During WWI, the federal government—believing, as Herbert Hoover put it, that “wheat will win the war”—sought greater control over the nation’s food supply. The result was the Food Administration, whose minions spread across the land issuing decrees such as this one (recorded in a newspaper at the time, and recounted in Robert Higgs’ Crisis and Leviathan):

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds has spent the week tearing into opponent Bob McDonnell’s record on abortion. Political kibbitzers have questioned the tactical wisdom of the attack. But Virginians should thank Deeds for reminding everybody there is still one health care decision Democrats want the government to stay out of. The Democratic Party’s approach to abortion is, generally speaking, libertarian. Pro-choicers—and the party is officially pro-choice, even if some members might not be—say the relevelant question is not whether abortion is good or bad, or whether the choice to abort is the right one or the wrong one in any particular circumstance. The relevant question asks who should make the choice. The answer, they say, is: the patient and her doctor. Or as Deeds put it the other day, “I believe it is up to a woman, her family, her doctor, and her spiritual adviser to make this decision. My opponent believes government should make this decision.“

The food cops are back. With liberal Democrats running the two political branches of government, enthusiasts for the Nanny State are coming out of the woodwork. Chicago-and-Harvard law prof Cass Sunstein has been named the Obama administration’s regulatory czar. (He replaces Susan Dudley, who came out of George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, a free-market think tank.) Sunstein is the co-author of Nudge—the premise of which is that, because some people make stupid decisions, “choice architects” practicing “libertarian paternalism” should shape other people’s options so that the booboisie will make the type of choices smarter people, like Sunstein, think they should make.

If you haven’t heard of the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care yet, wait. It is fast becoming the Book of Kells in the Washington policy world. The Obama White House has realized that Dartmouth’s research could enable it to pull off—or at least to sell—the big dream of health-care reform: affordable universal coverage. Under ordinary circumstances, broadening government involvement in health care would be a hugely expensive proposition—and the more generous the benefits, the higher the cost. But researchers at Dartmouth have compiled decades of data showing two things: (1) there are huge geographic differences in Medicare outlays (e.g., more than $16,000 per beneficiary in Miami, versus less than $8,400 in San Francisco), and (2) those differences seem to produce no difference in health outcomes.

A. BARTON HINKLE It’s not yet clear whom Virginia Democrats will pick on Tuesday to run against Bob McDonnell and Bill Bolling, the GOP candidates for governor and lieutenant governor. (The unopposed Democratic candidate for attorney general, Steve Shannon, will square off against Republican Ken Cuccinelli.) But this much is clear: Whatever the Democratic ticket looks like, it will be the most extreme, radical, wild-eyed bunch of borderline psychotics ever to campaign for public office in the history of the universe.

Jeff Jacoby, The Boston Globe: “Markets without bombs. Hummers without guns. Ice cream after dark. Busy streets without fear.“ So began Terry McCarthy’s report from Iraq for ABC’s “World News Sunday” . . . as the war in Iraq reached its sixth anniversary. In another report two nights later, ABC’s correspondent characterized the Iraqi capital as “a city reborn: speed, light, style—this is Baghdad today. Where car bombs have given way to car racing. Where a once-looted museum has been restored and reopened. And where young women who were forced to cover their heads can again wear the clothes that they like.“ . . .

Karin von Hippel and Frederick Barton, Center for Strategic and International Studies: America may not be losing the war in Afghanistan, but it is also not winning. Neither is the U.S. approach in neighboring Pakistan making friends or preventing new recruits from crossing the border to kill U.S. and other NATO troops. What then is the best way to promote peace and security in the greater South Asia region? . . .

The Internet is a glorious technological leap forward that has brought the world a host of blessings. Let’s stipulate that at the outset. But one of its many downsides is the persistence of the e-mail glurge: the tug-your-heartstrings story that will be passed on from one mailing list to the next until, apparently, the heat-death of the universe.

Here is a thought experiment: Imagine what life would be like if all rulers were relative. One person measuring a table might say it was 4 feet long. Another, using a different ruler, might say it was 11 feet long. Who’s right? Both, or neither? It would be impossible to say. Now imagine two other people measuring a different table across the country with two more unique rulers. Is the second table bigger than the first, the same size, or smaller? Again: impossible to say.

The Kaine administration recently rolled out new regulations that may change the face of the commonwealth. Future subdivisions, it says, must have cut-through roads that connect their interiors to the larger roads beyond; no longer will single-entrance access suffice. That is, at least not without considerable cost. At present Virginia pays the freight for maintaining subdivision streets. That policy adds a couple of hundred new lane miles to the Transportation Department’s maintenance inventory every year—a factor that accounts in part for the diversion of construction money to maintenance needs. (By state law, maintenance takes precedence over new road-building.)

Steven Pearlstein, The Washington Post: At the end of the day, the thing to get outraged about is not the $440 million in bonuses at AIG or the $10 million that Citigroup is spending to redesign its shrunken executive suite. These may seem like princely sums, but they are almost insignificant compared with the real outrage: the hundreds of billion dollars of taxpayer funds that have been put at risk to keep AIG and Citi from failing and taking the whole financial system down with them. Let’s keep our attention on the elephant rather than the pimples on its behind . . . .

It is a well-established fact that bad news drowns out good. You flick the light switch a thousand times, the lights come on a thousand times, and you never pause to thank Dominion Virginia Power for the good service. But flick the switch to no avail just once, and you head for the phone, muttering curses. Tell your spouse a hundred times that he or she looks fabulous. Then ask, just once, if he or she has put on weight.

With the Obama administration’s plans to shut down the Camp Delta detention facility at Guantanamo Bay presumably moving forward apace, some detainees might end up in the commonwealth—perhaps in a detention facility in Northern Virginia to await trial there. Last week Virginia Reps. Eric Cantor, Frank Wolf, and Randy Forbes called on Gov. Tim Kaine to join them in opposing the idea of moving any detainees to any facility in Virginia.

The religious right was right after all. Civil unions have weakened the institution of marriage. But gay people aren’t to blame—straight people are. Here’s the deal. Gay marriage is banned in France. But about a decade ago, France’s Socialist government created a compromise—a civil solidarity pact, known by its French acronym PACS—as a form of quasi-marriage for homosexual couples. Conservatives in France denounced the measure as a threat to traditional morality, just as conservatives in the U.S. have denounced gay marriage, civil unions, and similar arrangements here. Couples entering into PACS agreements can take advantage of various tax, inheritance, and similar benefits without getting wed. The bonds of PACS unions are also easier to sunder: Rather than having to go through a divorce, one or both partners can end the arrangement by submitting a written request in court. No alimony, no property claims—no muss, no fuss.

Surprisingly, the debate about smoking has centered on government interference with private businesses rather than the toxic and carcinogenic nature of secondhand tobacco smoke and the inability of many to escape it. On most issues, I find myself in agreement with Bart Hinkle, but I disagree with his recent Op/Ed column, “On Smoking, Puritanism Triumphs Over Tolerance,“ and his assertion that “the sole parties who have a right at issue . . . are the proprietors.“