Maggie's Farm

We recently noted here that, if you gave 5 people each $100,000 to do something with, after 5 years one guy would be broke, one guy would have a million bucks, and the others somewhere in between.

It's like Jesus' parable of the talents (which of course had nothing to do with money, but with the use of gifts of the spirit.)

Readers know that I don't give a darn what other people make. I care about what I make, how I make it, and what I do with it.

Just One Minute looks at Robert Reich on income inequality. One commenter says:

The uproar about income inequality continues to baffle me. Why does relative socioeconomic status matter more than absolute socioeconomic status? If the US has the richest poor people in the world, why is the distance between them and the people at the top such a big deal?

FWIW, Gregg Easterbrook, a liberal, argued in The Progress Paradox that if you factor out immigration, the rise in income inequality disappears. He got severely criticized by the left for this analysis IIRC.

Also I don't trust government definitions of "poor." My friends whose two kids qualify for S-CHIP have a 4 (smallish) bedroom house in an expensive part of town, a car, two cell phones, high-speed internet, a nice desktop & two nice laptops, buy mostly organic groceries, spend disposable income on ebay, gardening hobbies, etc. etc. They live on one-and-a-half salaries (he works full-time, she works part-time out of the house). But they're considered to be in need of government services, apparently. So if they're counted in the numbers of "needy" Texans, no wonder the numbers are skewed.

Need one of these steps? On sale now.

To me, Global Warming was the Swine Flu of the Decade. Gullible America

"Cash for clunkers" screws the poor. Not just the poor: lots of folks out there who would never spend money on something that depreciates as fast as a new car.

Quoted at Neo's Where's the Outrage?

The fate of Chrysler and its workers pale in comparison to the wrecking ball that would be taken to economic order if bankruptcy judge Arthur Gonzalez approves the administration’s plan to give Chrysler’s secured creditors the shaft. And what prize will we-the-people get in return? A doomed third-rate car company majority owned by its militant union run by Italian management building congressionally designed “green” cars no one wants to buy financed by taxpayers into perpetuity because no private investor in their right mind will touch the company with a ten foot pole. Is this supposed to be economic policy or comic opera?

Related: More allegations of WH threats

Chavez update. Front Page

David Brooks is often out to lunch. Occasionally not. Sort-of related: How Conservatives damaged the Repubs

Feds make it difficult for banks to pay back their TARP cash

The "Green Jobs" joke

Jim Cramer is a bull. Kudlow says recession is over. So does Bernanke. All  provided that the govt doesn't screw it up...

Whenever you are photographed, make sure there isn't a phone pole coming out the top of your head - or worse - in the background (h/t, Samiz):

Powerline asks "Why?" re DC school vouchers. Answer is obvious. Below, from Reason:

The Nazis wanted to bring back wild Aurochs to Europe

As Pete Seeger would sing, "Which side are you on, boys?" Hmmm. NYT vs. the unions.

Colleges discriminate against Asians. Not a PC minority, I guess. As a friend said to me, "People assume that because I'm Chinese I'm smarter than everybody else. But I'm not."

Wise, careful and prudent financial planning - and now broke.

Favorite things at the Smithsonian - like Lewis and Clark's compass. One would hope they brought more than one.

Solipcism and the Apocalypse. Pick your favorite apocalypse. I want it to be a life-erasing storm of juicy red raspberries from the Berry Galaxy. I will die happy.

A President who hates his country?

We always knew it was a joke. Amusing from Roger S re Swine Flu:

SF remains a “Media Flu” fanned by CNN, Drudge, etc. and seems even to have infected otherwise brilliant members of the media with whom I normally agree. [So maybe it's you.-ed. Shut up. I told you I came from a medical family. Read my book. It's on my night table.]

Worth noting is what enhances this media flu: political bile.

What the heck does idealism have to do with working for the government? Claremont: ...and we're here to help you.

Bad news for the US: China decides to back off on buying our debt. I guess that means that they do not want to own us.

Two fat black lesbians?

New charges against ACORN

Not socially appropriate to criticize the O. Since when? In my (small) circles, half the folks think he's a royal jerk and half think he's going to bring us to the Promised Land of money and goodies and no work.

Related: The things you don't read about the O's first 100 days

VDH, via Blue Crab:

...it is adherence to the idea of equality of result rather than an equality of opportunity, the age-old debate that goes back to the Greeks. From Aristotle’s Politics and Plato Laws, we learn of the original dilemma: a stable city-state of roughly similar property owners, who vote as equals, and fight as comrades in the phalanx, tragically, but inevitably, soon becomes tragically unequal.

Divide the land up equally to found the polis; give everyone an similarly-size plot (klêros); and then health, luck, brains, accident, strength, ambition, character, and a myriad of other factors, some understandable, some capricious, conspire to create inequality. I agree with Aristotle; I have seen it with families and communities in which equal inheritances soon led to radically different outcomes, as one sibling on rocky ground thrives, while another in deep loam starves; one town with abundant resources goes broke, while another without natural advantages thrives.

As Aristotle saw, some lose, some expand their original homesteads, and suddenly we have Hoi beltistoi and Hoi polloi-and the rallying cry that someone’s liberty to do as he pleases means that egalitarianism of the lowest common denominator becomes impossible.

So, then, how often is a new deal needed?

"Questions from Oceania." A quote from VDH, re the Dems:

...we are in a race—a race to get the dependent constituents permanently in place and institutionalized before the proverbial (fill in the blanks) hits the fans. If he succeeds, we will end up like a Greece, France, or Belgium— weekly strikes by government workers and unions, rampant cynicism as everyone seeks to land the federal job for base salary and taxes and benefits, and then moonlights to get untaxed cash and barter for necessary goods and services, all coupled with a culture of blame at various foreign and domestic “thems” who make us so unhappy.

Final thought: without the Old US who will be blamed? Who will keep the global sea-lanes open?Who will buy the world’s exports? Who will deal with Milosevic, Saddam, the Taliban, and the other global nuts and psychopaths? Who will attract the world’s more daring and desperate?

So we end with a whimper, after all?

I want to be a toll-collector. Minimal responsibility or hassle. No heavy lifting or heavy thinking or risk, like working for a non-profit. Retire on full salary after 25 years (plus final year overtime factor) and full gummint benefits. Meanwhile, get rich and have fun writing for Maggie's on the side. Maybe a book deal, too: My Sexy Life in a Toll Booth.

Goodbye, Columbus. Death of a holiday at Brown.

Getting those darn pesky Christians off NPR. Related: What's with this Atheism Movement? What are they for? And has nobody told them that atheism has been around forever? Most Episcopalians I have known are atheists, for heaven's sake.

A Google-killer? Will Google need a government take-over?

Good news on the fossil fuel front: 200 trillion cubic feet of gas

Kaus:

If Chrysler fails in the marketplace again two or three years from now, after billions more in government subisidies, won't that reflect badly on Obama and his "economic team"? WIll it then appear to have been better to let Chrysler go into an actual, non-prearranged, non-jawboned bankruptcy, in which it would likely have been liquidated or in which the UAW would have had to make far more substantial concessions, like workers in other bankruptcies? 

VDH:

At some point, Obama must answer why waterboarding mass-murderers and beheaders like Khalid Sheik Mohammed is wrong, while executing by missile attack (no writs, habeas corpus, Miranda rights, etc.) suspected terrorists and anyone caught in their general vicinity in Waziristan — or pirates negotiating extortion — is legitimate.

AVI takes a look at the psychology of Socialism. He does not use the word "envy," but he might.

France lowers taxes to spark job growth

Let's get back to spanking. Who ever quit?

Obama is a statist, not a Commie. CATO. Statists are those who think politicians deserve to be philosopher-kings. Same as Commies.

The Jacksonian on the Constitution. One quote:

President Obama, when teaching Constitutional law, couldn't get this idea that all liberty and rights are vested in the people by Natural Law and not given to government. In an interview with WBEZ.FM in 2001 he went through his idea that the Constitution would, somehow, be made better if it took the other view: that government gets to give a few rights to people and retains the rest for itself via the concept of positive rights.  Government, under that view, does not become a representative institution, but an authoritarian caretaker of the people.  In wanting a Constitution that would say what government 'must do' on your behalf, he relegates that decision to government, not the people.  To get something like, say, clothing to people, the government gets to decide what kind, what type and how much clothing goes to which people by its own dictates.  That similarly goes for clothing.  A good job.  Health care for government to decide.

Postcard from the Casino de Paris, 1915, h/t Good Sh-t

Go shopping to save your soul.

Why students don't like school. Hmm. I liked school. Maggie's is my school, for now.

Jack Kemp's enduring legacy

How to bake a trencher. I like the idea. No dishes.

Habits and vocation. Anchoress

Is exhaustion only in your head?

Always been interested in how the government subsidized the construction of suburbs with highways. Are highways a public good?

Semi-related: Amtraking the Automakers, which begins:

The odds that the federal government will ever get its hooks out of Chrysler or General Motors are slim to none, regardless what President Obama says. Why?  In one word, Amtrak.  

The O took a special interest in Chrysler. And, good grief, the O reads Sullivan. He'd be far more popular if he read Maggie's daily. We might remind him about freedom.

Ingraham vs. Feldt. See, this is how it's done

The mob is still after the terrifying Sarah Palin

Demography update: Northern Europeans having more babies, Russia having fewer

People are tiring of the global warming alarmism. What next?

Media bias, charted at Will.

Related, MSM press as lap dog or pit bull? I found this amazing:

One of my clients was directly threatened by the White House and in essence compelled to withdraw its opposition to the deal under the threat that the full force of the White House Press Corps would destroy its reputation if it continued to fight.

More on cap and trade as nothing but a covert tax

More on capitalism and the culture wars. Dr. Sanity

Another Steyn masterpiece. A quote:

The theater of thoughtfulness is critical to the president's success. He has the knack of appearing moderate while acting radical, which is a lethal skill. The thoughtful look suckered many of my more impressionable conservative comrades last fall, when David Brooks and Christopher Buckley were cranking out gushing paeans to Obama's "first-class temperament" – temperament being to the Obamacons what Nick Jonas' hair is to a Tiger Beat reporter. But the drab reality is that the man they hail – Brooks & Buckley, I mean; not the Tiger Beat crowd – is a fantasy projection. There is no Obama The Sober Centrist, although it might make a good holiday song:

"Obama The Sober Centrist

Had a very thoughtful mien

And if you ever saw it

You would say it's peachy keen …"

Image: How Bouguereau got that picture of me in the woods in 1873 I do not know. Thanks, Berkshire guy. I will add it to the family photo album.

Sex in the Middle Ages, via the NSFW cool site Cool Shit which Tiger found.

Souter? Won't make a big diff. (Does anyone doubt that he wailted until there were Dems in control?) And Specter? Is John Cornyn trying to make lemonade out of a lemon, or is he right?

See? Earth Day made a difference!

Good interview with Mark Levin (his book remains #1) by John Hawkins. h/t, Dr Helen

The SAT and its enemies. Weekly Standard

Government medical care from a nurse, at Am Thinker:

Obama's first choice for Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tom Daschle, withdrew his name after his myriad tax problems came to light. But as far as I can tell, his health care reform ideas live on in the Obama administration and Democrat-majority Congress. The jewel of his plan is the Federal Health Board:

...these government experts would "help define evidence-based benefits and lower overall spending by determining which medicines, treatments, and procedures are most effective--and identifying those that do not justify their high price tags."

Ladies and gentlemen, he's talking about rationing and denying payment. But look on the bright side, America. Physicians will no longer be "burdened" by decision making. And think of all the time doctors can save when they no longer need to explain various treatment options to you or your elderly mom.  Life is so much easier when you simply don't care. Ask our cool, cool President.

So get used to health care profiling. Just have your doctor fill out this form with your age, gender, diagnosis, and prognosis, and Washington will let him know what to order.  It's medicine by spreadsheet. It's cold, cold healthcare.

h/t, Theo -

A new, better invisibility cloak

Conservatives live in different moral universes. It's true.

The ballerina and the Narwhals

Krauthammer begins:

I think it hasn't been the most important 100 days. I think it has been the most revealing 100 days in our lifetime. After all, this man when he was elected was one of the great mysteries of American politics. He was the most unknown, untested, untried, and really un-figured-out man ever to ascend to the office.

Via Ace:

Dennis Miller: We're Living In Odd Times When Miss California Gets Tougher Questions Than the President

BBC: Basra progress "staggering"

Precautionary principle gone wild: The flu. Related from Lewis in Am Thinker, who begins:

The Mexican swine flu pandemic? Oh, that's soooo yesterday. Global Warming? All those confident "scientific" predictions are falling apart around the world, even as greedy politicians still try to squeeze the last little drops of power and money out of them. Human flesh-eating bacteria? SARS? Ozone holes? Mad Cow? The Curse of the Killer Tomatoes? Water torture? CO2? Bee Colony Collapse? It never ends. As long as scare stories sell, as long as millions of indoctrinated suckers fall for them they will never end. They've got you on a rat-running wheel, running scared every day, like rats scrambling to get away from electrical shocks that never actually come. 

Is the bipolar child a purely American phenomenon?

Solzhenitsyn on free medical care

From Insty:

DOES G.M. NOW STAND FOR Gettelfinger Motors? Actually, I like the idea of the unions owning the car companies — or I would, if they then had to stand on their own instead of getting still more bailout cash. I’m afraid we’re in for a decade of politically propped-up zombie carmakers, a sort of American Leyland.

UPDATE: Mickey Kaus is taking a positive view: “Let the UAW, as new owner of GM, pay the price for the overgrown work rules of its locals. Let the UAW demand above-market raises from itself. Let the UAW try to raise money from new lenders after the previous round of lenders has been royally screwed (thanks, in part, to the UAW). And then let the UAW try to sell the cars that result.” So long as friendly politicians don’t protect them from the consequences of their actions with other people’s money.

My first thought about our Theo photo this morning is that it looked like the Adirondacks. Wasn't that your first thought too?

No race bake sale at Bucknell. We support freedom of baking.

Was this a real Hobbitt?

Update me: Am I not allowed to say "pig" any more?

Advice for ladies in the workplace

Can gummint and a union run a car company?

Dick Morris says Obama will damage himself

"It is devolutional." Surber

"You're a Professor, really?"

The vast Obama-media conspiracy. A masterful job of seducing the press. Still, O is the second most reviled Pres in 40 years

Sir Michael:

"The Government has taken tax up to 50 per cent, and if it goes to 51 I will be back in America," he said at the weekend. "We've got 3.5 million layabouts on benefits, and I'm 76, getting up at 6am to go to work to keep them. Let's get everybody back to work so we can save a couple of billion and cut tax, not keep sticking it up."

What does the future hold for First Things?

Free Enterprise's 100 day death march. Key quote:

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson told NPR’s Michelle Norris yesterday: “The President has said, and I couldn’t agree more, that what this country needs is a one single national road map that tells automakers who are trying to become solvent again what kind of car it is they need to be designing and building for the American people.” Norris then asked: “Is that the role of Government though? That doesn’t sound like free enterprise.” Jackson responded: “Well it is free enterprise in a way.”

Blakeman at Politico:

The Dems were able to get by defection something they may have never have gotten at the Ballot Box, a closure needed, debated ending 60 votes. The Dems will come to regret taking Arlen in. He knows how important his votes are to them. If you think dealing with Somalia Pirates is bad, try working with Blackbeard Spector. There is not much the GOP can do if the Dems have 60 votes. They need to stay united in opposition and work like hell for mid-term gains. Obama will put the pedal to the metal and steam roll as much legislation through as is possible while he enjoys his "dictatorship".

Related, the O says he is remaking America. Good grief.

Related, at Reason:

...he will reveal himself to be that least inspiring of all political characters: a leader beholden first and foremost to special interests and ultra-conventional voting blocs. This at a time when the electorate is becoming increasingly unaffiliated with either the Democrats or Republicans, conservatives or liberals.