Who is John Galt?

$100,000,000 in proper perspective

Thanks to Reverse_Vampyr:

they had him at "I, arlen specter"

"Finally," a friend said upon hearing the news, "we can stop paying to re-elect one of their guys."  My own first thought had been good riddance, and I'd have used that title here if everyone else hadn't already beaten me to it.  (And I mean everyone: Googling "Arlen Specter" + "good riddance" returns about 17,000 hits, and it hasn't even been 24 hours yet.)

I want to talk about the two reasons a person might be conservative.  The first reason is principles.  A principled conservative recognizes that the world works a certain way, bound by realities like supply and demand, and that prosperity comes when man's laws acknowledge the reality he lives in. 

The principled conservative has a fundamental problem with liberalism; namely, that it ignores the realities of economics.  Liberalism results in policies where the economics don't work, forcing people to choose between being punished by supply and demand or being punished by the law.  For a conservative who recognizes its inherent flaws, liberalism is not an option -- it's a form of evil.

drive

One of the economic curiosities of our time is the great wealth that celebrities -- athletes, actors, musicians -- accumulate while producing nothing of practical utility.  We all hear the question from time to time: Is this pitcher or that actress really worth all those millions of dollars?

Every now and then -- usually when Mrs. Galt has the remote control -- I end up catching something on the Biography Channel.  Most recently, the subject was actor Will Smith.  And even though I didn't know anything about Will Smith except for the movies and TV shows I'd seen him in, there was one part I already knew would be in there: an unstoppable work ethic.

what if the certificate said "gay marriage license"?

And, of course, this is the problem with "civil unions": they're not called "marriage."

Now, I wouldn't use any of the conventional terms for heterosexual sex to describe gay sex, so I'm understandably reluctant to let activists start redefining other traditionally heterosexual terms just to stuff an agenda down the public's throat. 

Even so, I recognize a legitimate equal protection claim on the part of gays -- they have real challenges getting their partners recognized as next-of-kin.

What's interesting here is that I believe support for civil unions -- and thus for addressing the equal protection issue -- is high even if the public doesn't want to call it marriage.  Gays who are holding out for marriage are not helping the cause of gays who need the legal remedy of civil union.  Even worse, that legitimate claim is jeopardized by the implication that this is really all about social engineering.

English is what's known as a "natural language."  Dictionaries don't tell us how to speak it; they simply document how it's spoken.  That said, when was the last time you can remember government being used to redefine a word you use all the time?  Was it 1984?

swine flu

It goes without saying that this is going to cause some government growth.  Just try to remember that all the commotion is coming from people who profit from commotion, both in government and the media.

tim geithner = wesley mouch?

Listening to Atlas Shrugged on CD in my car this weekend, I recognized Tim Geithner in the character of Wesley Mouch.  So I Googled "Geithner Mouch," and got about 775 hits.  I guess I'm not the only one to notice the resemblance.

BTW, if you know somebody who might enjoy Atlas, but who doesn't have time to read a phone book, you might want to consider giving it to them on CD.  Total running time is about ten hours -- many people could finish it over the course of commuting to work for a week or so.

obama to gm: lose pontiac

Apparently Barry's a Buick man. 

On the bright side, now that Obama's taken over, GM is no longer thinking about ditching Saturn.  Instead the axe will fall on Pontiac, which builds imports excitement.  Not sure about GMC Truck, which is sold primarily on Pontiac lots, but they could be on the block too since their product line is virtually identical to Chevy's trucks.

GM's kind of a conglomerate -- or at least it was when its market cap was bigger than Avon's.  If you build Pontiacs for a living, then after your summer vacation this year you can still build Chevy hybrids.  But if you worked at a Pontiac dealership... well, I think it's safe to say the used-car department is about to take over the entire showroom. 

"a full-fledged nuclear power"

For those who haven't seen this before, nighttime satellite imagery. 

The long, brightly lit island nation to the right is Japan.  The island of light to Japan's left is South Korea.  I call it an "island of light" because the Koreas are not islands at all, but a peninsula.  South Korea only looks like an island at night because the "full-fledged nuclear power" to its north lies in near-total darkness.

Kim Jong-Il prefaces everything he does as a response to the threat that the South Koreans (and the US) could invade at any moment.  Invade and do what, exactly?  Is he afraid we're gonna put up power lines and street lights?

favorite youtube video

This video is cool, but it's the music that grabs you: "Champions," from Era's The Mass.

the proper size of government

Allow me to present a maxim you probably already know:

Liberals and conservatives disagree on the proper size of government.

Now, most people are probably inclined to agree with this, but it makes a very dangerous assumption -- specifically, that government can ever be big enough for liberals.

When you debate the role of government with a liberal, it can be a lot like ordering lunch with a very hungry friend after you've agreed to split the check.  He's going to order a lot more than you, and he's going to demand that you pay your "fair share."  This is probably an adequate way of rationalizing it if you need to explain why you shouldn't split checks with friends, or why it's important to you that your friend order from the lunch menu and skip the Bananas Foster.

But, strategically-speaking, this approach never addresses the real problem: your friend's eating disorder.