Friday, November 04, 2005

"Enlightened Jacksonianism"

Just as I was getting depressed with the analysis of the Paris riots, Victor Davis Hanson comes along and cheers me up.

He concludes that the efforts of the Bush Doctrine, while certainly far from perfect, are reaching results both "striking, and admirable."

Eurabian Civil War

I can never seem to get home in time to catch Mark Steyn on the web with Hewitt so I am grateful to Radioblogger for those long posts. Great discussion on the Paris riots.

Thursday, November 03, 2005

Is OJ now searching for a thief?

The Houston Chronicle reports, "U.S. District Judge Theodore Klein ordered Simpson last week to pay $33,678 in attorneys' fees and costs" to DirecTV "two months after he was ordered to pay the company $25,000 for pirating its satellite television signals."

Wish I could say the title was mine...I stole the concept from a friend.

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

Memory at Middle Age

Not only do I now have to wear those $2.00 reading glasses (still at magnification 1.0, thanks) at the computer and any font less than 14 (forget about maps in the car at night or menus in dimly lit restaurants), now I have to suffer with an unreliable memory.

Yesterday in our weekly Business Section Meeting at my firm, an associate mentioned that he was working on a file representing a hospital against a donor who wanted his donation returned because the hospital was not using the funds as he proscribed at the time the donation was made. (Actually, the proscriptions were quite broad and we all agreed that the hospital was, in fact, using the donation appropriately but we're talking about ME here.)

I chimed in confidently that I'd read about a case involving a large donation made to Harvard early in the 20th Century that was to be used for specific purposes within what would later become the JFK School of Government. The heirs of the donors wanted the money back because Harvard wasn't using the donation sufficiently within the parameters of the donors' proscriptions.

Today the associate found this article in the New Mexican.

No, the donation was in fact made during JFK's term not in the early 20th Century. Donor graduated from Princeton in 1926 and I'm not even sure if the second quarter qualifies as "early."

Princeton, not Harvard; Woodrow Wilson, not Kennedy.

Suit was filed in 2002 so it's not like I read about this in law school. The indignity.

Social Security unfair in effect...

I first heard this point made by Walter Williams while guest hosting for Limbaugh one day several years ago. Thomas Sowell repeats it today in his column, Civil Rights Rites.

"Social Security is not a racial policy either, but economists who have studied it have long described it as a system that transfers money from black men to white women, given the different life expectancies of these two groups."

When one considers the obvious truth to the description, why has there been so little discussion? Another reason for the privatization, even if a contributor didn't live long enough to access the privatized account, at least he could leave it to his spouse or children.

"Revolt for Excellence"

Blankley's Miers analysis is best I've seen...

Though I was wobbly in the Hugh Hewitt and Beldar camp until I cratered at the very end, I'm looking forward to the fight. Though I expect too little civility, I believe it will be a genuine battle of ideas. Survival of the fittest in the marketplace/jungle of ideas. The right has been training for thirty years. This should be fun.