"Climbing to Tranquillity"

Higher and higher...

• From ThinkProgress via AlterNet, what your neighbors may be imbibing with their morning beverage:

  O’Reilly, perhaps best known for his annual winter jeremiads on the imminent destruction of Christmas, explained to his audience that “secular progressives” are seeking to destroy such holy biblical figures as grown men in bunny costumes so they can legalize marijuana and allow abortions on demand[.]

  Followed by a direct quote and the information that the schools Mr. O cites get Easter Monday off.
  
  I went to a Catholic school. We didn't get Easter Monday off.
• From Salon via AlterNet, private sector parasites (and using the term "rent" in a way I have not seen since economics class):

  If one or more of the sectors providing inputs or infrastructure to productive industry charges excessive rents, then industry can be strangled. Industry cannot flourish if too much rent is paid to landlords, if credit is too expensive, if excessive copyright protections stifle the diffusion of technology. Even progressives must concede that guilds or unions or professions can use the power of labor monopolies to demand excessive incomes for their members and that at some point high taxes really do strangle the economy. (The evidence of successful high-tax-big government countries like those of Scandinavia suggests that you can go safely up to about 40-50 percent of GDP going to government, assuming the taxes are well spent and raised largely by less-distortionary taxes including consumption, property and wealth taxes).

• Apparently it is William Shatner's birthday.  Well...have...a good...one!