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August 2007

Another high-profile Vista supporter prepares to jump ship:

I could go on and on about the lack of drivers, the bizarre wake-up rituals, the strange and nonreproducible system quirks, and more. But I won't bore you with the details. The upshot is that even after nine months, Vista just ain't cutting it. I definitely gave Microsoft too much of a free pass on this operating system: I expected it to get the kinks worked out more quickly. Boy, was I fooled! If Microsoft can't get Vista working, I might just do the unthinkable: I might move to Linux.


Radley Balko makes an excellent argument for once again returning abortion policy to the states.

Without Roe, the pro-choice movement would have had to keep taking its case to the state legislatures. States with more permissive attitudes about sex and reproductive rights likely would have passed more permissive abortion laws. Other states would have embraced tighter restrictions. And some states would have kept the existing prohibitions in place. . . .

A federalist approach wouldn’t minimize the stakes for either side. But it would recognize how important the issues are to both sides by allowing as many people as possible to live under an abortion policy that best reflects their own values, and it would transform national politics by moving a particularly poisonous argument to a more appropriate venue. Justice Ginsburg may have embraced Roe, but other supporters of abortion rights have moved in the opposite direction. Pro-choicers who have recently criticized Roe v. Wade include The Washington Post’s Benjamin Wittes and Richard Cohen, Harvard’s Alan Dershowitz, and Slate’s William Saletan. It’s healthy that at least a few voices on both sides of the debate are finally coming to realize the benefits of leaving this issue to the states.


R. Emmett Tyrrell makes a prediction:

Actually, the economy is chugging along in a healthy and protracted period of growth. For the past five years, per capita gross domestic product has grown at 11%. We are living through a vast global economic boom, and the Democrats seem completely unawares. In 2008 their presidential candidate will be moaning that we have lost a war and are economically in a hell of a mess. The Republican will only have to point to a healthy economy and the success of General Petraeus's splendid army to win. Then the Democrats will whine that the Republicans stole the election from them. That is my prediction, and I base it on the evidence.