“What [Ill.] Gov. Rod Blagojevich is trying to do to the state and its taxpayers [selling off assets to pay bills] used to be called “living out of the attic.”

“Equality of Rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of sexual orientation.”

Take a look at “Freakoutonomics,” by Charles R. Morris, in NYT, as socio-economic-psychological explanation of people’s worries and fears about our economy — indicators up, attitudes down.  He compares our time to the 1870s, when the economy was booming and most people’s, including farmers’, situation was improving.  Farmers didn’t think so, however, and in any case prices were in play globally, leaving some in the dust.  Most interesting is Morris’s point about lost egalitarianism, what I’d call those old income-gap blues, which feed on bigger-than-ever disparities.

Before the Civil War, America was perhaps the most egalitarian society in the world. But the unbridled entrepreneurialism of the 1870’s gave rise to the robber barons [a highly debatable term, by the way, coined or disseminated by committed leftist and careless historian Matthew Josephson]. Even if ordinary people were doing better in the 1870’s, the yawning gap between the very rich and everybody else fanned resentments. Interestingly, wealth inequality in today’s America is roughly the same as in the Gilded Age.

Add to that the sheer discomfort from big changes:

The sharply increased social and geographic mobility of the 1870’s set people adrift from traditional sources of security in families and villages. In our own day, the destruction of employer-employee relationships, the erosion of pension protection and employee health insurance may be creating a similar loss of moorings.

And you have reason enough for sadness in the midst of prosperity.

However, consider also F.A. Hayek’s argument of the importance of income disparity for the good of all, if only to show the way to the rest of us about how to live if you can afford it. 

Moralistic fussbudgets inveigh against consumerism but have no suggestions about how better to stoke the progress that saves lives through expensive medicine, to name one obvious benefit.  As someone else argued recently, how would the all-night pharmacy be available if it weren’t for the doo-dads and knick-knacks whose sales support the mall?

For Hayek’s thinking in the matter, try Don Boudreaux, “Americans are Wealthy (and Getting Wealthier),” at Cafe Hayek. 

As for Morris, he has “many highly praised books,” says the Century Foundation, including Computer Wars, American Catholic, and The Tycoons: How Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, and J. P. Morgan Invented the American Supereconomy.

About Haditha as the new My Lai, Jed Babbin:

The accelerating media feeding frenzy over the alleged killings of twenty-four Iraqi civilians in Haditha by US Marines last November is about to overwhelm American politics. Propelled by their most irresponsible war critics, the left will try [to] use Haditha as it used My Lai thirty years ago: as a political tool to take apart America’s support for the war and to shatter the legitimacy of our cause and the morale of our troops.

“We don’t know what happened in Haditha, an insurgent stronghold in Anbar Province,” he continues.

Unverified press accounts allege that members of Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, First Marines, were hit by an improvised explosive device and one of them was killed. Others, according to these reports, went on an hours-long killing spree to revenge their comrade’s death, leaving about twenty-four men, women and children dead. Navy and Marine Corps investigators are at work, and other reports indicate that at least three Marine officers, including the battalion and company commanders, have been relieved of duty. It’s also reported that more than one enlisted man has been detained pending charges about to be brought.

We don’t know because Lemming Press accounts are “unverified.”  This is media bias returning to bite them.  Their trust level low, they shout and we don’t listen.  Or they are silent and we go elsewhere for our information.

In the wake of My Lai, we left Viet Nam, 

abandoning our allies and hanging our heads in shame. This is the political result the left wants from Haditha, and we cannot allow it to happen for one very big reason. The Vietnam War ended in Vietnam, leaving America incapable of taking action in defense of itself or its allies for decades. The end of the war against the terrorist nations won’t occur in Iraq, and we must be prepared – psychologically and politically – to continue the fight. When we lost Vietnam the enemy didn’t follow us home. Radical Islamists will. If they win, we will literally lose America.

In other words, this time the enemy won’t leave us alone.  Look for Haditha as the new anti-battle cry.  And anti-military, with loss to fighting morale.

Just as the few disgraced the many at Abu Ghraib, the very few who may have committed murder in Haditha will place a burden on the shoulders of every soldier, sailor, airman, marine and coast guardsman fighting terrorism. Each of us has a duty to not add to that burden, and to help relieve it as well. If those few Marines killed innocents in Haditha, their conduct is an aberration, not the norm. It is up to each one of us to ensure that the events of Haditha do not tarnish the brave and selfless service of the many who came before, or any who come after. Except for the aberrant few, the Marines are always faithful to America. In times such as this, we cannot fail to be faithful to them.

Let us not get sucked into a media-created morass of self-flagellation.

====================

Meanwhile, hold on about Lemming Press being no longer trusted.  By whom? is the question, of course.  By more today than yesterday is the quick answer.  But the eminent Thomas Sowell says it ain’t over yet, not till it’s over, in fact:

Conservatives who point out the declining audience for the big television network newscasts, and declining public trust of the media in general, often underestimate how much clout the liberal media still have.

For example, while the economy has had near-record highs in growth rates and in the stock market, with near-record lows in unemployment and inflation, polls show that the public thinks the economy is in big trouble. A steady diet of gloom-and-doom spin in the liberal media has worked. The death of media influence has been greatly exaggerated.

more more more:

Regardless of what the facts are, you can always find exceptions to those facts. The liberal media inundate us with stories about those exceptions, who are presented as if they were the norm.

The middle-aged single mother struggling to make ends meet, while working at a minimum wage job, has become a staple of these journalistic tales. In reality, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that only about 2 percent of workers who are 25 years old or older have minimum wage jobs.

But you would never guess this, judging by media hype.

Sneaky guys and gals.

As of today [Sun-Times columnist Michael] Sneed has enjoyed 10 vacation days, and 11 “Sneed is taking the day off” days [this year].  In the first five months she has taken more “days off” than she has had vacation time.

Woe is us, woe is them: Daniel Pipes on illegal immigration to Europe, especially Spain: http://www.danielpipes.org/article/3634

As Western birth rates plummet, as communication and transportation networks improve, and as radical Islam increasingly rears its aggressive head, Europeans, Americans, and others worry about their economic standards and the continuity of their cultures. After ignoring this issue for decades, reactions in Europe especially have sharpened of late.

The first of his three examples is that France’s lower house has passed “a tough new immigration law”: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/17/AR2006051701210.html?nav=rss_world

The second is Austria’s interior minister’s telling Muslims that 45% of them don’t fit in and they should immigrate somewhere else: http://www.orf.at/index.html?url=http://www.orf.at/ticker/217789.html

But Spain is the worst case.  Africans used to come through Morocco, but “under intense Spanish and EU pressure,” Morocco took to dumping illegals in the desert without supplies if necessary: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/14/international/africa/14wire-morocco.html?ex=1148702400&en=716f7801c8fe9776&ei=5070

So they flocked to Mauritania to the south, especially South Asians: http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5789116,00.html.  But Mauritania also cracked down, and farther south they went, to Senegal — 900 miles from the Canaries in open boats, up to two out of five dying en route: http://news.ft.com/cms/s/34c50014-b62d-11da-9cbb-0000779e2340.html

But they keep coming, because it’s so nice once they get there: http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=124447  So many arrive, in fact, that a volunteer likened it to an “invasion.”: http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=124447

The Spanish try to buy off the West African jumping-off countries but they prefer the remittances — money sent back to family left behind.  “Mass exodus” and big trouble loom, including armed conflict, as have-nots push their way in: http://www.realinstitutoelcano.org/analisis/835.asp

Pipes’s piece is in today’s NY Sun, http://www.nysun.com/, a daily founded four years ago by Hollinger International, then headed by Conrad Black, some NYC businessmen, and its two founding editors, Seth Lipsky, formerly editor of The Forward, a Jewish-oriented weekly, and Ira Stoll, who ran a daily web-based critique of NY Times before the Sun rose on NYC: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Sun. 

Could Chicago ever generate such a quality product?  That’s a very interesting question. 

“Hospitals get more than they give [says] study” is Sun-Times p-1 splash. 

Chicago area not-for-profit hospitals get three times as much money in tax breaks compared with what they dole out in free health care to poor and uninsured people, an analysis to be unveiled today shows.

Sounds bad, this unveiling.  And while “a nationwide debate rages,” never mind about what.  When debates rage, we better pay attention. 

There’s more.  The unveiled study has a finding that is “too out of whack,” never mind in what respect.  When a finding is out of whack, we better pay attention, especially when the state’s attorney general says so.  (And let’s hear it for her flack, who scores big a lot with female reporters, LORI RACKL Health Reporter in this instance.

The AG wants hospitals “to fork over more free care.”  (Thus Rackl.)  If they don’t, she will take away their tax exemption.  In other words, the long arm of the AG will reach out and smack you.  Yes.

“Hospital trade groups staunchly disagree,” however, noting among other considerations that “Service Employees International Union, which has been a thorn in hospitals’ sides because of their efforts to unionize workers” PAID FOR THE STUDY [upper case added].

What do you know about that?  Seventh paragraph.  Now we have it: lib Dem AG, relying on continued union support, puffs UNION-MADE STUDY [upper case added].  Now is it beyond the pale for the UNION-MADE part to be mentioned higher up, even IN THE LEDE?

What follows is a hospitals-union mouth fight, always a good show, and an analysis of the study BY THE PEOPLE WHO DID THE STUDY.  They have a name, Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, which is characterized not at all but is located: “Chicago-based.”

And its executive director writes for, guess what, The Sun-Times:

CTBA’s executive director, Ralph Martire, writes a regular column for the Chicago Sun-Times, that also appears in the Springfield State Journal Register, and the Joliet Herald News. Read Mr. Martire’s most recent column: “‘No new tax” pledges just put state deeper in debt,”

says the study-doers’ web site.  Fancy that!

And while you’re at it, here’s what the hospitals are saying today:

Report Acknowledges Hospitals Provide Community Benefits More Than Five Times Their Tax-Exempt Value
Tuesday May 30, 9:35 am ET
Leading hospital associations blast report’s motive and methodology

And the study-doers are in the fray on their own [but Sun-Times got it first, thanks probably to the Martire connection]:

Tax Breaks for Cook County’s Non-Profit Hospitals Triple Amount Spent on Charity Care, New Study Finds

5/30/2006 11:29:00 AM

And the beat goes on, in this case health and medicine.