Thoughts on policy, history, faith, baseball when I get around to it, waterfowl, and life in general by a junior attorney who'd much rather have Jonah Goldberg's job. Or possibly Darin Erstad's.

 
Seems that a Google search of "The Proud Duck" (make sure to include the quotation marks) brings up this blog one step from the bottom of a list of eight, just below some kind of lesbian porn website. What that kind of website has to with ducks, proud or humble, I'm sure I don't want to know.

Nancy Pelosi, in her response to the State of the Union speech, repeated the tired line about the Iraq campaign being "unilateral." Maybe President Bush needed to mention the seventeen other Coalition nations he left unnamed in his speech. (Iceland deserved at least an honorable mention.)

You would think that a party so full of people who pride themselves on their intelligence -- and a representative from the Bay Area, in particular, which place is even intellectually snobbier than most -- would have a hard time calling "unilateral" a campaign that had the support of three of the five most powerful militaries in Europe. That's not to mention a host of other countries that, great or small, are providing real help that a Democratic party that prides itself on respecting the little guy shouldn't belittle.

More State of the Union thoughts: President Bush's speech was generally good, especially the foreign policy section at the beginning, but too much of the domestic-agenda portion reminded me of Bill Clinton -- lots of harmless little feel-good initiatives, each costing a few million or billion hear or there.

The worst part was that line about immigrants taking jobs that Americans won't do. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Immigrants take jobs that Americans won't do at the low-ball price that employers want to offer. For the right price, you bet I'd pick peaches. No student debt required, for one thing. Does nobody mow lawns, or bus tables, or work construction, or pick produce in New Hampshire, or any of the other states where the illegal immigrant presence is minimal? Of course not. It's just that these things don't get done by the equivalent of an indentured-servant class that you can underpay, and depend on the state government to pick up the slack. posted by Thomas at 7:14 PM