Look, the stupid Patriot Act and the Department of Homeland security were a joint failure by Bush and the R's and D's in both houses.

But what you are seeing is a machine politician unfettered by a critical press.

My personal hope is that this takes down his presidency and cripples him for the next three years. And provides a boost to libertarian and small gov't candidates on both sides of the fence.

-XC

Well, the AP is outraged at the AP and, to their credit, they seem p*ssed about this too.

I wonder if it was Rush if they would care?

-XC

Your point on Thatcher is spot on - it's impossible to pick a political figure from another culture and perfectly project them on your own.

In the same way it's impossible to pick a single program, say the NHS, and transport it into your culture.

Optical engineers know that distance reduces resolution. If only political engineers understood that too.

-XC

PS - I remember the day after RR's election the Iranians announcing that they'd return the hostages forthwith. Ahem.

This is exactly why NPR and PBS need to choose their business model - captive media for the government or commercial voice for whatever they want to be. This halfway straddle where they'll take Home Depot ads but not XYZ is stupid. It's also stupid that they are "non profit." They make enough money to pay their executive team >$1M/year in salary, so they aren't poor.

-XC

PS - "all you have left" of what, exactly?

"Back when Sandra Day O’Connor was still on the Supreme Court, busy saving affirmative action and the right to abortion, liberals who wanted a reason to forgive her vote in Bush v. Gore often asked me — begged me — to assure them that Justice O’Connor was sorry."

I had to stop reading - that made me throw up in my mouth a little. Was there any non-doctrinaire completely predictable NYT east-side liberal "nobody I know voted for him" stuff in that article?

Bleh, I am gonna go eat a bite to eastern NC que to get this taste out of my mouth. Hey, it's pig, and it's for breakfast....

_XC

Not much history of outright nationalization here More like governmentalization by incompetence.

I think your reading of Obama is very Christian.

-XC

PS - LOL @ "federalist' - the "inconceivable" of this admin.

"fantastically immoral bullshit" - interesting choice of words.

Interestingly he provides, IIRC, a concrete example of waiting until you are sick to purchase insurance. Please tell me how denying them insurance is immoral?

Is it more moral to do this for, say, a filling than for a broken leg?

-XC

Right, because the solution for an industry that's more regulated than the next three combined is ... more regulation.

Like bailing a boat by putting more water in.

-XC

The real real problem is that, like most people writing on science, this guy isn't a scientist in a meaningful term of the word. To paraphrase: An ex-racialist (no loaded terms here!) is saying what we already knew, so he must be right.

Right.

I have no opinion on genetic heritage and group average or distributional IQ, mostly because I don't find measured IQ a very useful thing (phrenology anyone?). But the science is appalling.

-XC

I don't even think it was well intentioned, I think it was regula-mastabatory (i made up a new word!) and totally self justifying.

I hate my new gas cans too.

-XC

I would totally judge a person on how they treat their dog, why not a nanny state on how they regulate freaking gas cans?

Lead in paint and gas was a very well understood problem - and one that took literally decades to fix. I suspect that "gas spills" from vented gas cans was never more than a nit in a b-cats eye.

-XC