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Last week I mentioned a central tenet of the Statist
faith: spending (or "investing") taxpayer money is an effective
method to achieve worthy goals. The natural corollary: if you're not
getting the goals you want quickly enough,
the only possible problem is that
you're not "investing" enough taxpayer money.
Adherents to the faith have no problem with taking a turn to the ghoulish, as a recent interview with ex-Republican Arlen Specter demonstrates, in talking about government funding of medical research:
Mr. Specter continued: "If we had pursued what President Nixon declared in 1970 as the war on cancer, we would have cured many strains. I think Jack Kemp would be alive today. And that research has saved or prolonged many lives, including mine."
Specter is a true, childlike believer in the magical abilities of the State. Push more money in this end, cancer cures come out the other! Also ponies! -
Mickey Kaus has a short
post about how teachers' unions
make it near-impossible to get lousy teachers out of the classroom.
Via Mickey, the LA Times has a great
pictorial of the maze of procedures that must be invoked to dismiss
teachers accused of misconduct. It's jaw-dropping.
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As one of his throwaway pearls of wisdom, Lileks remarks:
[…] the three most confusing words in the English language are "previously, on Lost."
So true.
May
4
2009
URLs du Jour
2009-05-04