A Tale about a Tax: Social Security

Sooner or later, someone had to write an article that told the story of
Social Security in 800 words
in simple, clear English that anyone can understand. Here it is: “A Eighth of a Paycheck”
by Jeff Jacoby.

Want Single Payer Health? Read This

A Briton compares
the US health system with the British NHS. The US system is a hodge-podge, and
the British one organized into a single, managed, free-at-the-point-of-delivery government system.
But the results are much better in the US. A woman with breast cancer? Chance of dying is 46 percent in Britain, but
only 25 percent in the US. And so on.

Ward Churchill: The Hamlet Moment

To fire or not to fire Ward Churchill, the academic fraud held lovingly to the breast of the University
of Colorado. Academic Bill of Rights activist David Horowitz says
no. He argues that
the problem is not that leftie whack jobs like Churchill get academic tenure, but that ordinary
conservatives can’t. (Imagine if a right-wing nut job ever got close to academic tenure! Oh the wailings!
Oh the chilling effect! Oh the hate speech!) Ann Coulter
just picks him up and plays
with him. (What a nasty piece of goods he is!)

Democrats: Get With The Program

That’s Tom Friedman from The New York Times saying that, not me. It’s good to see the noble Tom
finally grasping the essence
of the Bush strategy. If you get democracy off the ground in Iraq, then
you can do it anywhere. After 9/11, the Bush administration decided that the way to drain the Mid-East
swamp was by neutralizing the dictators that funded and protected them. Iraq was the obvious second
choice after Afghanistan, because the real target, Iran, is not a country that
anyone want want to have to invade. This is not rocket science, Democrats, this is Practical Wisdom 101.

Tops Dems Hate SoSoc Reform Yet Love Stocks and Bonds

Top Democrats like Senator Harry Reid are busy talking about the
dangers of personal accounts
for Social Security, yet lots of them own big chunks of stock. What gives here? Do Democrats
really believe that investment in index funds and bonds is risky? Or do they just prefer
to keep Americans barefoot and pregnant down on the liberal plantation, paying that 15 percent
of their wages in FICA tax year in, year out, and staying dependent on government for their daily bread?

Remember the Raccoon Lodge

Back in the Fifties, lots of Americans belonged to self-governing membership organizations like Ralph Kramden’s
Raccoon Lodge. But now the dominant organizational model is the memberless liberal activist group: no members, just send
money. Isn’t
that the problem with the Democrats as they elect Howard Dean as head of the Democratic National Committee?
That’s what David Brooks thinks, anyway.

Moyer Quote on Watt a Crock

The bloggers at PowerLine
blog are onto Bill Moyers. He quoted a quote on Reagan era Secretary
of the Interior James Watt published in the environmental magazine Grist, and now it turns out that the
quote is, er, inaccurate. James Watt never advocated, as Moyers writes, that
“protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent
return of Jesus Christ.” Or that “In public testimony he said, `after the last tree is felled,
Christ will come back.’”
Here’s what Watt actually said:

“That is the delicate balance the Secretary of the Interior must have, to be steward for the natural resources for this generation as well as future generations.

“I do not know how many future generations we can count on before the Lord returns, whatever it is we have to manage with a skill to leave the resources needed for future generations.”