New And Fresh

Hollywood, in its never ending search for clever and original ideas has attained a new level. The premium cable show "The 'L' Word" is spinning off a new show featuring one of its characters in prison. I'm astounded. That has never been done before. Not ever.

The other side

As a follow up to my prior post about unintended consequences, there is another side to the question. The workhouses of Dickensian fame were deliberately created to be miserable because their creators were concerned that if they were too comfortable they might result in a class of idle layabouts. Further, and we see this today with prison labour, the tasks that the poor were required to perform were of marginal use.

Tragedy of the Commons

A very nice explanation of unintended consequences, governmental good intentions and the poor.

{Via Tam}

Smush

Japan is just different.

An Outmoded Passion?

A few days ago, Instapundit linked to an oped in the LA Times discussing patriotism as being passe. It's quite the thing to not believe in American exceptionalism these days.

There's a very famous short story that no one reads anymore that deals with the subject. But of course, people in ages past knew nothing about anything.

I'm a patriot because I have lived in Canada and the Belgium. I love my country because we are unique. We are the only country established in furtherance of a set of principles. And when we have flourished it has been because we adhered to those principles.

But of course, our Founding Fathers knew nothing about anything.