SHOULD THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA BE SUBSIDIZED? Absolutely not.

PAMPERED POPULISTS: “It's surreal to see President Obama play the class-warfare card against the Republicans while on his way to vacation on the tony Maine coast, and even more interesting to note that now gone are the days when the media used to caricature Bush I (‘Poppy’) for boating in the summer off the preppie-sounding Kennebunkport. The truth is that the real big money and the lifestyles that go with it are now firmly liberal Democratic.”

GOOD LUCK. Progressives to “improve California.”

DO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE want the health-care world Dr. Berwick wishes to give them? Here are just some of Berwick’s thoughts on ObamaCare:

I cannot believe that the individual health care consumer can enforce through choice the proper configurations of a system as massive and complex as health care. That is for leaders to do (emphasis mine).

[I]t's important ... to make health a human right because the main health determinants are not health care but sanitation, nutrition, housing, social justice, employment, and the like.

I would place a commitment to ... standardization ... above clinician autonomy as a rule for care.

Welcome to Huxley’s Brave New World.

UPDATE & BUMP: More here.

WHO’S TO BLAME? The Gulf oil spill, the financial crisis – all brought to you by the cult of corporate social responsibility.

Encouraged by NGO’s and aided and abetted by the federal government.

BANKS WIN; you lose.

The big banks won big Thursday as Democratic lawmakers, with the help of the New England Republican caucus, finally extruded the Dodd-Frank financial bill.The big six get VIP regulation and permanent status as too big to fail. They’ll be able to soak up capital from around the world with the implicit backing of the U.S. Treasury as smaller banks struggle for cash and contend with niggling new regulations.

Wasn’t it “too big to fail” that got us into this mess in the first place?

HOW TO REMOVE an unwanted bumper sticker. Listen carefully at the very end.

LOUISANA GOV. BOBBY JINDAL: Ban on deep-water drilling adds insult to injury.

By now, everyone no doubt realizes that I am not a fan of the pace at which the federal government has worked to contain the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Sadly, federal officials were slow to act and overly bureaucratic....

Against this backdrop, the federal government unwisely chose to add insult to injury by decreeing a moratorium on deepwater drilling in the gulf. This ill-advised and ill-considered moratorium ... risks killing 20,000 more jobs and will result in a loss of $65 million to $135 million in wages each month.

[B]y simply stopping all deepwater drilling, federal officials appear more interested in ideology and scoring political points -- as they have done with the misguided cap-and-trade legislation -- at the expense of Americans who derive their livelihood from the energy industry.

Yes. It’s about control, not compassion.

INSTAPUNDIT ON THE PRESIDENT’S WEEKLY RADIO ADDRESS: “Stupid fatcat Republicans — and to maintain their majority, they’re just going to go on making more and more rich people until the country’s completely under their thumb. Meanwhile the Democrats are the party of the poor, man, and — uh, can we get rewrite on this?”

COLLEGES AND HIGH SCHOOLS aren’t preparing students for workplace. “It seems that everyone makes out well from high school and college, except those who must pay for and attend them. Remember all those college administrators and high school teachers who talk about ethnic and cultural studies, and all those other education fashions ...? Turns out they don’t make a lick of difference in the employers’ bottom line.”

UNDER OBAMA, the business of America is government.

The problem for a president and a Cabinet lacking business experience is that they don't understand what the private sector is all about.

President Obama believes its purpose is to "create jobs." The folks out in nongovernment America believe the goal is to make money.

Does ObamaCare will cover Xanax for “free-floating anxiety”?

ANOTHER SMALL STEP: Virgin Galactic's private spaceship makes first crewed flight.



HISTORICAL NOTE: the space shuttle Enterprise made its maiden "flight" on February 18, 1977 atop a Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA) to measure structural loads and ground handling and braking characteristics of the mated system. Its first crewed flight atop the 747 was made shortly thereafter.

AL QAEDA is racist? Why, sure. If Tea Partiers = Racists and Terrorists = Racists, then Tea Partiers = Terrorists. It’s obvious to the most nuanced mind.

THIS DEBT IS LIKE A CANCER. Speaking at the National Governors Association annual meeting, the co-chairmen of President Obama's debt and deficit commission offered an ominous assessment of the nation's fiscal future.

[A]t present, federal revenue is fully consumed by three programs: Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. "The rest of the federal government, including fighting two wars, homeland security, education, art, culture, you name it, veterans -- the whole rest of the discretionary budget is being financed by China and other countries," [Alan] Simpson said.

"We can't grow our way out of this," [Erskine] Bowles said. "We could have decades of double-digit growth and not grow our way out of this enormous debt problem. We can't tax our way out.... The reality is we've got to do exactly what you all do every day as governors. We've got to cut spending or increase revenues or do some combination of that."

An Instapundit reader asks if this debt-as-cancer thing makes Congress the equivalent of Big Tobacco. Instapundit’s reply? “Worse: Big Tobacco had to persuade you to smoke.”

FIRST DOG flies to vacation on separate jet. The First Couple’s oversized egos took up too much room ....

Instapundit reacts.

And Chris Muir captures the moment perfectly.

TARANIS UNVEILED: the first British unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) debuts. First flight is expected in 2011.


The comments are illuminating – but not necessarily in a positive manner.