Coruscation

We all hate suburban sprawl, right? "Wrong." So says libertarian John Stossel as he attempts to debunk the sprawl-is-bad argument in his Myths, Lies and Nasty Behavior series on ABC.

If Stossel wants to to expand Americans' lifestyle choices, he should attack the very thing he was defending," says Austin Bramwell: "For the 101st time: sprawl--an umbrella term for the pattern of development seen virtually everywhere in the United States--is not caused by the free market." Instead, government regulations, zoning laws, building codes, and street design regulations actually "mandate" it. Bramwell is perplexed: "You would think that libertarians would instinctively grasp the deeply statist nature of suburban development."

- Austin Bramwell of the American Conservative

Continue reading "Conservatives should blame the state for sprawl" »

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One set are free-enterprise champions who argue that politicizing consumption distorts prices and spurs overproduction while imposing arbitrary conditions on producers -- like insisting that developing-world farmers enroll their children in school -- that might sound good to Westerners but ignore complex local realities.

Insisting on the noblest production methods conflicts, these critics say, with the very function of markets: to bring the most goods to the most people as cheaply as possible.

Another group of critics doesn't deny political consumption's power. Rather, they bemoan that citizenship has come to this.

Citizenship, for them, is about voting, marching, writing -- about being involved. In the modern age, they say, we have begun to turn inward, bowl alone, shirk our public duties. And now comes this cheap (in the moral, if not economic, sense) way to participate just a little, assuage guilt just a little, involve ourselves just a little in AIDS and trade, feel just a little of activism's thrill.

In an article last year in The Lancet, the British medical journal, the scholars Colleen O'Manique and Ronald Labonte strongly condemned RED, the marketing campaign for iPods and other products whose purchase helps to finance the battle against H.I.V./AIDS in Africa.

"Be wary of the 21st century's new noblesse oblige that replaces the efficiency of tax-funded programs and transfers in improving health equity with a consumption-driven 'charitainment' model," they wrote.

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Republican neighborhoods are going to fall next. Why? Because they're broke. Ever listen to the ads on conservative talk radio? Talk about targeting a demographic.

Continue reading "Falling home prices, to continue falling ?" »

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Steele was right: his power is not based on politics, it's based on entertainment. Great entertainers like Winchell and Limbaugh manage to simplify politics, to find ways of making it "us against them," to find ways to dramatize, to demonize, to villainize, to narrativize.

NYT

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Sam Kazman on the 'benefits' on mandated change:

Continue reading "Sam Kazman Debates Obama's Car Mileage Regulations" »

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"Kent Hance was a down-home boy, real homey, and George W. wasn't homey like Kent," recalled Johnnye Davis, a Republican leader in Odessa. "He didn't come across to the voters as well as Kent did, with the little jokes that Kent told."

While Mr. Bush now is sometimes mocked for an ignorance of policy details, back then people thought he had the opposite problem: a tendency to drop references in his speeches that baffled audiences, like a discussion of anti-inflationary economic policy.

"He was quick, a bit too quick, so that people didn't always get it," Mrs. Davis said. "He was so darn intelligent that a lot of what he said went over people's heads. He's learned to explain things a little better since then."

Another problem was that while Mr. Bush never really had a clear campaign strategy, Mr. Hance did: he focused his campaign on emphasizing local ties and on casting Mr. Bush as a carpet-bagger from the East. One of Mr. Hance's most effective radio spots was this one, read by an announcer:

"In 1961, when Kent Hance graduated from Dimmitt High School in the 19th congressional district, his opponent George W. Bush was attending Andover Academy in Massachusetts. In 1965, when Kent Hance graduated from Texas Tech, his opponent was at Yale University. And while Kent Hance graduated from University of Texas Law School, his opponent" -- the announcer's voice plunged -- "get this, folks, was attending Harvard. We don't need someone from the Northeast telling us what our problems are."

Continue reading "Bush in 1978: before playing country cowboy" »

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We must how the planet that you're tiny and we're not.

-- Newt Gingrich

America is strong so long as its culture is strong and manly;
in order to keep America strong, neocons and religious
conservative attack internal movements or forces which
seem to threaten to weaken America's manly, violent resolve.

Americans who dissent or who "abuse" personal freedom
threaten the nation's unity. Those who criticize the war are
helping America's enemies by attacking America's willingness
to use violence to humiliate others.

-- Patriotboy

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Reasonable JulianSanchez notes the prophecy of Max Headroom,

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Crunch-Con humble conservatives ? Example: Pelos movie on evangelical culture.

"Culture war" is the right's version of the left's "class war."

Continue reading "Crunchy Con" »

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Division of Labour econ blog finds Milton Friedman week,
with market conservative leanings.

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Freeper's homosexualagenda is a (inadvertently) great source for queer news.

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Stein Report covers immigration law, visa rules and
enforcement in Drudge Report style.
See also house immigration caucus.

Continue reading "Stein Report on immigration law" »

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Stylish Coloradoan VodkaPundit's serious thinking or linking.
Bonus points for recommending I’m An Adult Now by
The Pursuit of Happiness.
--
If you like TPOH, you'd like Jerry Jerry & Sons Of Rhythm Orchestra's
Battle Hymn of the Apartment.

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Club for Growth is pro growth and proud of it.

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Debbie Schlussel, Ann Coulter lite.
Often supports Israel against Islamic Jihad.

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Patrick Crozier, more linker than thinker, points
to many good quotes.

In a comparison of a 1973 algebra textbook and a 1998
“contemporary mathematics” textbook, Williamson Evers
and Paul Clopton found a dramatic change in topics.

In the 1973 book, for example, the index for the letter “F”
included “factors, factoring, fallacies, finite decimal,
finite set, formulas, fractions, and functions.”

In the 1998 book, the index listed “families (in poverty data),
fast food nutrition data, fat in fast food, feasibility study,
feeding tours, ferris wheel, fish, fishing, flags, flight, floor plan,
flower beds, food, football, Ford Mustang, franchises, and
fund-raising carnival."

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It is no coincidence that our present troubles parallel and are
proportionate to the intervention and intrusion in our lives
that result from unnecessary and excessive growth of government.

-- Ronald Reagan, inauguration speech 2001.

Reagan was stupid, Reagan did what he was told, Reagan was
a tool of capital, Reagan was such a wuss that some unemployed
filthy termagants on Greenham Common scared him into
changing the foreign policy of the most powerful nation on earth.

-- Bilious Young Fogey

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This Republican Theme Park from America is My Girlfriend by Jasik.

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Tim Blair / Spleenville, lively and colourfull blogger from Australia has a new blog.

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Tim Lee / binarybits, free marketer sometimes politial blog.

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samizdata, libertarian leaning.

What makes dictators dictators is not that they
don't believe in the power of the majority but
that they don't believe in the rights of the individual.

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Belgravia Dispatch, longer articles, internationally minded.

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Daniel Drezner, political theory and longer posts, and the
restful life of an academic.

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Andrew Sullivan, Daily Dish.
Literate non-hating conservative writer.

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Chicago Boyz examine the data on Iraqi war losses.

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Belmont Club. History and history in the making. (archives).

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