She should be invited to cook for the White House. What a difference a comma makes.
Category Archives: Media Criticism
Meghan McCain’s Book
Just in case you needed confirmation that she’s a moron, here you go.
[Afternoon update]
On the other hand, I see a bright future for Betsy Woodruff.
Two Thirds Of The Way There
But only three days left to fully fund the Kickstarter project for space safety.
Winnie The Pooh
The Wrong Campaign Gaffe Comparison
I have some thoughts on just how “fine” the private sector is doing under Barack Obama, over at PJMedia.
A Prometheus Review
“Short version: utterly gorgeous 3D and a phenomenal cast are wasted on one of the most profoundly, fundamentally stupid movies I’ve seen in a long time.”
We went to see Marvel’s Avengers yesterday (great movie), and noticed that Prometheus was just starting in another theater as we were walking out of the one where it was playing, so we could have done it for nothing, but weren’t up for a double feature, particularly given what I’ve been reading about it.
Youtubing Space Safety
I’ve uploaded the video from the Kickstarter project to Youtube in the hope of giving it more exposure, with only a little over four days to go. Unfortunately. I can’t come up with any way to steer people to the project from there. I don’t seem to be able to edit the description of the video, and comments don’t allow links.
Our Celebrity President
Don’t miss Mark Steyn’s latest on Barack Hussein Kardashian:
…there are some cheap seats available. A year and a half ago, big-money Democrats in Rhode Island paid $7,500 per person for the privilege of having dinner with President Obama at a private home in Providence. He showed up for 20 minutes and then said he couldn’t stay for dinner. “I’ve got to go home to walk the dog and scoop the poop,” he told them, because when you’ve paid seven-and-a-half grand for dinner nothing puts you in the mood to eat like a guy talking about canine fecal matter. And, having done the poop gag, the president upped and exited, and left bigshot Dems to pass the evening talking to the guy from across the street. But you’ve got to admit that’s a memorable night out: $7,500 for Dinner with Obama* (*dinner with Obama not included).
At least he didn’t say he had to go home and eat the dog.
Past The $4500 Mark This Weekend
Less than $2500 to go for the space-safety Kickstarter project, but it has to happen by Friday afternoon.
Detroit
The moral of the story:
Even the best tax regimes are cannibalistic: Every tax is an incentive for the taxpayer to relocate to a more friendly jurisdiction. But tax rates are not the only incentive: Google is not going to set up shop in Somalia. Healthy governments create conditions that make it worth paying the taxes — which is to say, governments are a lot like participants in any other competitive market (with some obvious and important exceptions). The benefits of being in Detroit used to be worth the costs, but in recent decades millions of people and thousands of enterprises large and small have decided that is no longer the case. It is not as though one cannot profitably manufacture automobiles in the United States — Toyota does — you just can’t do it very well in Detroit. No one with eyes in his head could honestly think that the services provided by the city of Detroit and the state of Michigan are worth the costs.
The third lesson is moral. Detroit’s institutions have long been marked by corruption, venality, and self-serving. Healthy societies have high levels of trust. Who trusts Detroit? This is not angels-dancing-on-the-head-of-a-pin stuff. People do not invest in firms, industries, cities, or countries they do not trust. Corruption makes people poor.
And here are some recent graphic images of the results, from (Michigan ex-pat) Amy Alkon. As went Detroit, so will go the country, if the Democrats get their way on a national level, as they did in Detroit.
[Late-morning update]
“Detroit is liberalism’s Nagasaki.” Except there’s nothing “liberal” about it.