Looting the Lockbox
Republicans are said to have run up a blind alley since Boehner rejected the Senate version of the payroll tax cut. McConnell is still pushing hard for a 2 month extension of the cuts. After that, they can fight it out again – if Social Security isn’t broke yet. Where’s that lockbox?
Update: House Republicans cave.
Lockbox sighting?
When Messiahs go Mano a Mano
Thomas Sowell is just fine with Newt. And Jacob Weisberg thinks Newt is nuts. Meanwhile, “The One We’ve Been Waiting For” rates himself the 4th best president in history, edged out of the top spot by Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Johnson.
Obit Week
The year 2011 was the end of the line for guys who changed the world – Steve Jobs in one way, Vaclav Havel in another. Anne Applebaum tells how Havel ‘s essay “Power to the Powerless” changed the world. His great insight was that all totalitarian regimes are based on a lie. If individuals “live in the truth” the lie dies and the regime collapses. That’s what happened with the velvet revolution in Czechoslovakia.
As it happens, Havel was overshadowed in death by the totalitarian leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-Il. Or Kim Jong-Dead, as Rush Limbaugh kept referring to him yesterday.
The Dear Leader’s birth on a sacred mountaintop is said to have been announced by a talking swallow. In addition to his miraculous golf scorecard, he claimed the power to order up perfect weather for his birthdays. He wasn’t completely without humility, though, having never claimed to cause the planet to heal or the oceans to recede.
Many tree bark eating North Koreans who mourned the death of their epicurian leader (his annual bar tab for Hennessy Cognac alone was over half a million dollars) don’t seem to be “living in the truth” so much. But then what would you expect from a nation of racist dwarfs.
Christopher Hitchens, RIP
My favorite atheist has moved on to meet his maker. He deserves extra credit for his independent mind, brilliant wit, courage, and humanity.
Here’s a link, sent by another Hitchens fan, to a speech he made to the Christian Academy in Texas.
“Take the risk of thinking for yourself, much more happiness, truth, beauty, and wisdom will come to you that way.”
