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Monthly Archives: February 2009

Capitalism thrives on failure.

Here’s Jonah Goldberg: One of the great things about capitalism is that, unlike socialism or, say, Bobby Knight, it can deal with failure. In fact, capitalism needs failure. Joseph Schumpeter called this “creative destruction.” Your grandmother called it “making lemonade out of lemons.” The beauty of free markets is that firms learn from their mistakes [...]

Our PC media.

[News Busters] The owner of a cable TV network created to promote better understanding of Muslims in America was arrested in Orchard Park, New York, Thursday for beheading his wife. If you hadn’t heard about this that wouldn’t be a surprise for the story has been almost completely boycotted here in the states.

The UK standard.

1993 WTC bomb plot prosecutor Andrew McCarthy notes that the UK welcomes Islamic militants but shuns elected Dutch parliamentarians who dare to criticize Islamic militants. But of course!

Sack up, Keith.

Bloomberg op-ed Betsy McCaughey asks MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann if he’s willing to sack up and debate her health care expertise on his show.

What’s in the bill.

Propublica has a good list of spending and cuts in the recent stimulus non-stimulus bill here.

Name that party.

Feb. 13 (Bloomberg) — During a decade in Congress, California Representative Grace Napolitano has pocketed more than $200,000 of political contributions by charging as much as 18 percent interest on money she loaned to her own campaign. The suburban Los Angeles Democrat made the $150,000 loan in 1998, when she was first elected to the [...]

Remember when?

Remember when Saturday Night Live was actually funny? When it just made fun of politicians and didn’t become a echo chamber for liberal talking points? SNL needs a bailout… of funnier writing apparently. Hey, here’s something funny: Wasteful and Non-Stimulative Spending in the House-Senate Conference Report (Note: Many of these items are typically debated and [...]

The only thing we have to fear…

… is more fearmongering. Here’s Bradley Schiller, Univ. of Nevada eco prof.: President Barack Obama has turned fearmongering into an art form. He has repeatedly raised the specter of another Great Depression. First, he did so to win votes in the November election. He has done so again recently to sway congressional votes for his [...]

“Generational theft.”

Gary Wolfram of Hillsdale College notes that the size of the stimulus — the House-Senate compromise bill is $789 billion — is just slighly less than the amount of all U.S. currency in circulation and is larger than the entire federal budget was until 1983. Yet it is said that in the debate about this [...]

Meet the Turncoats.

Sens. Specter, Collins, and Snowe tout the spending cuts they were able to wrangle from the Democrats, but they neglect to mention all the additional spending that has been added over the past week through amendments. The ink on the House bill was not yet dry when Senator Specter himself introduced an amendment to add [...]