I am going to throw up…

15 minutes into Meet the Press and they are STILL talking about Rev. Wright.

Please. Spare me.

McCain open to government control on drug prices… (the end of the free market!)

I love the drug reimportation question. Are you for buying drugs from foreign countries? McCain was asked about that today:

Matt Lewis, Townhall: It’s easier to sell liberal ideas as opposed to free-market solutions. How do they plan to do the latter, and what about drug importation? — Fundamental difference of putting government in charge rather than the patients should be an easy sell. Choice and competition drive costs down, as does transparency. John McCain is “the best retail politician” today, and it’s not hard to sell people what they really want. Drug reimportation — he wants to embrace free trade and competition, so he’s open to it.

So let’s just think about what this means. McCain is willing to let us buy drugs from, say, Canada. Drugs are cheaper in Canada. Is that free trade and competition at work?

No! Why are drugs cheaper in Canada? Because the government controls the prices! So when you are for drug reimportation, you are essentially saying yes to price controls, but you are just being a coward about who is really controlling the prices.

I am glad McCain came out with his crappy health care plan today. At least it shows everyone that sits and think about it for a minute that Republicans have no plan with respect to health care. There are ‘middle ground’ solutions here. Between what we have today and universal single payer health plan, there are a world of solutions. Congratulations to Team McCain for not picking one (a real one that is!)

Can we replace hypocrisy by selfishness?

Michelle Malkin has a great article about what refers to as hypocrisy from the Sting family:

Call it a case of Gulfstream liberal guilt. The environmental activist wife of musician Sting is ‘fessing up to her Green hypocrisy. Via the Daily Mail, she was “forced” to acknowledge the family’s massive carbon footprint…

I agree that it’s hypocrisy when it reaches this (assuming it’s true):

She [Sting's wife] was also accused in a recent tribunal of forcing her chef to travel 100 miles to prepare a bowl of pasta.

The part I find sad is that Michelle stops at the hypocrisy argument. I agree with her that this is hypocrisy. But can’t we make the next leap and say how selfish it is to waste resources like this? Of course, you can predict where I am going with this. Green or not green, people that waste resources like that are really selfish. I don’t care that you have amassed the greatest fortune in the world. I don’t think any amount of money should allow you to have your chef drive 100 miles to prepare a bowl of pasta. Instead of just shooting the hypocritical messenger, Michelle should also criticize the ongoing pure waste of resources, and not just the one from green activists.

Did I miss the “English only” article in the constitution?

I love the debate about the ‘order in English sign’ in the famous Geno’s Steaks restaurant in Philly.

Michelle has a post about the ‘cowards’ that avoided his restaurant, and discusses a debate happening today:

Vento continues to voice his assimilationist message. He’s taking on the Democrat cowards who avoided the issue during the Pennsylvania primary and today he’s debating open-borders zealot Geraldo Rivera during a live debate in Philly to be broadcast on the Dom Giordano show on 1210AM WPHT. It’s a sold-out event.

I think assimilation in the sense that we all share common values, common goals or even a common language is a great thing. On the other hand, I don’t recall where it says that in America you have to speak English. How about Native Americans? Do they also HAVE to order in English? The tourists? In English also?

In a practical sense, it’s obvious that if you place your order in English, the chances the person on the other side understanding is way higher than if you picked any other language. So in that sense, the sign is stating the obvious. But beyond that, I think it’s misleading, since nowhere does it say that in America you can only order in English, plus the fact that some of us can speak more than one language should be encouraged and not frowned upon. When I hear assimilation, I don’t think it also means losing other languages.

The limited free market

Hot Air complimented McCain on his free market view with respect to Ethanol:

It’s an essentially agnostic point of view on ethanol itself, but it’s the proper conservative response. If ethanol can succeed in a level marketplace, then it should continue. If not — and there are plenty of reasons to suspect it won’t — then McCain doesn’t want the government intervening to keep it afloat.

Is the market really what should be deciding? Yes? Well where is my drug market? Or my prostitution market? If there is a demand, and there is an offer, shouldn’t the proper conservative response be to just let the market forces play it out?

I’m not sure ethanol is the right solution. But I do no that sometimes the market isn’t the best judge of what should or should not happen. Sometimes we need bold initiatives that push the market in one direction or another. So for example, we fund NASA. We are not waiting on the market to push boundaries, we are funding that ourselves. Same for other technologies. Sometimes you just can’t wait idle and let the market play itself out. And sometimes you interfere (like in prostitution) because there is more at stake than demand and offer.

Update: it didn’t take very long. From Crooksandliars.com, here is my answer!

That kind of behavior is unacceptable

Two people rushed the stage where Thomas Friedman was about to give a talk from and threw pies at him.

And Michelle is right (at least for me):

I predict we’ll see a blossoming of liberal media pieces decrying the mob atmosphere at American colleges and universities and calling for civility in academic exchanges. Better late than never. I guess.

I don’t recall seeing a similar incident recently. Anyways, I don’t mind people going to talks and by using apparels (clothing, etc.) attempt to send a message to the speaker. I do mind people that prevent a talk from taking place, although if the disruption is reasonable in terms of time I can live with it. Throwing pies I find particularly bad. You don’t know what is coming at you. It could be someone trying to harm you. There is very little message being communicated.

This blog is definitely against that kind of behavior, towards anyone from the right or the left.

If you can’t handle some random interview or debate, you can’t handle the terrorists?

Well then. If you can’t face the North Carolina GOP, how are you going the terrorists, John McCain?

Michelle Malkin qualifies Howard Dean’s call like this:

Dean is now pressing McCain further on the issue–and claiming that if McCain doesn’t succeed in forcing the state party to withdraw its ad, it’s a failure of his “leadership” (read: bullying) skills.

I partially agree with Dean here. He his calling McCain on his bluff. I think, like Rachel Maddow, that McCain is paying lip service to the high road here. He says he doesn’t want that kind of ad yet will happily reap the rewards of such negative campaigning. I think the call by Howard Dean is more to call McCain on that bluff rather than see him succeed or fail at bullying.

Note: Just in case it wasn’t clear, I think all these ‘if you can’t stand up to X then how will you face the terrorists’ are a pure joke. Including the one at the top of this article.

Where does Mary Katharine Ham find her stats?

During her latest appearance on O’Reilly’s show, MKH said that the endorsment of Obama by Michael Moore was a bad thing, because the “credulous super liberal latte drinker that love Michael Moore are the Obama base”, where as the blue collar democrats dislike Michael Moore. Hot air asks…

Does Michael Moore’s endorsement do anything for Obama aside from reminding us what kind of liberal is apt to favor him?

First, where does she and Hot Air get that idea from. Really? Did I miss the survey? Did I not read the article about that? It’s pure speculation. It’s pure speculation using MSM stereotypes that HotAir is happily pushing along.

Let me add at least one reason why I think this is bogus. Michael Moore’s last film was Sicko. Clearly, if Michael could pick, he would pick a mandate system rather than a voluntary one. Hillary supports the first one, and Obama the second. So the funny thing is that on this topic, which Michael is identified with, Michael and Hillary are against Obama. So why believe the Michael and Obama’s base are the same?

Misusing McCain’s POW experience

The LA TIMES had a recent article that had the following title:

John McCain gets tax-free disability pension

The disclosure of the Navy benefit for injuries incurred as a Vietnam POW may raise fitness questions.

I don’t particularly want to discuss the article, but I think there is a point to be made here. Personally, I think that somebody that would vote against McCain because of his disabilities is really terrible. It’s nearly, if not as bad as not voting for a woman or a black candidate. Clearly my analysis would depend on the degree of disability, but here it doesn’t seem like McCain is even close to that threshold.

Having said that, here is the way that Hotair (Ed) start their post on this article:

Go ahead, raise your hands above your head if you object to John McCain’s disability pension. John McCain can’t do the same, thanks to the damage inflicted by Vietnamese torturers in Hanoi.

You know what? Nobody asked that question. Not in the article. Not on the blogosphere (AFAIK). This is an attempt to color the discussion of the article. It’s a misuse of McCain’s POW experience. I think this does a disservice to the debate on the topic.

Disappointed…

But I still have hopes that this primary season will soon be over.

It seems to me yesterday night’s Obama’s Pennsylvania defeat was more a draw than a real loss. He entered with really bad odds and appears to have been able to salvage enough to move forward without losing too many delegates.

Still, this process will drag on some more. At least it will keep our Republican friends entertained.