Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Recommended Reading

Another Fred Kaplan article, this one about those who insist that this country must keep spending money on the F-22 Raptor fighter plane, even if they aren't good for much of anything.

• Posted at 7:02 PM · LINK

Watching the News

Tip O'Neill once wrote of the first time Gerald Ford entered to address Congress after he'd ascended to the highest office in the land. The gent in charge of yelling out such things yelled out, "Mister Speaker, the President of the United States!" And then everyone — Democrats and Republicans alike — looked over, reassured themselves that it was indeed Gerald Ford walking in, and let out a cheer that it was not Richard Nixon.

I think I just saw a similar moment.

• Posted at 6:22 PM · LINK

Recommended Reading

Barack Obama has made some pretty grandiose promises/predictions (I'm not sure which they are) about reducing the deficit by the close of this term of office. I don't know if he can do it either...but it's encouraging to look back at how recent Democrats have done with the not-unrelated national debt as opposed to, say, administrations that had someone named Bush in or near the Oval Office. Take a look at this blog post and especially at the chart there.

• Posted at 7:49 AM · LINK

Today's Video Link

Here, from around 1962, is one of the first commercials for Post Crispy Critters...one of those cereals where I liked the commercials but didn't like the cereal. Sheldon Leonard provides the voice of Linus the Lionhearted while Paul Frees speaks for the giraffe.

• Posted at 12:54 AM · LINK