Heh! I DARE YOU!

Premature Orszagism

Annals of Orszagism: Virginia Postrel calls the Obama administration's bluff on health care costs. A White House Council of Economic Advisers report recently asserted that

30 percent of Medicare’s costs could be saved without adverse health consequences.

Postrel's answer: What's stopping you?

Notice the words at the end of the statement....

Krugman:

"The Democratic strategy for health reform is based on a political judgment: the belief that the public will be more willing to accept reform, less easily Harry-and-Louised, if those who already have health coverage from private insurers are allowed to keep it."

If this doesn't give you pause regarding Krugman's motives and thinking, then I guess you really don't give a shit about anything......

Yup!

Justices Gone Wild:

"The Supreme Court regularly shows up in polls as the most respected branch of government. But settling so many vexing controversies with 5-to-4 votes — effectively making Anthony Kennedy the nation’s philosopher king — is an awfully poor way to run a republic."

Finally, some good news!!!

Deal to Sell Saturn to Penske Reported

Hail and farewell....

General Motors, RIP

General Motors used to build cars that mattered. Cars with great names like Rocket 88, Sting Ray, Coupe DeVille, Starfire, Road Master, GTO, Gran Sport, El Dorado, Electra, and others. Big, fast, chromey cars that cruised toward the horizon, windows rolled down, AM radio blasting out the Beach Boys or Jan and Dean or Elvis or maybe Ike Turner. The world was full of promise and horsepower.

A GM car told the world that you were somebody. Wealthy business owners drove Cadillacs, doctors drove Buicks, lawyers drove Oldsmobiles, up-and-comers drove Pontiacs, and regular folks drove Chevys. Young men drove fast cars that had mag wheels, glass-packs, Mickey Thompson drag racing tires, Hurst shifters and a necker’s knob on the steering wheel so you could steer with your left hand while your right arm was around your girlfriend.

I can still remember that evening in 1957 when my father drove home in his first Cadillac - an all white convertible with red leather interior! A beastly thing with a steering wheel the size of a planet, fins ready to pierce anything that got in their way, and 6 inch wide whitewalls that looked like Bozo's hairline. Boy, was that cool! It was one of Dad's great status symbols, and a tradition he continued every two years as the brand got bigger and more posh until that final diesel Seville in the 1980's was such a piece of crap that he gave up on the marque and went with the much hated German brand. Like the rest of us, he never looked back....

Heh...

Abbas’s Three No’s:

"Old Joe the Plumber saw it.

He didn’t have a degree, didn’t have any advanced degrees, but he saw it, and stated it clear, that if Obama wins, “Israel is up the creek.”

How many ostensibly well educated out there were fooled, were mentally befogged by Obama’s speeches, were seduced by media agitprop?"

Quote of the Day...

Hugh Hewitt:

"Governments can do very few things well and almost nothing efficiently."

Gee! I think he's been reading my stuff.....

RIP - What's Good for GM isn't What's Good For America

Megan McArdle:

So. Alea iacta est, as Julius Caesar might have said, if there had been a major Roman chariot manufacturer in putative need of nationalization. The nation's largest automaker, our most iconic firm, is bankrupt, GM and Citigroup exit the Dow in favor of Travelers and Cisco."

Could it be?

The End of Our Love Affair with Cars:

"The phrase “bankrupt General Motors,” which we expect to hear uttered on Monday, leaves Americans my age in economic shock. The words are as melodramatic as “Mom’s nude photos.” And, indeed, if we want to understand what doomed the American automobile, we should give up on economics and turn to melodrama.

Politicians, journalists, financial analysts and other purveyors of banality have been looking at cars as if a convertible were a business. Fire the MBAs and hire a poet. The fate of Detroit isn’t a matter of financial crisis, foreign competition, corporate greed, union intransigence, energy costs or measuring the shoe size of the footprints in the carbon. It’s a tragic romance—unleashed passions, titanic clashes, lost love and wild horses."

Let's give 'em a health care system to run....

From a Cancer Doctor:

"Specialists, and underpaid generalists will hang it up years ahead of their planned exit from medicine in just about any system that the Obama administration is likely to devise. They'll scarcely need to ration care: there just won't be anyone around to deliver it. Government will kill the golden goose, and then blame it upon everyone and anyone else. As usual."

How predictable was this?

White House moves to restrict criticism of stimulus projects:

"This is the Camel's nose under the tent, being poked because of special circumstances. Let government restrict political expression - i.e. lobbying of government officials regarding policy - in one small, supposedly specialized area and not long after the specialized area starts expanding. Eventually, all political expression regarding all policy will become subject to government regulation."

Speak Softly and Carry a Big Teleprompter

Mark Steyn:

"There’s no point launching nukes when everyone’s barbecuing chicken or watching football."

As it is becoming nationally...

The Problem With California:

"Yet the central problem in the Golden State--the disorder that affects every aspect of state government--can be described very simply: The political class in Sacramento believes the people of California exist for the state government, not the other way around."

Again, Mussolini in action...

Obama’s Interlocking Directorate:

"The robber barons of old would marvel at the tentacles of influence of Barack Obama."

And they have a bridge you probably want to buy....

California's Silent Big Spenders:

"What, exactly, has been the return on this added investment? If spending under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger increased 6.75 percent a year during mostly good times, surely there must be, say, a 3 percent increase in the quantity or quality of...something? Crickets.

Instead of making the positive case for big government, or at least beginning to explain, let alone defend, what Sacramento does with all that money, California's political class has instead opted for a four-pronged strategy: deny, scare, attack, then call for higher taxes.

First is the denial that there is a government-growth issue in the first place. This takes some intellectual dexterity, since the facts indicate otherwise."

Ain't that the truth....

Rasmussen Reports:

"Identity politics are not good for the country or for the groups they purport to advance. This is not to undercut Sonia Sotomayor, who, as the news reports all start out, is the first Hispanic nominated to the Supreme Court and, if confirmed, would be the third female justice. From what we know about her so far, she seems qualified for the job.

But turning such appointments into political payback for an ethnic group or gender makes an unseemly spectacle. It undermines real achievements and infantilizes the candidate."

Promises

Belmont Club:

"The contradiction in Barack Obama’s approach, which goes unnoticed in the following discussion is that by distancing himself from Israel, he is undercutting the one source of assurance that would have persuaded Israel to take the risk. Israel might have gambled its life under a President it trusted. But how much trust does it repose in Barack Obama? To some extent the President’s image in Israel is itself part of the problem."

Full of baloney, ain't he?

Obama’s European Energy Vacation:

"Turns out there really is a downside to forcing the marketplace to shift to energy sources that are less economical than those currently used. Spain, which instituted a green jobs program a decade ago, found this out the hard way. A study by researchers at King Juan Carlos University found that 2.2 jobs were destroyed for every green job created through government mechanisms, and those green jobs are rarely permanent. Obama has touted the Spanish experience as a model for the United States, but the study’s authors deem those policies “terribly economically counterproductive.” Simply put, they wrote, “the Spanish/EU-style ‘green jobs’ agenda now being promoted in the U.S. in fact destroys jobs.”"

Quote of the Day (via Taranto)...

What exactly does "empathy" mean in the context of appellate judging, anyway? One assumes it is a euphemism for "judicial liberalism," itself a rather vague term whose exponents usually describe themselves as favoring individual liberty over authority. This description is accurate, except when it isn't.

Let me kiss your boo, boos....

Jonah Goldberg:

"Why make this complicated?

President Obama prefers Supreme Court justices who will violate their oath of office. And he hopes Sonia Sotomayor is the right Hispanic woman for the job"