This is the last Friday Night Fluff piece of 2008. There’s a superstition that whatever you are doing at midnight on New Year’s Eve (other than drinking) is going to be a predominant theme in the new year. For example, if you’re at a party with friends, you’ll be spending a lot of time with them next year. If you’re at an office party, prepare to be doing a lot of working. If you, like me, will be slumped over a keyboard, expect to spend 2009 attached to your laptop …

Okay, day after Christmas, back at it. Paul Krugman graced us with this in yesterday’s New York Times:
…President-elect Barack Obama, riding a wave of revulsion over what conservatism has wrought, has said that he wants to “make government cool again.”
Before Mr. Obama can make government cool, however, he has to make it good.
True enough, as the last eight years have stripped a lot of the “good” out of government. For inspiration, Krugman looks to the New Deal and the wave of reforms swept in along with it:
How did F.D.R. manage …