DDT. Nuclear Power. High voltage power lines. Global warming. Global cooling. The energy crisis of the 1970s. Silicone breast implants. Nuclear winter. Avian flu. Irradiated food. Genetically modified food. Global starvation due to "excess" population. Looming Christian theocracy. The end of the universe due to the Large Hadron Collider. The impending Bush Coup And Dictatorship. The list of "crises" brought to us by the media — and certain politicians and celebrities — seems almost endless.

Of course, there are some things which could be (or are already) a serious problem: creeping Islamic extremism; the possibility of an asteroid strike; the dangers of a nuclear Iran, electromagnetic pulse (EMP) — or both; an impossible national debt and vast government overspending; declining immunization rates; historical illiteracy... — these, being actual problems, will receive almost no attention.

Here's a looming crisis which *I* find alarming, because it's so preventable and stupid, and will have such drastic effects on future generations:

Scientists have warned that the world's most commonly used inert gas is being depleted at an astonishing rate because of a law passed in the United States in 1996 which has effectively made helium too cheap to recycle.

The law stipulates that the US National Helium Reserve, which is kept in a disused underground gas field near Amarillo, Texas - by far the biggest store of helium in the world - must all be sold off by 2015, irrespective of the market price.

Besides toy balloons, what is helium used for? Oh, nothing important...

The experts warn that the world could run out of helium within 25 to 30 years, potentially spelling disaster for hospitals, whose MRI scanners are cooled by the gas in liquid form, and anti-terrorist authorities who rely on helium for their radiation monitors, as well as the millions of children who love to watch their helium-filled balloons float into the sky.

Helium is made either by the nuclear fusion process of the Sun, or by the slow and steady radioactive decay of terrestrial rock, which accounts for all of the Earth's store of the gas. There is no way of manufacturing it artificially, and practically all of the world's reserves have been derived as a by-product from the extraction of natural gas, mostly in the giant oil- and gasfields of the American South-west, which historically have had the highest helium concentrations.

Liquid helium is critical for cooling cooling infrared detectors, nuclear reactors and the machinery of wind tunnels. The space industry uses it in sensitive satellite equipment and spacecraft, and Nasa uses helium in huge quantities to purge the potentially explosive fuel from its rockets.

In the form of its isotope helium-3, helium is also crucial for research into the next generation of clean, waste-free nuclear reactors powered by nuclear fusion, the nuclear reaction that powers the Sun.

This sounds like a very serious problem, and I'm not prone to alarmism. If you think I'm wrong, correct me. Otherwise, I'll forward this to people, and am planning to write or call my congresscritters about it.

I don't expect this to get much attention from the media: they prefer to cover crises which seem to require a governmental solution, not ones created by it.

In its worst moments, Europe seeks peace at any price, even what Saint Thomas Aquinas called a bad peace — one that consecrates injustice, arbitrary power, and terror, a detestable peace heavy with vicious consequences. Europe postulates freedom for all but is content with just its own. It has a history, whereas America is still making history, animated by an eschatological tension toward the future. If the latter sometimes makes major mistakes, the former makes none because it attempts nothing. For Europe, prudence no longer consists in the art, defended by the ancients, of finding one's way within an uncertain story. We hate America because she makes a difference. We prefer Europe because she is not a threat. Our repulsion represents a kind of homage, and our sympathy a kind of contempt.

What is the point of our bad conscience? To purge our faults and to avoid falling back into old errors? Perhaps. But it serves mainly to justify renouncing political action. If the Old World invariably prefers guilt to responsibility, it is because the first is less burdensome; so one puts up with a guilty conscience. Our lazy despair leads us not to fight injustice but to coexist with it. We delight in tranquil impotence, and we take up residence in a peaceful hell. We allow ourselves to be overwhelmed with words of blame, a role we willingly adopt so as to be accountable to no one and to avoid taking any part in world affairs. Remorse is a mixture of good will and bad faith: a sincere desire to close old wounds and a secret wish to be left alone. Eventually, indebtedness to the dead prevails over duty to the living. Repentance makes of us a people who apologize for old crimes in order to ignore present ones.

Source

In some ways, I feel for Europe. She tends to fall into two errors: domination and pacifism. As Dennis Prager puts it, after World War II, the Germans only learned not to fight. But their errors weren't caused by armies, their errors were a product of their philosophies. National Socialism was rejected, but socialism was not. Hitler was rejected, but Hegel was retained. "Hard" eugenics were briefly rejected, but "soft" eugenics are on the rise yet again. After Nazi paganism led to some of the worst atrocities of the twentieth century, a softer, more dilute paganism is yet again popular. The idea of knowing your particular belief is right, and all the others are wrong, was rejected. They're absolutely sure this new view is right, and others are wrong.

But I disagree with the author a bit here:

Europe has developed a veritable fanaticism for modesty, but if it cannot preside over the destinies of the whole world, it must at least play a part, retain its special voice in favor of justice and law, and assume the political and military means to make itself heard...

Europe's modesty is a false modesty. She already constantly lectures everyone else. What are the UN NGO's except mouthpieces for the European worldview? What tiny country has arrogated itself "universal jurisdiction" — the ability to prosecute anyone, anywhere, for any crime it deems fit? Why, Belgium, seat of the European Union, moral giant among nations. And how is it possible to criticize the US at every turn unless Europe knows herself to be morally superior? Europe still wants to run the world, it just doesn't want to be held accountable for any of the consequences.

Until her philosophies are fixed, Europe will be of no use to anyone, armed or otherwise.

Sadly, the US is heading there as well.

After a visit to the Gerald Ford Presidential Museum, Mark Krikorian notes a bit of evidence of leftist revisionism:

Amidst the big-picture stuff, two things at the Ford museum stuck out: The map showing the outcome of the 1976 election had the red and blue states as they're supposed to be — the Democrats in red and the Republicans in blue. Has anyone tried to dig out which graphic artist or art director at one of the networks decided to change this in 2000? It has to have been a considered decision by a leftie who didn't think the Democrats should be portrayed as the reds, but I've never seen the name(s) of the specific person or persons responsible.

I would guess it was many journalists, not just one — that reporters, editors, and graphic artists at different media outlets decided in 2000 that they were sick of their association with their historical color — red. It was apparently time to hang it on the "right wing", just as they'd done with most of their other failed positions and symbols. I was kind of sad to see conservatives so quickly take up the color of socialism as their own.

Look, I don't like to make fun of the man; I try go lightly on him in these pages when I can; but even the headline here seems positively Onion-esque:

Obama Rolls Out Midterm Metaphor

"You had a group of folks who drove the economy, drove the country, drove our car into the ditch," Mr. Obama told some 200 party faithful sipping sauvignon blanc by the pool Monday night at a Los Angeles fund-raiser.

The president may change a word here or refer to a different member of Congress there, but the basic arc of the anecdote has been the same at his stops so far this week on a three-day, five-state swing.

The White House wants to frame the November elections as a clear choice between the Democrats who have put the country on the road to recovery, anemic though it may be, and the Republicans who, in the White House view, got the country into the economic mess to begin with.

"We put on our boots and walked into the ditch — it's muddy and hot and dusty and bugs everywhere — and we're pushing," Mr. Obama said of the efforts of the White House and its Democratic partners in Congress.

"And we're slipping and sliding and sweating, and the other side, the Republicans, they're standing there with their Slurpees watching us," Mr. Obama said, building up to the punch line, which he has been refining (minus the Slurpees) for several months. "Finally we get this car to level ground. Finally we're ready to move forward, go down that road once again to American prosperity, and what happens? They want the keys back."

This was several days ago. Obama is now on, what, his tenth? fourteenth vacation this year? Shall we count his wife's vacations, social events, and parties as well? You're telling a wealthy audience sipping sauvignon blanc that you're all in a ditch, sweating, in the mud, while your opponents are standing at the sidelines sipping a drink?

"The car" is the economy, and the economy isn't propelled by politicians. Aside from the quite obvious fact that Obama hasn't gotten anything muddy, dirty, or sweaty, it is business and women — with all-sized businesses — who are working to get the economy going. And what is their chief impediment? Idiotic policies which make their life heck, and make them afraid to invest even another dollar in expanding business.

And how did "the car" end up in the "the ditch"? If I recall, a number of politicians — mostly Democrats — decided we all needed something called "affordable housing." In their zeal, they pressured banks to loosen their lending standards, and then, through Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, worked to bundle those questionable mortgages into securities, which were then resold — setting the stage for the dramatic collapse.

"Well, you can't have the keys back," he said to cheers in Milwaukee on Monday. "You don't know how to drive. You got us into the ditch."

It is not an easy sales pitch, in no small part because Republicans have countered that Mr. Obama's stimulus spending and health care and financial overhauls are slowing the recovery and keeping the unemployment rate high.

Obama knows how to drive? He's not even sure where the car is! He can't, apparently, even distinguish "road" from "ditch." For the past two years, just as now, Obama has been telling us he's finally got the "car" on the "road" — and, of course, each time, it's been obvious that the car has, in fact, is still sitting squarely in the "ditch" — or worse, actually, further mired in mud than when he arrived. And yet we're to believe he's a great "driver"?

The second problem is that it isn't the Republicans who are primarily his opposition. It is more than a bit disturbing that he thinks his party controls "the keys" and can decide who should receive them next. Give him, and those who cheer for such idiocy, an "F" on Civics 101.

"They keys" are — and always have been — held by these people called "voters." These voters asked Obama to drive. Many of these voters are now noticing Obama has no idea what he's doing — that he's never even managed (to extend the President's slurpee analogy) something as complex as a QuikieMart. These voters are the ones who are now looking to designate someone else — anyone, really (the first hundred names in the Boston phone directory are sounding increasingly attractive) — to take over from here. They're not in love with Republicans, but they really can't stand (or more precisely, afford) the Democrats any more.

Condescension + Incompetence = Winning Formula for Democrats?

Perhaps. The American people are pretty easy to fool, it would seem — at least as long as the media does its job. And key Republicans seem to be doing everything they can (Michael Steel, I'm looking at you) as well, to give Obama a helping hand. We'll see.

I think John Kerry said it best when he argued both that the Iraq war was the wrong war, at the wrong place, and the wrong time, and also promised that he would have done it better, with even more allies joining us, for that wrong war. All criticisms are possible when one is unconstrained by consistency or accountability.

Sydney Morning Herald:

BAGHDAD: Iraqis danced in the streets when US troops withdrew from their cities a little more than a year ago. After the last American combat brigade trundled across the border into Kuwait on Thursday, reversing a journey that began more than seven years ago, there was no rejoicing.

Instead, a mood of deep apprehension tinged with bitterness is taking hold as Iraqis digest the reality that the American invaders who they once feared would stay forever are in fact going home - at a time when their country is in the throes of a political crisis that many think could become more violent.

''I'm not happy at all. I'm worried. They're leaving really early,'' said Wissam Sabah, a carpet seller in a Baghdad shopping districts. ''We don't have a government and we don't know what is going to happen next. Maybe we will go back to civil war.

Well, it's up to you guys now, and I wish you the best.

Did you think I was going to criticize Barack Obama for the pullout? Not particularly. We had to leave sometime, and US citizens voted for him and thus, for example, this policy. I do tend to think setting a hard-and-fast "withdrawal date" is stupid (your enemies just wait until then), but the future will tell on that count.

I only wish Bush or Obama had done the one thing I wanted, which would have stopped both criticisms: no ongoing US military involvement without a plebiscite authorizing our continued presence in the "occupied" nation, when possible. For a long time, the South Koreans hated the US for protecting them from Kim Jong Il. We saw Germans whining about US "Empire" (even after Soviet tanks had rolled across Eastern Europe), but then complaining when Bush decided to close a few military bases in Germany.

That's got to stop: with a vote, every "yea" voter would know, deep in their hearts, they were responsible for our continued presence and wanted it. For those who voted against it, their animus should then be rightly directed against the majority of their fellow citizens — not the army they invited to stay. And it would encourage good conduct of our troops among the host nation.

General Babakir Zebari, the chief of staff of the Iraqi armed forces, predicted that the shift in the US mission would have no serious impact, and said he was confident the Iraqi security forces could maintain stability.

A group of Iraqi soldiers standing guard beside their US-supplied Humvee on a main street in Baghdad did not seem so sure, however. One soldier, asked if security would deteriorate with the departure of the Americans, replied: ''Of course, because we have no government.'' Another made it clear he was not happy to see the Americans go. ''I wish they had taken me with them,'' he said. ''I don't want to be here.''

I feel for that last guy. I wish he could come here, too. Too bad our immigration policy is so screwed up: no problem crossing the border illegally, but if you want to come here legally, well, tough luck.

I'm joking, but just barely:

Music labels and radio broadcasters can't agree on much, including whether radio should be forced to turn over hundreds of millions of dollars a year to pay for the music it plays. But the two sides can agree on this: Congress should mandate that FM radio receivers be built into cell phones, PDAs, and other portable electronics.

How nice! I'll be great to know that there's a radio built into my pedometer, GPS unit, notebook computer, portable DVD player, and hand-held electronic game! I have a kitchen where three appliances in a row insist on telling me the time — why not also force those to also offer me FM radio?

But why stop there? Why not mandate FM radios be implanted into our teeth? (With a remote-controlled switch allowing someone else to decide what we'll hear at all times?) Or, just take a cue from Congress, and force people to buy RIAA recordings, just as Congress feels they can mandate that everyone purchase health insurance?

Conservatives usually simply call themselves, as I do, "conservatives"; and will admit they hold views which are considered "right wing" in the contemporary political culture. Leftists, however, are often less forthcoming. Usually a leftist activist is simply called an "expert" when interviewed by the media; most my friends on the left imagine they're in the "center"; and even Democrats typically refer to their candidates as "moderate" — even those who want the government to take over huge swaths of the economy.

Jim Wallis is no exception. He calls himself "non-partisan" though usual schtick is to echo nearly everything on the Democratic party agenda, right on cue, but make occasional meek noises about pro-life issues. Like many leftists (and a few over here on the right), he regularly and publicly imputes evil intentions to those who fail to hold his views.

Over at National Review, Jay Richards notes that Wallis seems to received substantial funding from George Soros:

Before responding directly, Wallis launched into bizarre invective against Olasky, claiming (among other things) that Olasky believes in a "sinless market." This caricature is practically surreal to anyone familiar with Olasky's actual views.... Olasky is a Calvinist, which means he places particularly strong emphasis on human depravity in every area of human experience, including the market.

Wallis continued:

"It's not hyperbole or overstatement to say that Glenn Beck lies for a living. I'm sad to see Marvin Olasky doing the same thing. No, we don't receive money from Soros. Given the financial crisis of nonprofits, maybe Marvin should call Soros and ask him to send us money.... Our money comes from Christians who support us and who read Sojourners."

Well, as I said above, I've got physical copies of what appear to be grants to Sojourners from the Open Society Institute website... Alas, as I was writing this piece, the relevant webpages started disappearing.

George Soros's own people admitted they'd given money to Sojourners. Yet right after the question is asked, the web pages documenting that funding start disappearing. And Wallis carefully says they "don't" receive money from Soros — not saying he never did. And, of course, he calls those who raise these bits of evidence, or otherwise disagrees with him, a "liar", implying they actually lie for money.

There's almost certainly more to this story, though. According to Sojourners' 990s... their total assets went from $513,896 in 2002 to $4,615,468 in 2009. Call me skeptical, but I'd be willing to bet that this windfall didn't all come from humble readers of Sojourners magazine. If in fact Wallis did get money from Soros and various other left-wing foundations, what I don't get is why Wallis doesn't just say, "Sure, we get (or have gotten) money from left-wing foundations. We differ on a few points but agree on a host of important issues."

Because that would clearly contradict his claims of nonpartisanship.

Nice piece of work, that one.

If the President really wanted to see the economic damage his policies are causing in the Gulf, he could first stop in Pascagoula, Miss., where idle oil rigs in the Signal International shipyard have formed an eerie floating ghost city that locals have dubbed "Rig Row." Instead of being deployed at sea where they could be creating wealth for this country and jobs for Gulf residents, these rigs are wasting away idly in port as a direct result of President Obama's oil drilling moratorium — a moratorium that when first issued on just deep sea rigs, a federal judge ruled was "arbitrary and capricious." Undaunted, the Obama administration doubled down, issuing a broader oil drilling injunction that is killing even more jobs than the first ban.

- The Foundry

During both commutes yesterday, NPR was flogging the NAACP/Shirley Sherrod story. They did their due diligence, once, and mentioned that the NAACP seemed to have warmly received Sherrod's account of having discriminated against a white farmer.

But their overall treatment of the story (particularly in the evening) was vile, calling Andrew Breitbart a host of unpleasant names and accusing him of "smash mouth" journalism. Hilariously, in light of this diatribe, they also accused him of "blurring the line" between news reporting — he a a blogger, apparently, and so shouldn't break news.

Were they kidding? What of the other side of that — NPR are allegedly journalists, and (unlike Breitbart) claim to be neutral — so why are they always mixing their opinions and personal attacks against Breitbart in with the news? What about Newsweek now admitting it is basically a lefty opinion journal, despite that "News-" prefix in their name? What about Dan Rather rushing the "George Bush AWOL" document onto ABC News, straight from a Kerry campaign worker, over the protests (which he lied about) of document experts? What about the New York Times, in general?

Additionally, the timeline they related was false (or, more precisely, phrased misleadingly) to give the listener the impression that the administration reacted to pressure from Fox News and other sources. To the contrary, Yid with Lid has a helpful post which notes:

No matter what Fox News does, it is their fault. Even though Ms Sherrod was warned that she was about to be on Beck the day she resigned no one told Glenn Beck. He didn't know the details of the Sherrod controversy until after his show. In fact Fox didn't cover the story until hours after Sherrod resigned...

Let's still blame Fox, shall we? (Every group needs a bogeyman.) I guess Fox shouldn't cover a major resignation triggered by an NAACP denouncement. Ever.

The larger morality tale, of course, was that evil Andrew Brietbart had deceived the administration. Yet only the NAACP had the full tape; Breitbart himself had only been given the edited portion. If there was a deception, Brietbart was as much a sucker as the head of the NAACP and the Obama administration. And, indeed, all three judged a snippet out of context.

And speaking of taking things out of context, NPR also nearly submerged the context of the story itself — portraying Breitbart's post as an attack mainly on Sherrod, and failing to note his real target was the NAACP, which had been promoting (along media outlets, like NPR) completely-unsubstantiated claims of racist attacks from Tea Partiers. In this context, it's very hard to take NPR seriously when they complain about shoddy journalism, rushes to judgment, covering unsubstantiated charges, et al.

"Hortense" at Jezebel seems obsessed, like so many on the left, with Sarah Palin. Why is Sarah Palin evil? Here's a typical post: Sarah Palin suggests, via Twitter, that "peace-seeking" Muslims should side against building a Mosque at 9/11 ground zero. This is clearly an evil, awful thing to suggest, no narrative necessary. The commenters understand perfectly well:

Dear Sarah Palin, plz 2 stop hidng ur xenophobia & racism bhind patriotism & natl tragedies. also plz learn good teh english. kthxbye

Sarah Palin is stupid because she uses abbreviated words on twitter -- just like the other 99.8% of users who have been on it more than one week.

Sarah u r a vicious weasley b*tch. Pls kill urslf b/c ur breathing stabs hearts of smart ppl . In the interest of healing kthanxbai NK

Sarah Palin is out of her f***ing mind and a disgusting bigot.

Yes. Bigotry and hatred are bad. Some people seem to get an enormous kick out of hating all the right people. Like Sarah Palin. Which makes her evil. Gosh, do I love hating her. (Do. Not. Look. In. Mirror!)

I'm really tired of people with no connection to either NYC or anyone who was lost at Ground Zero making sweeping statements about what should be done there. Shut. Up. You have no idea what happened there, you clearly don't know what NYC represents, and you need to stop the crazy nationalism.

I was in NYC when 9/11 happened. I did not lose anyone there, but I know quite a few people who did. Treating this as something that happened to the entire U.S. in some misguided "patriotic" sense is disrespectful and wrong. NYC represents diversity. A mosque near Ground Zero is not stabbing anyone's heart or even particularly provocative. Crazy people flew planes into those buildings. Lumping all muslims into that is like lumping all Christians in with the Crusade.

Yet Palin's quote *doesn't* treat all Muslims as being the same. She assumes many are interested in peaceful relations and attempts to appeal to them. Did the commenter even read it?

Even odder is the commenter's criteria for who can have an opinion about what happened. 9/11 wasn't a national tragedy, it was a local one, and because this person happened to be living or staying nearby (at that moment, not now), he or she has a superior understanding. Because it was all about NYC, and not at all about a certain type of Islam. The hijackers weren't motivated by religion, they were just "crazy people." So says our authority on "what happened there."

Do they get equally upset when a TV news anchor or liberal politician comments on what happened on 9/11? Somehow, I'm not thinking so.

This whole "Ground Zero Mosque" thing is stupid. All of the racism, xenophobia, and such aside, they aren't even building the mosque on ground zero. It's nearby. It has nothing to do with Ground Zero, the terrorist attacks, the rebuilding of any building on the property, or anything. It's some unrelated Muslims who want to build a mosque some blocks away.

It is taken as a given, of course, that one must be a "racist" or "xenophobe" if one has a problem with the Mosque. (I have no opinion on it, by the way.) Since no-one seems to know where the building funds are coming from, it's impossible to say if it's an "unrelated" group or not — but it does seem that the founder wants to establish an Islamic theocracy. But that's not as bad as, say, Sarah Palin suggesting one particular Mosque shouldn't be built, right?

Why, Sarah Palin? Did Islam bomb the Twin Towers, and not a bunch of deranged lunatics who represented no one but other deranged lunatics? This is news to me.

The 9/11 hijackers were "deranged lunatics" who represented no one but themselves. Never mind the massive cheering around the world, from many Islamic nations, when it happened. (No, I am not saying all Muslims agree. But many seemed to. What other inference should a rational observer draw?)

The same opponents should be against Churches in Spain because they did some pretty sh**ty things on behalf of the Catholic church back in the 1400's and 1500's. Right? Ban the Church in Spain! Only fair!

One decade is just the same as 600 years. Got it.

Shut up Sarah. You don't live in New York and you sure don't give a f*** about New Yorkers. They aren't "real Americans'' remember? You use 9/11 to manipulate people and then you go around insulting the people who were actually affected so don't you dare get involved in this. You weren't affected at all by it but some Muslims actually were and I think they have way more of right to this decision than you do. I hate you so much. I can't stand looking at you or hearing your voice. Please GO AWAY.

Yeah! It's so bad to *hate* those we disagree with! And to manipulate people using emotional arguments! And to imply some shouldn't have a say in certain things going on in our country! Yeah! (Oh wait, isn't that precisely what we're doing in our views of her? Hmmm...)

Lets say that I am having a conversation with a conservative Republican who thinks she has a point. How do I even have a conversation, meaning how do I make my point that what she's saying is offensive, without resorting to, "You're a stupid-head?"

Translation: Please tell me why my friend's perfectly reasonable-sounding argument is wrong. Because I, myself, have no idea why, and need to know the party line on this. Mind you, this guy isn't looking for missing evidence. That's another thing entirely. He wants to understand why Palin is a bad person for suggesting a mega-Mosque shouldn't be built, by someone who wants a religious theocracy in our country, at the site of an attack by Islamic extremists. Because, frankly, he can't figure out why he is opposed to that, though he knows he is.

Is it because Sarah Palin one used a misspelled word? Haven't we all? And how would that negate her view?

Is it because Sarah Palin is commenting on something she's wasn't directly involved in? But wasn't 9/11 an attack on the USA, not merely NYC? Weren't we all involved on that terrible day? And aren't we still, given that the war in Afghanistan was a response, and we all now have to jump through security hoops when we travel, see a game, or visit federal buildings?

Is it because anyone who objects to a Mosque must be a racist? But then wouldn't all anti-theistic atheists also be "racists" if they object to churches? Is it because the Mosque is intended to promote peace? If so, then how does that jibe with one of the top organizer's desire for America to be under sharia?

Is it because Sarah is "hating" people different than herself? But she isn't, of course: she's appealing to Muslims she believes would share her views. And, of course, if hating is bad, then her critics must be far worse than she is, judged by level of vitriol.

She's a terrible person, all right. And what she said was terrible. We can't just figure out why in any way which doesn't convict us more than her.

Robert Creamer at Huffington Post has an expose for his left-leaning readers: "Dirty Little Secrets Republicans Don't Want You to Know. What are these "dirty secrets" that about 40% of the population somehow hides from the other 60%?

Over the course of eight short years — between 2000 and 2008 — the Republicans methodically executed their plan to transform American society. They systematically transferred wealth from the middle class to the wealthiest two percent of Americans — slashing taxes for the wealthy.

They did? As best I can tell, the Bush tax cuts were, in fact, progressive, structurally favoring those further down the tax scale far more than those above. (Bush didn't even factor the wealthy in on his first rounds of tax cuts — only doing so after a year, after the economy failed to revive!) In addition, it seems that the proportion of the taxes paid by the wealthy has continued to increase during that time.*

They eviscerated the rules that held Wall Street, Big Oil and private insurance companies accountable to the public. They allowed and encouraged the recklessness of the big Wall Street banks that ultimately collapsed the economy and cost eight million Americans their jobs.

They did? Again, any examples? The only one I can think of is the repeal of Glass-Steagall by Bill Clinton, which happened well before Bush took office. I hear this charge a lot (and disagree that economic freedom is the cause of recessions, anyway) but I've never seen any backing for it. (I tend to think the growth of subprime mortgages was actually due to — can you believe it — federal policies and rules explicitly designed to promote the growth of subprime mortgages! But I'm clearly a moron.) And what of Sarbanes-Oxley, one of the most onerous financial regulatory acts in decades, passed in 2002 under Bush? Have we forgotten already? (Yes, apparently!)

And what does "Big Oil" have to do with the financial meltdown? Oh yeah, it doesn't, but he's tossing it in there to remind his readers that, somehow, Bush is also at fault for the spill in Gulf.

Telling addition, no?

They ignored exploding health care costs, tried to privatize Social Security, gave the drug companies open season to gouge American consumers and presided over a decline in real incomes averaging $2,000 per family.

The "exploding" health care costs have been "exploding" since the Carter administration, through both Democratic and Republican administrations. If "ignoring" them is unpopular, it seems "reforming" them has been doubly so, for both Hillary and Obama. Perhaps the American people don't want more government control over healthcare costs? (And the question remains as to whether said "reform" will actually lower or increase said prices. We're running the experiment now — check back soon!)

And if failing to "reform" the costs of one runaway government program is evil, then attempting to reform another (Social Security) is also evil, apparently! (What are the criteria here?) The author clearly also hopes his readers have forgotten that Al Gore made Social Security reform his campaign centerpiece just four years before Bush's attempt.

They entangled America in an enormously costly, unnecessary war in Iraq...

The Iraq war was a "dirty secret"? I thought most Americans were aware of it. In fact, wasn't Joe Biden just crowing about how it was such a great thing?

... pursued a directionless policy that left Afghanistan to fester...

If Bush's leadership in Afghanistan was "directionless", then how do you square that with left-leaning General McCrystal's complaints that Obama never called him even once (not to discuss policy, strategy, logistics, the weather ... nothing!) during his time in charge? What criteria is this author applying?

... and sullied America's good name throughout the world.

Um, reality check: the world hated us under Clinton. The world hated us under Bush. Except for Putin (who's beginning to positively looove Obama), the world still hates us, possibly even more now, if relations with the French, the British, the Chinese are any indicator.

The narrative given by the author is, undoubtedly, what many left-leaning voters believe. I've heard it time and time again. I don't want to believe that almost half of my citizens are this gullible, and this uninformed, and this forgetful.

And yet: where does it overlap reality? Bush as a government-slashing, deregulating, free-market capitalist? Republicans cut government, rather than spending like drunken sailors, growing government vastly? (Wasn't that even the main theme of the 2008 elections which swept in the current Democratic majority?) Democrats did nothing to encourage the growth of subprime mortgages? Europe is now in love with Obama?

Are there any facts to back such contentions? Is it this easy to fool left-leaning readers? You just tell them Bush deregulated everything, cite zero examples, and they believe you? Apparently so!

The author hints darkly that Republicans, if re-elected, will — horrors! — attempt to reform Social Security, privatize government-run health-care programs, and cut spending. How I wish it were true.

========

(* In the interest of fairness, "rebuttals" of the idea that the Bush tax cuts were "progressive", like this, far outrank the sources I cite. The problem is that the "rebuttal" doesn't refute the first link (claiming falsely that only the income of the wealthy rose, not their rate of taxation), completely ignores the second argument, and then argues that the cuts couldn't have been "progressive" because our government runs a deficit. Huh? They also attack the Bush tax cuts as not being progressive because other taxes weren't cut, or rose. Again: Huh??? If you find this persuasive, let me in on it. But even the rebuttal is so conflicted (it argues the tax code is "flat") that, even if it true, it hardly paints a picture of Bush shoveling money from the poor to the wealthy. In contrast, the writer above cites no backing whatsoever for his arguments.)

Exactly how many things are wrong with this article in the Times? It's about a college graduate who (we're told) can't get a job. Only, um, it turns out he can — he just doesn't think it's too attractive.

Mr. [Scott] Nicholson, 24, a graduate of Colgate University, winner of a dean's award for academic excellence, spent his mornings searching corporate Web sites for suitable job openings. When he found one, he mailed off a resume and cover letter — four or five a week, week after week.

Over the last five months, only one job materialized. After several interviews, the Hanover Insurance Group in nearby Worcester offered to hire him as an associate claims adjuster, at $40,000 a year. But even before the formal offer, Mr. Nicholson had decided not to take the job.

Rather than waste early years in dead-end work, he reasoned, he would hold out for a corporate position that would draw on his college training and put him, as he sees it, on the bottom rungs of a career ladder.

(Getting a foot in the door is dead-end work? Huh? And the average salary right now is $42K — so $40K isn't exactly bad for a first position, with only a BA.)

I've searched for other variants and commentary on this story. As usual, newspapers all over the country echo the Times — the Times tells them what to print, and they print it. But nobody, critical or supportive seems to be asking what seems to me the most basic question:

What's his major?

If I were the journalist, it would be the first thing I would ask. I strongly suspect the author knows (how could he not? — he lists the areas of study of Scott's family members!) but isn't including it because it would weaken his point. If the guy majored in history or literary criticism — award or none — it's not even remotely surprising that "insurance adjuster" would be a typical entre into the work force. Without knowing his degree, we can't judge the difficulty of the alleged injustice, can we?

But I don't see any commentators noting this obvious omission.

We're so gullible and easy to manipulate.

The only hint I could find was on page three:

Scott Nicholson also has connections, of course, but no one in his network of family and friends has been able to steer him into marketing or finance or management training or any career-oriented opening at a big corporation, his goal. The jobs are simply not there.

Okay. He believes he's equally trained for "finance" or "marketing", despite the fact these require vastly different mindsets and abilities. Uh-huh. And, barring that, he should be in "management training", despite the fact the article gives us no evidence that he's ever managed anything before, or even held down a regular, mundane job. But, um, he got a BA (in something) so he should be managing someone. As his first real job role. So it would seem his major is fairly, shall we say, non-specific. Psychology, perhaps? Sociology? Political science?

By the way, I'm not implying this graduate is lazy: not at all — according to the article, he's actually doing odd jobs. More likely, I suspect the problem is that he's been sold a false bill of goods. (I've seen it before: the new graduate can't imagine why he's not hired on immediately as manager or VP of something.)

And if the kid does want to hold out for a better offer, and his parents want to support that — that's their business. Perhaps he'll even find one — how would I know? Everyone has the right to make such bets. I don't even know what his major is in. But I do know that the tone of the coverage nauseates. For example:

"Going it alone," "earning enough to be self-supporting" — these are awkward concepts for Scott Nicholson and his friends. Of the 20 college classmates with whom he keeps up, 12 are working, but only half are in jobs they "really like." Three are entering law school this fall after frustrating experiences in the work force, "and five are looking for work just as I am," he said.

Paying for yourself is an "awkward concept"? The Times journalist thinks it is important that we know how many of his peers "really like" their jobs. (I have "really liked" only a fraction of the jobs I've held — and, weirdly, consider myself really fortunate to have had a shot at those.) Three friends had "frustrating" experiences with doing real work and thus want to become... wait for it... lawyers! (And if that doesn't pan out they can always become politicians, no doubt!)

Feelings seem to play a rather large role in this author's narrative.

"I don't think I fully understood the severity of the situation I had graduated into," he said... And then he veered into the optimism that, polls show, is persistently, perhaps perversely, characteristic of millennials today. "I am absolutely certain that my job hunt will eventually pay off," he said....

"They are better educated than previous generations and they were raised by baby boomers who lavished a lot of attention on their children," said Andrew Kohut, the Pew Research Center’s director. That helps to explain their persistent optimism, even as they struggle to succeed...

The Nicholsons, whose combined annual income is north of $175,000, have lavished attention on their three sons. Currently that attention is directed mainly at sustaining the self-confidence of their middle son....

The Great Depression damaged the self-confidence of the young, and that is beginning to happen now, according to pollsters, sociologists and economists. Young men in particular lost a sense of direction, Glen H. Elder Jr., a sociologist at the University of North Carolina, found in his study, "Children of the Great Depression." In some cases they were forced into work they did not want — the issue for Scott Nicholson.

Forced to do work one doesn't want? What are we running here, a gulag?

Is this generation really better-educated? They certainly have more years in school, but it appears the amount they've learned in those years may actually have fallen, if international educational comparisons are to be trusted.

And wouldn't their "optimism" (high self-regard, really) be somehow related to the self-esteem movement into which educators have immersed them? One minute, he admits he didn't correctly understand something, but then says, despite that, he is "absolutely certain" he made the right choice.

Well, that's the great thing about reading the New York Times. It's always a fun journey into a magical world — a world often totally unlike the world I encounter every day. A world where almost every clerk, repairman, plumber, mechanic, and tech writer in the work force is doing work they truly love and have dreamed of since childhood. Except a few unfortunate kids, who might have to take jobs which aren't, in the first attempt, their dream positions.

And who should we model things after?

"I view what is happening to Scott with dismay," said the grandfather, who has concluded, in part from reading The Economist, that Europe has surpassed America in offering opportunity for an ambitious young man...

Yep. If we want to solve this problem, we need to emulate Spain. Or France. Or the UK. (So says The Economist!)

Wait — isn't that what we were supposed to have been doing already?

I have Comcast, and the service is generally reliable with one HUGE exception:

Every couple days or weeks, as I'm speaking on the phone (I have voice-over-IP via a third-party provider, like Vonage or Lingo), my Comcast connection begins to slowly cut me off. First, the person on the other ends stops hearing me. Eventually, the call is lost altogether, and I have to reboot the modem.

I thought it was just me until the other day, when I was speaking to a co-worker, who lives in a completely different area of the city, who had the exact same problem.

So, anyone else out there notice that Comcast seems to cut off calls when you're using a competitor's VOIP service?

This world so is upside-down, sometimes...

[George W Bush] gave Oscar Biscet, the Cuban political prisoner, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. I mean, you just don't do that. NPR was duly ticked — because, for one thing, the prisoner was anti-abortion. You give the medal to people like Mary Robinson, the Irish U.N. leftist who presided over the "Durban conference," that Jew-hating jamboree. President Obama did that. Or you give it to Archbishop Tutu. Obama did that, too.

Can I give you a Tutu greatest hit? It comes from 2004, when the archbishop was in full cry against the Iraq War and everything else Bush. He said, "God is weeping. God is weeping. God is weeping because — one of the incredible things, I mean, is that Saddam Hussein, bin Laden, George Bush are all God's children. And as God says, 'What ever got into me to create that lot?'"

Nice one, Your Grace. Real nice. Such a moral paragon you are.

You want another Tutu hit (this one not so wicked)? In 2002, he said, "People are scared in this country" — the United States — "to say wrong is wrong, because the Jewish lobby is powerful — very powerful." [source]

... and in many cases, antisemitism's got a lot to do with it.

Is this new, or is this just me? It seems a disturbingly large portion of my communication time lately is spent attempting to get a through a single sentence.

Me, in a meeting: I have a suggestion. If we take the engine out, we'll be able to repair the...

Him: Nothing's wrong with the engine! Haven't you been paying attention? There's a huge brown spot beneath the car when its parked! That doesn't typically indicate an engine problem.

Me: Um, could I please finish a sentence here? If we take the engine out, we'll be able to repair the oil pan, below it, which is probably what's leaking.

Him: Oh.

Okay: my response there needs a bit of tuning. But this seems to me to be happening more and more often, with disturbing regularity. The algorithm of the interrupter seems to be:

1. Assume the speaker is incompetent and wrong
2. Listen until about one clause is said
3. Pick several key words (ignoring the others) and arrange them into a clearly wrong assumption. Add clearly-unsaid things, if necessary. Mentally place this assumption into the speakers' mouth.
4. Repeat your incorrect assumption, amazed at how incompetent the speaker is! What kind of idiot would think that? (Never mind you just did.) Explain how wrong your the speaker's assumption is.
5. Move on quickly to other issues. Boy, is that guy rude for attempting to dominate the conversation by actually wanting to finish his own sentence!

These are not long, drawn-own paragraphs, mind you — usually they're not much longer than the sample sentence above. In the toughest cases, three or maybe even four medium-length sentences will be required. And sometimes I've had to try five or six times to get the entire thought out.

Me: In the car...

Person A: Where is the car, by the way? [huge discussion ensues]

Me, fifteen minutes later, after it is established the car is right where it belongs, in the parking lot: In the car is...

Person B: Yes, an engine. We know. You said that yesterday. [Discussion about engines ensues again.]

Me, another five minutes later: Er, as I was attempting to say... in the car, there is a tub of ice cream. I was going to ask permission to step out for a moment, and go get for you all, but it's now undoubtedly melted.

The ironic thing is, I don't actually care about being interrupted, usually. If you can finish my sentence correctly — or even remotely in the ballpark — I'm overjoyed the idea got across, and could care less about how it got there. But that seems so rare.

And I know I'm not alone: When I hear talk shows where anything even remotely controversial comes up, a significant volume of the calls will consist of "correcting" the host regarding things he clearly hasn't said.

I'd love to blame technology (Perhaps too many people have become used to short Twitter-like sentence fragments and headlines?) but I suspect the real problem is that peoples' inner dialogs have become so much louder, in their own ears, than the world around them. Maybe it's always been this way, and I'm just starting to notice, or maybe things really have shifted.

Neil Boortz:

Question: Robbing a federally insured bank is a federal crime. It's also a crime under the statutes of the State of Arizona. Should the Justice Department file a lawsuit against Arizona demanding that Arizona law enforcement officials cease enforcing Arizona's law against robbing banks because it usurps federal authority? Just wondering.

Day after day of tributes and puff-pieces about Senator Robert Byrd on NPR. Had he been a Republican, with the exact same record the questions would have been:

1. He was a KKK leader who only apologized relatively recently for that association — was he truly repentant? What about his racist use of language in even recent years? Doesn't that undercut his alleged sincerity in race relations?

2. What has the GOP does to remove its racist taint for association with the KKK? (The KKK was actually an arm of the Democratic Party, not Republican.) What did it mean that they kept and backed an unrepentant Klan member for so long?

3. And what about his obstruction of the Civil Rights Act? Why hasn't his party publicly apologized for that?

4. He was always good at procuring pork and kickbacks for his political supporters; some might call this corruption but it kept him in office. Didn't he, in a way, represent everything which is wrong or broken about our political system?

Instead, questions 1-3 have been whitewashed and question four is turned on its head.

Jonah Goldberg:

The common interpretation is that Byrd's is a story of redemption. A one-time Exalted Cyclops of the KKK, Byrd recruited some 150 members to the chapter he led — that's led, not "joined," by the way. (If you doubt his commitment to the cause, try to recruit 150 people to do anything, never mind have them pay a hefty fee up front.)

Byrd filibustered the 1964 Civil Rights Act. As Bruce Bartlett notes in his book Wrong on Race, Byrd knew he would fail, but he stood on bedrock principle that integration was evil. His individual filibuster, the second longest in American history, fills 86 pages of fine print in the Congressional Record. "Only a true believer," writes Bartlett, "would ever undertake such a futile effort."

Unlike some segregationists', Byrd's arguments rested less on the principle of states' rights than on his conviction that black people were simply biologically inferior.

Sure, he lied for years about his repudiation of the Klan. Sure, he was still referring to "white n*ggers" as recently as 2001. But everyone agrees his change of heart is sincere. And for all I know, it was.

What's odd is what passes for proof of his sincerity. Yes, he voted to make Martin Luther King Day a holiday. But to listen to some eulogizers, the real proof came in the fact that he supported ever more lavish government programs — and opposed the Iraq War. Am I alone in taking offense at the idea that supporting big government and opposing the Iraq War somehow count as proof of racial enlightenment?

Robert Byrd was a complicated man, but the explanation for the outsized celebration of his career strikes me as far more simple. He was a powerful man who abandoned his bigoted principles in order to keep power. And his party loved him for it.

I wish him no ill at all, but the ongoing sycophantic lionization is surreal, to say the least.

My wife and I have been looking to buy a home in recent months. You would think we would have been grateful, at least personally, for the $8K tax rebate for new home buyers — even if we thought (as I did) that it was not a good thing for the nation as a whole. And initially, I thought it probably would work to our advantage. (Mind you, if I could have personally removed it, I would have.)

But that faded quickly when I started looking at the numbers: Zillow trend graphs were showing a huge spike in many housing prices in our area — tens of thousands of dollars (many, many times the amount of the rebate) — leading up to the April deadline. And then, after the deadline, a sudden decline. Worse, the housing market was whipped into a frenzy to get everything sold before the deadline, and since then we've seen only a bare trickle.

Stephen Spruiell has other observations, noting that he also thinks the credit ended up in sellers (not buyers') pockets, notes that taxpayers now owe another $12.6 billion as of February (not even counting this spring yet), and notes that 85% of those who were "induced" to buy a house would have bought one anyway. There are also some notes about various scams which arose to rake in taxpayer cash. (The ones which have been discovered are the tip of an iceberg, I would guess.)

Listening to NPR, if you read outside the liberal bubble, is a bit like visiting an alternate reality where everything is upside-down or retold backwards. For example, the press and Democrats are now applying the term "judicial activism" to the practice of deciding the case on the basis of the law itself: as if "activism."

For example, today Patrick Leahy complained (and NPR repeated, over and over in their coverage today):

It is essential that judicial nominees understand that, as judges, they are not members of an administration. The courts are not subsidiaries of any political party or interest group, and our judges should not be partisans. That is why the Supreme Court's intervention in the 2000 presidential election in Bush v. Gore was so jarring and wrong. That is why the Supreme Court's recent decision in Citizens United, in which five conservative Justices rejected the Court's own precedent, the bipartisan law enacted by Congress, and 100 years of legal developments in order to open the door for massive corporate spending on elections, was such a jolt to the system.

And Schumer echoes:

Among the Democrats to second this theme, with more biting rhetoric, were Senator Charles Schumer of New York. Accusing the Court's conservatives of "judicial activism to pull the law to the right," Schumer likened the court's conservatives to the reactionary majority that, Schumer said, helped bring about "the age of the robber barons" in the early 20th century by striking down labor-protection laws and other regulations.

Here's Leahy's earlier statement on the same ruling:

The Supreme Court's 5-4 decision last week in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission threatens to allow corporations to drown out the individual voices of hardworking Americans in our elections. By overturning years of work in Congress to pass bipartisan campaign finance laws, and by reversing a century of its own precedent, the conservative, activist bloc on the Supreme Court reached an unnecessary and improper decision that will distort future elections....

I fail to understand the rhetoric. Contrary to the "century of precedent" argument, the case overturns parts of McCain-Feingold, which was signed into law in 2002, not a century ago. (And even at the time, many observers said it was clearly unconstitutional.) Paul Sherman explains more:

Although corporations have been prohibited from giving money directly to candidates since 1907, bans on independent corporate spending in elections did not go before the U.S. Supreme Court until 1990 in Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce — a mere 20 years ago. The Court upheld the prohibition by a narrow 5-4 vote, but Austin was hardly a bedrock of constitutional law — indeed, it was the first case in Supreme Court history to uphold a limit on independent political speech, which the Court in Citizens United correctly recognized as "a significant departure from ancient First Amendment principles." By reversing Austin, the Court has now corrected its error and brought the regulation of corporate and union speech in line with the rest of First Amendment doctrine.

If you disagree with or reverse an activist court, you are now, weirdly, an "activist." Because real non-activism consists of going along with activists. To fail to be an activist is, in itself, activism. Got that?

One commentator notes:

The government argued in Citizens United that it had the power to outlaw books and movies produced by unions and corporations, both non-profit and for-profit, if they included even a single line addressing an election or a political issue.

(What's wrong with that? Shouldn't the government censor all political speech by any group of citizens? Isn't that what the first amendment is all about?)

Ed Whelan also notes:

As Chief Justice Roberts pointed out, the theory of the First Amendment advocated by Kagan on behalf of the Obama administration "would empower the Government to prohibit newspapers from running editorials or opinion pieces supporting or opposing candidates for office, so long as the newspapers were owned by corporations — as the major ones are."

Why is the left upset about this? Let's let Al Franken explain (bold added):

I am more worried about how this decision is going to affect our communities — and our ability to run those communities without a permission slip from big business...

Ah: there's the problem. Franken apparently thinks he's a king, not a representative. He seems to think his job is not to represent his community, but to run it — and speech by "big business" (or any group, really) interferes with that.

When contrasting, say, European/UK/Canadian coverage of the climate change scandals (plentiful) with that that in the US ("What scandal?"), or doing the same exercise with the Gulf oil spill (what mainstream US news outlet carried this information, for example?) it's easy to become puzzled as to why the American people are not exposed to many important bits of information. In fact, the blackout on certain bits of data seems to be, in the US, near universal, creating an impression of coordination.

So when something like "Journolist" surfaces -- a private, liberal-only chat group where reporters and pundits discussed breaking stories -- it's likewise easy to wonder if it might have been part of the aforementioned problem. Perhaps, one might speculate, journalists all used it to frame their reporting of stories, and make sure they stayed on the same narrative page?

Not to fear: Jonathan Chait dispels such concerns:

If I hadn't been on Journolist, I probably would have been fascinated with it as well. I'd probably be imputing great powers to it, like the fantastic description weaved by David Frum.... Let me disabuse everybody by revealing that Journolist was not created for people to work out some party line. The discussion was private not because the conversations were too explosive to be made public, but because they were too mundane.

Oh! Of course, that makes complete sense. Very boring and useless information is always the kind you want hidden behind a privacy wall. Which explains why a tremendous scandal arose when even one of those postings was made public. (Exposing Dave Weigel, a supposed libertarian journalist, as actually being a lefty.)

Conversations consisted of requests for references -- does anybody know an expert in such and such...

Rather than going to, say, public sources (libraries, research departments), liberals asked each other to recommend "experts" for the various stories they were covering. What kind of "experts" would such process tend to favor? "Experts" from from the Heritage Foundation? Economists of all political stripe? Academics with a wide variety of views on healthcare reform?

No, no story-shaping here, so far.

... instantaneous reactions to events...

So: one liberal journalist posts his "instantaneous reaction" to each event, and those which were most popular among other (liberal, journalist) readers then rose to the top and were repeated most often. The people who read these narratives then went on to craft national news stories on the events in question.

Okay, no story-shaping there either.

...joshing around, conversations about sports, and the like. Why did this have to be private? Because when you're a professional writer, even in the age of Twitter, you try to maintain some basic standard in your published work. I don't subject my readers to my thoughts on the Super Bowl as of halftime, or even (usually) the meaning of the Pennsylvania special election two minutes after polls close....

Hilarious! While attempting to tell us this forum wasn't used to frame important news stories, Chait can't help but throw in example after example of political stories, such as "the meaning of the Pennsylvania special election two minutes after polls close." Concerns are being dispelled with every sentence!

Not very self-aware, is he?

Why was the group exclusively non-conservative?

Again, I thought he was supposed to be dispelling these kinds of concerns, not confirming them?

I wished it did have some right-wingers, but I went back and forth on this and I can understand the reason it didn't. You wanted to have some discussion of politics that didn't constantly require establishing first principles.

Ah, yes: right wingers would have questioned your most basic economic, social (etc) assumptions. This gets in the way of follow-up discussions about applications. I would imagine so!

.... so you could muse about a vote to extend unemployment benefits without having to refute the notion that Franklin Roosevelt deepened the Great Depression.

Right! If you thought (or even merely contemplated the possibility) that lengthening unemployment benefits might also extend unemployment, that might get in the way of carrying the narrative forward from that initial assumption. Better to leave such assumptions shared and unquestioned, and get on to "musing about" what the vote means, only within that narrow set of economic assumptions.

The notion that the list existed to work out some party line, or to vet ideas before they became articles, is silly. Sometimes people used the list to gather liberal counterarguments to an idea before they wrote it....

Um, again: Chait says he would go to the list to ask for "liberal" views of an issue before it was written. And it wasn't being used to shape the resulting narrative along politically-uniform lines? Again, how little self-awareness can one have? (Mind you, these are the people who are supposed to report on news and the motives of others objectively; if they can't even detect their own gaping blind spots, what on earth are they doing reporting on others'?)

I'm sorry to spoil the excitement. It was a chat group.

Err, I think that was precisely the point, Jonathan.

Well, I feel better now. Don't you?