Before You Accuse Me

… take a look at yourself:

  • Reason gives us Obama's Doublethink Doubletalk. Or as Pun Salad likes to call it, Barackrobatics:

  • I've never been a fan of "It's the X, stupid" construction. So I'll instead summarize Steve Landsburg's illuminating blog post this way: It's the spending, you attractive, intelligent, and amusing person, you.
    This is why it's so frustrating to hear talk of blue ribbon commissions assigned to the task of "debt reduction". "Debt reduction" can mean less spending, or more taxes, or some combination thereof. But to raise taxes solely for the purpose of debt reduction is to mask the problem, not to solve it. Debt is not the problem; spending is. Hysteria about the debt is misdirection.

  • Read the above link before you go to Keith Hennessey's analysis of President Obama's proposed budget. Keith has produced excellent graphs (both more revealing and prettier than mine), but the point is the same: Obama proposes a massive and permanent increase in Federal spending as a share of the total economy. No shock, unless you were actually taking his rhetoric seriously.

  • Also with great graphics is the New York Times: a historical look at how projections compared with reality when it comes to the deficit, and a sobering look at where the money goes.


Last Modified 2012-10-04 3:14 PM EDT

Designing Woman

[2.5
stars] [IMDb Link]

[Amazon Link]
(paid link)

Here's the problem: for me, Gregory Peck is Horatio Hornblower; Atticus Finch; Captain Ahab; Marlowe in The Guns of Navarone; and so on. So I have a hard time believing him in this role: New York City sportswriter Mike Hagen. He's not bad, mind you. But…

While in California, Mike meets Marilla (Lauren Bacall). They are mutually smitten and tie the knot. But the joke is that they really don't know that much about each other. Mike is a regular joe, immersed in the sports world, while Marilla is a fashion designer, with plenty of high society friends. That might be enough conflict for a plot right there, but (a) Mike, for some reason, finds it necessary to lie incessantly to Marilla about his previous girlfriend; (b) Mike's also writing about a local mobster's influence in the boxing scene, and the mobster's none too pleased. All these things work themselves out eventually, but it takes awhile.

It's not dreadful, but a lot of the jokes fall flat. Goodies: Jesse White, the lonely Maytag repairman, as a snitch! Edward Platt, the Chief himself, as the gangster irked with Mike! And Chuck Connors as one of his henchmen!


Last Modified 2024-01-30 3:54 PM EDT