A NEW DEFINITION OF 'SHOVEL READY'.

Solyndra, a manufacturer of solar panels, is bankrupt, which is inconvenient for the Obama administration, which extended half a billion dollars' worth of loan guarantees to the firm as part of the president's stimulus effort. The inconvenience extends to the 1,100 Solyndra employees who have just lost their jobs and to the U.S. taxpayers who may be on the hook for the bankrupt firm's loans. The project was indeed "shovel ready," as the president likes to put it; unhappily, in this case, the shovel belongs to the gravedigger. Perhaps the gravestone could read: "Another project funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act."

From the dead tree edition of National Review (October 3, 2011)