how to use it. GW didn't know how, or didn't care to. Celebrity was not his goal.
The death or re-birth of the financial supermarket/ Or will all of the banks end up nationalized?
A proposal to make newspapers non-profits.
What Obama brings to Conservatives.
Good essay: Kristol on Our next War Pres
Reminder to the orgasmic MSM: Half the country voted for the other guy.
McCain's campaign was pitiful. Like Dole, I think he was told from the start that he had no chance, so just go out there and be a good sport.
From the unions, a deafening silence on climate. Related: Climate update at Gateway
What is affordable housing? Sowell
Hamas torturing Fatah. That is true torture.
Florida: The Fool's Golden State. Vanderleun
A guy who is clearly not optimistic about Obama.
A grim milestone indeed. Government jobs in the US pass manufacturing jobs (h/t, Insty):
Who is supposed to make the money and profits to pay for all of those salaries, benefits, and pensions?
Despite being older than Insty - old enough to remember the Civil Rights era - I'll ditto Insty on his post. I always want the best for our country, and wisdom for our leaders government employees.
I refuse to term them "leaders" because, as a cranky Yank, I rarely follow anybody unless they're going where I am going.
We have never done an "open thread" here at Maggie's. In the spirit of 'change," let's give it a semi-open try.
"Hope" and "Change" are empty vessels. What do our readers want for Hope and Change (if anything)?
 I have never enjoyed inaugurations, whether I voted for the guy or not. They have always seemed too much like coronations to me, neither fitting the role nor the country. We build 'em up to superhuman size...and then we tear 'em down. Our founders rightly feared that human nature would try to turn Presidents into kings. Yes, it is kinda cool that we elected a young black guy, but just to say that is not only racist but also rather adolescent.
Blame Bernie Madoff's parents
Two thirds of African-Americans believe King's vision has been fullfilled.
From The Day the Newspaper Died in The New Yorker:
Soon after Jefferson came to power, he, like Adams, developed doubts about the unbounded liberty of the press. Printers, Jefferson complained, just days after his election, “live by the zeal they can kindle, and the schisms they can create.” In his second Inaugural Address, Jefferson ranted against printers who had assaulted him with “the artillery of the press,” warning that he had given some thought to prosecuting them. During his beleaguered second term, Jefferson suggested that newspapers ought to be divided into four sections: Truths, Probabilities, Possibilities, and Lies. What Jefferson wanted for the nation under his governance was a “union of opinion.” But that, of course, can never be the aspiration of a democracy—a point that newspapers have been very good at making over the two centuries since.
A critical view of Bush's tenure, at Reason
Wanted: More Nazis
From Mark Levey Leave the New Deal in the history books:
By 1939 Roosevelt's own Treasury secretary, Henry Morgenthau, had realized that the New Deal economic policies had failed. "We have tried spending money," Morgenthau wrote in his diary. "We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. . . . After eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. . . . And an enormous debt to boot!"
The problem was that neither Roosevelt nor President Herbert Hoover before him grasped the essential nature of the crisis, which was not the stock-market crash, but global deflation. At the end of the roaring '20s, an overhang of intergovernmental war debt from World War I, coupled with falling commodity prices and a currency crisis, had started the decline. Weak credit structures and European banks hurt by wartime inflation worsened it. When the Austrian Creditanstalt Bank failed, it ignited a global banking crisis that slashed across the international financial system cutting down everything in its path. Deflation went into full howl.
The same perils are now confronting President-elect Barack Obama, as the risk of deflation casts a long shadow over the economy. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson have been correctly focused on shoring up financial institutions to prevent a collapse of the financial system, and stave off a severe decline in the general price level. If that were to occur, the unspoken fear has been that the U.S. and global economy could go into a deflationary death spiral that would cause the collapse of the international financial system.
From Karlgaard in Forbes: A Failure of Morals not Capitalism:
Many people do blame capitalism for bringing us to this low moment in the economy. Do they have a point?
They do if capitalism, as they define it, is devoid of any underlying morality. True enough, it is hard to see any underlying morality when one surveys the present carnage caused by liar loans, shady banks, duplicitous politicians, Ponzi schemers and regulators angling for Wall Street jobs.
This weekend, I caught a BBC radio program on the meltdown in “The City”--London’s financial district. The program quoted many young Brit bankers who said morality was a barrier to personal success in The City. Better to have the sociopath gene if one wants to become a billionaire.
Whole thing here.
Monday, January 19. 2009
 More snow yesterday and last night. This has been a wonderful winter thus far, cold and snowy, and cozy indoors. I got myself some nasty frostbite on my hands splitting and stacking firewood this past week. Just beginning to heal with the help of the BD daughter's special hand lotion stuff. Having sons is a darn good idea, but daughters take care of you.
Photo is my snow-covered duck boat.
16 things it took me 50 years to learn. Dave Barry
Are new jobs "stimulating"?
Jules needs a new system if he is going to continue to put up with his family's resentment of his blogging. His slow loading was bugging me, too.
Jew-baiting, then and now.
Bill Moyers vs. Abraham Foxman
"The sheer arrogance is breathtaking." Samizdata. Same in the US.
Towards market-based universities. Ward Connerly.
It's always fun to kick Tom Friedman around. He is indeed a legend in his own mind.
James Hansen: Obama has just 4 years to save the world. Meanwhile, Princeton Physics Prof unloads on the AGW charlatans
A parody or not?, from Slate's whine wine critic.
George Lakoff's job is to find new metaphors with which to render statist and socialist agenda items more palatable. Wilkinson discusses Lakoff's notion of "countries as clubs." I kept misreading this as "countries as country clubs." Free golf for all? or "Free the Golf Foursome"?
More details from the proposed Dem spending that you might have missed.
Middlebrow Messiahs and The Rise, Fall, and Afterlife of The Great Books
A blog the Dyl found: The Contemporary Calvinist. He posted Jonathan Edwards' 70 Resolutions. It's all good.
The Eastern Church: How much do you know about it? One quote:
Eastern priests expect not only regular confession, but regular attendance, and most Eastern priests do not consider only every Sunday regular attendance. Both the Byzantine and Orthodox priests here expect attendance at Vespers as well as Matins and Liturgy on Sundays. The Orthodox parish offers Vespers and confessions every Wednesday and Saturday evening, and the priest expects attendance on Wednesday evenings, as well as Holy Days, in order to receive the Eucharist. Both priests require regular confessions.
The Plague hits Al Qaida. How nice for them.
 I agree with this quote at Am Thinker:
It can be stated without fear of serious argument that no previous president has been treated as brutally, viciously, and unfairly as George W. Bush.
Bush 43 endured a deliberate and planned assault on everything he stood for, everything he was involved in, everything he tried to accomplish. Those who worked with him suffered nearly as much (and some even more -- at least one, Scooter Libby, was convicted on utterly specious charges in what amounts to a show trial).His detractors were willing to risk the country's safety, its economic health, and the very balance of the democratic system of government in order to get at him. They were out to bring him down at all costs, or at the very least destroy his personal and presidential reputation. At this they have been half successful, at a high price for the country and its government.
Related: Bush's Rehabilitation. Krauthammer.
Related: War on Terror most successful US military operation in history. Jefferson on the pirates has nothing on him.
Related: Bush saved ten million African lives. He is better appreciated in Africa than in the US.
Related: To trash Bush was to belong. Related: The infantile tantrums Bush endured, without any hostile reaction from him or from his admin.
Sunday, January 18. 2009
30 people for dinner uses one heck of a lot of appetizer plates, gumbo bowls, dinner plates and dessert plates, serving trays, pots and pans, utensils, wine glasses, linens, etc. It's our family tradition to leave it all out overnight so everything sticks hard to them, then take on the challenge in the morning. However, every last bit is cleaned up now. In keeping with the times, we did the whole thing without any servants/helpers. I am happy to have a left-over mountain of cheese grits. I can live on that stuff.
Well, we are blessed with wonderful friends. And, by the way, I need to mention that the person who "offered to bring desserts" last night is not only a fine lady and a talented pastry chef - but also an avid hunter and shooter. I was afraid she might try to pull a Cheney on me someday in a pheasant field if I didn't add that important detail.
Seen at the bird feeder this morning: A fine male Eastern Towhee (image). One wouldn't think it, but they are technically large sparrows. Early migrant, or over-wintering? They are indeed less common in New England than they used to be, for unknown reasons. They are woodland birds, and our eastern woodlands have been expanding as New England agriculture becomes less profitable.
 Somehow, Tiger just can't get it into his head that Big Corporations are evil, and should be destroyed. A quote:
...to Democrats, virtually every jurisdiction in the world is becoming a corporate tax haven compared to the United States. The federal and state corporate income tax rate in New Jersey, not the highest in the United States, is seven percentage points (or approximately 20%) higher than France, 11 percentage points (or around 35%) higher than Australia and the United Kingdom, and 29 percentage points (or around 250%) higher than in Ireland.
Folks, we are not going to rebuild our economy by vilifying public U.S. corporations that are operating businesses in "tax havens," even tiny little islands in the Caribbean. The relatively new accounting rules around corporate tax (known as "Fin 48" to the cognoscenti) wrap corporate taxes up in the same intensive audit review as other financial reporting. Sure, there will be the occasional case of fraud, but the top U.S. corporations (and even much smaller ones) now have vast internal audit staffs that blow the whistle on any attempt -- which now cannot come from the "top" -- actually to evade taxes. No, if you want to stimulate economic activity in the United States, massively reduce the corporate tax. At least make us competitive with, say, France, which any corporation would prefer to the United States as a location for its profits.
A new progressive's guide to action, from The Nation. Good grief. These folks live in the 1930s.
It's not your great-great-great-great grandfather's Bank Medici
The Milky Way: Not snack-sized anymore
Obama's apparent energy policy. Let's hope it's not what it looks like.
Best Blog? We considered nominating him for the Maggie's Farm Most in Need of Medication Award.
In case you missed it, here's the video of 1549 going into the river.
Surber on Hillary:
Nobody is dumber than someone who thinks she knows it all.
Omama is no Lincoln. He's a Copperhead. Thus far, anyway.
JC Phillips on the taxes on soda pop:
There is no scientific research linking non diet drinks with obesity.
It's not really a nanny state thing: It's a new tax, pure and simple, disguised with virtuous intentions.
Saturday, January 17. 2009
Got an email from the NJ in Maine. He had -19 degrees F last night, with snow flurries. Lowest thermometer he'd ever seen in person. Possibly too cold for downhill skiing, even for tough guys. Sounds like pub weather to me. I have heard a number of people say that this cold is due to global warming. Of course - everything is. It's 3 here right now, and our Dr. Bliss is skiing in New Hampshire. Maggie's Farm people like cold weather. It makes us feel alive - and we get to use our gear.
 Two links about coffee: 7 cups of coffee cause you to hallucinate. Also, drinking coffee reduces risk of Alzheimer's/ Photo from the latter article.
A little research on commercial airplane ditchings. Related: Somebody who studies bird-plane collisions
A very good Snow Goose recipe. On a serious note, I think I might make this hors d'oevres tonight, with Canada Goose breast. But I'm afraid the goose will end up overcooked.
Historian offered a choice. Sort of a Hobson's Choice.
The deliberate dumbing down of America. Video
Ace on asexuality:
I'm not being misogynist when I say that men and women are basically alien species living together on the same planet, united only by our matching genitals.
OK, but is matching the best word?
A mere $217,000 per job. That's my money. I earned it.
Road to Serfdom. A condensed version.
Everybody has reported that Bush's wiretapping was legal. It will remain in force, I think.
A gay sex orgy for the inauguration. Dare I ask what rimming has to do with the inauguration? Maybe Chris Matthews might know.
Rick Moran:
Geithner is lying when he says he “forgot” to pay his taxes. This is a given. It also insults our intelligence when he claims that his failure to pay the IRS what he owes is an “honest mistake.” We will now see if the rest of the Washington Democratic establishment plays along with Geithner and pretends they believe his lies, thus perpetrating a “business as usual” climate in the Obama government rather than the promised reform that so many believed so passionately he could bring about.
It is a little lie, a white lie, but telling nevertheless. And like Republican lawmakers preaching “family values” who get caught with their pants down around their ankles, anyone who preaches reform and changing the way Washington does business and then tolerates the bald faced lying of Geithner can and will be rightly accused of rank hypocrisy if they don’t do the right thing and yank this tax dodge from consideration for any high office in the Obama Administration.
Or are Democrats to be allowed a different standard of hypocrisy because of bad economic times?
I appreciate the dilemma. Geithner is a good choice, but I think I tend to worry more about the accuracy of my taxes, and general law obedience, than he does. And I have less to lose. He's a smart and clever Wall Street/DC yuppie.
Friday, January 16. 2009
“I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape - the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn't show... ”
- Andrew Wyeth. Andrew Wyeth dead at 91. Illustrator? Artist? What's the diff? They called his Dad, NC Wyeth, an "illustrator." Image above is Andrew Wyeth's Long Limbs, 1999.
Who voted for Obama? Patriot Post (scroll to Patriot Perspective)
How to deal with a home invasion (h/t, Alphecca). Related: Gun Salesman of the Year
More details of the plane crash
Look on the bright side: Consumer prices fall again. It's a good time to buy stuff.
Citigroup Citibank Whatever update. Thanks for nuthin, Sandy Weill.
What if Israel had lost the Six-Day War?
The mess that is Putin's Russia
Scathing about Bush's Presidency: View from the Right. OK, Lawrence, but drop it now. Just look at these people.
From guest poster Bruce Kesler:
Only when voters speak out loudly, and only occasionally even then, do our legislators take heed. Newly elected president Barack Obama and his choice for Secretary of Health and Human Services former Senator Tom Daschle, who is also tasked as “health reform” czar by Obama, say they intend major changes in how Americans receive health care, with government taking vastly increased control.
The latest Rasmussen poll reports that most Americans are highly skeptical and unwilling to pay higher taxes for it: Forty-three percent (43%) of U.S. voters say the quality of health care in America will get worse if a government-run health insurance plan is created to compete with private plans. Thirty-three percent (33%) say quality will get better, and 10% say it will stay the same… Forty-seven percent (47%) of voters say it is better to expand coverage through private health insurance plans than through government-run programs like Medicaid. Thirty-five percent (35%) believe the opposite to be true, with 17% not sure. In a survey last April, just 29% of American adults supported a national health insurance program overseen by the Federal Government…. just 36% favor a government-controlled health plan for the uninsured if it means an increase in their income taxes. Fifty percent (50%) are opposed to such a plan for those who cannot get insurance if it means a tax increase, and 14% are undecided….
A majority of U.S. voters (58%), however, oppose any kind of government-controlled health plan if it means they have to change their own insurance coverage.
Wednesday’s overwhelming vote in the US House to pass the huge expansion of the SCHIP program, formerly passed by the last Congress and twice vetoed by President Bush, is touted as a “down payment” on Obama-Daschle getting their way on their bigger healthcare goals. Republican efforts to amend the SCHIP bill – for example, requiring that sponsors who pledged to support legal immigrants do so -- were not allowed by the Democrats in the House. The recent empirical evidence in Hawaii was ignored that allowing those with high incomes -- those with incomes up to $80,000 may enter SCHIP -- results in many abandoning existing insurance and greatly increased government deficits. Hawaii abandoned the unaffordable program:
State health officials argued that most of the children enrolled in the universal child care program previously had private health insurance, indicating that it was helping those who didn't need it.
As with many of Obama’s choices for top spots, Tom Daschle’s nomination is running into some turbulence over his dealings with his own “charitable” tax deductions and associations with a “charity” that may have abused its status for political ends – as too many do. He’ll likely be confirmed anyway, especially with Democrat control of Congress.
Yet, as opposition has mounted in Congress – reacting to heavy public opposition – over the lack of transparency and use of hundreds of billions of dollars of “bailout” funds and Obama’s intents for over a trillion dollars more, the portent for Obama-Daschle “charities” getting their way to control over the 15% of the US’s economy in healthcare diminishes.
Thus the key question: Will data dash Daschle?
Thursday, January 15. 2009
 Hot women cheat on their husbands. Dog bites man.
Chavez changes his tune, begs for US oil bids.
The Inaugu-palooza
Thank you, President Bush. Anchoress
The Islamic way of war. Middle East Forum
Joe Who?
Reason #1343 to screw the UN
Moral inversion: Che = Batman
Who can improve schools - parents or bureaucrats? Bureaucrats will only protect their own interests. That's their primary job.
In favor of de-skilling. From Stumbling:
Rather than raises people’s skills to fill demanding jobs, why don’t we cut the demands of those jobs? Deskilling is cheaper than education.
Makes sense to me. I ain't overly eddicated, but I does OK wit my wits and from the School of Hard Knocks which taught me to always come back stronger and smarter when the mean old world knocks me down.
Here's what the "smart" stimulus will include. I earned that money. Related: The ethics of taxation.
Boortz:
Since when does the IRS acknowledge the concept of an "innocent mistake?"
From Nyquist:
According to President Bush, “We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.”
The president’s statement is logically correct, but strategically nonsensical. While the “expansion of freedom” is desirable for America, it is prohibitively costly and beyond our capabilities. It antagonizes every despot on the planet, and causes them to join with our enemies.
From AVI:
...Jesus must be made into the Original Gandhi. Rubbish. Christian pacifism is a high calling, and it might be asked of any of us. But it is not the only calling, and not the highest.
From Luskin:
Conservatives may rightly object to all this government meddling in private markets on general principle. But the more salient objection is that government has botched it. The attempts to deal with failures at Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, AIG, Washington Mutual, and Wachovia were not rescues or bailouts at all—they were wipeouts, seemingly intended more to punish than to rescue. They were government takings of private property for public use—seizures of shareholder wealth in troubled firms in the name of saving the system—without the just compensation promised in the Fifth Amendment and often beyond the legal authority of the government agencies involved.
Editor: As always, I (and our other contribs) added to this NJ post. I just got an email from a BD pup that she could see the airplane in the Hudson from her window on the West Side of Manhattan. That pilot is a hero. You have to admire those nerves of steel and the quick thinking. That was a 3-4 minute flight. I want that pilot Sully on my next flight.
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