The American Spectator : Our Very Own Greece

The American Spectator : Our Very Own Greece:

So JPMorgan makes a $2 billion mistake -- less than 7 percent of their 2011 earnings -- with their own money, and senators are calling for hearings. The California's governor's office raised its 2012 budget deficit projections -- namely their overspending of public money -- almost 50 percent, from $9.2 billion to $16 billion, an error of almost eight percent of the state's total budget, in four months, yet those same members of Congress remain as silent as a Trappist monk.

And, please, don't read this as a defense in any way of JPMorgan . . .

[Obama] unravels bomb plot . . .

CIA unraveled bomb plot from within - The Washington Post:

The disruption of the threat also indicates that the CIA and other agencies have gained significant traction on their target two years after President Obama began deploying more spies, eavesdropping equipment and armed drones to the Arabian Peninsula

It may very well be out there, but I am skeptical about the basis for this flat assertion . . .

Hair splitting on abortion in UK

I stumbled upon this story tonight and was struck by the hair-splitting and hand-wringing (I guess it is sincere) by Brits on allegations of physicians offering to perform abortions which are illegal because they are based on gender. Scotland Yard launches investigation into doctors who agreed to illegal abortions of baby girls - Telegraph Wow, what is the rationale for making such an abortion illegal?

In this episode of Can't Spell Demagogue without D-E-M

. . . in which lefties equate accommodating non-citizens with imposing "apartheid": American Apartheid? The Republican "Dream" Scheme | blog.pfaw.org

Demonizing Scott Walker . . .

The American Spectator : The Spectacle Blog : The Scott Walker Recall... On Broadway!:

A tragedy of public-sector unions is it can take well-intentioned employees, who might be otherwise apolitical, and turn them into Democratic apparatchiks who will actively campaign against reforms which have already prevented teachers from being laid off.

If you benefi[ted from] an unsustainable taxpayer-funded pension system which you never contributed to, had a guaranteed income for life, and taxpayer-funded gold-plated health insurance, you might be singing a bitter tune as well.

Taliban knows one when it sees one . . .

The mass killings by an American soldier over the weekend are reprehensible, and--I haven't done any research and don't know what it would look like, but I think that we ought to try this soldier in Afghanistan and allow the Afghan people (as represented by their gov't) to somehow be involved in his prosecution. That being said, I couldn't help but think about recent events in that country related to destruction by American troops of contraband (which included previously-defaced-by-Muslims copies of the Qu'ran). The violence and protests were incredibly disproportionate to any purported offenses, but this paragraph stood out in the article about the apparent murders over the weekend: The Associated Press: Afghan youth recounts US soldier's rampage:

Still the public response to the shootings so far has been calmer than the six days of violent protests and clashes that erupted after Qurans were burned at Bagram Air Field. There were no signs of protests Monday.

I think the only difference in the response is related to the fact that any protests or grand responses in that country are driven by Taliban types . . . and terrorizing and killing civilians (even women and children) in the night is nothing new to them.

The split between fiscal and social conservatism

There may be other reasons not to focus on the economic impact of libertinism, but it is foolish to claim that it isn't existentially relevant when discussing public policy. From Mark Steyn

The Fluke Charade - Mark Steyn - National Review Online: " . . . the Fluke story is a useful reminder that the distinction between fiscal and social conservatism is generally false. As almost all those fashionable split-the-difference fiscally conservative/socially liberal governors from George Pataki to California’s pathetically terminated Terminator eventually discover, their social liberalism comes with a hell of a price tag. Ask the Greeks how easy it is for insolvent nations to wean the populace off unaffordable nanny-state lollipops: When even casual sex requires a state welfare program, you’re pretty much done for."