Bookworm Room

Country of origin strikes me as a reasonable question for a census, although it’s not constitutionally mandated.  (The Constitution just allows for a head count.)  Race questions are obviously simply to satisfy the grievance mongers in America.  So I pass on this advice from The Corner:
Sending a Message with the Census [Mark Krikorian]
John: [...]

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Got a brilliant email today:
One day a florist went to a barber for a haircut. After the cut, he asked about his bill, and the barber replied, ‘I cannot accept money from you, I’m doing community service this week.’ The florist was pleased and left the shop.
When the barber went to [...]

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Last night, I went to hear Atul Gawande give a talk promoting his new book, The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right.  The book’s premise is a simple one:  In an increasingly complex world, even experts benefit from a routine checklist that requires them to focus on the essentials necessary to their task.  The [...]

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I live in Marin County, one of the most affluent counties in America.  It is an extremely well-managed community (although budget cuts might have their effect here too).  Crime is low, streets are clean and well-maintained, and lovely flower beds and hanging pots brighten public walkways.  Our libraries are well-stocked and well-staffed, our town offices [...]

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I can’t do better than to quote from the Wall Street Journal on the EPA ruling, which constitutes nothing more than an undemocratic takeover of all business activity and most government activity in this country:
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said yesterday that her ruling that greenhouses gases are dangerous pollutants would “cement 2009’s place in history” [...]

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The jobs summit is at an end and Obama has given lip service to the private sector.  He doesn’t really mean it, though.  How can he, when he makes statements such as this one:
Mr. Obama said he would entertain “every demonstrably good idea” for creating jobs, but he cautioned that “our resources are limited.”
That is [...]

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You know, whether you’re going for success or failure, think big.  Right now, the government’s failure rate at Medicare is pretty small potatoes, but think what it can do when it owns the whole system:
More than $98 billion in taxpayer dollars spent by government agencies was wasted, much of it on questionable claims for tax [...]

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Last Sunday, a private San Francisco museum unveiled a new painting, billed as the world’s largest portrait mural.  The mural contains the following edifying images, all homages to the wacky City I once called home:
The colorful mural by acclaimed artist Guy Colwell features Speaker Nancy Pelosi lancing a Republican elephant; a Terminator-dressed Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger [...]

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[David Foster has again been kind enough to take seriously my request for guest blogger content. I wish more of you would. There's so much going on out there that, even if it weren't for my time constraints, I couldn't handle it all.]
A FOUNDRY SAYS FAREWELL
…to California.
For 60 years, Gregg Industries, a subsidiary [...]

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I like the way Drudge tends to snapshot trends.  Here’s an interesting one, considering the looming deficits federal, state and local governments face:

What’s missing from the above list, of course, is CUTS.  Lawmakers are figuring out as hard and as fast as they can ways to drain more money from the taxpayers.  The one thing [...]

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When I outspend my budget,* I have to make drastic cuts in my expenditures.  Sadly, I cannot march into my boss and announce that he must immediately give me a huge raise to cover the shortfall.  Fortunately for those in government, because they have the rare ability to boss around those who pay them, they [...]

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I received the following in an email and I thought you’d enjoy these quotes too:
“If you don’t read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.”
-Mark Twain
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress…. But then, I repeat myself.
-Mark Twain
I contend that [...]

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Two anecdotes, and then I’ll get to my point (and the anecdotes do relate to that point):
Anecdote 1:  I get my medical care from Kaiser and feel that I get great care.  Within its four walls, Kaiser is an extremely efficiently run organization that takes surprisingly good care of vast numbers of people.  Kaiser has [...]

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The sign at the baseball game said “Mike’s Lemonade $7.00.” So, when Christopher Ratt asked his 7 year old son what drink he’d like, and the boy said Lemonade, Ratt ponied up the money. It was only later in the game that a security guard noticed the bottle in the boy’s hand and [...]

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In several posts over the last few days, I’ve commented about Disney efficiency.  Thousands of people are fairly painlessly shuffled from place to place; Fast Passes are a think of beauty, especially if individuals handle them well; everything is immaculately clean, including the overused bathrooms; the equipment functions superbly well considering the demands made upon [...]

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Here it is, my first day back from a long-ish vacation, and I’m not finding any blogging inspiration in today’s news. Instead, it’s exactly the same stuff that was in the news when I left: unrest in Pakistan; Hillary’s free-fall; alleged campaign shenanigans from the Hillary camp aimed at the Obama camp; Obama’s [...]

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