FAULTY CONSERVATION

Victor Davis Hanson, writing on California's water shortage.

[E]ach acre of food we idle in the United States - just like every barrel of oil we don't pump - means we will import what we take for granted from somewhere else.

We can be sure that even if we find the money to pay those who sell us our imported food and fuel, they will produce it in a lot messier fashion than we can ever imagine - ensuring a poorer America and a dirtier planet all at once.

TANSTAAFL.

NOWHERE TO GO BUT HOME ALONE

Brigid Schulte, a reporter for The Washington Post, is upset.

With the start of sixth grade this year, my son officially became a latchkey child. School lets out at 3:15. My husband and I both work and often don't get home until well after 6. [I]n elementary school, there were at least four different formal after-school programs that filled the gap between the end of his school day and the end of our workday [but] the little that [i]s available for his age group [i]sn't right for him.

Well, she and her husband both work - doesn't that suggest something?

I found smug comments lamenting parents' love of two incomes over the well-being of their children. (Anybody bother to digest the statistic that nearly 80 percent of women with school-age children work outside the home? That's up from 55 percent in 1975. And my guess is they all love their children very much.)

But did she think to look for data about what percent of women with school-age children had to work outside the home? Nope. She has a right to work outside the home, a right to have children, and a right to have the government take care of them.

[Ellie] Mitchell, director of the Maryland Out of School Time Network, argues, as does U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, that the school day is outmoded. "After-school is always seen as something extra," she said. "But I don't know why 9 to 3 is so much more important than 3 to 6. It's all just the time that kids are not with their families."

Doesn't she have a responsibility somewhere in all those rights?

[Update] It's illegal to be a good samaritan and do something liberals believe the government should be doing.

GOVERNMENT TRANSPARENCY

What Obama said. "Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this Presidency."

What Obama meant.

CAN SODA TAXES

Soda tax myths.

1. Sin taxes are for our own good.
2. Soda is causing the obesity epidemic.
3. Soda taxes help everyone.
4. High-fructose corn syrup is extremely hazardous to your health.
5. Obesity is driving health-care costs up. A soda tax is just a user fee.

The myths are obvious, but go ahead and read the article for details.

WHAT 'CADILLAC' REALLY MEANS

When is a Cadillac not a Cadillac?

When it's my Cadillac.

WE, THE JOURNALISTS

Michael Gerson on ”cyber-bigots:”

The triumph of Nazi propaganda in this period is the subject of a remarkable exhibit at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum....

Ah, yes ... let’s start with the Nazi comparison, shall we?

[I]n the course of a few years, a fringe party was able to define a national community by scapegoating internal enemies; elevate a single, messianic leader; and keep the public docile with hatred....

This obviously doesn’t apply to the Democrat party, right?

But it was radio that proved the most powerful tool.... “You were bombarded by information that you were unable to verify or critically evaluate. It was the Internet of its time,” [says Steve Luckert, curator at the Holocaust
Museum]....

Ah, yes, the “poor dumb masses” trope.

It is a disorienting atmosphere in which information is difficult to verify or critically evaluate, the rules of discourse are unclear, and emotion -- often expressed in CAPITAL LETTERS -- is primary. User-driven content on the Internet often consists of bullying, conspiracy theories and racial prejudice.... It ... allows hatred to invade respected institutional spaces on the Internet, gaining for these ideas a legitimacy denied to fringe Web sites.

And “professional-driven” content doesn’t? (cf. “teabaggers”.)

Legally restricting such content ... is impossible. In America, the First Amendment protects blanket statements of bigotry. But this does not mean that popular news sites ... are constitutionally required to provide forums for bullies and bigots. As private institutions, they are perfectly free to set rules against racism and hatred. This is not censorship; it is the definition of standards.

And the standards should be set by?

Some online institutions, such as The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, screen user comments ... to identify objectionable content.... [H]atred must be confined to the fringes of our culture -- as the hatred of other times should have been.

And just the Obama administration is full of “thin-skinned whiners”? Oh, ... never mind.