Quotes of the day

Today, there is a name for the political doctrine that rejoices in scarcity of everything except government. The name is environmentalism. --George Will

I believe that the not-always-swift American voter in fact understands high deficits -- correctly -- in this light. They don't hold theories about "crowding out," rather they sense something in the house must be rotten. And so they rail against deficits, as do some of their elected representatives. It's a more justified reaction than the pure economics alone can illuminate. When water regularly overflows from your toilet, you want the toilet fixed, whether or not the water is doing harm.--Tyler Cowen

If Timothy Geithner were a Broadway show, the producers would shut it down.--Kevin Hassett

It's a good thing that Congress doesn't vote on whether to accept the logic of gravity.--Arnold Kling

I have to say, I'm woefully underimpressed with the argument that I am now hearing to the effect that "Medicare will bankrupt America anyway if we can't cut health care costs, so we might as well do health care reform." Anyone who has dated a manic-depressive has heard some version of this argument. "I can barely make ends meet now, so I might as well use my tax refund check to buy a boat! After all, if I can't figure out a way to fix my budget, I'm going to go bankrupt anyway." And anyone who has dated a manic-depressive knows where this ends.--Megan McArdle

But as Gregory Zuckerman details in The Greatest Trade Ever, Paulson remade his personality. He became a grump. ... Then we all know what happened. Paulson made a killing in the collapse of the housing market. While the rest of us were worried for our jobs, homes, and the future of the republic, he racked up a $20 billion profit over the last two years. And if new research is correct, his irritability had everything to do with it. According to a just-published study, a bad mood can be a competitive advantage.--Hugo Lindgren

Because of guilt over colonialism and the ugly nationalisms that led to World War II, it argues, Europe let in millions of Muslim immigrants but skipped the hard task of integrating them — because that would be pressing Western values on them. The result of these good intentions was an increasingly "angry and alienated religious minority." And the irony here is that France's politically incorrect ban on veils in schools turned out to be "an enormous success," decreasing radicalism by pressuring Muslims to assimilate.--John Richardson

Some of those mentioned in the [hacked climate scientists'] emails have responded to our requests for comment by saying they must first chat with their lawyers. Others have offered legal threats and personal invective. Still others have said nothing at all. Those who have responded have insisted that the emails reveal nothing more than trivial data discrepancies and procedural debates. Yet all of these nonresponses manage to underscore what may be the most revealing truth: That these scientists feel the public doesn't have a right to know the basis for their climate-change predictions, even as their governments prepare staggeringly expensive legislation in response to them. --WSJ Editorial Board

Year after year, the evidence keeps mounting that most climate research now being funded is for the purpose of supporting the IPCC’s politics, not to find out how nature works. The ‘data spin’ is increasingly difficult to ignore or to explain away as just sloppy science.--Roy Spencer