A good conservative comment from the WSJ:

As the 110th Congress continues its August recess, the big legislative news is that it has passed fewer laws than any Congress in the last two decades. An outfit known as Taxpayers for Common Sense reports that the fighting 110th has passed a mere 294 laws, while nonetheless finding time to consider 1,932 resolutions favoring such causes as National Watermelon Month. This is apparently supposed to be a matter of public consternation because Congress should be accomplishing more.

Sorry, but that's the best thing we've heard about this Congress. What a relief to discover the destruction could have been so much worse. With rare exceptions -- free-trade deals, money for the troops -- we wish the Members would spend every minute of every day passing resolutions. They'd have less time to do tangible harm.

Even we -- fated by bad career advice to write about this stuff -- haven't the foggiest idea what is in most of those 294 laws. The mayhem we know about is bad enough. There was that "reform" that blew up the student loan market and has led to Uncle Sam being America's college lender of first resort. This will be the Fannie Mae of the future. And don't forget the mortgage bailout, which puts taxpayers on the hook for as much as $300 billion in bad home loans.

Come to think of it, we'd feel safer if the whole crowd decided not to come back at all after Labor Day. Just stay home, or, even better, spend the rest of the year traveling on Congressional junkets. Sure, taxpayers would have to pay the airfare and hotel bills, but that's a bargain compared to what taxpayers will owe if Congress tries to solve any more problems.

Source

****************************

BrookesNews Update

The US economy: all the little things that go to make a recession: "The problem with the US economy is bad economics, not bad investment decisions, wild speculation, the housing boom, etc. The vast majority of economic pundits have only a dim understanding of the link between the money supply and America's current economic difficulties
Will the Reserve sink the Australian economy?: Economic indicators are pointing to a recession. The blame for this situation rests not with the Labour Government but with the Reserve's lousy economics. Sad to say, the 'economics' that the bank practices is also the economic that our economic commentariat are forever preaching
US spending and lost innocence: The brilliant Professor Blinder (a former vice chairman of the Fed) has conjured up a scheme whereby the government buys clapped-out motors in order to increase the spending power their former owners. That the problem in the first place was too much spending cannot penetrate Blinders Keynesian mindset
Georgia and Putin: The Silence of the Lambs: Russia invades Georgia and the world's moralists remain silent. The lying hypocrites that condemned the US and its allies for liberating Iraq now give their silent endorsement to Putin's invasion of a democracy. And what does Obama do? He asserts that Georgia is equally at fault. What a wimp. This should show Americans not only how dangerous Obama is but just how hollow and stupid is the Dem claim that the US needs to rely on 'world opinion' and the UN
Russian imperialism: the three word solution: Russian economy is a one-trick pony. Crash oil prices and the Russian economy crashes. That's the necessary condition for putting an end to Russian barbaric belligerence
Oil Shale: Will Congress Cross The Jordan?: The US has at least 2 trillion barrels of oil shale. This is more than seven times the amount of crude oil reserves found in Saudi Arabia and is enough to meet current U.S. demand for over 250 years. Yet Obama and his fellow Democrats are fighting to keep this vast resource out of reach of their fellow Americans
Deconstructing Obama: The Presidency of the United States of America is not now, nor should it ever be, an entitlement. Yet that is precisely how Obama, the Democrats and their media partners in dishonesty are treating it
Democrats and the windfall profits tax: Regardless of what greedy, destructive tax-hungry Democrats think oil companies are owned by stockholders. Only about 1.5 percent of the stockholders are oil company executives. The rest of the stocks are owned by average Americans that have invested money in their mutual funds, retirement funds, 401K's, and individual accounts the stock market

****************************

ELSEWHERE

Yet more proof that you can NEVER entrust ID details to British bureaucrats: "Confidential records and sensitive intelligence on tens of thousands of the country's most prolific criminals have been lost in a major breach of data security at the heart of Whitehall. Scotland Yard is investigating the loss of the information, which was taken from the Police National Computer and entrusted by the Home Office to a private consultancy firm. The data had been encrypted for security reasons but was decoded by staff at PA Consulting Group and placed on a computer memory stick that was subsequently lost. The device contains personal details and intelligence on 33,000 serious offenders, dossiers on 10,000 "priority criminals" and the names and dates of birth of all 84,000 prisoners in England and Wales."

The McCain houses: "John McCain's family owns at least eight properties - not the seven Democrats are alleging or the four McCain's staff identified - according to a Politico analysis of property and tax records, as well as interviews. The presumptive Republican nominee, though, may have some wiggle room in explaining why he couldn't immediately provide an answer when asked by Politico how many houses he and his wife, Cindy, own. Sen. McCain himself does not own any of the properties. They're all owned by Cindy McCain, her dependent children and the trusts and companies they control."

There is a new lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly "incorrect" themes of race, genes, IQ etc.

For more postings from me, see OBAMA WATCH, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

****************************

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

****************************