Good Reads for a Saturday

I'm working overtime when I should be up in the mountains skiing or out on the plains hunting. Can't complain, beats the heck out of being unemployed...

Here are some good reads for a Saturday:

Victor Davis Hanson really slams sheriff Dupnik, asking why he blames everyone but himself, since evidence now shows his office had various run-ins with the killer but apparently had a standing catch and release policy.

More disturbing still, if Dupnik were right that a pre-existing conservative climate of hate-engendered politics was not only pervasive in Tucson, but also might prompt an unstable person to kill, why had he not dispatched at least one of his 500 officers to patrol the open-air public event sponsored by Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords?

Hard to argue with that logic. Here’s more…

Dupnik is a good example of an increasingly common bad habit of local politicians to resort to cosmic sermonizing when more mundane challenges go unaddressed.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was a past master of lecturing about the cosmic while sometimes ignoring the more concrete. Governing the boroughs of an often-chaotic New York City is nearly impossible. Pontificating on the evils of smoking, fatty foods and supposed anti-Muslim bigotry was not only far easier but had established the mayor as a national figure of sensitivity and caring, praised for his progressive declarations by supporters of everything from global warming to abortion.

But Bloomberg's carefully constructed philosopher's image was finally shattered by the December 2010 blizzard and his own asleep-at-the-wheel reaction. An incompetent municipal response to record snowfalls barricaded millions in their borough houses and apartments, amid lurid rumors of deliberate union-sponsored slowdowns by Bloomberg's city crews. (VDH - Global Sermonizing)

Hanson moves on to California in much the same vein. Elected officials should stop “cosmic sermonizing,” shut up and do what the taxpayers are paying them to do.

John Hood has written piece in National Affairs entitled, The States in Crisis, in which he presents the cold hard facts, complete with charts. It is the best presentation I’ve seen so far that explains what’s going on with state budgets.

He starts off with the scary tidbit that state government employed various budget tricks back in the good times, and the recession has now hastened the calamitous reckoning that inevitably follows such chicanery.

Could bankruptcy be in some states' futures?  Sounds scary, but not nearly as scary as them picking our pockets and carrying on as if nothing needs to change.