Zeta Woof

Drudge links to a new painting entitled The Forgotten Man, by Utah artist Jon McNaughton. Follow the link and mouse over the picture to learn a little about American economic history.

Walking around Gold Hill lately we've seen a lot of vacant houses. It wasn't that way three years ago. Back then it seemed like everyone was remodeling, painting, landscaping. Boom times. Tiny little houses sold for two hundred thousand. Some people who had bought their houses twenty years ago for thirty thousand put them up for sale. They didn't really want to move, but for that kind of money, why not?

Then times got tough. More people were selling but nobody was buying. Gradually the forclosure notices started appearing on darkened front doors, the people moved away, and the houses were empty. Where did everyone go?

Over at Spiked, part of the news bath that rarely gets mentioned, Rob Lyons reviews Calories and Corsets by Louise Foxcroft.

Foxcroft starts right back with the ancient Greeks, who knew that “those who are uncommonly fat... die more quickly than the lean,” even if they also recognised that “in all maladies, those who are fat about the belly do best; it is bad to be thin and wasted there.”
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Hippocrates, the father of medicine, recognised through observation that people's constitutions were different and so were foods. Over 2,000 years ago, he was prescribing eating less and exercising more as a way to lose weight. He was also, however, prescribing vomiting as a weight-loss measure....

Sounds like a fun read.

How do historians rank presidents who achieve prosperity and security for Americans? Let's pose the question this way: What if we had a president who, in his first two years as president, cut federal spending in half; produced budget surpluses in both years; cut tax rates, and slashed unemployment from 12 to 2%? Where should historians rank such a man?

Dead last.

Just remember, though. The fat guy is not evil because he's fat. Nor is he fat because he's evil. It's just a coincidence.

Maybe you thought you'd like to retire some day.

Notice the trend. People who were 75 in 1970 started their working lives during World War I. Those who were 75 in 1985 started during the Great Depression. And those currently 75 years old started during the Eisenhower years.

Three different attitudes toward work, perhaps?

Do you favor a smaller, less intrusive government?

Would you settle for just less intrusive?

This is the budget for Illinois higher education, but the trend is the same in every other department of government. Thirty years from now three-quarters of the budget will pay bureaucrats who no longer work. And the good news is that retired bureaucrats are less meddlesome than the active kind.

The recent action on the light bulb ban illustrates my point. Congress left the law in place — they couldn't bear to abandon such a lovely little law — but they chose not to budget the money to enforce it. That's the future: There will be ever more and more laws but less and less effort to enforce them.

So don't worry about what the law says — worry what the law does.

When most of the government is sitting in around nursing homes, all the laws in the world will do damn little.

What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form, and moving, how express and admirable in action, how like an angel in apprehension — how like a God! The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals — and yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?

Well, that's how I would punctuate it if I were Shakespeare's editor. This is how it's usually punctuated:

What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals — and yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?

Wrong, I tell you. All wrong.

In the Port of Siuslaw; today about 2:00. I drove seven hours to get there and back. With a little luck, I'll drive that every week.

Europe Weird and New in The Wall Street Journal.

European financial markets have gotten very strange. Greece's one-year government bond yield hit 376% yesterday, while Germany, Switzerland and the U.K. sold short-term debt this week at yields below 0%. That means investors are effectively paying the latter governments for the privilege of lending to them.
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At this point, flying saucers over the Eiffel Tower or the Colosseum in Rome wouldn't surprise anyone.

First Big Test Yet to Come in The American Spectator.

Florida, the fourth largest state in the nation, is bearing down on 20 million residents and has more than twice the population of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina combined. It has more than four million registered Republicans, about the population of Iowa and New Hampshire together.
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When we know who the winner is in Florida, we'll know something.

That will be about Ground Hog Day. Wake me then.