We're supposed to learn from history, aren't we?

I just saw the latest on the mass east coast evacuations and thought it would be nice to remind local officials of one of the Katrina lessons. Don't forget to disarm the police.

Quick as a flash; Iowa caucuses 2012

Governor Pataki has announced that he will not come visit us here in Ioway tomorrow. We are deeply saddened.

Well to heck with him. Refusing our hospitality gets him booted from your must-read list of people we might allow to succeed His Obamaness. 

We will not accept the excuse that George read the work of a small-time local blogger and decided the revelations  made our caucuses a hopeless cause.

There's an achieve-but-not-maintain joke in here somewhere, but it isn't worth reaching for.

I have a dream, Irene

The significance of the 2011 Great Storm of Doom:

As Hurricane Irene swung north Thursday, putting the Washington region in its sights, Maryland and Virginia declared a state of emergency and Sunday’s dedication of the memorial to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was postponed.

That's the WaPo lede graf on its banner story. So you know equal weight must be given to

(a) The emergency -- the death of innocents, jillions in damages (and)

(b) A delay in dedicating a statue.

What I dream of is journalism with a sense of proportion.

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Here is a bulletin from The Associated Press. Scientists have confirmed that a huge asteroid will strike Earth on Sunday, wiping out the human race. World stock markets tumbled on the news.

More on Ben's Big Day in Beaver Country

Once in a while even the financial press gets things right. For instance, a report on what Fed Boss Ben might say in Jackson Hole this morning:

Economists said that the recent weakness in the economy stems from structural issues like foreclosed properties and an unskilled pool of unemployed labor that are immune from monetary policy stimulus.


Nailed it. The pool includes those famous young men who speak Ebonic, not to mention equally untalented alabasters, many with cool PhDs in, like, English Lit. (You want fries with your Bullwer-Lytton?)


If Washington and the state capitals leave things alone,  foreclosed properties will in due course become unforeclosed. They will  again trade briskly at their market value. If this means $40,000 for a six-bedroom stunner with lots of granite and travertine, so be it.


The pool of chronic unemployables  is a tougher problem,  but we might start by repealing minimum wage laws as they apply to apprentice arrangements.


We might also start by worshipping a damned good mechanic at least as much as we do a mediocre professor of Sanskrit.  


Mr. Goodwrench can thrive in the free market.  (He can read Marlowe in his spare time if he's so inclined.) 


But In 99 cases out of a hundred, the professor shares a trait with the welfare queen; like her, he can wax fat only at the public trough.