News Round Up 4/22/09

*Acting CFO of Freddie Mac found dead in his home from apparent suicide.

*I should have thrown this up yesterday, but slipped up. Here is Matt Patterson (AKA Quantum Brother) at Pajamas Media: Comprehending an Incomprehensible Economy

“But I wonder if this isn’t only part of the problem. I wonder if the economy and its attendant and manifold complications aren’t now so large and complex that humans, whose minds only recently evolved the capacity to count beyond our fingers and toes, are simply incapable of fully grasping, much less solving them.

If true, what then? The Enlightenment and all the scientific, economic, and political progress that it predicated, was based on the proposition that Man can understand his place in the universe and thereby control his fate. What happens to that dream if it dawns on us that we don’t, and can’t even fully understand our own financial transactions?”

*100 Days In: Is Obama Blowing It, by Jennifer Rubin.

*Obama’s EPA Declares CO2 a Poison, by James Lewis. If CO2 is now classified as a pollutant, how long before we are taxed to offset our “emissions”, also known as our breath?

RELATED: Save the Humans! By David Harsanyi. If you haven’t read his book “Nanny State”, you should. You can buy it here.

RELATED II: Homo Sapiens Get Lost, by Wesley J. Smith

“Here and abroad, environmentalism itself seems to be evolving from a movement dedicated to conserving resources, preserving pristine areas, and protecting endangered species into an anti-humanistic ideology that increasingly disdains humankind as a scourge that literally threatens the existence of “the planet.”

RELATED III: EPA is Choking Democracy, by Jonah Goldberg

RELATED IV: Lifestyles of the Rich and Eco-Conscious, by Mark Hemingway

RELATED V: Earth Day just so happens to be Lenin’s Birthday.

*Quiet Sun Baffling Astronomers, at the BBC

*Prohibition Spawns Drug Violence, by my favorite libertarian and yours, John Stossel.

*The Texas Question, by Professor Bernardo de la Paz at Simon-Jester.org. For those of you who don’t get the author or blog name, educate yourself, you’ll thank me later. And if the Prof get’s a link back here, I applaud you on your choice sir.

“What I fear most are affirmative actions of sober and well –intentioned men, granting to government powers to do something that appears to need doing.”

From the book, not the post.

Lazarus Long approves.

*Wow. From the “imagine if a conservative had done it” file; RFK calls Obama an indentured servant to the coal industry.

*Jeanine Garafolo on Racism – Why She is Way Off Base, by Sophia A. Nelson at Huffington Post.

“If we dare not stand in defense of our fellow citizens right to protest peacefully against our/their government then we are giving into a sneaky form of Tyranny. Race has nothing to do with the hardworking, decent American citizens who simply got sick and tired of being overtaxed and outspent by their government and showed up to do something about it.”

*Some great articles on the release of the interrogation memos.

Slow Roll Time at Langly, by David Ignatius

“Obama seems to think he can have it both ways — authorizing an unprecedented disclosure of CIA operational methods and at the same time galvanizing a clandestine service whose best days, he told them Monday, are “yet to come.” Life doesn’t work that way — even for charismatic politicians. Disclosure of the torture memos may have been necessary, as part of an overdue campaign to change America’s image in the world. But nobody should pretend that the disclosures weren’t costly to CIA morale and effectiveness.”

I disagree with his conclusions, but it’s a fantastic article.

RELATED III: What the Memos Mean, by the Editors at National Review

RELATED IV: The Case for the ‘Torture Memos’, by Rich Lowry at National Review

*Why Does Obama Smile at Dictators, by Shmuley Boteach

*Thought Police and Soft Despotism, by Hal Colebatch

*Your Daily Dose of Awesome: Saturn Close-Up