David Atkins of Calitics on the left suggests that for the Republican Establishment, the magic 34% in one house of the legislature is enough, under the California Constitution, to achieve their purposes. Warning: Calitics is too far to the left […]
Politics
The Courage Factor
The Economist on Obama’s general lack of courage. He campaigned on ‘audacity’ and ‘we can’ but it looks like we don’t. Remember you heard it first here on Blue Kennel. I hadn’t quite thought of ‘allergy to antithesis’ in terms of […]
Obama’s Oxymoron: Government Innovation
A former Oxy student’s oxymoron. Sorry, I couldn’t resist that. (For the uninformed reader: Oxy is the common abbreviation for Occidental College, which both our current President and I attended at different times.) Related: “Obama’s Oxymoron: Government Innovation” by Debra […]
What I Fear
The poll shows that, while Americans do not greatly love labor unions overall, they seem to want to defend the collective bargaining rights of the public sector. What is frightening about this is that the public is very cynical nowadays […]
Dishwasher Detergent
The interesting thing about the impulse to give us dishwasher detergent that doesn’t actually clean dishes is that it comes from the Spokane area, an area traditionally regarded as conservative. They did not like the idea of phosphorus in their […]
For and Against the Negative Income Tax
Two different perspectives on the negative income tax, a less bureaucratic substitute for the Earned Income Tax Credit. Guy Sorman is for, Jim Manzi is against. I’m not sure where I stand. (Don’t you welcome a little ambiguity for a […]
Regulations
Mark Lacter, in Los Angeles magazine not generally regarded as a right wing magazine, describes the regulatory problems in the City of Los Angeles with regard to establishing any kind of a new business. It does not fall much short […]
Jeffrey Anderson Proposes
Jeffrey Anderson proposes some ideas for Obamacare phase II. Some of these are: 1. Lowering health costs by a. allowing health insurance to be bought across state lines b. allowing small businesses to join together in larger pools, which makes […]
Dan Morain: One Town’s Enterprise Zone Steals Another Town’s Lunch
Apparently enterprise zones have turned out to be the same sort of corporate welfare and beggar-thy-neighbor deal that redevelopment has been. I don’t know much about Business Improvement Districts, but I think they’re kind of like residential homeowmers associations and […]
You’ve Seen Dan Morain’s Article…
You’ve seen Dan Morain’s article. For those of you who are interested, here’s the link to the actual answers I wrote! And you’ll get to find out what NTSEBREE and NESEBREE are. Related: “Howard Ahmanson, now a conservative Democrat, holds forth” by Dan Morain […]