Flowers, Bees, Spider

What I Heard: American President Goes to Mexico, Tells Them to Loosen Their Already Generous Laws

President Bush spoke of the need for Mexican regulatory reform on a two-day visit to business-friendly Nuevo León, saying those who reject minimal taxation and a further rollback of environmental and safety regulations will ultimately be proven wrong.

“We want to be a factor of cohesion, not division, with full respect for the sovereignty of Mexico,” President Bush said Monday. “This, at the end, is about — and only about — a matter of fairness for those who contribute so much to the development of the Mexican economy.”

‘The Feds are creating a database to track “hate speech” on Twitter. What could go wrong, comrades?’

Hat tip to Hot Air, America’s Watchtower, and Sense and Snarkability, whence the title.  The Washington Free Beacon reports:

The federal government is spending nearly $1 million to create an online database that will track “misinformation” and hate speech on Twitter.

The National Science Foundation is financing the creation of a web service that will monitor “suspicious memes” and what it considers “false and misleading ideas,” with a major focus on political activity online.

‘Trickle Down’ Bad, Stimulus Good?

Kevin Williamson at National Review Online makes an interesting point:  Liberals decry what they call “trickle-down economics”, but if they support things like President Obama’s 2009 Stimulus Bill, they’re embracing the same kind of economic theory they claim to think ridiculous.

“Blue Voodoo: The Democrats embrace trickle-down economics”

Excerpt:

Perversely, those advancing trickle-down ideas are mostly the same ideologues who denounce “trickle-down.” But they do not call it trickle-down — they call it “stimulus.”

Republican Governors Who Pushed for Obamacare Expansion of Medicaid Lose in the Long Run?

This is interesting.  From Jim Geraghty at NRO: “Early-state GOP voters are particularly wary about expanding Medicaid.”

“Flip-flopping to embrace Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion has real consequences,” said Tarren Bragdon, CEO of the Foundation for Government Accountability. “GOP voters in critical early-primary states have low opinions of Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion and are very clear in their opposition to a governor who supports it. Republican governors like Mike Pence, John Kasich, and Terry Branstad [of Iowa] may have doomed their presidential campaigns before they even begin.”

Actual Quote

From one of the hundreds of e-mails I’m reviewing for work:

“Meanwhile, I think we are more familiar with Nitrogen Evaporator now;-)”

There must be a great story behind that, but the world may never know that story.

A Conservative Antidote to Doonesbury

Via Liberty Island, Right-wing Riot has an interesting idea:  Take real Doonesbury strips (the comics written and drawn by liberal great Gary Trudeau for the last half century or so) and replace a fraction of the words with satirical conservative content.  (The replacements are clearly indicated in red text.)

Comparison to Interracial Marriage a Terrible Argument

People love to compare those who want to maintain the traditional legal definition of marriage (one man and one woman) to those who supported laws against interracial marriage in the American South in the first half of the twentieth century.

It’s a terrible argument, but people keep making it, even (most recently) a federal appeals-court judge.

Meriam Ibrahim, Sentenced to Death in Muslim Sudan for ‘Apostasy’, Free and Alive with Her Family in America

Sometimes the news that makes headlines is good news; sometimes this story has a happy ending:

“Meriam Ibrahim, Sudan Woman Who Faced Death Over Faith, Receives Hero’s Welcome In U.S.”

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — A Sudanese woman who refused to recant her Christian faith in the face of a death sentence arrived Thursday in the United States, where she was welcomed first by the mayor of Philadelphia as a “world freedom fighter” and later by cheering supporters waving American flags in New Hampshire.

Politically Correct Double Standard

Reflecting further on how difficult it must be to relax and make offhand jokes if your world is a minefield of ever-changing PC taboos, I’m reminded of one of Jonah Goldberg’s newsletters.  He remarks that an offhand remark someone made about Indians was “utterly harmless” (true) but would risk the opprobrium of the humorless enforcers if made in their company.  He also makes an interesting point about the double standard involved in accusations of “micro-aggression”: