James Taranto, the editor of the Wall Street Journal’s online opinion pages, makes a good point in this piece. It answers those who ask why, if Saddam Hussein being an oppressive tyrant is a valid reason for intervention in Iraq, isn’t the same true for Robert Mugabe and Zimbabwe. Referring to Barack Obama’s comment that preventing genocide is not a sufficient reason to keep American troops in Iraq, or one would have to argue America should have troops in the Congo or Sudan for the same reason, he writes:

Mr. Obama is engaging in sophistry. By his logic, if America lacks the capacity to intervene everywhere there is ethnic killing, it has no obligation to intervene anywhere–and perhaps an obligation to intervene nowhere. His reasoning elevates consistency into the cardinal virtue, making the perfect the enemy of the good.

It might make the world a simpler place if all the world’s problems had the same solution, and all the world’s problems could be solved at the same time, but they don’t and they can’t. Real-world complexity is not a justification for sitting idly by, bemoaning that we don’t live in an ideal world.

Instead of bragging about a stable economy and modest but consistent growth rate, South Africa can (and should) grow at least twice as fast to address its biggest challenges, namely poverty and unemployment. Temba Nolutshungu appears to agree in this superb article. Government mandarins would do well to take note. Political liberation has been achieved. Now complete the miracle by extending it to economic freedom. Stop failing at service delivery, and make poverty history. Extract:

Today, while the world generally is gaining in economic freedom, SA is saying, ‘Stop the world, we want to get off!’

We hear talk of nationalisation of steel mills and fuel production. Don’t the collectivists know that having public enterprises run businesses is bad for both consumers and workers? Because these state industries are incapable of competing on a level playing field, their political nannies protect them; they prohibit privately owned companies from competing with them, and constantly feed them with extra taxpayer cash even when there is no economic justification for doing so. The result is high prices, poor service, excessive taxes, and constant anxiety for workers.

The link above may not work forever, so the full article is posted after the fold. It’s well worth reading:

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Patricia De Lille, all is forgiven. It appears the idiots that run our government aren’t any worse than the idiots that run the US Congress. Perhaps if you’re too stupid and unselfconscious for any real job, you put on a big toothy grin and get voted into a position where you can spend your days proving to the world just how Luddite and illiterate you really are. Check out this bizarro hearing of the Committee of Oversight and Government Reform, chaired by Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.):

On Tuesday, July 24, 2007, the Committee held a hearing to examine recent developments regarding inadvertent file sharing over peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, the impact of such sharing on consumers, corporations and government entities, and whether such sharing creates privacy or security risks for users.

No, seriously. They want to pass laws to make sure that “inadvertent file-sharing does not jeopardize the public’s privacy and security”. CNET News.com reports:

Also at the hearing, Mark Gorton, the chairman of Lime Wire, which makes the peer-to-peer software LimeWire, was assailed for allegedly harming national security through offering his product.

Wait till these people hear about e-mail. They’d have to ban the internet.