EconLog.

I wonder what would happen if you took the government subsidies out of education. Would the losers disappear from campus? Or would colleges become so dependent on tuition that they would move in the direction of accommodating the losers?

Now there’s a hole with no bottom….

Thomas Sowell points out an inconvenient truth: For the left to win, people must lose.

Progress in general seems to hold little interest for people who call themselves “progressives.” What arouses them are denunciations of social failures and accusations of wrong-doing.

WSj. They’ll need the footbaths to wash of the droppings from all of those pigeons coming home to roost.

NYT. The dirty little secret revealed: It’s all about getting money from the government.

The easiest way to get “independence from foreign oil” would be to allow our oil companies to bring up and sell the oil we already have, offshore and in Alaska. But we can’t do that, of course, because those are “ecologically sensitive” and besides the oil companies are a bunch of [insert favorite socialist slur here].

The easiest way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions is to get Democrats to shut up. The second easiest way is to build more nuclear power plants. But we can’t do that, of course, because those are “ecologically sensitive” and besides the power companies are a bunch of [insert favorite socialist slur here].

NYT. Of course. Elections are all about power, and if you don’t have power, why go through all that hassle?

Note the tell-tale difference: When Republicans lose power, they go do something else. When Democrats lose power, they switch to being Republicans.

Engadget. And of course the “civil libertarians” will no doubt attempt to get this evidence suppressed as an invasion of the perp’s privacy.

NYT. That’s the thing: If they were worth watching, people would be happy to watch them. That’s why they have the big to-do about the SuperBowl ads. The problem is that most ads are crap. (Can you think of anything more boring and puerile than the typical automobile ad?)

NYT. And, of course, there’s the ineveitable agenda.

And who is responsible for the deaths it left: individuals who made decisions that ended badly, or the government, whose flood-protection works proved to be nothing of the kind and whose evacuation plans were so sketchy?

No doubt it’s all Bush’s fault.

WSJ. The more I see of diversity, the more I long to live surrounded by people just like me. Blame my native indolence.

NYT. Sorry, but if it’s “planned” then it isn’t a community.

Why not just let people live wherever they want to? Oh, no, can’t have that.

NYT. This is like taking military advice from the French. Any brief read of British newspapers will reveal that their schools suck even worse than ours.

NYT. When in doubt, sue somebody. It’s the American way.

NYT. Put him somewhere between Mugabe and Castro.

NYT. Apparently political thinking has intruded so far into the workplace that even socialist coups are fair game.

Read it. This forest fire and massive environmental catastrophe brought to you by your local chapter of … the environmental movement.

Read it.

Lutheran — probably.

Evangelical — probably not.

Confused — without a doubt.

LGF.

We’re about to witness what happens when a country is governed by the “progressive” Kos mentality. And it’s going to be ugly.

NYT. Makes me wonder why they didn’t think of this before.

NYT. It’s not really necessary to make any comment, is it?

Engadget.

It’s encouraging to see NASA following Jerry Pournelle’s advice about holding contests with prizes for technological advances.

It’s disappointing to see them concentrating on ancient technologies like “go real fast with wings and you can fly”, because such toys run into the same problem as e.g. the Segway — something that might work well in a country with few people in it won’t survive the regulatory process (and would be inherently unsafe if it did) in the Real World.

All it’s going to take is one “FUI” accident and the whole scheme will get so loaded down with bureaucracy and limitations that nobody will use it.

Read it. I particularly like this giveaway:

A large part of that inability has to do with GM’s dramatically higher labor costs–apparently the total labor cost for a GM hourly worker ( including health, pensions etc.) is about $146,000 per year. They’re competing against Toyota and Honda who pay $96,000 per year–on equally American workers in American factories. Much of this disparity is in health care costs, something that would be fixed if the government took over that burden.

Well, no it wouldn’t — it would merely shift the burden to the taxpayers. This might perhaps “fix” it from GM’s standpoint, but the problem would remain. And it would be subject to political manipulation … well, even more than it is now, anyway. That’s the perennial problem when the government “takes over” something; the people whose problem it would solve are loud proponents, while those who are getting shafted on down the line typically don’t know or don’t understand what’s coming for them.

Read it. Probably not, but you never know.

EconLog. Apparently they all have less economic knowledge than your average frog.

Cringely is on the case.

Now, bear in mind, the guy works for PBS, and so has a bias against business and a blind spot when it comes to government responsibility. But he’s got good reason to bitch — bleeding the American taxpayer is an ancient and venerable tradition, and any number can play.

UR. Another bizarre disquisition from the amazing Mencius Moldbug.

For example, what do we make of someone who describes herself as a “responsible journalist” whose mission is to “speak truth to power”? Can she succeed just by speaking to herself, like a bag lady? It would certainly save on newsprint.

Techdirt. No surprises here. Perhaps fifty years ago the Segway might have made a splash, but in this regulate-and-litigate society, it had no chance.

Pogue. I think they do it just to piss people off. They’re the phone company — that’s what they do.

NYT. Gratitude? In the dictionary, between “grab” and “greed”.

Read it. Actually, India ought to have been divided up into about a dozen different countries. Attempting to keep it all together was about as foolish as, say, the French rolling all of their possessions in Africa into one country. I was amused to learn that a recent high Indian official, President or Prime Minister or something like that, had to give a major speech in Hindi, which he did not speak, by memorizing it phonetically. Say what you will about America, at least the Mexicans who are elected to office here can speak English. More or less.

But plans for brisk disengagement ignored messy realities on the ground.

Sounds like the Democrats’ plan for Iraq — which I’m sure the people at the New Yorker fully support. “Ironic” seems entirely inadequate a word.

LanguageLog. If you’re thinking that the government is screwed up, you ought to take a look at publishing.

WT. An interesting approach.

NYT. This is highly unusual.

NYT. Yeah, postmodernism doesn’t cope too well with premedievalism.

“Families, tribes these are the things that matter here,” said Oraz Jandosov, co-chairman of a Kazakhstan opposition political party. “Foreigners talk about these things, but it’s only talk. They don’t understand them.”

Well, some do. But their daddies didn’t go to Harvard — and they’re more likely to be found in the Marine Corps than the State Department.

NYT. What are they worried about? Not the Communists taking over, surely — they’d be in favor of that. Global Warming, perhaps.

NYT. How long before some bureacrat tries to steal it?

Read it. Apparently being a thug from a fashionable minority pays very well.

FuturePundit. Good news for Fred the Farmer — he can finally cash out by selling the Old Homestead to Archer-Daniels-Midland and buy that condo near the grandkids he’s always wanted. The rest of us take it in the shorts, of course, but that never stopped the damn-the-unintended-consequences, full-scheme-ahead crowd.

WSJ($). Another chapter in the continuing saga of why I don’t fly.

This summer, rampant flight cancellations and delays are forcing many travelers to languish, sometimes for hours, before they can board their flight. Unfortunately, that’s nothing compared with what may await them on the plane.

Tales of sweaty waits on un-air-conditioned planes, smelly bathrooms, dirty seats and tray-tables smeared with mysterious schmutz abound this season. Travelers complain that the environment on packed planes can degenerate quickly — and often long before the plane actually starts moving.

“When you get off a plane, it looks like the morning after a fraternity house party,” says Tim Winship, publisher of FrequentFlier.com, a Web site that offers frequent-flier program information and advice.

WT. Ah, those were the days. 300,000 arrested adolescents demonstrating once and for all that the sixties were all about never growing up. The Boomers ought to be renamed the “Peter Pan” generation.

Read it. Oh, a far from common criminal.

NYT. Unfortunately, the article fails to point out that the Black Muslims are a looney cult with only a superficial resemblance to real Islam, which one can find out from asking any real Muslim.

PowerLine. One is evil, the other stupid; guess which is which.

Read it. Apparently it is not a pretty sight.

NYT. Why is it that people have such a hard time realizing that just passing a law is not enough to solve a problem?

We see this all the time. There are umpteen different laws on the books addressing problem X, which has not gotten any better, and so they want to pass umpteen more. Hint: Unless you change the culture, the law will not be enforced. Laws that are not enforced might as well not exist. (Actually, that’s not true: It reduces respect for all laws, even the good ones.)

Prohibition is the poster child for this concept, but the immigration “reform” issue is as fresh as yesterday’s headlines. To solve the problem, we don’t need new laws; we just need people to enforce the laws we have. But the ruling class doesn’t want to do that: They don’t want to spend the money, and they like having cheap illegal immigrants to mow their lawns, pick their crops, and mind their children, and besides if we make them citizens they’re so stupid they’ll vote for us.

Sheesh.

WT. I’m curious just what differentiates “neoconservatives” from “traditional conservatives”. It sounds to me that it just means “conservatives who embrace positions I don’t like”.

WT. Perhaps someone should point out to him that he’s not the boss here.

Read it. Perhaps global warming will be a net improvement. It’s not like anybody is considering it.

UR. Tacitus makes Mencius waxes philosophic.

Sine ira et studio. I doubt these words were idly chosen, and we kids these days could do a lot worse than to imitate them. No one gives a rat’s ass about Tiberius now. But I see no shortage of either ira or studio.

Read it to find out what all this has to do with Rhodesia.

Today’s Europeans simply cannot understand why Republicans, at least populist Republicans, are allowed to exist within the American political system. They look at it rather the way you’d look at someone who kept a pet leopard in his closet.

And what it has to do with us.

NYT. Good old Unintended Consequences.

Cringely is pessimistic.