Mid August overflow

A few things I've run across that are too long to fit on Twitter, which has all but killed my blogging:

James Taranto: “Times have changed. In the 1930s, government was small. Expanding it massively in order to solve problems might or might not have been a good idea, but there's no denying it was innovative. Today government is sclerotic. Those who believe more government is the solution to America's problems are at best unthinking reactionaries. The Tea Partiers, having clearly identified this problem, are today's true progressives (to employ the term in its literal rather than ideological sense).”

I have long made variations on this same theme, especially with regard to Social Security.

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More Taranto: “Obama's failure is the failure of the liberal elite, and that is why their ressentiment has reached such intensity. Their ideas, such as they are, are being put to a real-world test and found severely wanting. As a result, their authority is collapsing. And if there is one thing they know deep in their bones, it is that they are entitled to that authority. They lash out, desperately and pathetically, because they have nothing to offer but fear and anger.”

Watching leftists try to explain away the failure of their policy ideas has served as a bit of dark comedy, but it hardly takes away the sting of having to live under said policies.

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Jack Kelly: “Boiled to its essence, Progressivism is the belief that government knows best. More specifically, that government in the hands of such wise and public spirited people as Progressives imagine themselves to be knows better how to run businesses than do the men and women who own them; knows better what's good for ordinary people than the people do themselves….

The failure of their policies to improve the lives of most Americans didn't trouble Progressives much, because their focus changed. What was good for teacher unions became more important than what was good for students. What was good for public employee unions became more important than whether bureaucracies were serving the public well. To Progressive politicians, the votes of minorities became more important than their economic well being.”

I think this is exactly right: trying to argue specific policy ideas with them based on the results they produce is fruitless, because they do not care what the outcome of policies are. What is important to them is feeling like you are doing something good, and more importantly being able to convince interest groups that you mean them well. Feelings vs results is the “Mars and Venus” aspect of so much political discussion in this country, why neither side even understands the other.

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Richard Miniter: "Obama is not the new FDR, but the new Gorbachev: a man forced to preside over the demise of a political system he desperately wants to save,"
Indeed, the line has been going around about how ironic it would be if Obama is the guy who finally discredits socialism (don’t hold your breath, that people still believe in it today shows that it is more religion than reasoned worldview).

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Jay Nordlinger: “Question: If a state votes for lions of early-’70s liberalism, Jerry Brown and Barbara Boxer, over such forward thinkers as Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina — not to mention those challengers’ entrepreneurial credentials — doesn’t the state kind of deserve what it gets?”

Indeed it does, Jay.

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The dishonesty of Chris Matthews knows no bounds. He correctly quoted a 1987 Reagan speech:

"Congress consistently brings the government to the edge of default. ... This brinkmanship threatens the holders of government bonds and those who rely on Social Security and veterans benefits. Interest rates would skyrocket, instability would occur in financial markets, and the federal deficit would soar. The United States has a special responsibility to itself and the world to meet its obligations."

Without quoting the rest of the passage, making clear the meaning:

"For those who say more taxes will solve our deficit problem, they are wrong. Every time Congress increases taxes, the deficit does not decrease, spending increases. It's time for a clear and consistent policy to reduce the federal budget deficit. ... You don't need more taxes to balance the budget. Congress needs the discipline to stop spending more, and that can be done with the passage of a constitutional amendment to balance the budget. ... But I ... will not permit Congress to dismantle our national defense, to jeopardize arms reduction or to increase your taxes. I am determined that will not happen."

Until next time...

Quick hits 12/14

John Stossel on Harry Reid: “Accusing someone of being a racist is typically a last desperate measure when someone has lost an argument.” Undeniably true.

Dr. Melissa Clouthier demonstrates that Reid had it exactly backward: “Those who fight the health care legislation fear being owned. They fear that every personal decision from cradle to grave will be manipulated by a nameless, faceless bureaucrat in Washington D.C. They fear easily accessible files, not unlike the IRS, where a government employee can know every private piece of information about the citizen’s life. They fear health care decisions made for financial expedience. In short, those who fight against this health care bill, don’t want to be owned by the government...Harry Reid is all about ownership… the government owns and the taxpayer is enslaved.”

I have used the taxation as slavery comparison before myself, and will again.

Why do people fall under the spell of hyped-up scare mongering like global warmism? Don Surber hits the nail on the head: “a lot of it is a need for religion among irreligious people. The idea of man's sins causing punishment by nature is nearly universal in history...From the ancient Greeks - not exactly a primitive people - to the modern Australian aborigines, the tribes of men share in common a desire to connect their behavior to natural phenomenon.”

Epic win indeed!

Jonathan Abrams on the challenge that is the triangle.

Lest you think that it was only Washington driving the (largely government created) housing crisis.

John Hinderaker busts Obama pretending that “the world recognized” driving Saddam out of Kuwait was a just cause. In fact, the American and international left were bitterly opposed to Bush the Elder on this and Senate Democrats voted 45-10 (including the current VP) to block it.

That said, he may not be lying here, as he has proven to be ignorant of (even recent) history on so many occasions. I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and call it ignorance.

Democrats are twice as likely as Republicans to say that they've seen a ghost and more than twice as likely to believe in astrology. Democrats are also more than twice as likely to have consulted a fortune teller.

Kim Strassel points out that the EPA’s attempt to blackmail Congress into passing some form of Cap and Tax is a boon for the legislators; they can call the bluff and avoid the wrath of the voters and leave the administration to own it.

The AP assigns 11 “fact checkers” to Palin’s book, 5 to Climategate. Remember when it was a straight news organization?

Is the 3D TV screen at the Death Star the dumbest idea ever? Because, you know, you’re there, if you want a 3D image WATCH THE GAME.

The Senate health care bill amendment to limit attorney contingency fees on medical malpractice failed by a 66-32 vote. That is conclusive proof that the pro “reform” side has no interest whatsoever in controlling medical costs. A primary goal of these various bills is to transfer wealth from doctors and patients to trial lawyers, as a political favor.

Classic dumb criminal story

Ed Morrissey: “Who could have warned us that a man who served seven years in the state legislature and three years in the Senate would not have been prepared for the toughest executive position in the Free World? We did. Repeatedly. So did John McCain, and for that matter, so did Hillary Clinton.”

Least surprising news ever: “New research by Nina Mazar and Chen-Bo Zhong at the University of Toronto levels an even graver charge: that virtuous shopping can actually lead to immoral behavior. In their study (described in a paper now in press at Psychological Science), subjects who made simulated eco-friendly purchases ended up less likely to exhibit altruism in a laboratory game and more likely to cheat and steal.”

East Anglia CRU is stepping up their hiding of climate data. These people are as crooked as an old catcher’s fingers.

This is what astroturf looks like

Some quick hits

A lot of the short quotes or links I used to post here now go to my Twitter feed, since it takes so much less effort.

James Taranto: “Why did Obama win the Nobel Peace Prize? Because he pandered to the prejudices of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.”

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JammieWearingFool on the terrorist plot against a GOP congressman: “I blame MSNBC, CNN, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and the leftwing blogosphere for fostering this climate of hate against Republicans.”

Consistent standards… no fair!

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Why didn’t Pinch Sulzberger get a cabinet position?

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Jules Crittenden: "It's a sad state of affairs when a Frenchman mocks an American president and you have to go with the Frog."

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Durable goods orders, housing sales dropped in August. Direct result of Cash for Clunkers diverting money from one kind of purchase to another? Probably, every time government incentivizes one kind of behavior it’s at the expense of another.

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“I can recall no other major American speech in which the narcissism of a leader has been quite so pronounced.” In the Washington Post, mind you, on Obama's UN debacle.

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The Empire State Building was illuminated red and yellow for a week, celebrating China's 60 years of communist rule. Really? What a disgusting gesture, celebrating that soul crushing death cult.

The administration that keeps on giving

Lest you think that Carterian idiocy only emanates from the former president himself, I give you his National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski (from a Daily Beat interview):

DB: How aggressive can Obama be in insisting to the Israelis that a military strike might be in America’s worst interest?

Brzezinski: We are not exactly impotent little babies. They have to fly over our airspace in Iraq. Are we just going to sit there and watch?

DB: What if they fly over anyway?

Brzezinski: Well, we have to be serious about denying them that right. That means a denial where you aren’t just saying it. If they fly over, you go up and confront them. They have the choice of turning back or not. No one wishes for this but it could be a Liberty in reverse.

Three decades later, it's still gives you chills to think that these people ran the country for four years.

The despicable Jimmy Carter

Will Collier nicely sums up the man who wakes up every morning thanking God that there was a James Buchanan to keep him from being the worst US president:

For everybody old enough to remember what life was like under Jimmy's stupefying mixture of sophomoric self-righteousness, boundless naivete and gobsmacking incompetence, shoving Mr. Peanut back under the spotlight in his bitter dotage does nothing to help Obama, who's been looking like Carter II since a few hours after his inauguration.

And for those too young to remember history's greatest monster (thanks, Glenn), Jimmah's empty slander is just another sign of the unbecoming moral vanity at the heart of the modern Left, to say nothing of its overweening intolerance for any hint of dissent. People know good and well that being opposed to socialized medicine or trillion-dollar deficits doesn't make them racist. Calling them ugly names isn't going to make them cower away in fear--it's going to make them more convinced than ever that they're in the right.

Except for the true believer DailyKos types, lefties must cringe every time Carter opens his mouth. He's been around too long to be a right wing plant, but he's certainly king of the useful idiots for the righty cause.

UPDATE 9/18/09: James Taranto comes up with an alternate explanation that would be believable if we thought Carter was that clever: "Carter may have a conflict of interest in attacking Americans on Obama's behalf. Perhaps he secretly hopes Obama fails so miserably as to supplant Carter as the worst president of the past century."

Movies we'd like to see

Total Eclipse is rated PG-13 for violence, particularly graphic in some of the mass murder scenes, images of starving infants from Stalin's 1932 forced famine in the Ukraine, and the torture of dissidents. Director Steven Spielberg (Schindler's List) deftly cuts from the Moscow trials to the torture chambers of the Lubyanka. More controversial are the portrayals of American communists during the period of the Pact. They are shown here picketing the White House, calling President Roosevelt a warmonger, and demanding that America stay out of the "capitalist war" in Europe. Harvey Keitel turns in a powerful performance as American Communist boss Earl Browder, and Linda Hunt brings depth to Lillian Hellman, who, when Hitler attacks the USSR in September of 1939, actually did cry out, "The motherland has been invaded."

Painstakingly accurate and filled with historical surprises, this film is so refreshing, so remarkable, that even at 162 minutes it seems too short.

The only problem? It never was made.

The phenomenon of Communism somehow being considered more acceptable than Naziism, which recently reared its ugly head again with the Van Jones fiasco, has always fascinated and revolted me.

Communism IS Naziism, just with better PR.

It's not isolated, folks

Lest you think the despicable Van Jones' signing of a petition supporting 9/11 conspiracy theorists was his his only anti-American take on 9/11...uhh, no. He was publicly blaming the US on 9/12/01:

A recurring theme of the speakers was the brutal violence committed by or supported by the United States government on a daily basis. "The bombs the government drops in Iraq are the bombs that blew up in New York City," said Van Jones, director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, who also warned against forthcoming violence by the Bush Administration. "The US cannot bomb its way out of this one. Safety at home requires justice abroad."

Treason

The more you read about Ted Kennedy;s record, the worse he looks. From Peter Robinson:

Picking his way through the Soviet archives that Boris Yeltsin had just thrown open, in 1991 Tim Sebastian, a reporter for the London Times, came across an arresting memorandum. Composed in 1983 by Victor Chebrikov, the top man at the KGB, the memorandum was addressed to Yuri Andropov, the top man in the entire USSR. The subject: Sen. Edward Kennedy.

"On 9-10 May of this year," the May 14 memorandum explained, "Sen. Edward Kennedy's close friend and trusted confidant [John] Tunney was in Moscow." (Tunney was Kennedy's law school roommate and a former Democratic senator from California.) "The senator charged Tunney to convey the following message, through confidential contacts, to the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Y. Andropov."

Kennedy's message was simple. He proposed an unabashed quid pro quo. Kennedy would lend Andropov a hand in dealing with President Reagan. In return, the Soviet leader would lend the Democratic Party a hand in challenging Reagan in the 1984 presidential election.

Forgotten successes

I was not following the day to day of politics in the 70's s was not even aware of this from Nick Gillespie, which probably is Ted Kennedy's signature accomplishment for the people (as opposed to the state):

There is, buried deep within Kennedy’s legislative legacy, a different set of policies worth exhuming and examining, precisely because they were truly a break with the normal way of doing business in Washington. During the 1970s, Kennedy was instrumental in deregulating the interstate trucking industry and airline ticket prices, two innovations that have vastly improved the quality of life in America even as—or more precisely, because—they pushed power out of D.C. and into the pocketbooks of everyday Americans. We are incalculably richer and better off because something like actual prices replaced regulatory fiat in trucking and flying. Because they do not fit the Ted Kennedy narrative preferred by his admirers and detractors alike, these accomplishments rarely get mentioned in stories about the late senator. But they are exactly the sort of legislation that we should be celebrating in his honor, and using as a model in today’s debates about health care, education, and virtually every aspect of government action.

Now THAT's a teachable moment.

Thanks to Instapundit for the heads-up.

UPDATE 8/27: memorable Kennedy quote from that era: "The problems of our economy have occurred not as an outgrowth of laissez-faire, unbridled competition. They have occurred under the guidance of federal agencies, and under the umbrella of federal regulations."

If he had said that recently about health care or the housing crisis, it would have been every bit as on the money.

Quick hits

Some short notes, probably mostly dated due to my week plus on the shelf with the flu.

Mickey Kaus: “If you don’t want people to think that subsidized, voluntary end-of-of-life counseling sessions are the camel’s nose of an attempt to cut costs by limiting end-of-life care, then don’t put them in a bill the overarching, stated purpose of which is to cut health care costs!

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Flashback: Wal-Mart vs FEMA, private sector vs government…guess who prepared for and responded to Katrina better?

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It was nice of White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs to give the Iranian regime a PR boost by referring to Aquavelvajad (love that Dennis Miller nickname) as the “elected” president of Iran, a quote that was hyped endlessly in the Iranian state TV and press. Every regime needs their useful idiots.

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Things you would see if the left ran the world: government tracking your movement via GPS in order to tax you.

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Certainly a grain of truth in this from Moe Lane, which is actually imitating the style of anti-Bush attacks: “[T]he antiwar movement is run by racists who only like brown people when they can be used as clubs with which to beat anybody to the antiwar movement’s Right. Well, anyone to their Right, and Jews.”

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Little Green Footballs: “This [Israel pounding Hamas in Operation Cast Lead] is one of those ludicrous media memes that refuses to die: fighting against evil only makes evil stronger. You’ll see it in articles about every conflict; it’s a kind of nihilistic philosophical tic that is nearly universal, a counterintuitive observation that’s supposed to impress you with its depth.”

Appeasers are not the most creative sorts, I’ll agree.

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Your congress in action: “Just last week Washington announced it would cut $100 million from the federal administrative budgets and acted like that was some big achievement. Now this week we learn that about the same time those cuts were made public, the House OK’d the purchase of the private jets. The taxpayer money the House plans to spend is to be used to buy three Gulfstream G550s at roughly $65 million each. These are long-range business jets with large, palatial interiors and three temperature zones.”

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Government in action: The guidelines in the House-passed bill state that large SUVs and trucks, typically considered gas guzzlers in everyday conversation, qualify for the $3,500 credit, and in some cases the $4,500 credit, depending on the trade-ins that come through the door for them. New Category 2 trucks -- like the Hummer H-3, Ford Explorer, Chevy Silverado, and Toyota Tundra -- qualify if they get at least 15 MPG combined, and get at least one mile per gallon more than the car or truck being traded in.

Rapid punches

More political shorts combined into one post:

A couple of recent columns, by Jonah Goldberg and Jeff Jacoby, build on my post on Ginsberg’s comment and its implications and are well worth a read.

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Nice to see Obama blame Medicare and Medicaid for driving up the costs of healthcare in his televised prime time presser. Admitting that government is the problem is step one…

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Tom Maguire on Henrylouisgate: “So - do feminists and domestic violence experts agree that if the man of the house shouts at the cops that everything is cool so get out, the cops should simply leave?”

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That 378-0 resolution that, in part, confirmed Obama having been born in Hawaii? 88.8% of the Republicans voted for it, but only 86.3% of the Democrats did.

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Obama said in a Business Week interview “I haven't signed a bill that's raised taxes yet.”

That’s a lie that takes some serious chutzpah, given that it took him only until his 16th day in office to do so: "President Barack Obama signed legislation Wednesday to more than double the federal cigarette [tax] to pay for an expansion of health insurance for poor children."

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Ann Althouse: “If studies show that divorce damages health, then horning into our marriages will become the government’s business too. Obviously another blue pill. You expect us to pay for the red pill, when there’s a blue pill?”

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Education 101: “I worried that a homeless person had wandered onto the school grounds. When I pointed him out to a fellow parent, she giggled and explained that he was a new teacher.

That can’t be true, I thought, and went off to see the principal, who briefed me about the seniority transfer clause in the teachers’ contract. Among all the applicants for a posted vacancy at P.S. 87, our obviously impaired new teacher had the most years in the system, so he automatically got the job.”

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Who took the most money from HMO’s in 2008, by more than a 2-1 margin? Barack Obama! No wonder he wants the whole country run like an HMO.

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For all of the propaganda painting Republicans as obstructionist on health care reform, it should be noted that Jim DeMint led an effort to allow Americans to purchase individual health insurance across state lines, only to see it defeated 62-37 including no votes by Senators Reid and Obama. The same pair also rejected an effort (as part of a 55-32 vote) to allow for the expansion of health care access and reduced costs through the creation of small business health plans.

It would be more accurate to say that Democrats have blocked health care reform, Republicans have blocked a government takeover of health care.

And now for some frivolity

Who isn’t touched by a nice love story? Like…the sacred bond between the guy who likes children and the girl who likes beagles. Okay, not exactly Lifetime movie fare.

Proof there is a God, and He is a just God: Explorers On Global Warming Expedition Stranded in North Pole by Cold Weather

Don’t you wish that Harry Carey was alive and doing SWAC basketball?

Does this Baylor tennis player have a sister named Miso?

Dept. of Unfortunate Appellations:

World’s worst video game, the Helen Keller Simulator

Worst…death…ever.

Greatest story ever?: The world of Mexican midget wrestling was rocked to its tiny foundations this week, when a pair of pint-sized, twin performers were murdered -- apparently by poison-wielding hookers they met in a sleazy bar.

I can’t imagine why this street name fell out of favor.

Not getting the whole cap concept.

We didn’t start the flame war.

She should have SEALed it up.

Gifts for your baby mama, even if your baby’s white and she’s Latina.

Unfortunate patio furniture.

Finally, I’ve found some help.

For the woman who’s too lazy to actually wear a thong.

Why I don’t trust card players.

Freudian slip?

A tip of the hat to Powerline for this remarkable find, a quote from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to be published in this Sunday's New York Times Magazine.

Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion. Which some people felt would risk coercing women into having abortions when they didn't really want them. But when the court decided McRae, the case came out the other way. And then I realized that my perception of it had been altogether wrong.

It's a fascinating glimpse into the liberal mindset for a couple of reasons.

First is the strangely uncontroversial desire for population control, by any means possible and preferably in populations "that we don't want to have too many of" as she puts it. The wackier factions of the environmental movement have often fantasized about plagues to wipe out significant portions of the human race, and even the more mainstream left mostly sees humans as a bad thing for the planet, and thus populations need to be frozen or outright reduced or unspeakable catastrophes will occur (see Paul Erlich's unintentional comedy for a pointed example).

But second is the leftist impulse that dare not speak its name, namely that we don't want too many of certain kinds of people. You seldom hear it acknowledged, but the abortion movement of the 20th century in general, and Planned Parenthood in particular, grew out of the desire to keep down black populations. "A woman's right to choose" is much like "state's rights" in that it is not in itself, nor are even most (post-1960's/early 1970's, at least) proponents of the concepts in fact trying to find justifications for racist policy, but in that they have often been used as code words for those who want to keep blacks down, be it by segregationist laws or by limiting offspring.

Admitting these kinds of things is usually avoided in these days of political correctness, but then again Mrs. Ginsberg is 76, and it is not that uncommon for people who predate the PC movement to sometimes let slip things that would make their children or grandchildren blush. Nobody (except the loony right) thinks she's a racist per se, but how easily historically racist concepts such as population control and abortion slip into matter of fact conversation for the leftist who lived through the 60's is a fascinating glimpse into their underlying worldview. ("Affirmative action" serves a similar function for later generations).

Happy Tyranny Day

At some point in the day you'll probably be beaten over the head with the some kind of propaganda connected to today being Earth Day.

But did you ever wonder why Earth Day is this particular day, April 22? And why the first one was April 22, 1970?

Because it is Lenin's birthday, and because the original was the 100th anniversary of Lenin's birth. Which kind of tells you all you need to know about the modern green movement, and its vision for the world.

There has always been an anti-American segment, now concentrated mostly in academia and far left political circles, that sought to cover up and/or downplay the crimes of communism, the greatest evil in the history of human civilization. Even with the conclusive documentation of tens of millions of victims (of the roughly 150 million overall) and the voluminous historical proof offered by the release of Venona and Soviet archives, Soviet and communist apoligists still exist.

It just goes to show that if one hates/hated America enough, he will always find defenders on the fringe, no matter his sins. See Castro, Fidel and Chavez, Hugo.

Not so much, etc.

Scattershooting while wondering what ever happened to Keith Owens:

The difference between Obama and Jesus: Jesus knew how to build a cabinet.

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Jim Cramer fights back at Jon Stewart: “President Obama’s team, unlike Bush’s team, demonstrates a thinness of skin that shocks me. . . . Are they really that blind to the Great Wealth Destruction they are causing with their decisions to demonize the bankers, raise taxes for the wealthy, advocate draconian cap-and-trade policies and upend the health care system? Do they really believe that only the rich own stocks? What do they think we have our retirement accounts in, CDs? Where did they think that the money saved for college went, our mattresses?”

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Probably the most amazing thing I’ve ever heard: 10th President John Tyler, born in 1790, has two grandsons still living. When they talk about going back a generation or two, they mean business!

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A fact that doesn’t usually see the light of day, from the NYT: “Restrictions on embryonic stem cell research originated with Congress, which, each year since in 1996, has forbidden the use of federal financing for any experiment in which a human embryo is destroyed.”

Raise your hand if you had been led to believe it was Bush instead of Congress.

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Some lesser-known NBA nicknames.

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Democrats have hit on a new form of stimulus: steal the credit card numbers of a political opponent’s donors and use them to make fraudulent charges. Don’t look at me, I wasn’t the one who believed in this kind of change.

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Former teammate Mark Madsen on the Shaq flopping kerfuffle, the ultimate man bites dog story: “I played with Shaq for three years in Los Angeles and while I did see the big fella sacrifice his body and step in and take charges, I never once saw him flop in those three years. And the funny thing is that almost every team in the NBA tries to flop against Shaq. There are probably even coaches that teach their centers and forwards to try to flop on Shaq. So, this whole commotion about whether or not Shaq's play against Dwight Howard was a flop is so funny because everyone in the league tries to flop on Shaq and Shaq never flops back.”

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A former detainee at Guantánamo Bay has become the Taliban’s chief operations officer in southern Afghanistan. Good thing we’re planning on closing Guantanamo, so this kind of thing will become more common…you might even say it will explode.

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Noted fabulist Seymour Hersh has set tinfoil hatters atwitter with his tale of Dick Cheney hit squads (apparently not very good, since there are no known victims). Reason has a post on his loose relationship with the truth, with some classic comments. My favorite: “Sy Hersh has predicted 8 of the last 0 American invasions of Iran.”

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From one crook (Blagojevich) to another (Quinn) in the Illinois statehouse: Illinois Gov. to Propose 50% Increase in State Income Tax

Those who don't learn from history...

This passage from the diary of Henry Morgenthau, FDR's Treasury secretary, seems particularly relevant today:

"We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started and an enormous debt to boot!"

A "stimulus" history lesson

Kudos to the New York Times (talk about unlikely phrases!) for publishing a story on how the other massive economic stimulus package passed by a government to combat a recession fared:

Japan’s rural areas have been paved over and filled in with roads, dams and other big infrastructure projects, the legacy of trillions of dollars spent to lift the economy from a severe downturn caused by the bursting of a real estate bubble in the late 1980s. During those nearly two decades, Japan accumulated the largest public debt in the developed world — totaling 180 percent of its $5.5 trillion economy — while failing to generate a convincing recovery.

Now, as the Obama administration embarks on a similar path, proposing to spend more than $820 billion to stimulate the sagging American economy, many economists are taking a fresh look at Japan’s troubled experience. [...]

In the end, say economists, it was not public works but an expensive cleanup of the debt-ridden banking system, combined with growing exports to China and the United States, that brought a close to Japan’s Lost Decade. This has led many to conclude that spending did little more than sink Japan deeply into debt, leaving an enormous tax burden for future generations. [...]

Among ordinary Japanese, the spending is widely disparaged for having turned the nation into a public-works-based welfare state and making regional economies dependent on Tokyo for jobs. Much of the blame has fallen on the Liberal Democratic Party, which has long used government spending to grease rural vote-buying machines that help keep the party in power.

Sure, the Times spins the story with a predictable call for more social engineering, but to see them also include the Japanese side of the story in addition to the typical domestic voices echoing the Democrat Party line, is a remarkable departure from the usual partisan propaganda emanating from the beleaguered paper.

Sound familiar?

From an upcoming Reagan book by Steve Hayward, via PowerLine:

Human Events newspaper--one of Reagan's favorite periodicals-- wrote that "less than three weeks after the election, the euphoria in the conservative community is already dissipating somewhat. . . [C]onservatives have a right to feel somewhat distraught." Direct mail wizard Richard Viguerie complained to the Washington Post that "the names we're seeing now do make us nervous. It looks like it might be old home week for the Nixon-Ford administration." Columnist Kevin Phillips echoed Viguerie: "The President-elect seems to be leaning to a cabinet full of the same proven don't-rock-the-vote experts who bored the nation to death during the Gerald Ford Administration." James Reston noted in the New York Times: "It is a paradox that those who were most determined to elect Mr. Reagan now seem more worried about what he will do as President than those who opposed him."

All you would need to do is change the names to run that story in today's paper.

Thank you, vets

Internet friend Joe Bryant sends this out every year, I may have posted it before but if so it's worth a repeat:

WHAT IS A VET

Some veterans bear visible signs of their service: a missing limb, a jagged scar,
a certain look in the eye. Others may carry the evidence inside them: a pin
holding a bone together, a piece of shrapnel in the leg - or perhaps another sort
of inner steel: the soul’s ally forged in the refinery of adversity. Except in
parades, however, the men and women who have kept America safe wear no badge or
emblem. You can’t tell a vet just by looking.

What is a vet?

He is the cop on the beat who spent six months in Saudi Arabia sweating two gallons
a day making sure the armored personnel carriers didn’t run out of fuel.

He is the barroom loudmouth, dumber than five wooden planks, whose overgrown
frat-boy behavior is outweighed a hundred times in the cosmic scales by four hours
of exquisite bravery near the 38th parallel.

She or he—is the nurse who fought against futility and went to sleep sobbing every
night for two solid years in Da Nang.

He is the POW who went away one person and came back another—or didn’t come back
AT ALL.

He is the Quantico drill instructor who has never seen combat—but has saved
countless lives by turning slouchy, no-account rednecks and gang members into
Marines, and teaching them to watch each other’s backs.

He is the parade—riding Legionnaire who pins on his ribbons and medals with a
prosthetic hand.

He is the career quartermaster who watches the ribbons and medals pass him by.

He is the three anonymous heroes in The Tomb Of The Unknowns, whose presence at
the Arlington National Cemetery must forever preserve the memory of all the
anonymous heroes whose valor dies unrecognized with them on the battlefield or in
the ocean’s sunless deep.

He is the old guy bagging groceries at the supermarket—palsied now and
aggravatingly slow—who helped liberate a Nazi death camp and who wishes all day
long that his wife were still alive to hold him when the nightmares come.

He is an ordinary and yet an extraordinary human being—a person who offered some
of his life’s most vital years in the service of his country, and who sacrificed
his ambitions so others would not have to sacrifice theirs.

He is a soldier and a savior and a sword against the darkness, and he is nothing
more than the finest, greatest testimony on behalf of the finest, greatest nation
ever known.

So remember, each time you see someone who has served our country, just lean over
and say Thank You. That’s all most people need, and in most cases it will mean
more than any medals they could have been awarded or were awarded.

Two little words that mean a lot, “THANK YOU.”

Remember November 11th is Veterans Day.

“It is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press. It
is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech. It is the
soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us the freedom to demonstrate.
It is the soldier, who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag, and whose
coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protester to burn the flag.”

Father Dennis Edward O’Brien, USMC

He’s even better at water polo, etc.

Christ runs for 232 yards in Catholic victory

I’m recruiting the guy who was able to tackle him…

God Shammgod could not be reached for comment.

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Some perspective: You can tell by the reference that this Dan Henninger quote came at the start of primary season, but it’s worth rehashing as we hear the hyperbolic carping about how bad we have it as Election Day nears:

“Later today some people who will start their evening with Iowa's caucus by watching angry Lou Dobbs--convincing themselves, again, that they and this country are getting shafted, and coming to this conclusion while watching a $700, 32-inch Samsung flat-panel, high-definition TV with Lou's sad song flowing through Monster digital coax cables to five Onkyo HT-SR800 home theater speakers.”

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It did not work, but this attempted power grab by the state of California (excerpted from an LA Times editorial) should give everybody a look into the mindset that could end up controlling the federal government in a few months:

California is proposing revisions to its housing code that would require all new or remodeled homes to have a "programmable communicating thermostat." Equipped with special "nonremovable" FM radio receivers, these devices would allow state power authorities to set the temperature in your home as they see fit. Ostensibly to manage demand during "price events" and other "emergencies," you would basically cede control of your home's heating and air conditioning to the state (when and if state officials wanted to exercise it).

These are the kinds of things that will make their way into new laws and regulations in a one-party government, all in the name of “climate change” (as “global warming” was rebranded a few years into the current global cooling cycle) or other well-intentioned causes.

The movement that would have government control every aspect of our lives is gaining momentum. Hopefully the people will push back while they are still allowed to do so.

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Remember children, there are no illegal guns, there are only undocumented firearms.

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Great moments in regulation: When the state of Indiana tried to legislate 3.2 as the value of pi.

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Left/liberal vs. conservative/libertarian visions of economics: the left thinks that business should be accountable to bureaucrats, while the right thinks business should be accountable to customers.

To that end, a potential Democrat-controlled government will pass laws by the dozens and regulations by the tens of thousands to tell businesses what they can sell and how they can sell it. I hope you’ve enjoyed the innovation in (for example) cell phones, computers and televisions, because that kind of progress is likely to slow to a crawl if Washington is taken over by control freak nanny statists.

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No matter how bad you might think the Weather Underground were…they were worse. Sure, they committed some murders and tried some mass murders, but they had loftier goals.

Namely, reeducation, to rid Americans of their capitalist and traditional American ideas. And for those who resisted, death – the WU estimated that they would need to kill 25 million Americans to achieve their goals.

Nah, launching your political career in the house of, having your political career nurtured and advanced by, maintaining a personal and professional friendship with, and sharing an office for three years with a one or sometimes two of these genocide fantasists, these modern-day Hitlers…no problem at all.