Pun Salad

… In my mind I've seen it all:

• Should we trust Senators Cornyn or McConnell on spending cuts? Find out in Kevin Williamson's NRO article, "Do Not Trust Cornyn or McConnell on Spending Cuts".

• Anne Applebaum raises a good point:

  If you don't live in this country all of the time, and I don't, here is what you notice when you come home: Americans -- with their lawsuit culture, their safety obsession and, above all, their addiction to government spending programs -- demand more from their government than just about anybody else in the world. They don't simply want the government to keep the peace and create a level playing field. They want the government to ensure that every accident and every piece of bad luck is prevented, or that they are fully compensated in the event something goes wrong. And if the price of their house drops, they will hold the government responsible for that, too.

  I'd say that attitude is far from uniform among Americans. But unfortunately it only varies between "prevalent" and "way too prevalent".

• On a related note, here's an exercise for the New Hampshire GOP-leaning voter. The major GOP candidates for the US Senate seat are Kelly Ayotte, Ovide Lamontagne, Bill Binnie, and Jim Bender. They are all outpolling the likely Democratic candidate Paul Hodes. Visit each website and try to find anything about entitlement spending.

  I can't. Can you? Let me know.

• Similarly, the major GOP candidates aching for a chance at Carol Shea-Porter in NH Congressional District 1 are Frank Guinta, Sean Mahoney, Bob Bestani, and Rich Ashooh. Repeating the exercise, I'm coming up with a goose egg. How about you?

• OK, I don't vote there, but how about NH Congressional District 2? It's pretty much Charlie Bass and Jennifer Horn, I think. I find nothing from Charlie, but…

  Whoa! Jennifer Horn has a Social Security item on her site. What does it say?

  Let me tell you about reform: I will oppose anything that cuts benefits. I will oppose anything that increases the retirement age. I am opposed to anything that will increase payroll taxes. We have to put something on the table that meets those three criteria.

  Um. I am not an economist, but everything I've seen on this issue tells me those three criteria are mathematically incompatible.

• So in summary: 10 Republican candidates on an important issue: nine are silent, one glibly demands the impossible.

  I don't find that very encouraging.

• Folks interested in history, math, and politics might want to check out E Pluribus Confusion, an article that looks at algorithms past and present for assigning Congressional seats "fairly" to each state. It's a surprisingly thorny problem, mostly because politicians are involved. (Via GeekPress, which isn't surprising at all.)