Weekend Links: From Orwell to Palin to the Grateful Dead

Would George Orwell have defended Mao and Stalin?

Having died in 1949, George Orwell avoided the choice that many leftists faced during the Cold War. As a young man, he had fought as a pro-Marxist in the Spanish Civil War, but was not faced with the dilemma of defending the totalitarian scourge that Marxism brought to Asia.

(h/t TV)

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Is Germany just a nation of 80 million Tea Partiers?

Fifty-three percent of Germans want Greece thrown out of the Eurozone, and two-thirds were against any bailout of the troubled country. What would Germany do about cost-effective solutions to the impending civil unrest in Greece?

Or, is Greece predictive of the West's 60-year failed experiment with the welfare state?

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Do engineers make good public officials? I found one candidate who stands opposite to me on every single issue-- except maybe gun rights: but does it really need to be the #1 issue? Is the government really ready to take away your .22? (One side note: nearly every single housemate I had in college was an engineering major; I will maintain that they tended to be very disciplined and regimented in their studies and lifestyles.)

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Is Medicare Advantage (MA) a cost-benefit disaster? The 20% who have MA plans are healthier and wealthier, yet their care is relatively more costly to the taxpayers.

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Glenn Beck: national savior or just another humorous dry-drunk?

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Your retirement portfolio is still all about asset allocation and, yes, cash is a valid category.

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Most dangerous opinion piece I read this week... and the rational response.

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Gallup says that Sarah Palin is the #2 choice for Republican Presidential candidate, and the generic Republican candidate trails Obama by a mere 44-42% margin. Yikes.

Future President (?!) Sarah Palin on the Daytona 500: "Haven’t thought a darn thing about the politics of this. I’m thinking about this good, active, speed-loving event that a lot of Alaskans, too, are really into. We’ve got our snow-machine races up there, and this is, of course, on a much greater scale, same type of sport though, same type of breath-taking, speed-loving, All-American event that we like to see up north.”

WTF?

And then we have "her public" relishing in her ignorance. It's not so much that Future President Palin wrote on her hand... it's that she had to write tax cuts, as if that were new and a novel Republican talking point! And she didn't even get it right and had to cross off budget first. WTF?

One more on Palin: Why is she even concerned about a cartoon? Why is she (again) using her family to run interference for her? Or is she feeling maligned because the disabled have jobs? Note to Future President Palin: they were making fun of you, not your son.

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Management secrets of the Grateful Dead. With apologies to Oscar Wilde: "Once they’re not dangerous anymore, it’s okay to discuss them in serious ways."