Gotta love Mark Steyn

quoting Boy George on the economic crisis. 

I'm conflicted on the bailout. I'm generally suspicious - like big red flags and fireworks going off suspicious - of big government intervention, but a lot of people I respect are saying it needs to happen. And selfishly I'd be happy with a little quicker recovery in the housing markets. I guess on the other hand my variable rate is pretty low right now. :-)

Obama up to his hold tricks

Don't bring a knife to gun fight in Chicago.

"... but not THIS day ..."

Via Instapundit , Bill Whittle's essay  on the war hero and the hockey mom in a Tolkien world.

Maureen Dowd braves 'Sarahville'; Finds regular folks amusing

Is anyone surprised at the disdain Ms. Dowd has for icky products available at Wasilla's Wal-Mart:

Wal-Mart has all the doodads that Sarah must need in her career as a sportsman — Remingtons and "torture tested" riflescopes, game bags for caribou, machines that imitate rabbits and young deer and coyotes to draw your quarry in so you can shoot it, and machines to squish cows into beef jerky.

 

And the people were amusing, too:

I talked to a Wal-Mart mom, Betty Necas, 39, wearing sweatpants and tattoos on her wrists.

Sweatpants and tattoos. Wow. No top? You'd think Alaska would be the last place you'd find that sort of thing. 

I think the liberal elite should definitely keep making fun of people who hunt and shop at Wal-Mart. That's a great idea.

Medical Errors

Looking forward to those robot doctors and nurses.

edumacation

Like many college students, she wishes she'd been worked a little harder in high school. 

She's a victim. it's not her fault she got away with being lazy in high school. It's the system.

Actually, I do think education is in a bit of a downward spiral and there's plenty of blame to go around - parents, politicians, teachers, administrators, and students alike.

But, the fact that she seems to take no responsibility at all seems like a separate issue. 

Fun with Earmarking

This seems to indicate that Governor Palin may have requested some earmarks. She's also been accused of being for the Bridge to Nowhere before she was against it. These are supposed to be marks against her and maybe they are, but I think there's another way to look at it.

As Governor it's her job to do what's best for her state. So if she can get somebody else to pay for projects that help the citizens of Alaska then that seems like a good thing from her perspective and that of her constituents. 

If the system allows earmarks, then it's hard to fault people who try to take advantage of that. It's not necessarily good - you might prefer someone who refuses to take advantage of a loophole for any reason - but that's not to say it's bad, and certainly it's not uncommon.

I think earmarks are a problem. But we can't rely on people not to take advantage of them, we need to fix the system so that they can't happen. 

Never forget

A couple of things to look at if you're in the mood to remember ...

• a piece by Lileks  from this date in 2003
• a memorial 

It's easy to not think about 9/11/2001. But I think it's good to remember. The war is not over.

Spore

I'm not a gamer. But I've actually been looking forward to Spore ever since I saw a demo video on the interweb a couple of years ago. I probably still won't bother to get it. 

I have kids. 

They play games. 

I drive them places. 

That's how we roll.

I did read this pretty thorough review here .

The Palinator

Maybe in retrospect it seems obvious that John McCain would select a woman running mate - hindsight and all that. But I don't remember seeing her name on any of the 'short lists' that were passed around the 'net and the airwaves. So I was surprised when Sarah Palin's name was announced and I quickly read all I could about her.
It makes me think, now, of the movie When Harry Met Sally. It's one of my wife's favorites, and I like it, too. Sprinkled throughout the movie are scenes of couples telling the story of how they came to be together. The scene I'm reminded of is of the Asian couple where the husband who talks about sneaking to the nearby village to see the girl who has been proposed as his bride. He says if he didn't like the way she looked then he would not agree. "But she look very good to me," he decides.
That's what I thought about Gov. Palin - "She looks very good to me" - and I'm not talking about her appearance. I'm talking about her character and who she is. She beat an incumbent Republican who was ethically challenged. Her approval rating among those she governs is stratospheric. She has five kids. Neither she nor her husband attended Yale or Harvard. She's never lived in Washington or New York or LA or Chicago. Those are all plusses to me.
She's pro-life. That, to me, is the only negative, but it's not the main issue to me in the election. I believe abortion needs to be legal, but I'd be fine if nobody had one.
She talks about lowering taxes and cutting expenses - and she did it as governor. She supports the second amendment. And she understands how people like me in the flyover states live their daily lives. She understands that we love the United States. It's not perfect, but it's the best country there is - the most generous country on the planet; the land of opportunity where the American dream is still possible. Certainly we have our problems but we're always trying to do better.
I would have voted for McCain-Whoever because I think a vote for Obama is a vote for higher taxes, higher gas prices, and a weaker approach to the war on terror. I would have voted for McCain, but I wouldn't have been especially excited about it.
I'm excited about McCain-Palin.
I know the vice-president doesn't do much, but that's not the point. The point is that possibl.y the GOP is thinking about getting back to its conservative roots. Smaller government; lower taxes; protecting individual liberty.
When McCain won the nomination, I was concerned that the party was moving even more to the center than we've seen the last few years. If my governor - Tim Pawlenty - had been selected for VP, that would have confirmed my fears. But the selection of Sarah Palin gives me a little hope for the future of the party.
We'll see how that turns out.