Attack of the Lynx! [Part V]

The Economist has a cleverly-written while fairly pedestrian look at the first half-year of the Obama administration. Some choice quotes:

• "An impression is being formed in Washington of a presidency that is far too ready to hand over the direction of domestic policy to Congress; that is drifting either deliberately or lethargically leftwards; and that is more comfortable with lofty visions than details."
• "He has been curiously ill-served by a press short of useful criticism, with liberal America prepared only to debate what sort of water he walks on best, while conservative radio hosts argue over when exactly he became a communist."
• "What should Mr Obama do? He must come down from his cloud and start leading. The House Democrats could be usefully reminded that their present 78-seat margin owes everything to the president’s coat-tails; they are endangering his popularity."

Your faithful Heritage automaton brings you this public service announcement: "One Pill, Two Pill, Red Pill, Blue Pill: Top 10 Reasons Obamacare Is Wrong for America." But seriously, please do read it, even if you disagree with all 10, I think it's really important. It is 1/6 of the American economy, after all, and we all come into contact with it at some point.

In related news, from Rasmussen via Sullivan:


Enough politics.

I found this article from October 2008 in the NYT that raises some interesting questions about both infidelity and social science research: "Infidelity appears to be on the rise, particularly among older men and young couples. Notably, women appear to be closing the adultery gap: younger women appear to be cheating on their spouses nearly as often as men...data show that in any given year, about 10 percent of married people — 12 percent of men and 7 percent of women — say they have had sex outside their marriage."

I've always been a little skeptical of the mega-church crowd (Osteen, Warren, et al) and this Slate piece by Clint Rainey raises some interesting points - "God wants to give you your own home." Sorry, I missed that in my Bible. ("It's not my job to try to straighten everybody out," Osteen famously told Larry King in 2005, adding, "My message is a message of hope.")

St. Paul was awesome and this is kind of even more awesome. "Benedict said archaeologists recently unearthed and opened the white marble sarcophagus located under the Basilica of St. Paul's Outside the Walls in Rome, which for some 2,000 years has been believed by the faithful to be the tomb of St. Paul."

"The girls—all white and middle class—started budding breasts a full year earlier than their counterparts just 15 years ago (the age of menstruation had advanced about four months). While that’s a stunner in itself, the real head-scratcher was that the change in girls’ body weight was minimal and couldn’t account for the difference. Nearly all the girls in both groups were relatively thin...So if fat isn’t resetting the puberty clock, what is?" Two theories are divorce and the media, according to the Double X blog.

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A couple Holy Saturday links:

"For all of his hopes about bipartisanship, Barack Obama has the most polarized early job approval ratings of any president in the past four decades." Pew says 61 point-differential. Now, I am going to be the first (well, probably not, but proverbially) to blame this on El Rusho, et al., but I think it does speak to the fact that extremism is no longer the province of one persuasion or the other. I think that both sides are guilty in the same the way that both sides are guilty for cramming as much stuff down as they can and incurring it upon themselves (see: Patriot Act, ARRA.)

From Harvey Mansfield, via AEI:

• "What has happened in the last few months should give them pause. It should make them consider the necessity of looking at economics from the outside, at how it looks and behaves as a whole...Virtue is a habit, not a calculation. It reflects the fact that human beings live in an overall way of life, in diverse ways of life; it is not possible for us, or most of us, to live perfectly flexibly, always ready to calculate anew in fresh circumstances what it is in our interest to do. Thus the ideal of calculated self-interest posited by economics is not a human possibility. We will get in the habit of being spenders or savers and will not be able to turn on a dime, changing our behavior when our interest changes."

It's a little wordy but worth a read for any of my economically-minded conspirators.

This blog post is excellent. The writer should be promoted and given a wreath of honor, the keys to the city, and a bowl of Macaroni and Cheese.