Month: December 2005

“Democracy, Immigration, Multiculturalism — Pick Any Two”

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Jim Bennett posts some characteristically insightful thoughts on assimilation. I hope that his tag line catches on.

UPDATE: Commenter Brock credits the title phrase to Wretchard of The Belmont Club.

UPDATE2: Jim Bennett says he came up with the phrase on his own and has been using it since around 2001, which is before The Belmont Club existed as a blog. My search of Belmont Club’s last two sites turned up no instances of the phrase, but it’s possible that I didn’t search competently. It’s also possible that Wretchard came up with the phrase independently or that he read it first in one of Jim’s pieces. Either way, it’s a great line.

Inspectors at the Levee

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Government bids have not always been handled with transparency. My father found, in his short-lived & bitter experience as county engineer in the reddest, most heartland of states, that taxpayers were likely to prefer bids a bit more open than did commissioners. Pajamasmedia links to an AP story on hearings about the New Orleans levee failure; apparently, the lines of authority weren’t clear or at least the local commissioners didn’t take seriously their roles as “inspectors.” This confusion of responsibilities seemed to underlie the discussion on Lehrer tonight, as Margaret Warner kept after Donald Powell. Who was going to supervise the Corps of Engineers she asked; of course, they’d built the failed levees. As with everything about New Orleans, the hearings indicate sufficient blame to go around. (And we all understand what happens when everyone is kind of responsible and no one is held responsible.)

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Iraqi Elections

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I’ve got a midterm in three hours, but the Iraqi elections is something that can’t be missed. Besides, I hadn’t really covered the October constitutional referendum, so this is my way of making up for it.

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