Sunday Interrogatives

Where's the beef? The news this week was all Barack Goes to Europe all the time, so let's start there. Despite the PR success, the truth is that it was something a policy failure. Forced by the recalcitrant French and German leaders to abandon his quest to have a global stimulus , Mr. Obama seems to have settled on gaining more help in Afghanistan. As this report from the Times indicates, results were not too good on this front either.

Who's your Daddy? Back on the home front, Stanford economist Michael Boskin points out at the Wall Street Journal that Barackian economics will result in a tax increase as "big as their mortgage" for those making 100 thousand a year.

What's the catch? Seemingly unnoticed is the chilling information that the government which initially strong armed some banks into taking TARP funds in order to provide cover for their weaker brethren is essentially refusing to take it back, at least according to the WSJ in this. As Stuart Varney points out, it's all about control this go 'round.

Who stole the cookie...? In somewhat the same vein, over at Townhall Kathryn Lopez highlights a new book which has become something of a sensation: Liberty and Tyranny; A Conservative Manifesto by Mark Levin. I haven't read it, but plenty of others have. Then again I haven't read Liberal Fascism either.

Where in the world? Also in Cuba related news, the Congressional Black Caucus is on a junket to the benighted and blighted island. Guess they haven't read the report on the side bar about the plight of Afro-Cubans. The media is touting the lifting of family travel restrictions as prologue to greater easing; but as Andres Oppenheimer quotes Jason Cason in a Miami Herald piece, tourism has never "brought down a totalitarian regime."

Which witch? Some potentially disturbing news. Foul rumors are abroad that Broadway could face trouble in this economy, that a movie version of Atlas Shrugged is again in the works, and that the English language is always evolving. Theater is one of the New York things I miss most, as theater in my hometown either involves social climbing or a field trip from the assisted living facility. I've never read Rand, as the size of the tomes dwarf my desire to read them. And evolution or no evolution, I cannot get used to impact as a verb.