Feb
17
2009

URLs du Jour

2009-02-17

  • Today's moan-inducing pap comes from WaPo op-ed coumnist Eugene Robinson fawning over Barack Obama: "President of Everything". He's done so much so far! But so much left to do!
    All Barack Obama wanted was to be president. He may have to become an auto executive, a banker, a mortgage broker and who knows what else before this crisis is done.
    A more thoughtful person (i.e., not Eugene Robinson) might note that Obama's qualifications for the presidency were, at best, marginal. His qualifications to be "auto executive, a banker, a mortgage broker and who knows what else" are non-existent.

  • Back on Febrary 10 I put up what, as far as I knew, was a quote from Arnold Kling on the stimulus, which he delivered at a Heritage Foundation gathering:
    I think about the stimulus as an economist but I feel it as a father. Barack Obama is destroying my daughters' future. It is like sitting there watching my house ransacked by a gang of thugs. That's how I feel, now back to how I think.
    I didn't see anything wrong with that. But some saw the word "thugs", and (apparently) made a leap that Kling was race-baiting.

    Because, y'know, some people automatically assume thugs to be of the African-American persuasion. And those people projected their racist assumptions onto Kling. A cheap way to bemoan the "ugliness" of the debate, without needing to deal with Kling's actual criticism.

    The Heritage Foundation has provided Kling's accurate quote, with additional context:

    I think about what's going on as an economist but I feel it as a father. My wife and I have three daughters between the ages of 19 and 25. And when I see what's being done to their future I'm really angry. Back in September when they were talking about taking $700 billion dollars to unclog the financial system I wanted to yank Henry Paulson out of the TV screen and say to him: "Keep your hands off my daughter's future." But he got away with it. For me it felt like sitting there watching my home being ransacked by a gang of thugs. And now we've got a new gang of thugs and they are doing the same thing. So that's how I feel, now back to how I think.
    Clear enough? Anybody out there confused about the color of Henry Paulson's skin?

  • I finally got around to noticing this AP article about seat belt laws. The controversy is whether to enact "primary" seat belt laws, enabling the police to pull you over and ticket you solely for your lack of buckleduppedness. The Feds want this to happen, and money is involved. The article's primary focus is on Ohio:
    … which would get $26.8 million if it changes its law. Currently, officers in the state must first have some other reason to stop drivers over before issuing seat-belt citations.
    Woo! $26.8 million is a chunk. But later in the article:
    Ohio faces a $7.3 billion projected budget deficit over the next two years compared to current funding levels…
    So enacting the primary seat belt law would allow Ohio to make up 0.37% of that deficit.

    There's a New Hampshire connection:

    In addition to Ohio, the other states considering the change are Arkansas, Florida, Kansas, South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, Montana, Wyoming, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Nebraska and New Hampshire.

    […]

    Only New Hampshire still has no seat belt requirement for all adult drivers, costing that state $3.7 million in grants in 2007.

    I always buckle up, but (needless to say) I despise this Federal blackmail and nanny-statism. The New Hampshire bill is HB 383. As near as I can tell from the General Court website, it's due to be voted on tomorrow, February 18 by the NH House. I have little optimism that my representatives will vote the way I'd like, but I've sent them e-mail.