I'LL COME back soon with a review of the contents, but the cover art for this week's Economist ("America's future: California v Texas") is too good to hold for later.
Continue reading "JULY 11 / The Economist on Texas and California" »
IAN BREMMER, "State Capitalism Comes of Age," Foreign Affairs, May/June 2009:
Until very recently, New York City was the world's financial capital. It no longer is even the financial capital of the United States. That distinction now falls to Washington, where members of Congress and the executive branch make decisions with long-term market impact on a scale not seen since the 1930s. A similar shift is taking blace throughout the world . . . .
LET'S TAKE A BREAK from giving money to good works and give something more valuable -- our hearts and minds -- to the celebration of the 233rd birthday of the greatest nation in history.
Reflect on the words.
We hold these truths to be self-evident . . .
What truths? And what does "self-evident" mean?
. . . that all men are created equal . . .
Clever people delight -- delight -- in pointing out that blacks and women were not treated equally in 1776. Does this falsify the proposition that all were "created" equal? Is that proposition true or not? What, if anything, does it imply about social and economic outcomes?
. . . that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights . . .
What, according to the Founders (including skeptical old Tom Jefferson), is the source of human rights? Do you believe a "Creator" endowed humanity with rights?
LEFTIST JOURNOS (but I repeat myself) typically ignore July 4 or use it as a day to find fault with America. What better day than July 3, then, to do a preemptive takedown by recalling this fine Krauthammer column about our apologizer-in-chief: "Obama Hovers From On High," Washington Post, June 12, 2009.
Continue reading "JULY 3 / Krauthammer on Obama's compulsion to find fault with his own country" »
IN THE YELLOWING pages of history, political succession usually required a death, natural or induced by poison or sword. Kings died or were killed, then were succeeded by the political heir next in line or by the usurper. In literature, think of Hamlet, MacBeth, Richard III.
Continue reading "JULY 1 / The glory of a good concession speech" »
THE INTERGENERATIONAL theft represented by the graph at the bottom of this (and other) posts will ruin the lives of our offspring, Unca D once wrote.
That most of our children and grandchildren ignoratantly voted for this outcome is no comfort. They didn't know any better, and that's our fault too.
One aging reader refuses to accept a share of the blame.
BUT CONSERVATIVES and like-minded centrists can win the political debate [sparked by the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court] if they focus not on buzzwords but on in-depth, civil discourse about the very big issue on which Sotomayor and her liberal supporters are most at odds -- and the conservative justices most in tune -- with the vast majority of Americans.
Continue reading "JUNE 22 / Stuart Taylor, Jr., on Sotomayor on Race " »
FOR THE FOURTH time in seven months, the clever people who write editorials for the Houston Chronicle have said 47 million American lack health insurance. (See below).
As the Chronicle knows or should know, this is false. Forty-seven million Americans do not lack health insurance.
A CHRONICLE editorialist wrote about America's military veterans Friday without the condescension and barely disguised scorn that usually accompany the paper's opinionating about men and women in uniform.
TODAY we kick off intimations-of-mortality week with "Desperadoes Waiting for a Train," performed by Waylon, Willie, Johnny, and Kris, off Highwayman (1985).
One day I looked up, and he's pushin' eighty,
And there's brown tobacco stains all down his chin.
To me he's one of the heroes of this country,
So why's he dressed up like them old men,
Drinkin' beer and playin' moon and forty-two?
