In honor of the Founders, and of this great nation one of whose citizens I'm fortunate and thankful to be:

(More information here.)

Environmentalism is just a pretext. The real motive is that the legislation is, in the words of Sen. Benjamin Cardin (D-Md.), “the most significant revenue-generating proposal of our time.”

(Via Chris Horner.)

I meant to link to this last month: William Tucker on our huge supply of natural gas.

Chris Horner, on the idea that carbon dioxide is a threat to humanity:

Try living without it, then talk to me.

Craig Newmark notes this from Keith Hennessey:

The stimulus will begin to ramp up in Q1 of next year, and be in full swing by Q2 and Q3 of 2010. . . . [T]he boost to GDP will come six to nine months later than it needed to (maybe more). Given the President’s desire to do a large fiscal stimulus, and given his policy preferences, he could have had a different bill that would have been producing significant GDP growth beginning now, rather than in the middle of next year. That’s a huge mistake with real consequences for the U.S. and global economies.

Prof. Newmark responds, "The administration didn't make a mistake and didn't defer. Q2 and Q3 of next year will be perfectly timed to take credit before the 2010 Congressional elections."

That's right. In the Democrats' view, better to let unemployment reach double digits than risk GOP electoral momentum. I repeat: Democrats care most about defeating Republicans, not about improving the economy (or any other issue). If in consequence you lose your job, or your business goes under, too bad; it's a price worth paying.

Whether Obama and co. can manage the recovery as precisely as they think remains to be seen.

Glenn Reynolds points to a post about "The Growing Demand for Goat Meat" in the US. Whenever the subject of goats arises (not often in my experience) I think of this, from a great essay by Theodore Dalrymple in which he describes his time working as a doctor in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe):

The young black doctors who earned the same salary as we whites could not achieve the same standard of living for a very simple reason: they had an immense number of social obligations to fulfill. They were expected to provide for an ever expanding circle of family members (some of whom may have invested in their education) and people from their village, tribe, and province. An income that allowed a white to live like a lord because of a lack of such obligations scarcely raised a black above the level of his family. Mere equality of salary, therefore, was quite insufficient to procure for them the standard of living that they saw the whites had and that it was only human nature for them to desire—and believe themselves entitled to, on account of the superior talent that had allowed them to raise themselves above their fellows. In fact, a salary a thousand times as great would hardly have been sufficient to procure it: for their social obligations increased pari passu with their incomes.

These obligations also explain the fact, often disdainfully remarked upon by former colonials, that when Africans moved into the beautiful and well-appointed villas of their former colonial masters, the houses swiftly degenerated into a species of superior, more spacious slum. Just as African doctors were perfectly equal to their medical tasks, technically speaking, so the degeneration of colonial villas had nothing to do with the intellectual inability of Africans to maintain them. Rather, the fortunate inheritor of such a villa was soon overwhelmed by relatives and others who had a social claim upon him. They brought even their goats with them; and one goat can undo in an afternoon what it has taken decades to establish.

Bjorn Lomborg:

In a new survey of 500 American pre-teens, it was found that one in three children, aged between six and 11, feared that the earth would not exist when they reach adulthood because of global warming and other environmental threats. An unbelievable one-third of our children believe that they don't have a future because of scary global warming stories.

We see the same pattern in the United Kingdom, where a survey showed that half of young children aged between seven and 11 are anxious about the effects of global warming, often losing sleep because of their concern. This is grotesquely harmful.

And let us be honest. This scare was intended.

(Via Planet Gore.)

David P. Goldman:

In countries where torture is habitual, unexceptionable and embedded in everyday life, it is foolish to imagine that our armed forces might conduct successful operations without employing torture as a matter of normal practice. . . . [T]he horror of everyday life in what President Obama calls “the Muslim world” is more than the American mind can absorb.

“Ishmael Jones,” formerly a deep-cover officer with the CIA, makes the case (convincingly, in my opinion; I'd like to learn what the folks at In From the Cold think).

An American Jew on his coreligionists' political unwisdom.

Possibly NSFW.

Mark Krikorian notes a study "that confirms what common sense would suggest: Immigrants bring with them the cultural attitudes of their home countries, and those [attitudes] persist in their children."

Leftists like government, Rightists don't. Many more Leftists than Rightists seek careers in government, not just political office but also the far more numerous jobs in governmental bureaucracies. Rightists generally prefer to work in the private sector.

Rightists are thus greatly outnumbered in government, and will probably remain so.

(This is a much-condensed version of the original post, which I badly overwrote.)

Donald Boudreaux quotes Francis Fukuyama and F. A. Hayek to show "that a successful economy must continually use knowledge that is dispersed, unimaginably detailed, and often unable to be articulated." Central planning always fails; local, specific knowledge is decisive, and blue-collar workers possess crucial skills that many white-collar workers would never be able to attain.

I wish our president would absorb that lesson. One disturbing trait of Obama's is his evident belief that he can improve any situation, even if he has little or no experience in that area. In fact, his lack of humility may be his defining flaw. Can the man in the world's most powerful office learn modesty on the job? I hope so. Were I religious I'd pray so, often.

AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com.

(Via BuzzFeed.)

A report on Iraq from StrategyPage.

Jill Sobule, "Nothing to Prove." I remember that Trader Joe's. (Some profanity.)

This post by Richard Fernandez and the first embedded video make me want to try some. Read the comments too.

From the episode "Deadpan" of Murder, She Wrote:

JESSICA: Well, maybe I'm confused, but if Mr. O'Mara was shot when you think that he was shot, why does his skin have that bluish look to it?

LT. JARVIS: Funny, he doesn't look bluish to me.

Republicans care most about defeating America's enemies.

Democrats care most about defeating Republicans.

(Prompted by Andrew Breitbart, via NRO.)

Such hijinks they get up to:

The [Palestinian] Health Ministry stated yesterday that Hamas militias had raided 46 ambulances, donated by Arab states during the recent aggression on the Gaza Strip, of the medical equipment that they contained... and used them as military vehicles to arrest civilians, after painting [the ambulances] black.

The Ministry's director of public relations and information, Dr. Omar Nasr[, . . .] demanded that the Hamas militias declare, courageously and openly, what had become of the thousands of tons of medical equipment which had been brought into the Gaza Strip as assistance for the Palestinian people, and which had passed at its [Hamas's] orders to private warehouses and its own medical centers[. . . .]

Mark Krikorian:

One of the reasons ongoing mass immigration is a security problem for a modern society is that it creates and constantly refreshes unassimilated immigrant communities that serve as cover for bad guys, whether transnational terrorists or transnational criminals, whose access to modern technologies of communications, transportation, and weaponry makes the threat different in kind from anything we faced in earlier eras.

Case in point: Gwinnett County, near Atlanta, which "has become a ground zero of sorts for Mexican drug cartels":

On a map, the city appears to have spokes with highways jutting out in all directions.

Drug traffickers have taken advantage of this.

"This is a place where I'd expect a business model like UPS to start up," said Jack Kilorin, head of Atlanta's federal High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, which analyzes drug intelligence and helps coordinate law enforcement response. The cartels "have exploited a highway and communications and transportation hub. They're thugs, but they are not entirely stupid."

Michael Goldfarb rightly dubs this, by Dave Weigel, "Tweet of the Day":

I would hope that a wise Latina woman's ankle, with its richness of experience, can heal faster than a white male's ankle.

And yes, I know how much a broken ankle hurts, because I broke mine once. You won't shame me.

Charming stuff from John Derbyshire:

The question going round the dinner table was: Do you have any secret pleasures of a mentionable kind? . . .

When my turn came, I knew this was a heaven-sent opportunity to unbosom myself of my own secret passion.

"Stationery," I declared.

An odd sort of silence fell. Then the tree-climber ventured: "With an 'e', right?"

That's right, stationery with an 'e'. (The difference was immortalized, at least in England, on one of those vulgar comic postcards George Orwell wrote a famous essay about. A gorgeous female store assistant is being addressed by a callow-looking young man. He: "Excuse me, Miss, do you keep stationery?" She: "Well, sometimes I wriggle a bit.") Stationery! I love the stuff. Paper, pens, notepads, folders, envelopes, markers, erasers, staples, push pins, paper clips, bulldog clips, poster board, display board, foam board, desk furniture … A stationery store is to me … what? Aladdin's cave? Pah! — What did Aladdin know? You can't do anything with a mess of rubies.

A poignant story.

Betsy Newmark on the inevitable conflicts of interest.

Reflections from Rod Dreher.

"The Prowler," at The American Spectator's site, on our Secretary of State:

Clinton has often showed up for meetings seemingly unprepared or not fully briefed, misidentified officials, and at times seemed unsure of Obama Administration policies. Further, she and her senior staff have been cut out of personnel decisions, particularly on the selection of ambassadors, positions one would think the highest ranking foreign policy official in an administration would have a say in filling. . . .

Early stories on Clinton's State Department highlighted the slow pace of hiring for her senior staff, but the current issues have little to do with that, say the State Department employees, who say there is a growing impression that Clinton is frustrated by her inability to be front and center on foreign policy, taking the back seat to Obama, and chafing at White House control over foreign affairs.

Prediction: He'll argue for it in 2014 and apologize for not supporting it sooner. The audience will give him a standing ovation.

They make their own decisions, wise or not:

Instead of seeing older workers staying on the job longer as the economy has worsened, the Social Security system is reporting a major surge in early retirement claims that could have implications for the financial security of millions of baby boomers. . . .

The numbers upend expectations that older Americans who sustained financial losses in the recession would work longer to rebuild their nest eggs. . . .

As Americans live longer, the elderly are increasingly at risk of outlasting their financial assets. That's a serious problem for them and their families, who are often called upon to provide assistance.

Because benefits are reduced for people who retire early, the surge in retirements should not have any long-term effect on the solvency of the Social Security system, although it will probably add to the near-term budget deficits confronting the Obama administration. . . .

The full consequences of retirement decisions made in hard times will become apparent when people who retired early begin to exhaust their savings.

"As they get into their 70s and 80s, it will be increasingly inadequate," said Alicia H. Munnell, director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.

(Via Craig Newmark.)

I'd even agree to learn to smoke. Jonathan Last on a book about men and childbirth:

Ms. Leavitt quotes one doctor's argument [against the father's presence in the delivery room] from the mid-1960s: "As the charm of woman is in her mystery, it is inconceivable that a wife will maintain her sexual prestige after her husband witnessed the expulsion of a baby -- a negligee will never hide this apparition." Another doctor concluded: "On the whole, it is not a show to watch."

We all laugh at how benighted such views are. (Even if there is, just possibly, some truth in them.) Yet today it is socially acceptable to father a child without marrying the mother or to divorce her later on if mother and father actually do bother to get hitched. And at the same time there is zero tolerance for a husband who says: "No thanks, I'll be in the waiting room with cigars."

David Pryce-Jones on Amos Elon, who died last week:

Amos was a man of the Left, contentious and caustic. For reasons I could never quite fathom, I had some special license to debate with him, pressing him to admit the false assumptions, inconsistencies, and follies of the Left, and especially the belief that the famous two-state resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian confrontation is practical politics rather than the Utopian fantasy it so clearly is. It really was as though we were out-of-date cosmopolitans from a Viennese café. One day I was about to go on a National Review cruise and he was about to go on a similar cruise for The Nation. He suggested that the two cruises ought to meet on the ocean like pirates and do battle, all of us naturally wearing formal evening dress and black tie.

Liberty DeVitto, former drummer for Billy Joel, is suing Joel for unpaid royalties. I love a lot of Joel's work from the 1970s and '80s, and DeVitto was an important element of it.

I don't know the grounds for DeVitto's suit, but Terry Teachout noted a couple of years ago that the definition of intellectual property is changing. For instance,

[In December 2006] a London judge awarded 40% of the copyright of Procol Harum's "A Whiter Shade of Pale" to Matthew Fisher, the group's ex-organist. Mr. Fisher, who had asked for 50%, doesn't claim to have written the song, but he did write the Bach-like organ countermelody heard on the group's 1967 recording of "A Whiter Shade of Pale," which sold 10 million copies. Judge William Blackburne called the countermelody "a distinctive and significant contribution to the overall composition and, quite obviously, the product of skill and labor on the part of the person who created it."

By that standard DeVitto may be entitled to some of Joel's profits. DeVitto's playing on "Just The Way You Are," for instance, helped keep the track from sagging into sappiness (to my ears). With a lesser drummer it might've been a lesser hit, or no hit. He gave similarly inventive, flavorful performances on other songs ("Only The Good Die Young," also from The Stranger, comes first to mind).

Anyway, sad to see a musical partnership and friendship wind up in lawyers' hands. Hardly unprecedented, but sad.

All you non-leftists who chose not to vote for McCain: Happy now? Feeling pure and virtuous?
 
Idiots.

Theodore Dalrymple, considering the work of 19th-century critic and journalist George Bagehot:

What is the point of reading the essays of a Victorian writer, now known only to specialists in his period, about the writings of others? . . . [C]an there be any justification in a world of ceaseless activity for spending several hours of so short a span, several precious and never-to-be recovered hours, on the idle perusal of dusty and forgotten essays, however charming they might be?

Actually, I think there can. . . .

By a certain age, one does not so much wish to learn as to be consoled. . . . [T]hings are neither as good as one once hoped for, nor as bad as one once feared, which induces a consoling state of calm; and certainly, to read of the repetition of Man’s mistakes reduces one’s regret that one will not live to see the future golden age, because there will be no such golden age.

Ship a few million crazy rasberry ants there. I'm not kidding. Land them near the nuclear facilities and let them do their stuff:

It sounds like the plot of a farfetched science fiction movie. Unfortunately for the residents of Texas, it is very much a reality: billions of tiny reddish-brown ants have arrived onshore from a cargo ship and are hell-bent on eating anything electronic.

Computers, burglar alarm systems, gas and electricity meters, iPods, telephone exchanges – all are considered food by the flea-sized ants, for reasons that have left scientists baffled.

Having ruined pumps at a sewage facility, the ants are now marching towards Nasa’s Johnson Space Centre and William P. Hobby airport, Houston, putting state officials in a panic. “They’re itty-bitty things, and they’re just running everywhere,” said Patsy Morphew, a resident of Pearland, on the Gulf Coast.

She spends hours sweeping them off her patio and scooping them out of her pool by the cupful. “There’s just thousands and thousands of them. If you’ve seen a car racing, that’s how they are. They’re going fast, fast, fast. They’re crazy.”

. . . Pest control specialists say that they are inundated with calls from homes and businesses now that the warm, humid season has begun, with literally billions of the ants wreaking havoc across the state. Worse, the ants refuse to die when sprayed with over-the-counter poison. Even killing the queen of a colony doesn’t do any good, because each colony has multiple queens.

The Texas Department of Agriculture said that it was working with researchers from A&M University and the Environmental Protection Agency to find new ways to stop the ants.

(Via, indirectly, Dave Barry, who's supposed to make me laugh, not give me nightmares.)

A witness to a nonfatal shooting, and our esteemed Vice President.

A warning from geophysicist David Deming that deserves wide circulation:

Human civilization as we know it is only possible in a warm interglacial climate.

* * * * *

For ninety percent of the last million years, the normal state of the Earth's climate has been an ice age.

* * * * *

Global warming predictions by meteorologists are based on speculative, untested, and poorly constrained computer models. . . . In this case, it would be perspicacious to listen to the geologists, not the meteorologists. By reducing our production of carbon dioxide, we risk hastening the advent of the next ice age. Even more foolhardy and dangerous is the Obama administration's announcement that they may try to cool the planet through geoengineering. Such a move in the middle of a cooling trend could provoke the irreversible onset of an ice age. It is not hyperbole to state that such a climatic change would mean the end of human civilization as we know it.

Michael Ledeen:

When the Europeans killed and expelled the Jews during the Holocaust, it marked a watershed in their history, from which they never recovered, just as the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 marked the beginning of the end of that great Empire. For the Jews, with their remarkable wit, energy and creativity, had truly transformed the old continent. . . .

[A] couple of years ago I was in Krakow, Poland, and several of the town leaders said they were looking for a way to convince Jews to return. They had seen and understood the consequences of the destruction of the Jews.

I wonder if we Americans do. One has to be struck by the remarkable animus toward Israel demonstrated by some of the leaders of this administration, as by various pundits and politicians. . . .

There are those who like to say that the Jews are the canaries in the global mine shaft–an alarm of impending danger–but I think that misses the central point. When societies turn against the Jews, they seal their own doom, by depriving themselves of the creative energy that Jews have so often provided to Western civilization.

The evil of Jew-hatred is right in front of our noses . . . and as so often in the past, we prefer not to see it (it is the central theme of my forthcoming book Accomplice to Evil). Even most Jews deliberately blind themselves to it, as they did before and during the Holocaust, and so often before that. I do not think that the Jews will ever be destroyed; far more powerful forces than those arrayed against us today have tried and failed. But I do fear that far too many of our leaders are falling prey to the ancient evil. The Europeans fell for it in the last century, and are passing from the stage of world history. Let us fight against it here and now.

Because were she telling the truth she'd be admitting to unforgivable incompetence. Pelosi says—this is what her defense amounts to—that less than a year after 9/11, when she was ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, she didn't care enough to learn exactly how the agencies she helped oversee were protecting the nation. Talk about a losing argument.

(Link via NRO.)

Later: The kind of thing I was thinking of (the quote refers to a period in 2003, not 2002, but shows her priorities):

Pelosi defended her own lack of action on the issue, saying her focus at the time was on wresting congressional control from Republicans so her party could change course.

Later still: Newt Gingrich (audio interview):

[T]he fact is she either didn't do her job, or she did do her job and she's now afraid to tell the truth. . . . [S]he either comes across as incompetent or dishonest. Those are the only two defenses she's got.

Gingrich's remarks are scalding and dead-on.

I think this post is holding up well.

Randall Parker has thoughts and suggestions prompted by the Santa Barbara fires.

The Business Insider:

If any part of Lauria's story holds up, Obama's reputation for honesty will be tarnished.

Obama has a reputation for honesty? Since when? Among whom?

(Link via Instapundit.)

Take a look at TheReligionOfPeace.com's picture of the week. (I've reposted the photo here because it's too good to lose when they post the next one.)

Charles Murray, in an NRO symposium on Obama's first hundred days:

We have a president who, from the time he entered Honolulu’s Punahou School as a teenager, has lived a magical life. Everything has gone right for decades now. Nor are any of his aides crouching beside him in the chariot whispering, “You too are mortal.” On the contrary, if we are to judge by Larry Summers, even his most astute advisers suppress what they know to be true to accommodate Mr. Obama’s wishes.

Down the road, the president’s economic policy will engender a new crisis that, to be met, will require him to reassess his assumptions and to defy his political base — and we haven’t a shard of evidence that he is able to do either of those things. Down the road, a hostile world will require him to make a foreign-policy decision with no good option, only a choice among bad options, in the face of horrific consequences if he is wrong — and we haven’t a shard of evidence that he is able to do that. Worst of all, he will come to those pivotal moments serenely confident that whatever he decides will work out.

How do I think about the Obama presidency as I look ahead? I’m scared stiff.

But I have to do it.

(Prompted by Craig Newmark, who should be held blameless.)

In "Mr. Monk Goes To The Asylum," Kevin Nealon plays a psychiatric patient who over-empathizes.

The line is, "Thanks. Thanks a lot."

(Episode synopsis, including spoilers, here, but you can enjoy the line without knowing the story.)

That's the subject line of an email I just sent economist Greg Mankiw, with the following text:

Prof. Mankiw,

Possibly you'd like to know why one rightist untrained in economics expects never to join the Pigou Club, despite the many good arguments you make for it and the many wise observers who've joined (wittingly or no). My reason is this: it seems to me that whenever government obtains a source of revenue, it uses that revenue for purposes unrelated to its original justification, distributes that revenue irresponsibly, and demands more and more revenue from that source. TARP is the latest example.

Recommendations as to cutting tax rates, removing certain taxes entirely, and shrinking or eliminating government programs, however, will continue to find in me a receptive audience.

Sincerely,
Michael Greenspan
Bronx, NY

(Power Line link via Instapundit. And here's "The Pigou Club Manifesto.")

Nathaniel Kunkel has another column (his earlier piece is here) on Auto-Tune and Melodyne, which can adjust the pitch of a singer's performance:

While many artists can make a record without using Auto-Tune, almost every new release currently on popular radio is tuned, even if only a little bit. (Sometimes more than you could ever imagine.) One observation I have made is that some singers have been getting tuned for so long that they actually think they sound that way. I have worked with singers who issue a “Never tune me” order and then reject every comp until they are tuned and phrased clandestinely. The denial is spectacular. . . .

We have all become so accustomed to hearing perfect music that it’s hard to listen to old stuff sometimes. Don’t get me wrong: I love to listen to old records. But now when I turn on an old record after listening to new stuff for a while, it can sound so out of tune. After three or four listens, I am back in the zone where I can listen without being drawn to the tuning issue anymore, but that first playback can really make me aware of how “perfect” music has become.

I was just talking with a friend of mine who is a working engineer, and his experiences were so interesting and revealing that I just had to quote him:

“I think artists like the sound of being tuned. They try to sing the way a tuned vocal sounds. It’s not possible, as we all know. One band I recently worked with didn’t want to hear their vocals until after they were tuned. Before I would play it back, the singer asked if I did ‘it’ yet. After I played the song, he would say, ‘I love the way I sound Melodyned!’[”]

Even before Auto-Tune and Melodyne, vocals and recorded music in general were extensively manipulated. The big change came with digital technology. And it's not just pop. A classical-music producer told me in 1983, early in the digital era, that an orchestral recording he'd just overseen included dozens of edits that let him combine the best passages from several takes.

Still, for whatever reason, I find digital retuning (unless the singer's trying to sound robotic) dishonest in a way that editing isn't. On this little ditty, for instance, I didn't consider "fixing" my lead vocals. It would've felt like lying, even though I fashioned the finished vocals from several takes, and so wasn't presenting a genuine performance. I can't objectively justify my aversion to retuning. Maybe I should've studied harder in philosophy class. Anyway, I won't use it, ever (with the robotic-vocal exception), no matter how much it might benefit the track. But I can't fault people who do. They probably have the same goal I have: to make the recording as close to perfect as possible. We just differ on the tools we're comfortable applying, and what we feel we owe listeners.

(I feel I have to mention this: Kunkel writes midway through the column, "If our last election showed us anything, it’s that we as a society are trying to face the truth." I admire and envy Kunkel's skill in the studio, but that's the most fatuous one-sentence summary of Obama's victory I've seen.)

Kunkel notes that an article by Sasha Frere-Jones in The New Yorker started "[t]his public airing of the music business’s dirty little secret." You can also hear an mp3 of Frere-Jones being Auto-Tuned. It's a remarkably effective piece of software.

This one likes boxes.

This one gets too close.

(Both links via BuzzFeed.)

We are not going to measure the strength of great countries only by their material resources. We think that the supremacy and the predominance of our country depends upon the maintenance of the vigour and health of its population, just as its true glory will always be found in the happiness of its cottage homes.

(p. 82)

John Derbyshire:

The besetting sin of intellectuals is their assumption that everyone else is intellectual, or wishes to be. This is not the case.

(I'd add to the end of the first sentence: "or should wish to be.")

The Hunt For Gollum:

The script is adapted from elements of the appendices of The Lord of the Rings. The story follows the Heir of Isildur; the "greatest huntsman and traveller in Middle Earth" as he sets out to find the creature Gollum. The creature must be found to discover the truth about the Ring, and to protect the future Ringbearer.

Disclaimer
The Hunt For Gollum is an unofficial non-profit film being made for private use, and is not intended for sales of any sort. No money is being made from this film, and no one was paid to make it. It is in no way sponsored or approved by Tolkien Enterprises, the Tolkien Estate, Peter Jackson, New Line Cinema or any affiliates. . . . This work is produced solely for the personal, uncompensated enjoyment of ourselves and other Tolkien fans. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Watch the trailers. In an era of snark, I find this sort of devoted tribute stirring.

(Via MetaFilter, many of whose commenters indulge in the kind of sniping that this film defies.)

Thomas Sowell, as he often does, makes a distinction that never occurred to me and that seems both obvious and crucial now that I see it:

Those who think in terms of talking points, instead of trying to understand realities, make much of the fact that some countries with government-controlled medical care have longer life expectancies than that in the United States.

That is where the difference between health care and medical care comes in. Medical care is what doctors can do for you. Health care includes what you do for yourself — such as diet, exercise, and lifestyle. . . .

Americans tend to be more obese, consume more drugs, and have more homicides. None of that is going to change with “universal health care” because it isn’t health care. It is medical care.

When it comes to things where medical care itself makes the biggest difference — cancer survival rates, for example — Americans do much better than people in most other countries.

No one who compares medical care in this country with medical care in other countries is likely to want to switch. But those who cannot be bothered with the facts may help destroy the best medical care in the world by falling for political rhetoric.

John Podhoretz, following on a post by David Frum:

A few years ago, when Scooter Libby was indicted . . . it occurred to [me] that a Rubicon really had been crossed. To wit: You should have your head examined if you go work in a senior job in the executive branch of the United States government.

Since the Reagan years, every administration has had senior officials hauled before special prosecutors, prosecutors, and Congressional committees. It would appear, based on these records, that there is a measurable risk that if you take a job, you will at the very least be pursued by someone who wishes to charge you with a crime or get you to nail someone else who they think has committed a crime. That risk is somewhere between 10 and 20 percent, and rises the closer you get to the president.

Now, think of what this means. Forget being indicted or convicted — obviously, those are horrifying possibilities. Just think about getting called before a Senate investigating committee. Or a grand jury. Every time a question is asked, a lawyer needs to be engaged. Every time a lawyer is involved, a bill is generated. Maggie Williams, who was Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff when Mrs. Clinton was First Lady, found herself saddled with hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees owing to investigations of Whitewater. She is not a wealthy woman. She went to work as a public servant at a very respectable but hardly rich-person’s salary, and found herself poverty-stricken by a political investigation of which she was not even the focus. . . .

If this [prosecuting Bush officials] goes forward, and I mean this seriously, anyone reading this blog post who is a friend of or a relative of someone working in high precincts in the Obama administration had better strongly advise their loved one to quit and get the hell out of Washington. Because it won’t end here. Because it is all political, in the end. Because one day, they will be caught in the vise just as surely.

Abe Greenwald:

[T]he effectiveness of interrogations has now itself become a negative, according to anti-Bush cultists. This is from an Andrew Sullivan reader whom Andrew saw fit to publish in rebuttal to my defense of CIA interrogations:

What bothers me about this viewpoint is that if these techniques are so harmless, then how do they even work?

If a face slap is not big deal, then how does it result in information? If putting an insect in a cage with a prisoner is something to laugh about, why are they insisting that it works? Do they really imagine that enemy prisoners with incredible, ticking time-bomb information fold so easily?

So, you see, anything that works is now torture. That is, of course, where all the unserious criticism was always leading.

This is good too, from Greenwald: "Anything to which Christopher Hitchens is willing to submit himself in pursuit of a Vanity Fair article is not torture."

Michael Scherer at Swampland, a Time.com blog:

President Obama has an ability to issue coherent, Op-Ed-length answers during press conferences that is currently unmatched on the American political stage. Today, at a press conference in Trinidad, NBC's Chuck Todd asked Obama to describe the "Obama doctrine" for foreign policy. At first Obama joked that it would be up to the press to write the "definitive statement on Obamism." But then he said the following, which reads to me as just about the clearest, most succinct statement yet of Obama's diplomatic approach (with a little editing).

Obama's answer is well-constructed, grammatically solid and nicely varied as to language. It's also close to pure blather. At Contentions, Peter Wehner gives a far more accurate (if entirely impolitic) definition:

The Obama Doctrine means criticizing past presidents, Democratic and Republican; apologizing for past American sins, real and imagined, to both allies and enemies of the United States, on domestic and, preferably, foreign soil — in the hope that doing so allows Obama to speak with greater moral force and clarity. The overriding goal of the Obama Doctrine is to make the person it is named after look good, rather than, and if necessary at the expense of, the nation he was elected to represent.

Jennifer Rubin:

Really, at this point any CEO who agrees to do business with the government should be fired.

Intellectual corruption personified. With apologies to Mark Hemingway, I think Begala knows exactly what he's talking about. No one should ever again take him seriously.

Later: Begala responds, and Hemingway responds in turn, again convincingly (while acknowledging errors in his earlier post). I remain sure that Begala is lying rather than mistaken.

The fake synth sounds are great. Actually, it's all great.

(Via BuzzFeed.)