Quotes of the day

He who will not reason is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; and he who dares not is a slave.--William Drummond

Libertarians frequently underweight the long evolution of institutional arrangements that allow us to function without government intervention. And non-local pollution simply hasn't been around long enough for those institutions to evolve. There is no such thing as a free market approach to air quality or water rights. ... That doesn't mean we can't have freer market approaches, or that the lessons of markets aren't valuable. But strict property rights simply don't function in those commons.--Megan McArdle

The road building boom of the 1950s and 1960s did boost U.S. economic growth, according to Federal Reserve economist John Fernald. But this was because mass expansion of the interstate road system facilitated growth-producing economic activity. While necessary for keeping traffic moving safely and smoothly, simply re-building roads and bridges doesn’t spur commerce and, so, isn’t a strategy for economic growth.--Steven Milloy

For myself, I would be happy to see conservatism exit from the political scene--provided it takes liberalism with it. I would like to see us enter a post-ideological era in which policies are based on pragmatic considerations rather than on conformity to a set of preconceptions rooted in a rapidly vanishing past.--Richard Posner

Some retreat from free market conservatism is to be expected an s a result of the crisis, but it would be a serious mistake if the analysis of financial and other markets that becomes dominant in Washington gives insufficient weight to the enormous contributions of business competition in raising human welfare.--Gary Becker

What should be our criteria for military intervention? The answer is simple: strategic and moral necessity. Foreign policy is not social work. Acting for purely humanitarian reasons is wanton and self-indulgent. You don’t send U.S. soldiers to die to assuage troubled consciences at home. Their lives should be risked only in defense of their country.--Charles Krauthammer

Hmm - we lost New Orleans and all our investment banks but not Iraq! Some scorecard. That will be the Bush Problem. If he's lucky.--Tom Maguire

A Chinese man woke his wife from a 10-year coma by biting her toes.

No U.S. president or political leader has done more for global health than this Administration, which has raised the bar on America’s role and responsibility for providing critical humanitarian assistance around the world. Over the past eight years, the President and Mrs. Bush have traveled the globe as they and their staffs have worked tirelessly to bring awareness and solutions to pandemics such as HIV/AIDS, and we are privileged to honor their efforts on World AIDS Day.--Rick Warren