Ghana more advanced than the US. Ghana opts for nuclear energy.
Is Todd Purdam a "scumbag"? Bruce Kesler says no.
Pickled. Red wine slows aging.
McCain launches his campaign with an excellent speech, poorly, uninspiringly and stumblingly-delivered. He cannot compete with Obama in flash, but he's got to do better than this.
The WSJ asks "Who is Obama?"
The young Senator has been a supernova exploding into our politics, more phenomenon than conventional candidate. His achievement in winning the Democratic nomination has been impressive. Now comes a harder audience. The presidency has to be earned, and Americans have a right to know much more about the gifted man who is the least tested and experienced major party nominee in modern times.
AVI asks: "Do you really want to help the poor and the developing nations of the world, or do you just want to do those things that feel good?" He alerts us to The Copenhagen Consensus on the world's top 30 problems. "Climate" comes in 30th. Quote from the above piece in Reason:
At number 30, the lowest priority is a proposal to mitigate man-made global warming by cutting the emissions of greenhouse gases. This ranking caused some consternation among the European journalists at the press conference. Nobelist and University of Maryland economist Thomas Schelling noted that part of the reason for the low ranking is that spending $75 billion on cutting greenhouses gases would achieve almost nothing. In fact, the climate change analysis presented to the panel found that spending $800 billion until 2100 would yield just $685 billion in climate change benefits.
Betsy on Dem populism, which, as we have often noted here, is negative as it is designed to inspire childish feelings of helplessness and grievance - and the delusion that government can offer you a life make-over. She quotes Mrs. Obama:
Obama begins with a broad assessment of life in America in 2008, and life is not good: we’re a divided country, we’re a country that is “just downright mean,” we are “guided by fear,” we’re a nation of cynics, sloths, and complacents. “We have become a nation of struggling folks who are barely making it every day,” she said, as heads bobbed in the pews. “Folks are just jammed up, and it’s gotten worse over my lifetime. And, doggone it, I’m young. Forty-four!”
From these bleak generalities, Obama moves into specific complaints. Used to be, she will say, that you could count on a decent education in the neighborhood. But now there are all these charter schools and magnet schools that you have to “finagle” to get into. (Obama herself attended a magnet school, but never mind.) Health care is out of reach (“Let me tell you, don’t get sick in America”), pensions are disappearing, college is too expensive, and even if you can figure out a way to go to college you won’t be able to recoup the cost of the degree in many of the professions for which you needed it in the first place. “You’re looking at a young couple that’s just a few years out of debt,” Obama said. “See, because, we went to those good schools, and we didn’t have trust funds. I’m still waiting for Barack’s trust fund. Especially after I heard that Dick Cheney was s’posed to be a relative or something. Give us something here!”
Give us something? Like what? Would the Presidency suffice for your family, Mrs. O?
