WILLisms.com: Classiness, All Around Us.

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Classiness, All Around Us.

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In no particular order, WILLisms.com presents classiness from the blogosphere:

PoliPundit notes some good news on the public opinion polling front:

According to the new Washington Post/ABC News Poll:
“Would you support or oppose a plan in which people who chose to could invest some of their Social Security contributions in the stock market?”

Support 56%
Oppose 41%
Unsure 3%

Wizbang urges everyone to celebrate International Eat An Animal For PETA Day, complete with the "freedom grill" team:

Right Wing News catalogues the left-wing obsession with Karl Rove:

Karl Rove, George Bush's hired political gun, has been so successful that he has spawned a number of conspiracy theories in Democratic circles. If something bad happens to a Democrat, you can almost be certain that someone is going to try to pin it on Karl Rove.

Patrick Ruffini signals the "Loaded Question Alert" at the White House press briefing:

Remember when asking a "loaded question" at a White House press briefing was a cardinal sin? No more!

Go ahead, Helen.

Q Diplomacy depends on policy. You can't sell what is unsaleable. If the policy remains that we will engage further in preemptive war, you cannot sell it to the Middle East, I'm sure, or anywhere else. So are you going to change any policy?

MR. McCLELLAN: Our policy is to expand freedom and democracy and to support the aspirations of people --

Q By gunpoint?

MR. McCLELLAN: -- and support the aspirations of people in countries around the world that do not have the freedoms that we enjoy. And, no, Helen, the President made it very clear in his inaugural address that it is not primarily the use of arms. It is supporting the aspirations of the people in those countries and doing all we can to stand with those people as they seek greater freedoms. We are standing with the people of Lebanon. We are standing with the people of the Palestinian Territories. We are standing with --

Q We also invaded Iraq.

MR. McCLELLAN: -- we are standing with the people of Iraq, and the people of Iraq have shown that freedom is a universal value. They stood up and defied the terrorists and went to the polls.

Q And we invaded the country.

Maybe Helen should ask the folks in Egpyt, Lebanon, and Iraq whether democracy is "saleable?"

Captain's Quarters Blog, in "Pro-Syrian Demonstrators Short On Math," explains the ridiculousness of the Ba'athist supporters:

Let's see ... we have one American ambassador in Beirut, who probably has a staff of around 200 or so people, including security. Syria, on the other hand, has 14,000 armed troops and thousands more in military intelligence, plus its Hezbollah auxiliary.
One man, an American ambassador, can beat the Syrian army?

Man, have these guys backed the losing horse.

Austin Bay looks back on the Eason Jordan and Rathergate stories:

It’s high time a voice of integrity in the legacy media noticed that both the CNN and CBS scandals remain open questions. They are corrosive issues– particularly for journalists who value credibility.

Blogs For Terri explains the race against time to save Terri Schiavo from euthanasia:

TALLAHASSEE - With emotions running high in the Terri Schiavo case, the Florida Legislature is poised to pass a new end-of-life law before Friday, the day a judge has ordered the removal of the Pinellas Park woman's feeding tube.
The new proposal says a feeding tube could not be withheld unless a patient signed a living will opposing artificial sustenance, or met one of several other narrowly drawn exceptions.

If approved, the law could prohibit withdrawal of Schiavo's feeding tube, even though supporters said they have a broader goal in mind.

"It is a statement of public policy that, in this culture, we don't starve people to death," said Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, sponsor of the bill (HB 701), waving a pile of letters from people and groups pleading to keep Schiavo alive.

The post also has this video link: Barricades around the hospice where Terri Schiavo lives.

The Social Security Choice blog believes there are some dirty little secrets about Social Security that anti-reformers don't want you to know.:

First, Democrats want President Bush’s proposed personal retirement accounts off the negotiation table because Congress has already spent your money. That is because, in reality, there is no Social Security Trust Fund....

The second dirty little secret is that personal retirement accounts do not really constitute privatization....

The third dirty little secret concerns the personal retirement add-on accounts some Democrats have hinted may bring them to the negotiation table. These add-on accounts would be available to workers on a voluntary basis, but do nothing to solve the solvency crisis or put workers in charge of their own money....

Obviously, long-term solvency of the Social Security system is not the Democrats’ true long-term goal. Solvency cannot be achieved by reducing benefits, increasing taxes, and increasing government spending. Instead, their hidden goal is increased control of your life, which is achieved by controlling an ever-growing share of your money.

If we do not change the Social Security structure now, in 15 years the problem will be bigger, the taxes needed to prop up the system will increase, benefits will decrease, and true solvency will be an impossible goal.

Maybe that’s the other dirty little secret they don’t want you to know.

Daily Demarche comments on Spain's 9/11:

March 11, 2004 was Spain’s 9/11. No strangers to terrorism and tragedy, both as Americans and as likely targets for terrorists due to our profile and official status, we here at the Daily Demarche offer, once again, out heartfelt condolences to the victims and survivors of those cowardly attacks.
The response of the Zapatero government to the Madrid attacks is, unfortunately, not worthy of our respect. It is, in fact, almost beyond self-parody. Zapatero, who swept into power after the Aznar government bungled the aftermath of the Madrid bombings, has decided that his country will take on global Islamofascist terrorism by... holding a conference....

To be fair, Spain continues to contribute to reconstruction in Afghanistan. But Zappatero’s cowardly withdrawal of troops from Iraq, contrary to his promise to keep troops there under the rubric of a new UN resolution legitimating the Iraqi Interim Government (which we now call SC 1546) did nothing more than embolden our fascist enemies, and has not made Spain safer. If he thinks that hosting a conference will make Spain safer a global terrorist movement that wishes to take over parts of his country, then I truly feel sorry for the Spanish people.

10.

Marginal Revolution looks at the macroeconomics of depopulation, as described by Matthew Yglesias:

An aging population brings dissaving, slower growth, less innovation, and a worsening of the government's fiscal position.

Previous Certifications of Classiness from WILLisms.com:

and

Starting today, WILLisms.com is going to make the classiness roundup a weekly feature, every Tuesday, with 10 posts deemed classy. If you would like to nominate a post on your blog or another blog for inclusion, email us at WILLisms@gmail.com.

In the near future, we're also going to introduce a roundup of lameness, which will provide examples of shrill, angry, extremist, anti-American, self-loathing, intentionally misleading, and other unclassy posts from leftist blogs (and even right-wing blogs, if it is bad enough). Again, email us at WILLisms@gmail.com to submit nominations.

Classy.

Posted by Will Franklin · 15 March 2005 12:14 PM

Classiness, All Around Us.

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