Sadly, No!

Steve at No More Mister Nice Blog reports on the latest proposal coming from the White House:

Under a new proposal, the White House would decide what and when the public would be told about an outbreak of mad cow disease, an anthrax release, a nuclear plant accident or any other crisis.

The White House Office of Management and Budget is trying to gain final control over release of emergency declarations from the federal agencies responsible for public health, safety and the environment….

The Office of Management and fucking Budget — this place. Its mission?

OMB’s predominant mission is to assist the President in overseeing the preparation of the federal budget and to supervise its administration in Executive Branch agencies. In helping to formulate the President’s spending plans, OMB evaluates the effectiveness of agency programs, policies, and procedures, assesses competing funding demands among agencies, and sets funding priorities. OMB ensures that agency reports, rules, testimony, and proposed legislation are consistent with the President’s Budget and with Administration policies.

In addition, OMB oversees and coordinates the Administration’s procurement, financial management, information, and regulatory policies. In each of these areas, OMB’s role is to help improve administrative management, to develop better performance measures and coordinating mechanisms, and to reduce any unnecessary burdens on the public.

Explain the logic underlying this proposal, please.

Yesterday’s NYT article on Judith Steinberg Dean quotes one Myra Gutin from Rider University:

In her book, “The President’s Partner: The First Lady in the 20th Century,” Ms. Gutin outlined three broad categories: “ceremonial” (Bess Truman, Mamie Eisenhower), whose White House role was mainly entertaining; “emerging spokeswoman” (Jacqueline Kennedy, Pat Nixon), who seized the podium to promote issues important to them; and “activist” (Eleanor Roosevelt, Betty Ford). Dr. Steinberg, she said, fits nowhere.

In our blog (Sadly, No!) we outline three broad categories of professors: those who research important things few people care about, those who research pointless things a lot of people care about, and those who research pointless things of no interest to anyone. Dr. Gutin, who is busy writing a biography of Barbara Bush, fits in the third.

For several years now (since 1997, if you’re keeping score at home) the mean people of Sadly, No! have lived outside of their “natural habitat” (Canada,) first in the US and now in Germany. One of the, uh, pleasures of living abroad is having people make a mockery of your name on a regular basis. Having been blessed baptized with a very long (and very French) name, the entertainment never stops. But our neighbor’s name is, to a German at least, even worse on the comedy mispronunciation potential scale. And so it was recently that we were at the front door accepting two packages, one for us and one for our neighbor:

Delivery Person: “I have a package for Sadly, No! and [pause] unpronounceable.”
Sadly, No!: “Ha ha.”
Husband of neighbor with unpronounceable name who happened to be standing behind us: “I’ll take the second package.”
Sadly, No!: “Oh yeah? Well, the jerk store called and they’re running out of you!” [walks away very quickly.]

It is a glamorous life we lead.

This post is dedicated to the smart crossblade, the official pretend car of Sadly, No!

The Wall Street Journal offers this dead horse for your consideration today:

There is also his–let’s be kind–mercurial temperament. Mr. Dean often shoots from the lip, a habit his supporters find refreshing but that will make him vulnerable during the crucible of a campaign. To take just one example: In the wake of Saddam Hussein’s capture, Mr. Dean declared we were no safer because of it. This was bad enough as a gaffe, but he has stuck by the point, like Mike Dukakis on furloughs for felons, suggesting an obstinate disregard for the judgment of most Americans.

This has been noted so many times by so many people it’s hard sadly all too easy to believe the WSJ is pulling this bunny dead horse out of its hat ass:

Newsweek: “A majority (51 percent) of Americans say Hussein’s capture hasn’t made them safer or more secure (41 percent say it has)…”

CBS: “AFTER SADDAM’S CAPTURE, THE TERROR THREAT IS??
Increased: 17%; Still the same: 61%; Decreased: 18%.”

Have you no shame sirs? No shame at all? (Our December post on this here, Atrios’ there.)

K-Lo, everybody’s favorite, uh, something, shows she has difficulties telling the distinction between fiction and documentary (don’t let her anywhere near Dennis Prager’s articles!) in Tuesday’s edition of The Corner:

I’ve actually thought more than once that one of the useful aspects of West Wing is to show how influential a political wife can be (i.e. not always for the good)–Bartlett?s is quite the activist when it comes to her issues, sometimes making him more radical than he would have been.

Yes — there’s nothing like drawing real life lessons from TV drama. After all, if you can’t rely on the tax-hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading, body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show, Hollywood elite liberals who are said to bring us most of our TV programs, there is no hope for any of us. And so encouraged by K-Lo, we offer:

As always, readers are invited to submit their own most useful aspects in the comments.

See several posts from The Corner yesterday (1, 2, 3 and 4.):

Although all empirical evidence contradicts my assertion, there exists a large body of anecdotal evidence that gives the illusion I was kind of right after all.

PS: The Derb quote that started it all:

Japan is doing pretty nicely: “Real GDP grew by an estimated 2.6% in 2003…” Not bad for a nation that’s supposed to be on the ropes.

Our earlier post is below (or here.)

Jonah Goldberg goes for the 2004 Ann Elk Award (oh oh, we are sounding like Andrew Sullivan with this award crap.)

I might remind folks of the column I wrote on how immigration fights socialism. column I wrote on how immigration fights socialism. My basic point is that economic redistribution rankles when the benefits go to another tribe. If you keep the redistribution among your own kind, you are likely to have a higher tolerance for it. This is one reason why the nations of Europe tolerated huge social safety nets for so long and are now talking about unravelling them as their societies become more diverse and, hence, their incomes start going to Arabs and North Africans. Just a theory I have.

And it’s his, this theory, and what it is too.

PS to Jonah: Get a fucking spell checker already.
PPS: Learn how to code HTML.
PPPS: We’re quite sure the deficits are not to blame for European discussions about cutting social safety nets.

John Derbyshire thinks we need not look at the specifics — and no wonder:

I would not make too much of the Japan example I raised. Tamar Jacoby asserted that you can’t have any growth without a growing labor force. I provided a clear counterexample to refute that particular point. …

I am aware of all the bad news about Japan these past few years. I have not been there myself for some time, but acquaintances who know the country tell me things are fine, and people have plenty of money in their pockets. …

You can’t get analysis like that anywhere on the internet — anywhere, that is, besides in the corner. It reminds us of Neal Cavuto’s forecast for stupendous consumer spending this past holiday season based on his friend’s Tom’s need to make it up to his wife for sleeping with his secretary. (Or something like that — and yes, we stole that joke from s.z. at World O’Crap.)

So how are things in Japan? According to the World Bank, from 1998 to 2002 Japan’s economy “grew” by -1.10, 0.67, 2.36, -0.58, and -0.70 percent. People may very well have money in their pockets but the Japanese economy has been stuck in neutral for a long time now. Things improved in 2003 — but not after a dozen years of stagnation. Singling out Japan’s economic performance to support your case is akin to arguing that there are no more desirable men out there because Amber Pawlik is having problems getting a date. (Even though she loves cock — Frederick, this one’s for you.) And whether Derb has been to Japan recently or not is so besides the point — as though one can get an accurate sense of a country’s economic performance by walking around.

Why do we get the impression this is the sign posted on the door that leads to The Corner?

The bounce is over

If you only look at those stocks that have gone up since 2000, it turns out the stock market has done exceptionally well.

Shorter concept inspired by busy, busy, busy from an idea by D-Squared.

Dennis Prager explains the extremely high standards of his radio show:

Furthermore, I have particularly high standards to protect the dignity of public figures. For example, I may have been the only talk show host who never allowed a Monica Lewinsky joke to be broadcast on my show.

Along similar lines:

Sadly, No!: “We have particularly high standards to protect the dignity of John Derbyshire. For example, we may have been the only blog that allowed nothing else besides pornographic stick figures jokes.”

Bonus points: Prager refers to Jonah Goldberg as an “astute observer of contemporary life.”