Pun Salad

… hey baby, I'm just about starving tonight:

• Bastiat nailed it:

  The present-day delusion is an attempt to enrich everyone at the expense of everyone else; to make plunder universal under the pretense of organizing it.

  But as this quote from Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine demonstrates, Bastiat's "present-day" is ours too:

  the message to young voters is pretty simple… we've done the largest expansion of the student loan program in American history… we've done a health care reform that allows youngsters to stay on their family insurance policy until age 26, and we've done important credit card reform that has helped young voters. So we have their attention…

  Democrats are the party of plunder. And they want you to know it.

• I'm not a fan of Mike Huckabee, but he's right:

  In the wake of NPR's firing of contributor Juan Williams over comments about Muslims, Mike Huckabee is calling on the next Congress to cut the radio network's funding when it convenes next year.

  My only gripe is that he's using Williams' firing as an excuse. Government has no business funding radio stations unless they're broadcasting into Commie dictatorships. When the stations act like Commie dictatorships, it's a different thing entirely.

• Obfuscating politicians would do well to study the remarks of English soccer coach Arsene Wenger, who was asked about the readiness of one of his players:

  "Is he ready to start for England against France next month? If you asked me the reverse question, is he not ready to start for England, then it would be difficult to not say no."

  I believe that several Star Trek computers short circuited themselves trying to figure out whether this was a "yes" or "no".

• I have listened to Bruce Springsteen's 1984 hit song "Dancing in the Dark" hundreds of times. And seen the video (with an impossibly young Courtney Cox) dozens of times.

  But I had no idea what the song was about until I heard Mary Chapin Carpenter sing it. Once, on my car radio, pre-iPod. Ever since, Springsteen's version has sounded jarringly stupid to me. (Sorry, Boss.)

  MCC's version was kind of tough to find, though. Some good person has made an MP3 available right here. Check it out.