Consumer Confidence Hits 6 Year High

Read about it here.

Haven't heard too much lately about our "awful" economy from the Dems.

On a lighter note...

Each day the WSJ Opinion Journal comments on various headlines from around the world.

Headline:

"Sara Lee Recalls 27 Brands of Bread"--headline, Associated Press, July 27"

Comment:

"But She Forgets the Names of Her Grandchildren"


Ok, so you have to read them everyday to appreciate the humor! You can do that here:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/

They'll email it to you everyday.

Compassionate Misanthrope?

From the WSJ Opinion Journal of 7/30/07:

"'How About a Compassionate Misanthrope?'

Over the weekend the New York Times published a long piece on a series of letters Hillary Clinton (then Rodham) wrote to a high school friend, John Peavoy, while the two were in college in the late 1960s. There's nothing terribly juicy here; Mrs. Clinton comes across as a bright young adult struggling to figure out her place in the world. But one quote gave us a chuckle:

"Can you be a misanthrope and still love or enjoy some individuals?" Ms. Rodham wrote in an April 1967 letter. "How about a compassionate misanthrope?"

"A compassionate misanthrope." What a perfect description of the contemporary liberal. As Dick Armey observed, borrowing from Edna St. Vincent Millay, "Liberals love humanity but hate people.""

This makes me even more nervous about the possibility of Hillary as our President. I can't even imagine a young lady of her background thinking she is possibly a misanthrope, or be silly enough to imagine a "compassionate misanthrope".

Careful! We may get what some wish for!

More thoughts on single payer universal health coverage:

"GOVERNMENT

“There’s absolutely no mystery why our greatest complaints are in the arena of government-delivered services and the fewest in market-delivered services. In the market, there are the ruthless forces of profit, loss and bankruptcy that make producers accountable to us. In the arena of government-delivered services, there’s no such accountability... Our health care system is hampered by government intervention, and the solution is not more government intervention but less... Before we buy into single-payer health care systems like Canada’s and the United Kingdom’s, we might want to do a bit of research. The Vancouver, British Columbia-based Fraser Institute annually publishes ‘Waiting Your Turn.’ Its 2006 edition gives waiting times, by treatments, from a person’s referral by a general practitioner to treatment by a specialist. The shortest waiting time was for oncology (4.9 weeks). The longest waiting time was for orthopedic surgery (40.3 weeks), followed by plastic surgery (35.4 weeks) and neurosurgery (31.7 weeks). As reported in the June 28 National Center for Policy Analysis’ ‘Daily Policy Digest,’ Britain’s Department of Health recently acknowledged that one in eight patients waits more than a year for surgery. France’s failed health care system resulted in the deaths of 13,000 people, mostly of dehydration, during the heat spell of 2003. Hospitals stopped answering the phones, and ambulance attendants told people to fend for themselves. I don’t think most Americans would like more socialized medicine in our country.” —Walter Williams"

My emphasis. Hat Tip to Patriot Post Brief, July 30, 2007.

A WSJ editorial on the problem with single payer universal health coverage

A Wisconsin experiment points to the problems facing nationwide single payer health insurance. Read about it here.

On Liberty

LIBERTY

“Free markets are simply millions upon millions of individual decision-makers, engaged in peaceable, voluntary exchange pursuing what they see in their best interests. People who denounce the free market and voluntary exchange, and are for control and coercion, believe they have more intelligence and superior wisdom to the masses. What’s more, they believe they’ve been ordained to forcibly impose that wisdom on the rest of us. Of course, they have what they consider good reasons for doing so, but every tyrant that has ever existed has had what he believed were good reasons for restricting the liberty of others.” —Walter Williams

Hat Tip: Patriot Post - 07-30 Brief.

The "...good reasons for doing so,..." used to be their pity for the small percentage who were unsuccessful in the free market environment; it has now become a way for politicians to pander to these people and other "bleeding hearts" and keep their hoped for life long employment; and for the "bleeding hearts" to feel good about themselves. Let the markets work!

"Where Michael Moore is Wrong"

John Stossel interviewed Michael Moore and reacts to "Sicko". The following three paragraphs caught my eye:

"Moore told me, "Government can do things right. ...My Dad gets his Social Security check every month. Comes not only every month, it comes on the same day through the so-called 'dilapidated' U.S. mail. ...[A]sk your grandparents what they think of Medicare. Although it has its flaws, although it may be underfunded, it's a much better program than the HMO that somebody has."

Underfunded? Medicare has a 75-year $34 trillion unfunded liability! Its costs are growing faster than inflation. Social Security has a 75-year $5 trillion unfunded liability. These are Ponzi schemes that will be bankrupt before Moore reaches retirement age. The U.S. mail manages to deliver his dad's checks, but compare its performance to FedEx or UPS. The Post Office said it wasn't possible to deliver packages overnight.

I want FedEx health care: innovation, new cancer treatments, hip replacements and pain reief. We get that from private-sector competition, not government lethargy." (my emphasis)

FedEx Health Care - sounds like good policy to me! Read the whole thing here.

And you wonder what the problem is?

From Patriot Post, 07-28 Chronicle:

• "“So much of what you say just grabs people like me, because it sounds like Bobby Kennedy. It sounds like the ‘60s at its absolute best.” —MSNBC’s Chris Matthews to Barack Obama."

Couldn't we just stay in the 2000's?

Freedom and Benevolence Go Together

John Stossel writes a great column after an interview with Michael Moore for "20-20". Mr. Stossel is a Libertarian and the most intelligent promoter of this ideology that I know. An important read for all my good lefty friends to understand where the right (libertarians, Republicans, et al) are coming from.

Our country was quite libertarian for the first 125 years or so, and he comments in my favorite paragraph on the subject of favoring individual freedom:

• "All it means is that the libertarian refuses to sanction the use of physical force (which is what government is) to help others. Peaceful methods -- like voluntary charity -- are the only morally consistent methods. I give about a quarter of my income to charities because I've seen theat private charity helps the needy far better than government does."

Brings to my mind the following questions:

• What is the difference between the IRS and the Sheriff of Nottingham?
• What is the difference between the British Kings of Robin Hoods time and W, et al?

Comments?

Random Thoughts on the Passing Scene

Thomas Sowell writes his Random Thoughts periodically and they are always worth a read. Two of my favorites from this list:

• "Whenever I hear terrorists referred to in the media as "militants," it is a painful reminder that we have degenerated to the point where we no longer even have the courage to talk straight."

and

• ""Nations are like men in that they prefer a fuss made in their behalf to real services rendered." Although de Tocqueviolle said this back in the 19th century, it may help explain why the black vote today is so overwhelmingly for the Democrats, when Democrats have done so little good for blacks and so much harm."

Read his other thoughts!

A clear example of MSM bias from WSJ

I have little respect for the AP since each morning I start my day with their headlines on my YAHOO homepage and they lead their news highlights, almost without exception, with "body counts" from Iraq - car bombs, mosques blown up, etc. I am old enough to remember how the MSM did their work during Vietnam, and this was one of their prime methods. I digress!

James Taranto in "Best of the Web Today", 7/9/07, points out further work they do for the left, and at no charge!:

"'Domestic' Abuse
As expected the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed Judge Anna Diggs Taylor's decision in ACLU v. NSA, the lawsuit challenging the terrorist surveillance program. The Associated Press has a highly misleading account of the ruling:

A divided federal appeals court rejected a lawsuit Friday challenging President Bush's domestic spying program without ruling on the issue of whether warrantless wiretapping is legal.
In a 2-1 decision with Republican-appointed judges in the majority, a three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the plaintiffs had no standing to sue because they couldn't prove their communications had been monitored by the government.

In the sixth paragraph, the AP accurately describes the program: "President Bush authorized warrantless monitoring of international telephone calls and e-mails to or from the United States when one party is believed to be a terrorist or to have terrorist ties." But in both the headline and the first paragraph, the wire service refers to the monitoring of international communications as "domestic spying."

Such misreporting--and the AP is far from the only offender--is scurrilous. Moreover, it is potentially threatening to civil liberties. Remember the boy who cried wolf? If a future administration does engage in warrantless domestic wiretapping, how will the AP let us know? Who will believe it is the real thing?"

And the MSM wonders why they are becoming irrelevant.

English - Don't Tread on it!

Peggy Noonan, in her column "We Need to Talk", explains quite clearly why English must remain our national language. One paragraph I liked:

• "But in a deeper sense, we should never consider devolving from one national language down into two, or three, because if we do we won't understand each other. And we're confused enough as it is."

Read and enjoy the whole thing!