Pun Salad

Power came back on at Pun Salad World Headquarters last night around 8:30. About a sixty-hour outage, and I'm lucky it was that short.

[Please imagine I penned a funny yet profound Lileksian right essay here on taking things for granted, especially the modern marvels that would have dropped my ancestors' jaws to the floor.]

• At EconLog, David Henderson makes the observation that what did Democratic Illinois Governor Blagojevich in was not so much the corruption, but his dreadfully poor manners in discussing it explicitly and profanely.

  Why do I say that? Consider a case of #1 that received little objection. In 2005, shortly after her husband became a U.S. Senator, Michelle Obama was promoted to vice-president of the University of Chicago Hospitals, with a salary increase from $121,910 to $316,962. One of her bosses said she was "worth her weight in gold." In 2006, Obama requested a $1 million earmark for his wife's employer. How upset have people got about this? But take away the explicit exchange and the crass language and she and her husband did what he Illinois Governor did. Yet where's the outrage?

  Indeed. Of course it's not just Illinois, and it's not just Democrats.

• For example, Daniel J. Mitchell at Cato points out a recent AP story concentrating on how GOP-affiliated lobbyists raked in millions in fees from Freddie Mac.

  Interestingly, at least one of these former politicians is contemplating a return to the political arena. He even portrays himself as a friend of the taxpayer. It is unclear, though, how much of a friend he really is considering that the story reveals that, "Freddie Mac enlisted prominent conservatives, including Gingrich..., paying [him] $300,000 in 2006, according to internal records."

  If Newt decides to run for President, here's hoping he gets pummelled about this in every NH campaign stop until he quits the race out of sheer embarrassment.

• In other news: Rain causes wet streets, gravity makes things fall down, and minimum wage laws lower real earnings and decrease job opportunities for the working class.

• Iowahawk is five years old, and if you follow the link, you'll find pointers to 25 of the best (or, as Dave puts it, "least-suck") articles from the past.

• If you're looking for a gift for that Chosen Person, I have four words for you: No Limit Texas Dreidel. (Well, three more: via the Corner.)