Happy Birthday to Brandy, 34.
On to the good stuff:
1. Good one from Felicia Sonmez about getting mentioned in the SOTU. Note: it's not exactly a lesson in how the presidency works in general, but the one real thing that's well-illustrated by the movie "Dave" is that it really does matter what comes out of the presidential mouth.
2. A new site: four political scientists talk about The Invisible Primary, plus it looks like other party and elections stuff. Here's David Wiltse on the Rove group.
3. Heath care costs in Massachusetts? Rising. Sarah Kliff has it.
4. CRS has updated U.S. casualty numbers for Afghanistan and Iraq.
5. And head to the Monkey Cage and Joshua Tucker for what political scientists have found about papal elections.
The NYT noted that Benedict will become the first "retired" pope in 600 years; given the Catholic Church's centralization of power, its not clear how well an "ex-pope" hanging around will work.
ReplyDeleteThis got me thinking about Ken Lay. Remember when Lay was a couple days from reporting to prison, an event which would trigger an automatic forfeiture of the considerable assets in his estate? Lay died of a relatively mysterious heart attack, as he was in decent health and relatively young.
Your mileage - and the pope's, and Ken Lay's - may vary.
Sarah Kliffs piece is disturbing; it describes price controls as the solution. This method is overused. Since leftists run the world, they should try to be more creative, but the allure of coercion seems to overwhelm them. Too bad that US healthcare will look even worse shortly.
ReplyDelete