"Squanderville versus Thriftville"; making economics understandable

Warren Buffet via FreeRepublic.com  "...take a wildly fanciful trip with me to two isolated, side-by-side islands of equal size, Squanderville and Thriftville. Land is the only capital asset on these islands, and their communities are primitive, needing only food and producing only food. Working eight hours a day, in fact, each inhabitant can produce enough food to sustain himself or herself. And for a long time that's how things go along. On each island everybody works the prescribed eight hours a day, which means that each society is self-sufficient. " Hat tip to Kerby Anderson of Probe Ministries' Point of View . From Kerby's book, Making the Most of Your Money in Tough Times

Atlanta TV Station Channel 2 - special on Arizona Border

WSBTV  This video will curl your hair.
Hat tip to Tom Mills, Santa Maria, Ca

Obama’s Fed Picks Promise More Keynesian Failure: Amity Shlaes

Amity Shlaes "All hail Keynes. That’s the message in President Barack Obama’s decision to nominate Janet Yellen, Peter Diamond, and Sarah Bloom Raskin to fill vacancies at the Federal Reserve. This trio makes sense only if you believe the philosophy of the most influential economist of the modern era, John Maynard Keynes. What makes them odd choices is that the events of the past five years don’t make Keynes look good. Other schools of economic thought come to mind instead. One is the public choice school, which holds that Keynesianism uses crises as pretext to enlarge governments. "
What is Keynesianism?

What's really behind SEIU's Bank of America protests?

Nina Easton "Targeting homes and families seems to put SEIU in the ranks of (now jailed) radical animal-rights activists and the Kansas anti-gay fundamentalists harassing the grieving parents of a dead 20-year-old soldier at his funeral (the Supreme Court has agreed to weigh in on the latter). But that's not a conversation that SEIU officials want to have."
Nina Easton is a frequent panelist on Fox News Special Report with Bret Baier.

North vs. South Korea: How Bad Could a War Get?

 Pajamas Media "Turkey has already de facto left NATO, in favor of rising Persian power. Obama has personally handed Israel its hat and coat, and shoved it towards the door. Britain has been insulted, India snubbed, and the French ignored. It wouldn’t take much more to see what remains of our alliances blown apart. In fact, it wouldn’t take anything more than the slightest wobble in dealing with a Second Korean War.
"And as this administration continues to do little or nothing as “the risk of all-out war” reaches historical highs, the signal being sent is most un-American.
" “Tread on Me.” "

Our Chief Confessor

Victor Davis Hanson    "Instead of seeing his nation or its states as the problem, our president would do better to focus on the woes of the European Union, North Korea’s sinking of a South Korean ship, Iran’s plans to get the bomb, continued terrorist attacks in the U.S., wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and Mexico’s encouragement of its own citizens to violate American immigration law. Right now there are quite enough foreign felonies in the world without dwelling on American misdemeanors."

Escalating problem of terrorist infiltration via the southern border

Eileen F. Toplansky in AT ; "The rules of warfare have changed immensely and while "profiling is not congenial to our tender postmodern sensibilities" as Andrew McCarthy has written, the security of our country is supposed to be the number one priority of the President of the United States. The chickens don't invite the fox into their coop ~ why should we encourage terrorists into our country?"  Policing without profiling makes no sense  "We have met the enemy, and it is militant Islam. Yet we refuse to acknowledge that fact, pretending that the enemy is “terror” — a method of attack — rather than the terrorists who employ that method. The latest expression of our refusal to identify the enemy is our ongoing debate over “racial profiling.” One cannot listen to this debate without wondering whether three decades of political correctness have undermined not only the common sense necessary for survival, but our will to survival itself." ANDREW C. McCARTHY

U.S. police chiefs say Arizona immigration law will increase crime

Washington Post "While the Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police opposes the new law, elected sheriffs including Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu, head of the Arizona Sheriff's Association, back it. Babeu said cooperation from illegal immigrants, particularly those coming from Mexico, is already low because they are in the United States illegally and because of law enforcement corruption in their native countries.
"The people of Arizona believe the overall majority of Americans are not only supportive of this law, but that our measure of generosity has been crossed, a line has been crossed," Babeu said. "

Democrats propose tax hikes in response to Schwarzenegger's fiscal plan

LA Times "The Democrats who control the Legislature have fired their opening salvo against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's spending blueprint, which proposed eliminating California's welfare program and cutting deeply into other state services, by proposing that the state rely instead on billions of dollars in new taxes to balance the budget. The Assembly's Democrats detailed a plan Tuesday that would tax oil companies and borrow billions from the nickel-and-dime deposits that consumers make on recyclable bottles and cans. Tax breaks for businesses that are scheduled to take effect soon would be delayed under the plan."
Neal Boortz's comment on this: "Read this article and then tell me why any sane person with an ounce of drive to succeed would move to California and/or start a business there."

Joe Sestak Wants Terrorists Tried in Open Court

Jennifer Rubin "It’s not easy for a politician to get to the left of the president on anti-terror policies, but Sestak has done it. He may find it difficult if not impossible to get elected when you’re to the left of Obama on the war against Muslim extremists." This from Dick Morris: Capitalize on Sestak scandal;   "Either Sestak is lying and there was never an offer or the White House has skirted very close to having committed a crime or may have stepped over the edge. And, considering the stakes and the nature of what the offer would have to have been, this scandal could reach very high indeed."

Teaching the Pig to Dance: Fred Thompson Opens Up About Life, Politics, and ‘Law and Order’

Big Hollywood "When the subject turned to the last few seasons of the show and its decidedly leftward slant, Thompson got quite animated and passionate. “I do think it has changed somewhat since I left. I noticed a year or so ago, there was one episode about a lawyer who signed off on the so-called torture memos and Cheney and all that. And it was really, really rough and skewed. I didn’t think I saw anything like that when I was there.” "

The Job Nobody Wants

WSJ  " "Anybody in their right mind would turn the job down," Missouri Sen. Kit Bond, the top Republican on the Senate intelligence committee, said Wednesday after speaking to National Security Adviser James Jones about the post. Mr. Bond said the post of director of national intelligence lacks authority and presidential support."  Related: When It Comes to National Intelligence, One Head Is Better than Two "Here’s a thought from out of left field: why not appoint Panetta to the job while letting him keep his current appointment as CIA director?" Max Boot.

‘Don’t Worry, The NG Won’t Do Anything’

Sweetness-Light "The troops, rather than carrying out operations to dismantle drug cartels or human smuggling rings, will be working in back offices helping intelligence officials process information, or be posted as lookouts between ports of entry. "
"Just as we predicted. These National Guard troops are merely tokens."...

Daryl Cagle cartoon . Hat tip to Gail Downie, Nehalem, Oregon

Obama to Suspend Arctic Oil Drilling Until 2011

WSJ "Shell officials appeared resigned to the decision. They acknowledge that Mr. Obama can't halt oil production in the Gulf of Mexico, which is crucial to U.S. energy security. But he can stop oil companies drilling in virgin areas if they haven't started yet. But the decision will be hugely frustrating for the Anglo-Dutch major, which won a slew of legal challenges from environmental groups. It has already started moving equipment up to staging areas in Alaska, ready to commence drilling in July."