What I Learned

During my 12-day absence, I missed the hell out of blogging. I was relentlessly pressuring my brother to “Get the blog back up!”, which is fairly presumptuous since I don’t pay him nuthin’. Anyway, there may only be three people that read this blog if you include my cat. But there’s something therapeutic about putting my thoughts out there. At the very least, it puts off my rendezvous with a rooftop and an AK-47 off for a few more days each time I post.

There’s been a lot to talk about. We’ve had:

  • Republicans insisting that the Brit pullout means things are going well. The GOP loves the “everything is going fine in 80% of the country” meme. I’m really glad we’ve secured such huge areas of uninhabited desert. When it’s possible to drive from Baghdad to the airport without being shot, let us know.
  • Walter Williams brilliantly guest-hosted for Limbaugh and wrote a column on one my favorite subjects — the danger of Opportunity Cost.
  • John Stossell had a nice special on the disproportionate fear we have of things. We fear terrorism and child abduction more than we fear lightning strikes, which kill more people. Of course, it’s not that simple. We feel like we can prevent terrorism and child abduction. Most people don’t feel that way about lightning.
  • Cato reported that kids are, for the first time, trailing their parents in education. The NYT chimed in that grades are rising even as reading ability falters. This is the system we have to forgo vouchers to protect? Every day makes it clearer to me that our education system is fundamentally broken.
  • And there was a nice diatribe from Radley Balko in response to Michael Medved’s nonsense about how only men of God can be President.