Sunday, August 8. 2010
Driscoll: The ‘Diversity Economy’ and its DC Discontents. One quote:
...you can’t successfully govern when you’re trying to regulate the bejesus out of such a diverse 21st century economy. If you’re not already in a recession, the odds are very high you will be soon. Particularly when you’re also attempting to go Barack to the Future with a 1930s through 1960s-style command and control governing style that attempts a return to corporatism, and has enough hubris to imagine that it’s possible to run a wildly decentralized, demassified economy out of Washington DC.
I agree that our ruling classes are living in the 1930s.
Well, it was another busy week in American politics.
Isaiah 1:1, 10-20
1:1 The vision of Isaiah son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.
1:10 Hear the word of the LORD, you rulers of Sodom! Listen to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah!
1:11 What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the LORD; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats.
1:12 When you come to appear before me, who asked this from your hand? Trample my courts no more;
1:13 bringing offerings is futile; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and sabbath and calling of convocation-- I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity.
1:14 Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them.
1:15 When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood.
1:16 Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil,
1:17 learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.
1:18 Come now, let us argue it out, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.
1:19 If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land;
1:20 but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword; for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.
Saturday, August 7. 2010
 Mrs. BD reports today, after trying Gibbs' recommendation, that a paste of vinegar and baking soda is quite effective for poison ivy. (Remember McGeek's case of poison ivy?)
Mrs. BD is highly sensitive to poison ivy, but when she gets weeding she stops paying attention and just rips along like a weeding machine.
Gibbs is usually right about things. I made her take some Benadryl too. Partly to compete with Gibbs, I guess.
This is a repost from 2006 (so you need to right-click on the links)
 What if the part of human nature which wants paternalism, or maternalism, in the State is sometimes, or often, stronger than the part that wants freedom, autonomy, self-reliance and self-determination?
What if we are wrong to imagine, as Bush claims, that an aspiration for freedom lives in the hearts of all mankind?
What if that aspiration is a simple error of a uniquely American culture, which combined northern European Calvinism which rejects any hierarchy in church or in life; a personal relationship with God; Lockeian liberalism; a distinctly northern European moral code in which honor, reliability, hard work, personal responsibility, generosity, and integrity are the measure of a person; a frontier attitude which expects life to be difficult but remains optimistic, and an innate distrust of government and politicians - is a very strange brew?
Maybe a strange brew which permits people to make the most of their lives and their "inner lives" - or the least of them, if they so chose - but requires more practical and psychological independence and liberty than most humans desire. Maybe?
We know that our revolutionary ancestors were in the minority, here in the colonies. The most vociferous, for sure. But most were Loyalists until the tide finally turned. Zogby polls would not have supported rebellion against the Crown. Neither King George, nor Lord North, were evil people, by any means. Well-intentioned, but confused by the new American spirit.
These are hardly original questions, but they come up because of a series of bits that stuck in my mind. One was a piece at Daily Pundit, about the Russian comfort with Putin's moves towards autocracy. A piece by Callick at TCS asks Is the world moving beyond liberal democracy? Another was a piece also posted on Maggie's about the blue-ification of my once-granite-ribbed New Hampshire, where I own the ancestral family farm, and where I live Thursday night-Monday morning. Also, Dr. Sanity's piece, which said it better than I could: Come for the Equality, Stay for the Bestiality and Tyranny.
As a shrink and a psychoanalyst, I am philosophically - and spiritually - biased towards the idea of an environment in which people can find their own way, and discover and use their strengths and individual gifts and talents in life. I am fond of telling my psychiatry students that "reality is always on your side."
But I also know that, in the big world, this view is often odd, blasphemous, antisocial, or rebellious. After all, few cultures even would embrace the notion of Erikson's idea of individuation - much less his notions of development. For us, the independent individual is King - but not so everywhere. Our Western near-sanctification of the individual is unusual, unique perhaps.
The revolutionary notion of the Individual As King is why we have guns, and private property, and educational chances for all, and a zillion places of worship, and clubs, and blogs, and a million volunteer organizations and charities and land trust and conservation organizations. And why we rely on our families before anything else, and why we distrust what the experts say. And it is why we have opportunity - not material equality - but opportunity for all, to make our own choices and decisions as grown-ups about how to plan a life. Economics is just one of many considerations in life, for most (not that we all would not welcome a bit more money).
Europe has embraced state parentalism - little different from its monarchical past: the fantasy that smart, powerful persons know best, or deserve power over us, is a piece of our childhood which we are reluctant to give up. A left-over from the time of nobility and serfdom. Our American culture may label that "childish," but probably most do not. Since psychosocial development is driven by the need to adjust to reality, the endurance of the parental fantasy must distort development for many people, similar to what happens commonly to the kids of the very wealthy.
Give me liberty or give me health care and more freebies: The American Left has similar aspirations, and a similar condescending attitude towards the human potential for autonomy and self-determination on the part of its policy-makers. "We'll take your money you earn, and fix it for you - because we care." AKA "It takes a village." (And, by the way, in my opinion it does "take a village" - but not a federal government.) The classic and revealing argument of the Left for idolizing the thug and murderer Castro is "But they have free health care." It's close to what they always said about Mussolini: "He made the trains run on time." (And that is saying a lot, in a place like Italy.)
State parentalism is one step from totalitarianism. And not just psychologically, but also in reality. First, you get the people used to the idea that they can depend on the government to take care of you and to solve your problems (rather than simply to defend you, and to keep life reasonably fair), and, having slowly softened them up, you build on that until you can't smoke a cigarette in your car without getting fined, or find a decent fried chicken take-out in NYC.
I always thought that Jack Kennedy's "Ask not..." (listen to it) was a fine call to maturity, and Reagan often echoed JFK in his speeches. The more powerful government becomes, the more the people will tend to regress psychologically, just as the more of their money you take from them, the less motivated they will feel to work hard, and to be inventive and creative with life. Necessity is the mother of invention, and a thoughfully planned life is necessary for most of us.
Happy human cattle is my nightmare. And yet every human is prone to the regressive, almost gravitational, pull, to childhood and relative helplessness. We must thank God for the adolescent rebel which lingers in all of us, however mature and effective in the world we may or may not be.
The bottom line is this: What if most humans do not feel that they have what it takes to handle life in freedom, and to deal with their own basket of challenges in life? What if most of them, both in the US and abroad, do not share my Yankee ideals? What if most people do not want to be kings of their own domains? Then what?
Image: Time Magazine named Joseph Stalin "Man of the Year" in 1939 and 1942.
 From Belmont, civilian casualties in the Pacific (h/t Tiger):
Hiroshima 70,000–80,000
Battle of Manila 100,000
Nanjing 300,000
Comparing the O with Lyndon Johnson. Daily Beast
Why they are calling her Michelle Antoinette
Global Warming, R.I.P
Observing increasing CO2 levels and increasing temperatures, scientists assumed that the former must have caused the latter. How did the warmers know that it wasn't the other way around, and that higher temperatures caused higher CO2 concentrations? Or how did the warmers know that there wasn't another process, a naturally occurring one, that caused the temperature rise, with increasing CO2 just along for the ride? Answer: They didn't, because they never bothered to look.
Via Reb
Something is going very wrong in Mexico to prompt more than half a million of its citizens to cross the border illegally each year. Impoverished Mexican nationals variously cite poor economic conditions back home, government corruption, a lack of social services, and racism. In other words, it is not just the desirability of America but also the perceived undesirability of Mexico that explains one of largest mass exoduses in modern history.
But why, then, would Mexican President Felipe Calderon, whose country's conditions are forcing out its own citizens, criticize the United States, which is receiving so many of them? And why, for that matter, would many of those illegal immigrants identify, if only symbolically, with the country that made them leave, whether by waving its flag or criticizing the attitudes of the Americans who took them in?
Dino:
With 20% of prime age men without jobs, you’d think that the chief executive of the United States and his team would be all over the problem.
The list of things to do is rather obvious...
At Wizbang:
"It's not illegal" isn't a defense, it's a confession."
What Do Judge Walker and Justice Kennedy Have in Common?
A Fine Argument for Gay Marriage, but a Flawed Legal Opinion
Economy Stalls as Obama's Economic 'Dream Team' Hits the Skids
Intolerance of diversity: Attacks on black Conservatives
Governments seem to have forgotten that picking industrial winners nearly always fails
Dean: Individual Mandate Will Be Gone by 2014
Why the same-sex marriage ruling will stand.
Harsanyi:
...isn't it about time we freed marriage from the state?
We have written about Bryant here before," romantic poet, journalist, and long-time editor of the New York Evening Post." He was a prominent abolitionist, and a long-time resident of the Great Barrington area of the Berkshires. This is doubtless a Berkshire summer poem/
Summer Wind
- It is a sultry day; the sun has drank
- The dew that lay upon the morning grass,
- There is no rustling in the lofty elm
- That canopies my dwelling, and its shade
- Scarce cools me. All is silent, save the faint
- And interrupted murmur of the bee,
- Settling on the sick flowers, and then again
- Instantly on the wing. The plants around
- Feel the too potent fervors; the tall maize
- Rolls up its long green leaves; the clover droops
- Its tender foliage, and declines its blooms.
- But far in the fierce sunshine tower the hills,
- With all their growth of woods, silent and stern,
- As if the scortching heat and dazzling light
- Were but an element they loved. Bright clouds,
- Motionless pillars of the brazen heaven;--
- Their bases on the mountains--their white tops
- Shining in the far ether--fire the air
- With a reflected radiance, and make turn
- The gazer's eye away. For me, I lie
- Languidly in the shade, where the thick turf,
- Yet virgin from the kisses of the sun,
- Retains some freshness, and I woo the wind
- That still delays its coming. Why so slow,
- Gentle and voluble spirit of the air?
- Oh, come and breathe upon the fainting earth
- Coolness and life. Is it that in his caves
- He hears me? See, on yonder woody ridge,
- The pine is bending his proud top, and now,
- Among the nearer groves, chesnut and oak
- Are tossing their green boughs about. He comes!
- Lo, where the grassy meadow runs in wives!
- The deep distressful silence of the scene
- Breaks up with mingling of unnumbered sounds
- And universal motion. He is come,
- Shaking a shower of blossoms from the shrubs,
- And bearing on the fragrance; and he brings
- Music of birds, and rustling of young boughs,
- And soun of swaying branches, and the voice
- Of distant waterfalls. All the green herbs
- Are stirring in his breath; a thousand flowers,
- By the road-side and the borders of the brook,
- Nod gaily to each other; glossy leaves
- Are twinkling in the sun, as if the dew
- Were on them yet, and silver waters break
- Into small waves and sparkle as he comes.
Friday, August 6. 2010
The twenty states and the National Federation of Independent Business reply to the Obama administration's brief to the US District Court in Florida. The Obama administration argues that the suit should be dismissed as the individual mandate is within the federal government's power. The plaintiff states and NFIB disagree.
Below, the plaintiffs' intoduction summary pretty well sums it up (footnotes omitted). There's 81 pages in the pdf at the link above.
Continue reading "For Your Friday Night Reading"
The big cheerful news of today is 131,000 jobs lost, and slowing economic expansion. Says the WSJ:
"It still feels like a recession," Jay Feldman, economist at Credit Suisse, wrote in a note. He pointed out that private jobs are still down 0.3% compared with 13 months ago, when the economy started to grow again. By contrast, private jobs were up by 3.5% on average in the job market recoveries of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s.
I visited my dentist this afternoon, and he admitted to me that business was terrible. People are putting everything off.
 I wasn't surprised by that, but he told me something interesting: the dentists are offering Botox, lip plumping, and wrinkle injections now (Juvaderm, collagen, etc). He said they take a several-day course on weekends, take an exam, get a certificate, then have their receptionist ask "Would you like to consider some of our new services?"
"You can get a brand new smile."
He told me they do it for half of what the dermatologists charge around here for the same thing (the latter of which is around $1000 for a basic Botox routine).
Yes, "It still feels like a recession."
The only thing about this lengthy recession ( an ongoing recession for which, at this point, I blame federal government policies and plans) which brings a smile is the significant deflation in the price of good hand-made cigars.
You may not have read my piece this week, Preventive Medicine: Drive carefully, and make sure you have good genes. It's not the best post in the world, but it makes my point.
A propos of that topic, see Docs running to stand still in The American. A quote:
The general popularity of widespread preventive care rests on the shaky presumption that such medical services head off more serious medical conditions, save lives, and reduce healthcare costs. A lengthy literature actually challenges each of those premises; at least when recommended preventive care services are not limited to a shorter list of medical interventions and targeted to the most appropriate types of patients likely to benefit from them. But the broader political argument often is that “cost” should not be a disincentive to greater demand for such presumably necessary services, particularly when society as a whole is supposed to benefit in the long run from better population health.
I was reminded of this after reading Powerline's What Missouri Showed Me. The states, and the people, are not pleased with Imperial Washington and its mandarins.
Climategate review: Jaworski from December: Climate Gate – Global Warming The Myth: CO2 The Greatest Scientific Scandal of Our Time. Scathing.
How Chavez does it: Welcome to Censorship in the 21st Century
Morris: THE COMING CATASTROPHE: STATE GOVERNMENTS
Is this hyperbole? Google-Verizon Deal: The End of The Internet as We Know It
Q&O: Jobless claims “unexpectedly” rise
It's back: The Return of the $1,000 Down Mortgage
70% of the births at Dallas' Parkland Hospital are to illegals. Parkland makes a profit on that, via Medicaid. We are paying those bills. h/t NRO
Chicago Boyz asks:
Why does the Ruling Class, using Codevilla’s term, have such strong cultural confidence? And what can we do to undermine it?
Prof Bainbridge's post on Conservative style attracted much commentary. From Tom Smith's post:
...take Sarah Palin, who graduated from the University of Idaho, whose alma mater was sung at my father's funeral, so don't neg the U of I around me. She's not as well educated as Michelle Obama. She's not as well educated as a President or Vice President should be. But had she gone to Harvard Law her ideas about the constitution would be a lot less sound than they happen to be. That is what we have come to.
More on that from Insty.
And from AVI
A friend and reader emails this, re the old Wellfleet place we posted a couple of weeks ago:
I've been in a bunch of really old shacks down that way. The people that built them were really amazingly flinty and resourceful. I've attached a picture of a threshold of a door from Truro. They couldn't manage to have a door sweep, so they made a sort of rain gutter with a drain hole in the nose. You know how the rain comes at a house down there. There was never any overhang in those old houses, so the rain sheeting down the door would probably flood the floor, and some poor bastige named Higgins or Crowell or Snow or Starbuck got it off the honeydew list as best he could. Marvelous.
Thursday, August 5. 2010
In the London Review of Books.
I must say that I enjoy French haute cuisine enormously, but that might be because I indulge in it so infrequently. There are two or three restaurants in the vicinity who do it up grand. Pricey. $50. entrees, etc.
My 3-star French chef hunting buddy has cooked for me and friends a few times. He can make anything, but his favorite things to make are peasant foods - rabbit rillette, wild duck terrines, a wild game broth consomme with woodcock ravioli and black truffles, cassoulets, tarte tatin, and things like that. His favorite food to eat is indeed a Big Mac and fries.
A re-post from a couple of summers ago -
Two young Carolina Wrens fecklessly fluttered into our den today while the door was open. The pup promptly swallowed one, as any half-trained retriever will do, but I gently grabbed the other and carried him out to a safe branch. He crapped in my hand, but I don't mind that at all. Glad to be of service. I will take it as a frightened "Thanks," like when God grips you.
Birds frequently fly into our house. A couple of years ago, two dumb young flickers flew down the dining room chimney, and their beaks are sharp. They were tough to catch with the 11' ceiling. But I will never forget my friend who found a befuddled Screech Owl perched on an andiron in his fireplace. He called me and asked what to do. I said grab him firmly but gently around his wings, and open your hand outdoors. It worked out fine, but the bird was confused a little by the sunlight and took a magical minute or so to compose himself perching on his hand, reorient himself, and then to fly into a dark, dense pine.
Our Carolina Wrens are noisy in spring (a piercing "teakettle teakettle teakettle"), invisible during their breeding season, and out and about again now. I thought they were migratory, but I had one at my feeder last winter, and apparently they are not, entirely. Harsh winters kill them off, but their populations bounce back.
They look twice the size of our happy House Wrens, and are noisier. Rugged little guys.
Without my normal, being long-winded, I say ditto to this on "gay marriage."
(HT: HotAir)
Related at Legal Ins: Deconstructing marriage
Tom Jones in May, 2010, with Dylan's 1989 What Good Am I? (h/t, The Englishman)
Readers know I am a bit of a skeptic on the topic of ADD (but not of ADHD in childhood).
To give you a sense of why I am a skeptic, I include a screening test (below the fold) from this website.
Let us know how you scored, in the comments. We'll pretend this is a random sample.
Continue reading "Take your free adult ADD screening test here!"
You can get almost anything at Costco
Hard Drinkers, Meet Soft Science
Home Alone
Lessons from Ma Bell
Michelle: Mad Maxine’s minority fat-cat bankers
Insty: Is higher ed a waste of money?
Driscoll: Paranoia, Short-Term Thinking, and the Ongoing Media Death Spiral
Sowell: Democrats Bite Democrats: Part II
WSJ: Liberal Piety and the Memory of 9/11
What was that movie where they handicapped everybody? Universities That Use Kindles vs. the ADA
Missouri's Prop C will be ignored. McCaskill: Message received (that the voters don't get it). Says Brewton:
If the practical effects of this conflict between state and federal law are likely to be limited, more importantly, Missouri’s vote revealed once again that the country is still aghast over President Obama’s health-care presumption. Earlier this week, the Congressional Research Service reported that the new bureaucracy the bill created is so complex and indiscriminate that its size is “currently unknowable.” Capitol Hill’s independent policy arm added that among “the dozens of new governmental organizations or advisory bodies,” it is “impossible to know how much influence they will ultimately have.”
No wonder Missourians rebelled, as with voters in Massachusetts, New Jersey and Virginia last year. There will be more such what-have-they-done ObamaCare moments. Wait until the public discovers the government is now literally determining what qualifies as “health care” in America.
Fighting the union for school innovaton
Am Thinker: The Revolt of the States. It's about time.
GOP aims for House seats in New England
Wednesday, August 4. 2010
As an intro, see the fourth toon down. I am not willing to pay $45. to post it. (I would pay up to $3. to use it.)
When I was a lowly intern, I was presiding over an ER when we got a radio call around 9 pm about an accident in a mall parking lot involving two cars with kids in them. A head-on, both cars going about 35 mph (that equals a 70 mph accident). When the ambulances arrived, four kids grey, not breathing. DOA. A Mom, still almost pink but dying with head trauma. A Dad, straight to trauma surgery for internal bleeding.
I have never assigned so many people, so quickly, to body bags and the morgue.
So when I read pious government utterances about "preventive care," I just have to laugh. People who talk about that have no idea what they're talking about. Doctors advise people to lose weight, to exercise, to quit smoking, to lower their carb intake, to drink only two wines/day, to wear bike helmets, to use condoms, to eat your vegetables (why? I don't know), to take their medicines, etc., every day. Blah, blah, blah. I might as well advise them to never leave the house because they might get hit by a bus. In the end, people do what they want, and adults are adults. Nobody lacks information and, in my view, if you want to be fat, then go for it.
Personally, I intend to remain trim, fit, athletic and energetic, but I am not interested in sacrificing my life and fun and adventure on the altar of "health" and "safety." There is no vitality or joie de vivre in that. I enjoy a little danger, stress, and excitement. I have crossed crevasses and climbed mountains and kayaked Grade 5 rapids (and almost drowned) and spent many hours on the back of motorcycles. I faced a p-ed off Cape Buffalo (and killed it. Regret it now - there was no point to it), and I sky-dived once. We always drove too fast. We quit all those things when we had young kids, despite the fact that my brother could have raised them very well indeed, and we had good life insurance.
Since everybody dies, and, with modern medicine, dies in a lengthy and expensive and often wretched drawn-out process (80% of US medical costs are in the last year of life), all "preventive medicine" can even hope to do is to delay the process a little bit.
However, it cannot even do that, really. It's 90% wishful thinking: The Big Lie of Preventive Care.
Another good toon from The New Yorker: "Tell me straight, Doc. How long do I have to ignore your advice?"
Why is this? Why is desiring Constitutional government anti-black and anti-brown people? (toon is h/t Lucianne)
My view is that the assumption that people with more skin pigmentation cannot make a decent life in America without government hand-outs and special favors is insulting, condescending, racist - and simply untrue.
Am I a racist for saying this? America has tons more white folks on the various government doles than folks of color. I'd like to see them all get their act together, regardless of pigmentation. America is the least color-conscious nation on the planet. Nobody here cares about that, anymore (except for the race-mongers who still try to make careers out of it).
And yes, Larry Campbell can play the guitar - and lots of other instruments too. And this is one of The Band's best songs.
Several Republican US Senators are now supporting hearings into whether there should be a Constitutional amendment restricting birthright citizenship, anyone born on US soil is a US citizen.
There’s some electoral opportunism there as well as recognition that most Americans want more restrictions on illegal immigration.
About a fourth to a third of illegal immigrants in the US are parents of children born here. In some localities, the majority of births are to illegal immigrants, many of them coming into the US specifically for that purpose. Although by laws these parents are denied most governmental benefits, they are permitted to stay to care for their children, and many do work illegally. The children may petition for legal entry of other family members.
There is no legal doubt that the US has the complete right to govern entry and citizenship. There is doubt as to whether the post-Civil War 14th Amendment, aimed at the citizenship of former slaves, intended to allow the birthright citizenship that we see today. Advocates of restriction cite the statement of a co-sponsor of the 14th. However, the language of the 14th has been interpreted in various ways by scholars and politicians over the next years and century-and-a-half. There are some peripheral court cases but the US Supreme Court has not specifically weighed in.
At this point, it seems that only a well-drafted Constitutional amendment would be able to restrict birthright citizenship. Surely there would be majority consensus to do so, requiring at least one parent to already be a citizen.
However, there are implications that must be considered. Should such children already here be allowed to retain citizenship? I’d guess yes. Should their parents be allowed to stay? I’d guess yes, with a path to citizenship. Should the children of legal entrants who have not yet become citizens be automatically granted citizenship? I’d guess not, at least until the parents have qualified and the children too. Some may consider that rewarding past behavior, and it is, but in a grand bargain and out of compassion, I’d guess there’d be the overwhelming support required for a Constitutional amendment.
I’d suggest the language can be as simple as “Only a child born of at least one US citizen will be a US citizen. All others are subject to US laws of entry, residence and citizenship.”
Yes, there will be resistance from those who want virtually open borders and those who benefit from hiring illegals, and from politicians whose constituency is such, but they are a minority and have little or no legal basis. There are valid emotional appeals to our past and to compassionate values but they, if not a purposeful distraction, are a recipe for enlarging the problems. Our past did not have the current practical burdens upon citizens or entrants.
As strong border controls are essential to reducing illegal entry, so are removing incentives to illegal entry or staying. Uneducated illegal entrants are the main problem in net costs to our economy and government budgets. The US has need of some, and some are or will become or their offspring become net contributors. But, not as many as once or now or in the future. A Constitutional amendment to restrict birthright citizenship directly deals with a substantial part of the problem in a reasonable, cost-effective and widely-supported way.
UPDATE: According to the respected PEW Research Center's Hispanic Center, there are over 4-million children in the US of illegal immigrants, and they make up 8% of the US birthrate.
 Everything about dating blunders. h/t, Linkiest
More on The Higher Education Bubble
Related: Colleges Serve the People Who Work There, Not the Students
Update on Open Water At The North Pole
Brilliant: Police: Officer Baited In Altercation That Injured Him. Cop goes to black church to discuss public safety, is ambushed. Doubt he will volunteer to help those folks in future.
The folly of banning online gambling. Gambling is legal: see "stock market" and "Las Vegas" and "race tracks" and "football pools" and "Indian casinos."
With Dems in Hot Seat, the Times Undergoes a Sudden, Cynical Softening on Ethics Charges
Lowry: "If you want to find a grown-up in government, don’t look in the Oval Office or the Capitol. Look in the statehouses of New Jersey and Indiana."
Breitbart: I Got My Correction Thanks to the The New York Times — Now Who’s Next?
Princess Robin of Berkeley: My mate is sleeping with the enemy
Voegli:
(The) tactile aspect of liberalism is the one that causes so many conservatives to pound their heads on the table in frustration. I refer to the moist-eyed, quivering-voiced, morally preening affirmation of the tautology that when the government gives people stuff, the people it gives stuff to wind up with more stuff than they had before the government started giving them stuff. After they calm down, conservatives say, “Fine. Stipulated: Benefits are (or at least can be) beneficial. Now, can we please talk about how we’re going to pay for all these programs? And how we’re going to make sure that the Santa Clausification of American government does not transform us from a republic of free and equal citizens into a nursery of wardens and wards?
The 100 worst stimulus projects
Instead of arresting the guy, I'd hire him to work in the ER
Is it greedy to want to make money? Were the 80s the Decade of Envy instead?
Last I heard, envy was a deadly sin. Last I heard, wanting to make an honest living and to be productive was a basic adult responsibility. Greed, also one of the 7 deadlies, is "an insatiable desire for wealth." It's a sin because it makes an idol of wealth, replacing God.
Government cannot run something this big and important and complex: Rethinking Socialized Medicine In Canada
Related: America's first vote on Obamacare
Related: Folks with Medicare are already beginning to feel the changes. Soon, the rest of us: Wave of Health Reform Provisions Coming Next Month.
By forcing insurance to cover things we do not want and do not need, in ways that are not sensible for us, they will drive up prices with the goal of putting all of us on a one-size-fits-all government plan. And what's this about covering your kids until they are 26? That's insane. Why not until they're 40, when real adulthood begins nowadays (if it ever does)?
From Betsy:
When civil-rights groups such as the NAACP and National Urban League come out condemning charter schools, you know that they have decided to fall down on the side of the teachers rather than the students. As Paul E. Peterson and Martin R. West of Harvard point out, many charter schools serve minority populations and are increasingly popular among minorities. These organizations are ignoring the needs of the families who are crying out to get their children in the charter schools and out of the regular public schools.
The Other McCain:
“Everyone must come to grips with and make sense of their own failures. Excuse-making, blame-shifting, scapegoating — ‘It wasn’t my fault!’ — prevents us from learning the lessons of our failures. . . . Persistently attempting to externalize blame for our own failures is a recipe for moral disaster.”
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