Not too long ago, I took a trip on a container ship from Seattle to Shanghai. You can see some photos of it on my old blog, if you're a container ship travel nut. I went with my friend and fellow Ricochet contributor Mike Murphy, and we had an amazing time. Except for the storms.

When we steamed into Shanghai, though, there was a problem.

Evidently, not too many people arrive in the People's Republic via container ship.

So as the mess got sorted out -- which (surprise!) took $100 in cash -- I had time to wander around the customs office. There was an information kiosk with a touchscreen display, and as I tapped my way through the various listings, I came across this screen.

It may be hard to read. It's the "Code of Professional Ethics" which all customs officers are supposed to follow.

Of course, I agree with all of them. But you should feel free to choose your own favorite. Mine is in bold. All other punctuation (or lack thereof) is original:

Be loyal to the Party

Be steadfast in faith, listen to the command of the Party, protect the Constitution and be loyal to the motherland.

Serve the people

Love the people, be a devoted civil servant, know clearly what to love and what to hate and be committed to eliminating the evils and protecting the good.

Be impartial in law enforcement

Don't play favoritism. Don't bow to the high and mighty. It is strictly forbidden to extort confessions. Don't be wrong or connive at people.

Be just and impartial, clear-handed and clear-headed.

Live plainly and work hard. Work selflessly for the public interest. Guard against corrupting influences and reject bribes. Don't get influenced or contaminated.

Unity and coordination

Have the interest of the whole at heart and do one's utmost to cooperate. Respect each other and support each other.

Be prepared to sacrifice one's life

Be dedicated to one's duty and skilled and proficient in one's work. Be intelligent and brave and fear no sacrifice

Strictly observe discipline

Listen to the leadership, obey orders, comply with regulations and keep secrets.

Perform one's duties in a civilized manner

Be modest and prudent. Don't make a show of one's authority. Treat people politely and be neat and tidy in appearance.

Listen to the leadership, obey orders, comply with regulations, and keep secrets. Sort of describes the relationship most of the news media have with the Obama administration, don't you think?

Was anyone convinced by the two-page memo released by the White House on the Sestak jobs program? There was some unintended humor, as befits this posturing administration -- the White House had Bill Clinton offer Sestak an unpaid but prestigious job to get out of the PA Senate primary race. History tells us that Clinton and interns don't mix well.

The Hatch Act (18 USC 600) makes it a crime to a) offer anyone a federal "employment, position, compensation, contract, appointment, or other benefit" b) as a "consideration, favor, or reward" c) for "any political activity or for the support of or opposition to any candidate or any political party" involved in a election.

It does not matter, it seems to me, that Bill Clinton was the intermediary (the law prohibits direct and indirect offers), or that the position was unpaid (the law lists employment, compensation, and position separately). The law was obviously intended to stop the practice of offering jobs to wealthy campaign contributors (one has to find ambassadors somewhere), but its text seems to include offers in return for more than just money ("any political activity" or "for the support of . . . any candidate).

One wonders if Ken Starr is available.

Kim Strassel make a good argument in the Wall Street Journal today that, in attacking Obama for his handling of the oil leak, the GOP had better watch it.  Insist that the federal government ought to be big and powerful enough to plug leaks a mile under water at a moment’s notice?  Argue that offshore oil exploration is so risky that the Obama administration should never have approved it?  Those lines of attack could very easily twist around to bite the GOP itself.

On the other hand, it’s entirely legitmate, I can’t help supposing, to hold the Obama administraton responsible for enforcing the federal laws and regulations that govern offshore exploration and drilling.  Unlike the Katrina disaster, in which primary legal responsibility for managing the emergency lay with the city of New Orleans and the state of Louisiana—both utterly dysfunctional, as we quickly learned, but still—the oil rig that blew up in the Gulf was drilling in federal waters.

Do we have any experts in the Ricochet audience?  Because all this leads, I think, to two questions:

Was the Obama administration right to permit BP to begin operating the doomed rig in the first place?

And if the Obama administration had proven both prudent and competent in administering the various federal agencies into whose jurisdication the vast oil spill has now washed up, what would the administration have so far done differently?

As everyone knows, I can be a real squish.  So let me stipulate, at the outset:  I'm for a small, limited government.  I'm for a flat tax.  I instinctively recoil at government schemes and programs and mousetraps designed to shape and change human behavior.

And of course, it goes without saying that San Francisco Mayor Newsom is an absurd clown.

So, I'm asking for an intervention here.

Because I sort of like this.  And I know it's wrong, of course.  But I still sort of like it.

Save me.

Peggy Noonan has a very insightful column in today's WSJ (subscription required), regarding some of the signature problems with the Obama administration. Highlighting the President's aloof dismissal of the majority of American opinion regarding illegal immigration, the unseemly manner in which a hideous health care law was inacted, and the government's inability to plug an oil leak, Noonan zeros in on the central thesis that the Founders understood over 200 years ago, namely that:

"...even though the federal government has in our time continually taken on new missions and responsibilities, the more it took on, the less it seemed capable of performing even its most essential jobs."

And that's the problem, isn't it? On the one hand we are told that if we surrender enough of our liberty, enough of our property, enough of our rights, an omnipotent and caring government will take care of us, feed us, heal us, cause the seas to subside, etc. On the other hand, these same people cannot manage to secure the border, balance a budget, plug a leaking pipe, or care in the least about the will of the people. And so the President continues audaciously proving lessons that were learned long ago, that a government which over reaches will inevitably fall short. That the sum of human experience has yielded certain truths, and that those truths are as relevant today as they were when the Founders enshrined them in the Declaration and the Constitution. That an American President instructs us in the wisdom of the Founders by default is sad. That he does so under the ironic banner of "Change," is tragic.

Gary Coleman, the short-statured star of the TV sitcom, "Diff'rent Strokes," died today.

He was a funny guy, and a talented actor perfectly suited to that show and that time. His catch-phrase, "What'choo talkin' 'bout, Willis?" was, you know, a catch-phrase. It's easy to make fun of it, and to snark about it, but try introducing a catch-phrase into the popular culture sometime and see how hard it is.

I never met Gary -- but I always had a soft spot for him. Seven years ago, when he ran for governor of California in the famous recall election. If memory serves, he lost. To another, slightly taller, figure from Hollywood.

The week after the election, in my humor column, "The Long View" in National Review -- which I can't link to because they don't put that magazine on the web -- I fantasized about what might have happened after a Coleman upset:

Transcript, “The Today Show,” December 8^th, 2003:

Katie Couric: “Do you just have to pinch yourself?”

Gary Coleman: “Every day, Katie. I mean, it really is incredible.”

Katie Couric: “Did you have any idea…any inkling of a what they’re calling the ‘late Coleman surge?’”

Gary Coleman: “No idea at all, Katie. None. I didn’t have much of a campaign budget, remember. So we had zero, really, for any kind of polling. The Field Poll showed us hovering in the low fives, high fours…”

Katie Couric: “Ahead of Angelyne and the Green Party, right?”

Gary Coleman: “Yeah. Right. Comfortably ahead of the Green Party, and within the margin of error with Angelyne, but then, Zogby came out the night before the election and showed us in the low teens, and I remember getting those numbers and just thinking, you know, ‘what choo talkin’ bout, Zogby?’ and just…”

Katie Couric: “But by the next day…”

Gary Coleman: “Yeah, the next day I’m on one of those little planes headed to Sacramento and…”

Katie Couric: “Were you nervous?”

Gary Coleman: “Freaked.”

Katie Couric: “But other things were going on in your life at the time, right?”

Gary Coleman: “Right.”

Katie Couric: “You have a new lady in your life, am I right?”

Gary Coleman: “Yeah. Yeah. You know, it’s strange, because ever since my show went off the air, it’s been, I don’t know, like, impossible to meet girls. And now, I’ve got to say, it’s really great to have a such a terrific lady to lean on. And she’s not just my girlfriend – my first real girlfriend, actually. I mean, she’s more than a lover. She’s an advisor. A partner. A counselor. She’s my everything.”

Katie Couric: “And she’s here with you today.”

Gary Coleman: “Yes, she is.”

Katie Couric: “Hi, Arianna.”

Arianna Huffington: “Hello, Katie. It’s wonderful to be here.”

Katie Couric: “So….I’ve got to say, this is an unlikely romance.”

Arianna Huffington: “You know, Katie, the truth is, it isn’t, really. It’s just that we’ve been conditioned to expect that people of the same height tend to end up together.”

Katie Couric: “And when did you know that this was the guy for you?”

Arianna Huffington: “A few minutes after Fox/Opinion Dynamics released their exit poll results. I just thought to myself, who’s that hunk in the boy’s blazer?”

Katie Couric: “Wow. I imagine there have been a lot of compromises?”

Gary Coleman: “Yeah. Of course. Like in any relationship. I mean, when we go to parties thrown by Arianna’s friends, I have to wear a sign that says ‘I am not the parking valet.’”

Arianna Huffington: “And I was surprised to learn that the residuals from ‘Diff’rent Strokes” weren’t all that lucrative. But you know, Katie, love really does conquer all. He’s a wonderful man. A wonderful, dear, sexy little man.”

Katie Couric: “Sounds like the things that every couple goes through. We wish you the best.”

Not sure, at this point, that Coleman wasn't a better choice.

Having finished a rejuvinating workout at the military base near my home, I emerged from the weight room to see a good number of troops in their dress blues.  I asked when they began working out dressed like that, and was informed that they were gathering in the gym for their promotion ceremony.  It's an interesting and insular community on base.  Here at the gym, young men and women walk a little taller in their dress blues, displaying rows of ribbons that mark courage and honor.  Today they add another stripe to their sleeves.  Their wives, husbands, and children are with them to share in their accomplishment even as they also share in the sacrifice of service.  Meanwhile, the thunderous roar of F-22 fighters shakes the ground and rattles the windows as our pilots hone their deadly skills.  In the base exhange, families purchase the items they need, and retirees like me drink coffee, tell lies, jokes, and watch with a mixture of pride and nostalgia as the current generation of warriors get about the business of keeping the nation safe.  Just another day at the base.  Another day in a community that will do whatever it takes to defend your community.

The razor-sharp Cheryl Miller is a must-read in today's Wall Street Journal:

At times, though, the abrupt tonal shift from testimonial to infomercial can be jarring. [...]

Stacey Feldman, vice president for marketing at First Response, acknowledges potential pitfalls in the approach, especially if happy endings are in short supply. "We were worried," she says, "but this is an honest portrayal. We want to be there for the ups and downs in these women's lives."

[...] But will her stars agree? Especially if, after airing their most intimate moments and private yearnings, they don't win the pregnancy prize?

"I'm speechless and all out of tears today. Don't know what to say," wrote Wendy, a Conceptions Diarist, in her farewell post. "I have to say this project has consumed me." Sometimes even reality TV can get too real.

If you get RT America on your cable TV -- or if you click here -- you can watch me deliver some fair and balanced criticism of the Obama administration's new National Security Strategy (or, as it is known in wonkese, NSS). Though he's made some blunders, optical and otherwise, I'd been pleasantly surprised at the president's ability to shepherd the nation through the tricky geostrategic obstacle course we inherited from the Bush years. But it's time to shift into a more focused and creative gear -- with our thinking uncluttered and undistorted by what I'd call the 'strategic misidentification' that characterizes this NSS. One might venture that beneath the finely spun sugar of this document is a core of carefully acknowledged truths about the reality of our world and our position in it. But that kind of rhetorical finesse is out of place in a statement meant to carry the clarity and heft that it must.

At the end of the site's first work week, I'd just like to observe that the two best political pieces on my Rushian stack o' stuff this week happened both to be by Ricochet contributors. Peter Robinson's Uncommon Knowledge interview with John Podhoretz really is superb. And so too is the article by my fellow City Journal contributing editor Claire Berlinski on the indifference to the records of Soviet evil (linked, as Claire mentions in her post, by that fine, fine paper The New York Times). How genuinely delightful to be in such company!

That said, I now plan to leave my computer behind to join my former karate instructor on the shooting range where we will continue our training for the coming zombie wars. Have a wonderful Memorial Day.

Thanks to Drew Klavan, Rob Long, Ursula Hennessey, and the many Ricochet readers who have made suggestions, the summer reading list for the three teenaged Robinson males has begun taking shape:

The mandatory pile

One brand new copy, purchased at the full retail price, of Andrew Klavan's most recent book for young adults, The Long Way Home

Hatchet

Graveyard Book

Microbe Hunters (One of my boys loves science. We'll see if he loves science writing.)

Sink the Bismarck (The best way to introduce the boys to history, I figure, is by way of the Department of Blowing Things Up.)

The Once and Future King (I've been meaning to read it myself since I was about 15.)

The optional pile

Two additional copies, used, of Andrew Klavan's most recent novel for young adults, The Long Way Home

A couple of books from the Hornblower series

Another couple from the Great Brain series

Kim. Also a collection of Kipling short stories, most certainly to include "The Man Who Would be King."

Chronicles of Narnia

If I may, a few remaining questions, the first of which goes to Mrs. Hennesey: Ursula, you spent a decade as a professional sports writer. What sports books would you recommend? Books in which teenaged boys could lose themselves (which is what they'll have in mind) while being exposed to clean, straightforward prose and a skillful narrative (which is what their father has in mind)? Sports books--it's tricky ground, I find. Sports writers tend to write for newspapers and magazines, getting their work into print while their audience still recalls the game or match or contest about which they're writing. Books? Not so much. There's John McPhee on Arthur Ashe and Bill Bradley, and then there's David Halberstam on rowing. But those aren't books by sports writers. They're books by writers who happened to take six months off to write about sports.

As you'll see, Ursula, I'm desperate.

My next question I direct to my esteemed colleague, Mr. R.C.B. Long. Kim? Really, Rob? Jeepers. The story is set in a world, the Raj, that went out of existence seven decades ago, the narrative makes heavy use of dialect, and the story line (as I recall) is pretty darned complicated. Maybe some Kipling short stories instead? Or would you contend--and who knows? You've met all three of them--that my not particularly literate boys could pull themselves together and make it through Kim on their own, unflogged by their male parent? I'm asking for summer reading suggestions here. If you insist on Kim I will certainly pick up a copy--but let the boys know that it was your idea.

This is your last chance to take it back.

Gov. Jindal needs to borrow a little of Gov. Christie's moxie. The oil is lapping at the bayou and the Corps of Engineers -- one more example of bureaucratic delay and non-responsiveness in the Gulf -- is dragging it's feet on the necessary approvals to let them put in prophylactic sandbags. The Governor needs to take ownership, put on his waders, lead the sandbag brigade, challenge them to throw him in jail, and be willing to go if necessary. Now that would earn him some love!

Did FOX this AM on the Administration's decision to extend the moratorium on drilling. Remember, there have been 3000 deep water wells drilled safely, but we're not stopping there but including approved sites in Alaska and shallow water wells. Either this is a huge political overraction, or taking advantage of an opportunity by an administration staffed with people who never liked offshore drilling and thinks $5 gas is a good thing. Can we say lost jobs? Higher costs? If we're going to shut down things which are potentially harmful, any votes for including Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, and the White House on that list?

Let's just get the nonsense out of the way first. I, Ursula Q. "Public," am not at all "assured" by you, Mr. President, that "nothing improper took place." Nonsense. However, to my Ricochet political experts, please help me fill in some blanks with this New York Times story about Bill Clinton passing on Rahm Emanuel's "message" to Joe Sestak.

1) Why would Clinton do this? What does he get out of it?

2) Why would Sestak, or anyone, for that matter, be enticed by an unpaid advisory job? There must be some other, under-the-table kind of thing that will result in money, right?

3) Please explain why someone like me shouldn't be totally revolted by all political operators, if this is, indeed, run-of-the-mill political shenanigans?

Reihan Salam and Keith Hennessey are making sense. Hint: you can't pin it all on W.

The brilliant PEG points my eye toward this observation on the limits of transparency in an era of big government:

People who are hip to the we-gov (as opposed to e-gov) concept are beginning to see that in order to bring netizens in as partners in governance, they need to be data literate, and need to be empowered with an understanding of what data actually means. Otherwise data — data that is useless to anyone except an intellectual elite — is largely just another tool for public relations, or a way to lower costs.

I've got nothing against popular numeracy, though I do groan each time a pundit or a president plumps for 'more science and math education' as a twenty-first century cure-all. Here I see a similar problem. Should we really seek public data literacy because our government is impenetrable and unintelligible unless we can crunch numbers? Or is this a case of the enormous tail wagging, and whipping, the dog?

A progressive fatalist -- here is a moniker that should enter the lexicon -- might argue that this sort of logic reflects simply the latest and greatest definition of citizenship. Just as basic literacy and public awareness once set the bar for responsible citizenship (never mind those nasty poll tests), now, today, anyone who wants to participate properly in politics needs to brush up on their quant skills. But this elegant line of reasoning conveniently elides what any friend of political liberty will recognize as the central problem: a government that concentrates information as irresistibly as it concentrates power.

Even setting aside the libertarian worry that a national-security state run wild will gobble up all our private information in permanent endless databases, Americans should pause before learning to love government data. The ability to digest numerical information, though important, still puts the would-be citizen in a default position of passive consumption. And the switch from discourse-driven citizenship to data processing puts us all on a conceptual footing that favors precisely what any public conversation about the means and ends of our BIG government should emphasize -- the indefinite expansion, entrenchment, and convolution of bureaucratic complexity. As David Brooks warns today, super-human complexity breeds all-too-human complacency, caprice, and corruption -- the very things that an active, education citizenry is able, and even designed, to prevent.

A Ricochet reader -- who can't comment because she hasn't yet decided to join -- sent me the full transcript of Crowley's remarks on Pakistan's You Tube ban. I'm very relieved to see that in context, Crowley does not at all sound the complete cretin he would seem to be from the way Dawn reported it. He actually offers a reasonably robust defense of freedom of expression, apart from that line about protecting citizens from offensive speech.

Note to the anonymous Ricochet reader: You may as well join. You're obviously into it, and it's not that expensive.

To my astonishment, I seem to be able to access YouTube. I haven't been able to do this in Turkey for years. I can't find any reference to the ban having been lifted in the news, and for all I know it's a technical glitch, but let's be optimistic and celebrate it as a victory for freedom of expression. I'm celebrating it, anyway -- especially because I can now watch the video of Assistant Secretary of State Philip J. Crowley telling Pakistan that the United States supports the banning of YouTube. This will be rich.

I'm waiting for the State Department to applaud this development in Turkey, but obviously not holding my breath.

There was a protest here last night against the ban. It was sort of a combination party and protest, really; people here don't feel that comfortable with protests, but they love parties, so the idea of billing it as a party was quite shrewd. I doubt the protest resulted in the ban's being lifted, but I like to think the Turkish government finally decided, "We just can't keep this up, the world's laughing at us, and people here are getting really fed up."

I didn't make it to the party, although I wanted to. I was too busy dealing with a dead computer. But I know a lot of the people who were there, and I think I can guess what they'd say about the State Department's enthusiastic endorsement of censorship in the Islamic world.

Could this be serious? It was reported on the front page of Dawn, in Pakistan. My computer's been broken for two days, so I haven't been able to check the news. Has there been any wide reaction to this?

WASHINGTON: The United States has strongly supported Pakistan’s move to ban certain internet sites, saying the Pakistani government had the right to protect its public from offensive images and speech.

Assistant Secretary of State Philip J. Crowley, apparently, said:

... “Pakistan is wrestling to this issue. We respect any actions that need to be taken under Pakistani law to protect their citizens from offensive speech,” said the US State Department official while rejecting a suggestion from a journalist to condemn Islamabad’s actions.

If he really said this, and if no one in the West has noticed he said it -- and gone appropriately insane about it -- we're doomed.

As I mentioned on the podcast yesterday morning, I write a weekly column for the English-language daily newspaper in Abu Dhabi, The National.

I write about Hollywood, about the life of a screenwriter. It's often a more expounded version of my weekly commentary on the local NPR station here in Los Angeles -- which is sort of an inside view for local listeners -- but what I like about the National gig is that it encourages me to read actually read the paper, to read something else at least once a week, to break out of the NYT-WSJ silo that I often lapse into. It's an interesting and well-written paper, and often has surprisingly sophisticated international coverage.

Here's my latest.

And full disclosure: I only agreed to write the column because I was promised 2 things. The first, business cards with English on one side, Arabic on the other (I thought it'd be cool). And the second: at least one expense-paid junket to Abu Dhabi in one of the first class Emirates Air mini-cabins I've seen advertised in The Economist.

Neither one of those things has come to pass. But I'm patient.

There’s a nasty little portion of the flight envelope for a high-flying jet airplane known as the coffin corner, where the indicated air speed is low due to the thin air but the Mach number simultaneously high. Any slower and the plane stalls, any faster and airflow exceeds the speed of sound, with the resulting shock wave causing a “Mach tuck,” pointing the nose down abruptly. Bad stuff happens fast at this point. Most seductively, coffin-corner-flying feels just fine until some little bobble, perhaps a jolt of mild turbulence, upsets the aircraft and seconds later a seemingly sound machine is falling to the ground in pieces.

President Obama, Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid are flying our country into an economic coffin corner. The US federal deficit is over 10% of GDP this year, with no end in sight. Simultaneously, despite near-zero real interest rates, the money supply as measured by M3 is declining at a rate last seen during the Great Depression.

If we cut spending with the rest of Obamanomics in place – think of it as a boot on the neck of the private sector –- the economy stalls, deflation ensues and another Great Depression may be waiting at the end of the ride. If we carry on spending, any eventual uptick in interest rates will jolt debt service expenses higher, causing an immediate need for additional borrowing to pay today's interest on yesterday's loans. If the Chinese aren't returning calls at this point, we will all be riding along on a continent-sized Mach tuck.

Making sense of the California ballot is like reading Chinese.  Literally, it actually is -- although the state graciously provides English and Spanish translations.

One proposition that I find especially baffling is Proposition 14, which would introduce the open primary process for congressional, statewide, and legislative races.  In an open primary, all voters can choose any candidate regardless of political party preference.  The two candidates receiving the greatest number of votes appear on the general election ballot.

How, if at all, would an open primary system change the political process?  Who would benefit most from the change?  Would this system prove easier or more difficult than our current system to manipulate?

Crossing my fingers that Mike Murphy weighs in on this one.

From Hawaii to New York State, the Ricochet Podcast goes coast to coast this week as we talk to Ricochet contributor Heather Higgins about her role in helping to elect Republican Charles Djou in Hawaii. That's right, Hawaii. Then Col. Chris Gibson joins us to discuss the state of his race in NY's 12th district, and his inspiring vision for the country's future. Finally, Rob reveals his secret career as a political voice over artist and a third world columnist.

(Hint: The new home of our podcast player is located under the Featured Contributors box on the right side of your screen.)

I don't know about you, but when I heard Obama mention the dead turtles, I sat in my car and wept for a full hour. Then I collected myself, went into my office and started playing Frogger.

Frogger - how old school is THAT?

Per WSJ News Alert:

Before taking questions at a midday news conference, the president said the U.S. is suspending the exploration of two regions off Alaska, as well as off the Gulf Coast and Virginia, and will suspend action on 33 wells currently being explored.

Is that sound a cheer coming up from Iran? You bet. 

A friend just said to me; “Assuming that the "top kill" working, how long before critics say ‘why did BP wait so long to try this approach?’  There is no winning.” 

He’s right. We have become a nation of utopians, arrogant 2^nd guessers, and Lilliputians who are certain that enough rules will make everything work just right, not realizing that at some point they will just make everything grind to a halt.  And with perfect timing, Obama has decided to extend his fiats to…make everything grind to a halt.

My four year-old has Down syndrome. Yesterday, I sent her off to school for the first time in our new suburban town. We chose this particular suburb because of its reputation for a committed and loving approach to educating and including children with special needs. In New York City, where we lived for eight years, the best strategy for families with limited financial resources looking to get their special-needs kids into decent education environments was to sue the city. Every year. Until they turn twenty-one. Usually these suits are successful, but we have no stomach for this kind of thing, and we don’t have the finances to keep a lawyer on retainer for seventeen years, so we moved. Even though we’re now in a better neighborhood, I can't help but worry a little bit extra about my sweet Miss M, since the country seems to be falling apart on so many fronts. Five years ago, the medical team who told us our unborn baby would have Down syndrome advised us to “terminate.” Hearing a diagnosis of Down syndrome is a horrible, terrible shock. All your hopes for your unborn baby, for your family, for your own journey into old age, change in an instant. To have people not-so-subtly reminding you that your child will also be a burden on society is a crushing blow. Yet this is the message that all too frequently gets sent to people in this very unfortunate, and vulnerable, position. We know Miss M won’t be going to Harvard, just as we knew we had to get out of the city in order to find a more hospitable place to raise our family, a place where she has the freedom to pursue her interests and talents. Maybe she'll end up living on her own, holding down a job, and, at least partially, supporting herself. Come to think of it, that’s what I’m hoping for all my kids. But under a government that seems intent on making ALL of us wards of the state, how long before some of us are deemed too much of a burden? After all, we’re living in a country where the president's right-hand man feels free to drop the R-bomb in the White House and Mr. Obama himself jokes on late-night TV that his atrocious bowling skills might qualify him for the Special Olympics (remember? he got a few laughs). I wonder what the future holds. Not just for my little Miss M, but for all of us.

Below somewhere, Conor Friedersdorf makes this observation (I know I'm supposed to be able to link to his original post, but I haven't yet figured out how):

And isn't it nice, incidentally, that none of us fear the French, German or Italian overreaction that the former German foreign minister mentioned? Given even recent European history, that is an achievement to be celebrated.

That depends on just what sort of celebration you have in mind. If Conor means the orgy of self-congratulation in which the Europeans indulged themselves a couple of years ago, on the fiftieth anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, then, actually, I'd say no: Scrap the celebration. If by contrast Conor has in mind circulating a petition around the capitals of Europe to collect signatures thanking the tens of thousands of American troops who have served in Europe since the end of the Second World War the American taxpayers who for six decades now have underwritten the defense of Europe--and if, once the signatures are collected, the petitions were to be formally offered to the American ambassador to the EU during a Fourth of July ceremony in Brussels that culminated in a fireworks display in which bursts of red, white and blue form Old Glory while a brass band plays "The Stars and Stripes Forever"--if that's the kind of celebration we're talking about here, then let 'er rip.

At the beginning of each summer vacation, Drew, I like to buy a stack of books, set the books on top of the dining room table, and then command my children to start reading. ("Command?" That's the way I'd like it to happen. The truer words would be "cajole" and "beg.") May I ask your advice? My oldest, home from her first year in college, will be reading for courses she'll be taking next fall, while my youngest, only eight, will devote her time to children's books. That leaves the three teenaged boys in the middle.

All three of the boys have already read--devoured, actually--your first book for young adults, The Last Thing I Remember, making it more or less mandatory for me to begin my summer book purchases with your second book in the series, The Long Way Home. But where do I go from there? Ideally, I figure, I'd give the boys half a dozen or ten books, including, perhaps, a work or two of American history, a work or two of good sports writing, and maybe a brief volume of good science writing. What would you recommend?

"The Andrew Klavan Summer Reading List for Teenaged American Boys." That's what I'm after.

Drew?

Professors Yoo and Epstein, if you don't mind a question from the back of the class, I'd like to shift to a different topic and benefit from your expertise.  

Word is the DOJ is preparing to take action against Arizona regarding its new immigration law.  Specifically, they are contending that the Arizona legislature exceeded its authority by effectively impeding federal responsibility to enforce its immigration laws.  From the perspective of a layman, three questions arise:  

First, how in the name of Judge Wapner's gavel can federal enforcement be impeded when there is no federal enforcement taking place in the first instance?  It would be like citing me for impeding traffic when I'm the only one on the road, no?  If your answer is that it is the fed's responsibility, not their enforcement, that is being impeded upon, I would counter that it is a responsibility that is being ignored.  Am I wrong? 

Second question:  How can the fed's responsibility in this matter be impeded or infringed when the new state law merely restates existing federal law?  

Lastly, do you gentlemen think that DOJ will suceed in its effort to derail the Arizona law?  

The U.S. debt clock just ticked past $13 trillion, which means that our national debt to gdp ratio is now over 90%.