Whenever The Scrapbook finds the word “conscience” employed by a journalist, we feel obliged to plug in the old you-know-what detector and examine the specimen in some scientific detail. It’s a genuinely distasteful job—mucking through the mounds of insufferable piety and wading through the cesspools of dishonesty and hysteria—but somebody has to do it. 

Last Thursday, Athens was paralyzed by rioters protesting the government’s austerity program, which is needed to keep the Greek nation solvent.

After a year of debate and legislative scheming, President Obama and congressional Democrats are making one last push for their ill-conceived health care plan. Fittingly, the endgame is as unseemly as the various maneuvers and backroom deals that got them this far.