Both Andrew Coyne and Ezra Levant are live-blogging the BC kangaroo court today.
How volunteerism became un-American. Pajamas. Only right-wing nuts volunteer for things, of course, such as for the armed forces, etc etc.
Emotional trauma: talking about it doesn't help. Well, maybe for some it does, but apparently not for most.
Is the UN a haven for pedophiles?
Iowa sells votes for ethanol subsidies - that ethanol which ruins our lawn-mower and brush-wacker and chain saw engines. Now swing state Florida has its own plan to extract our money from pandering pols. Disgusting.
The Death and Life of Bushwick, Brooklyn. Malanga at City Journal. Fascinating. It's partly the story of government policies gone wrong - as usual. One quote:
As race riots ripped apart other cities, including Detroit and Newark, unscrupulous real-estate agents and speculators tried to frighten white Bushwick residents—a practice known as “blockbusting.” Homeowners would find ominous messages in their mailÂboxes—“Don’t wait until it’s too late!”—as well as encouraging ones: “Houses wanted, cash waiting.” In a massive scandal reminiscent of today’s subprime-mortgage meltdown, speculators bought homes from Bushwick residents for an average of $8,000 apiece, and then, using fraudulent appraisals and a Great Society federal mortgage program that insured home loans to low-income buyers, sold them to poor blacks and Puerto Ricans at prices that they couldn’t afford— on average, about $20,000 per home. Many defaulted, abandoning their homes and massively depressing local property values. By 1972, in one city estimate, some 500 Bushwick buildings stood empty because of the bad loans; others, not part of the federal program, also emptied as housing prices plummeted and buyers balked at investing in the neighborhood.
