Disillusioned young people

The LAT's Stephanie Simon, who has produced some good work recently in this old fool's opinion, writes today about how cynical today's college students are about the future of our country. They say government is "lost" and doesn't listen, she says. If the young people she interviewed are representative, their points of view say more about the education they're getting than about America. Judging from Simon's reporting, college students appear as brainwashed zombies, uttering the same nonsense they've been programed to replay. Besides that, they're not too hot on geography, history and so forth, judging from Jay Leno's Jaywalking.

One of Simon's interviewees said she was moving to Italy after graduating from college and never coming back. That's good if she likes old churches, museums, statues and such. It's also good if she likes riding motor scooters. But Italy's government is a laughing stock compared to America's. Italy's economy isn't that great either.

Something for nothing

A woman named Tina Dupuy writes on today's LAT opinion page that she has no healthcare insurance, and that it's terrible being without it but she can't afford it though she's married and she alone makes $47,000 per year -- her husband's earnings aren't mentioned. She doesn't come right out and say it but she leaves the impression that what she's arguing for is something for nothing, meaning she wants other people to pay for her healthcare. She probably smokes.

Pictures don't lie

The front page of today's LAT has four pictures of equal size displayed prominantly above the fold. The top two are of Democrats presidential candidates Clinton and Obama. The bottom two are the Republican candidates Romney and McCain. Was this intentional or oversight, the placing of Democrats over Republicans? Answer: probably the former.

LAT has a cow

This morning the LAT loses its cool over AG Mukasey's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on waterboarding. By overstating its case, the LAT loses whatever credibility it started with. The LAT assertions about when in the past waterboarding has been used and who has been prosecuted for it need to be proven before they are to be believed. The LAT has in the past published untrue "facts" in its editorials (see 60 million Americans live on $7 a day).

As regards waterboarding, whether it's torture or not isn't clear. Waterboarding doesn't endanger a life and it does no physical damage to the human body. On the other hand, plucking out eyes, pulling off fingernails and burning testicles does. With waterboarding, the tortured merely get wet. Whether waterboarding does psychological damage isn't yet known, or proven. We have only the testimony of irrational Bush haters, such as the LAT, on that question.

Anyhow, Mukasey wasn't testifying on those questions. He was merely saying he thought it was inappropriate to issue a legal opinion based on hypothetical facts. A careful lawyer should take that approach.

Columbia free trade

The LAT and other liberal media oppose a free trade agreement with Columbia because, they say, Columbia doesn't treat it's unions right. Could this be a subterfuge? Columbia is engaged in a war of words with the socialist Hugo Chavez's Venezuela. Having socialistic tendencies themselves, are liberals on the side of Hugo Chavez?

Lexington displays Bush hatred, again

Continuing a pattern, The Economist's Lexington columnist devotes the entire column this week to Bush bashing. Everything Bush does is wrong and is done for the wrong reason according to Lexington. The "bipartisan stimulus package" was put together without White House involvement, Lexington says. Wrong. It was negotiated by Bush's Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, with House Democrats and Republicans. Bush isn't important to the "surge" in Iraq, Lexington argues. Wrong, there would be no "surge" without Bush.

Lexington ridicules Bush's "war on pork-barrel spending." Bush has promised to veto any bills Congress sends him that don't meet his conditions. How does Lexington expect Democrats will get around that?

California influence

Pundits and journalist, especially those from California, express satisfaction that the California primary finally will mean something -- in the past it was held after the presidential nominees had been chosen by the respective parties and therefore had no significance. This year, the California primary is on Super Tuesday. Good for California but maybe not for the Republican Party. In the general election, California will vote Democratic. Why should California voters have a say about who Republicans nominate?