The Weekly Enlightenment

The big uproar the past couple of weeks is the Henry Louis Gates issue. Basically Gates (who is black) came home and couldn't get into his house so he forced it open. A passerby called police thinking it was a break-in, and Gates became belligerent. He was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. President Obama, acknowledging he didn't have all the facts, nonetheless condemned the police, saying they acted stupidly. Gates turned it into a racial issue since the arresting officer was white. The other two officers, one black and one Hispanic, back up the white officer's story. For one thing, it is something Obama should never have been involved in. Second, since he didn't have all the facts he shouldn't have said anything. Third, even with the beer at the White House, Obama still didn't apologize. Why not? He was obviously wrong in speaking out prematurely, but even more wrong not owning up to it. He tried to switch gears saying it is a teachable moment about race. No it wasn't. It was about trying to exploit a situation he had no business saying anything on in the first place. This prompted Brit Hume of Fox News to comment, "This president who travels the world apologizing for his country couldn't quite apologize for himself."

Some media outlets saying recession is over (unemployment is still going up and other economic indictors aren't looking as good, but for argument's sake). Then can't we cancel the stimulus money that hasn't yet been spent? I've heard as low as 6% of the stimulus has been spent. Then we should also put to rest the notion that somehow the government can spend its way out of the recession. Not that we didn't know that already, with Japan's stagflation and that we couldn't spend our way out of the Great Depression, but fine. Sometimes we have to repeat history a few times to finally get the picture.

Great point on redstate.com - Lasik and plastic surgery are getting cheaper, and they're the ones where free market conditions actually apply.

MUST READ
* Dodd and Conrad got sweetheart deals . Didn't Democrats say they were going to have the most ethical Congress in history? And where is the Democratic leadership demanding they step down? Would this stand if these were Republican senators?
* We are finally having a discussion on race (though we've been talking about it for decades), but now Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder are silent. Why?
* This is scary. How does Obama propose to do that? Have a bureaucrat in every doctor's office? Obviously the conclusion is inevitable. If doctors will get penalized for not being able to treat bad patients, why would they take on bad patients at all? It is the exact same thing as doctors opting out of taking Medicare patients.
* Obama keeps saying his opponents are playing the politics of fear, but that is exactly what Obama is doing. When he's not blaming Bush.
* This has to give one confidence if government is going to run health care.

Health Care
* 5 freedoms you will lose under the current plan in Congress.
* Remember this when liberals hold up Medicare as a great example of something the government can do right.

Silly Liberals
* The House Judiciary chairman sees no point in actually reading the bill before voting on it. Interesting. Perhaps the bill is too complex then.

Silly Republicans, Kind Of
* The Obama birth certificate argument for many is that they hope he wasn't a US citizen by birth, and therefore wouldn't be eligible for the Presidency. That's why I haven't covered it. Not that it isn't important, but just that we have bigger fish to fry. My issue with it was that Obama promised to be open (unlike Bush) and bring in change, both of which are not true. It's about honesty. One other problem is that liberal bloggers try to perpetuate it and make it seem as if it is a bigger deal than it actually is.

What Global Warming?
* It was always a farce that there was a consensus. Yet, it is still nice to see things like this.

Miscellaneous
* Hatred of Israel is from a misunderstanding of economics. Ignorance is an expensive commodity.