Swedish Model vs. Zombies (plus Bobby Jindal)

•No matter how grim our economic situation — and the prospect of bank nationalization as a remedy for continual subsidies — is, it’s sort of fun to have people saying, “We may need a Swedish model to prevent the survival of zombies.”  I think I saw that movie on USA Network on a Friday night (you know, the network behind the rare skeptical detective show Psych, which my non-skeptic girlfriend was nice enough to show me).  Here’s one Swedish model the government might want to contemplate, Anna Sundstrand, living right here in New York City.  She may not look combat-tough, but keep in mind she’d be fighting sluggish, old-school zombies, likely wearied by their slow trek uptown from Wall Street.

•In somewhat zombie-like news, DarkHorizons reports that the actor playing Jason Voorhees was attacked by a confused and fearful (yet brave) fan at an event celebrating the release of the new Friday the 13th.  I’d like to take this opportunity to note one important difference between the new film and the original (aside from the fact that I actually watched the original): In the first film, it wasn’t Jason who was killing people — as you may recall, it was his mother, with Jason only appearing at the very end in a dream sequence.

•Zombies turn a man’s mind to thoughts of New Orleans, which is America’s voodoo capital, and that in turn reminds me that (fellow 90s Brown alum) Bobby Jindal, in his capacity as Louisiana governor, will be giving the official Republican response speech tomorrow night (circa 10pm Eastern) to Obama’s State of the Union address (I want to be on record in advance as saying that I am not being racist if anyone hears me in days ahead say “I met him years ago — he’s a Brown guy”).

As I’ve noted in recent entries, the audience at Lolita Bar last week may have thought the right is still headed downward for a time — and young folk like those in Yale’s Party of the Right may offer greater hope for the future than any current GOP Establishment types can — but if Jindal strikes a note of semi-youthful, multiculti, refreshed, free-market optimism, this speech could be a much-needed shove in the right direction.  If the right instead just gets more socialistic now, though, rest assured I’ll spend my time in the wilderness in a completely separate lean-to than them (or the Democrats).  Jindal sounding skeptical of the stimulus bill was a good sign, though (as is a revolt against one bad, expensive plan for paying for the bailout, pointed out to me by Elizabeth Cochran).

As my old boss, Stossel, recently noted, by some measures things were worse in 1982, and hardly anyone even remembers there being an economic crisis then (very different though circumstances were).  Let the market do its thing, then move onward and upward, as always.  May the Republicans and libertarians alike rally around that simple message.  And may government never spend another dime.