Here’sa fascinating piece of data comparing Ronald Reagan’s spending record in his first three years woth George W. Bush’s. Some highlights: education spending was cut by 33 percent by Reagan; it has grown 27 percent under Bush; “community and regional development” saw its budget cut by 33 percent by Reagan; Bush increased it by 32 percent; transportation was down 11 percent under Reagan; it’s up 16 percent under Bush. The man just can’t stop spending our money. With Clinton gone, the era of small government is over.
BAATHIST BROADCASTING CORPORATION: Here’s how they headlined yesterday’s news about the killing of Saddam’s sons: “US celebrates ‘good’ Iraq news.” Yes, that “good” again. The Beebers must be truly sad to see two mass murderers brought to justice. One BBC journalist even pronounced that the deaths might cause an intensification of anti-American violence. Wishful thinking. Oliver Kamm nails it:
The BBC’s output of news and current affairs is in chaos; it lacks adequate controls; it is consistently ill-informed; certain of its correspondents are frankly ignorant of the subjects they’re supposed to specialise in; it is sentimental rather than analytical; it introduces – not even covertly, for its practitioners know of no other way of making sense of the world – a bias that treats pressure groups as invariably disinterested and political authority as deceitful; and it reports on the security policies of western democracies, specifically the United States and Israel, as if no terrorist threat existed and these countries’ military actions were evidence of malign intent rather than defensive necessity.
Abolish it, I say.
THE NEW NEW YORK TIMES: The Onion has an infograph.
The Dish 