The Gelded Age - Oh what a tangled web we weave...

Mark Steyn:

"It’s hardly worth batting an eyelid over equine welfare queens. It’s a mere drop in the mountain of federal horse manure. But, in their own poignant way, the mustangs are almost too apt a symbol of where we’re all headed. The old west has been succeeded by the new California, in which a bloated government bureaucracy rides herd on the ever more emaciated workhorses of the private sector. And as California goes — and it’s going, going, gone — so goes the nation."

A second one may be nesessary...

Myron Magnet:

"It’s worth recalling that when the Founding Fathers led the American colonists in revolt against British oppression, they weren’t rebelling against torture on the rack or being chained in galleys or having to let aristocrats deflower their daughters. They were rebelling against taxes. To them, having to pay duties they hadn’t voted for themselves was a tyrannical taking of property—theft—and, in true Lockean fashion, they concluded that since government exists to protect life, liberty, and property, a regime that does the opposite renders itself illegitimate."

That George Bush sure tried to grab power....

Townhall:

"Back in 1993, Hillary Clinton led the secretive Health Care Task Force, which attempted to create legislation to seize the health care system and put it under government control. It was rightly defeated then. But as radical of a plan as that was, what we're facing now with Barack Obama's desire for control makes Hillary's attempt look like a simple resolution to honor the Boy Scouts."

1% is just fine....

Nearly all my professors are Democrats. Isn't that a problem?:

"The University of Oregon (UO), where I study journalism, invested millions annually in a diversity program that explicitly included 'political affiliation' as a component. Yet, out of the 111 registered Oregon voters in the departments of journalism, law, political science, economics, and sociology, there were only two registered Republicans."

Quote of the Day...

Megan McArdle:

"How can Democrats control 60% of the Senate, and still be unable to get a goddamn cloture vote?"

History is now over... if you are stupid enough to believe them

Mark Steyn:

"Environmentalism opposes that kind of mobility. It seeks to return us to the age of kings, when the masses are restrained by a privileged elite. Sometimes they will be hereditary monarchs, such as the Prince of Wales. Sometimes they will be merely the gilded princelings of the government apparatus — Barack Obama, Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi. In the old days, they were endowed with absolute authority by God. Today, they’re endowed by Mother Nature, empowered by Gaia to act on her behalf. But the object remains control — to constrain you in a million ways, most of which would never have occurred to Henry VIII, who, unlike the new cap-and-trade bill, was entirely indifferent as to whether your hovel was “energy efficient.” The old rationale for absolute monarchy — Divine Right — is a tough sell in a democratic age. But the new rationale — Gaia’s Right — has proved surprisingly plausible."

Laughing Heartily (Once Again) at Andrew Sullivan

The New Editor:

"Is there a bigger Internet fool than The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan, who spends most of his time doing a cheap imitation of a scummy Chicago Democratic Party precinct captain with his lips firmly attached to President Barack Obama's backside?"

Don't you hate it when she makes sense?

Megan McArdle:

"Paying for a huge new entitlement which will, at best, grow steadily during downturns, should not be done with a tax that will plummet the way progressive income tax revenues seem to during a depression. See: California, State of."

The kind of thing you expect from this administration....

Political opposition is not a hate crime:

"Rep. Alcee Hastings - the impeached Florida judge Nancy Pelosi tried to install as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee until her own party members rebelled - introduced an amendment to the defense authorization bill that gives Attorney General Eric Holder sole discretion to label groups that oppose government policy on guns, abortion, immigration, states' rights, or a host of other issues. In a June 25 speech on the House floor, Rep. Trent Franks, R-AZ, blasted the idea: 'This sounds an alarm for many of us because of the recent shocking and offensive report released by the Department of Homeland Security which labeled, arguably, a majority of Americans as 'extremists.''"

Idiot...

Obama’s Moscow Retreat:

"Obama has been hopelessly weak on the missile defense shield for Eastern Europe, and he has now mumbled his way through a summit meeting.

The ball is once again in the Republicans’ court, and they should not count on having any more such opportunities. So far, nothing has been heard from key Republican figures. It is time for the Republican leadership to show us what they are made of — or to step aside in favor of some new party that may be willing to do so."

Can you imagine the reaction if the Bush White House had done this?

Top of the Ticket:

"White House misspills President Obama's name on diplomatic dokument"

He's coming for EVERYTHING you own...

TigerHawk:

"Thirty-five percent. Somebody needs to turn that into a bumper sticker."

Via Taranto:

"Aging is, unequivocally, the major cause of death in the industrialized world." A difference of 2 degrees seems trivial by comparison to the prospect of an eternity at room temperature.

You always get what you (don't) pay for...

California Screaming:

"Rarely has the chasm between elite political discourse and grubby popular opinion been displayed in such sharp relief. The implications of this citizen revolt—and the hostile reactions to it—stretch far beyond Nevada’s western border. California is the Ghost of Federal Government Future.

The federal government is now run by a president and Congress more responsive to union concerns than any in at least two decades. The same bloat currently bogging down statehouses and city halls is being duplicated in boomtown Washington, D.C. President Barack Obama even brought Andy Stern in to help warn Schwarzenegger that federal stimulus money would not be disbursed to California unless the governor rescinded some proposed state job cuts. Though that threat was later withdrawn, Schwarzenegger at press time was pushing for a measly work force reduction of 2 percent.

But there’s another interpretation of California’s rebellion, one with far sunnier implications for those of us who prefer our governments constrained. Faced with a political class that ignored bureaucratic inefficiency, that demanded higher taxes, that filled the newspapers with scare stories about people who will literally die as a result of budget cuts, the citizens of one of the bluest states in the nation collectively said we just don’t believe you anymore. If even California’s famous fruits and nuts can call the statists’ bluff, there may be hope for the rest of the country."

Be very afraid of what you don't know...

Megan McArdle:

"Look at defense spending. Are F-22 raptors worth $138 million? It's a pretty meaningless question. Congress is willing to pay $138 million. But this bears only the haziest relationship to what the Americans who pay the bill want, or are willing to pay, for such a plane. And the procurement system pays at least as much attention to what congressional district things are built in as what makes the most effective military. That's why virtually everyone thinks defense procurement is an overpriced disaster, which gets innovation only at drastic cost. Unfortunately, there's no other way to go about it.

Right now, the US has a market--no matter how screwed up--for medical goods. It is not a good market. But no one in the market, except Medicare, has enough pricing power to totally undermine the market mechanism, so it grinds out an equilibrium that bears some resemblance to consumer demand. In turn, Europe can buy those market-produced products. But if you kill the last market, everything suddenly looks very different. What's the right price for innovation? What should we research? Those questions stop being decided on the basis of the number of consumers served, and start being decided on the basis of who has the best lobby."

A NYT "Exclusive"...

All the News That's Fit to Steal

Bend over, America....

Dept. of I Told You So, Economics Division:

"The situation is not yet catastrophic, but . . . well, give them time. If the Democrats get what they want (the Waxman-Markey energy tax, socialized medicine, and another stimulus) it may suffice to bring about a Zimbabwe-style meltdown."

The Ministry of Information... and Truth

The Cost of Controlling The Press:

"Barack Obama's White House is spending more than $80,000 a week to staff its old and new media offices. Add the price of speechwriters and the White House communications tab reaches nearly $100,000 a week, or nearly $5 million a year-and that is for salaries alone.

Based on the coverage the President has garnered so far, it is money well spent."

Life changing...

Google Plans a PC Operating System

Behind the Times

Mark Steyn:

"A week ago, the House of Representatives passed some gargantuan “cap-and-trade” bill designed to “save” “the environment.” Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize–winning economist, accused those Neanderthals who voted against the bill of committing “treason against the planet.” By that standard, most of the planet is guilty of treason against the planet. I don’t mean just in the sense that China, already the world’s Number One CO2 emitter, and India and other rising economic powers have absolutely no intention of doing what the Democrats have done, no way, no how — because they don’t see why they should stay poor just because New York Times columnists think it’s good for them.

No, I mean that most of the developed world has already gone down the paved road of good intentions and is now frantically trying to pedal up out of it. New Zealand was one of the few western nations to sign on to Kyoto and then attempt to abide by it — until they realized they could only do so by destroying their economy. They introduced a Dem-style cap-and-trade regime — and last year they suspended it. In Australia, the Labor government postponed implementation of its emissions-reduction program until 2011, and the Aussie Senate may scuttle it entirely. The Obama administration has gotten to the climate-change hop just as the glitterball’s stopped whirling and the band’s packing up its instruments.