Random stuff

I could not prouder to live in Dallas, but every village has its idiot. Our continual source of embarrassment is County Commissioner John Wiley Price, one of the country’s most despicable and consistent racists. His latest escapade, complaining when a fellow commissioner said that the central collections office "has become a black hole," was typical of his career, but this one made the national news. That Judge and fellow ignorant bigot Thomas Jones demanded an apology was just piling on, we were already ducking our heads in shame.

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Apparently NBC now stands for No Barack Criticism.

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According to a recent World Bank study, biofuels have forced up global food prices 75% while only negligibly reducing worldwide oil demand. Can we stop this nonsense immediately before it drives people back into poverty faster than the growth of global capitalism and trade lifts them out of it? Biofuel research and production should be strictly limited to non-food sources. Not that we'd expect greens to care about easing poverty or anything - it's antithetical to their mission.

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Was it really Raul Castro that said "Socialism means social justice and equality, but equality of rights, of opportunities, not of income. Equality is not egalitarianism."? When a Castro brother makes more economic sense than one of our own presidential candidates…should I be happy for Cubans or fearful for my own countrymen?

I think the answer is “yes.”

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Terrorist Mohammed Siddique Khan, ringleader of the 2005 London subway suicide bombers, made a farewell video to his infant daughter on which he said "I love you to bits."

I guess he wants to also see her die in an explosion some day?

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I could not agree more with this from Jay Nordlinger:

While in Japan, President Bush placed a message on a “wishing tree.” Apparently, this is an old tradition. (Is that a redundancy?) Bush’s message: “I wish for a world free from tyranny: the tyranny of hunger, disease; and free from tyrannical governments. I wish for a world in which the universal desire for liberty is realized.”

That is what I would have expected from him — and one reason I admire him so much. Most people, it seems certain, would have wished for “peace.” Bush is a man who recognizes that genuine peace comes from freedom.

And this, from the same column:

Was talking to a friend of mine back home in Michigan. Bright guy, well educated, very successful. And very much a liberal Democrat. He said we had to have Obama in November — because “we can’t have Big Oil running the government any longer.”

I ask for the millionth time: How can perfectly normal and non-crazy people believe that stuff?

I ask myself the same question of so many people in so many settings. How is it that otherwise educated people can lose (or never gain) the ability to think critically in the area of politics? Can it be as simple as university brainwashing?

There are some fascinating psychological research possibilities here, but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for any such studies.

Talk to you soon, or at least sooner than last time I hope.