No time to read the bills (13)

Brilliant writing by Mark Steyn:

If George III had put the tea clause 247 pages into a 300-page amendment to a 1,000-page bill, he might still have the colonies. Wherever he is now, he must be laughing his head off. Republican government is impossible in an age where not only are the bills too long for a reasonably engaged citizen to read, not only are they too long for a legislator to read, but they’re too long to write down before they’re passed into law.

Not trying to copy instapundit but "read the whole thing."

He was never serious about it (12)

The White House missed the deadline for cabinet spending cuts.

Obama is not serious about saving money or curbing spending. I believe he never felt the economic crisis was worse than the typical recession (although he likely believes it now that the polls tell him to). That's why the stimulus was not designed to provide an immediate boost to the economy. It merely packaged "thank you" spending to different Democrat causes, interest groups, constituents, etc.

PJTV (11)

The latest Louder With Crowder is up at PJTV.com and it's a fantastic take down of Canada's "free" government-run healthcare system. (Unlike government-run healthcare this video is actually free)

PJTV is leading the charge against the liberal establishment media. If you support what they do, please subscribe.

Congressional Budget Office (10)

The Director of the CBO agrees with Obama that health care spending is out of control:

Under current law, the federal budget is on an unsustainable path, because federal debt will continue to grow much faster than the economy over the long run. Although great uncertainty surrounds long-term fiscal projections, rising costs for health care and the aging of the population will cause federal spending to increase rapidly under any plausible scenario for current law.

So we have to pass comprehensive health care reform to save this country, right?

According to CBO’s and JCT’s assessment, enacting H.R. 3200 would result in a net increase in the federal budget deficit of $239 billion over the 2010-2019 period.

And that number is net after you take out increased revenues of $538 billion (taxes).

The total cost of the bill is guesstimated at $1.042 trillion over 10 years.

It's almost as if nobody in DC is even remotely serious. Seriously.

Government run health care is a joke. Seriously.

Why so serious?

Sotomayor (9)

Unbelievable.

Work related (8)

An historic day for my industry.

(where's our commemorative google doodle?)

I love movies (7)

I know what I'll be doing the next few hours.

It's in beta. Took about two weeks to get the invite after signing up.

Idiocracy (6)

Think your health insurance is tough to figure out? (click to, um, expand)

Glad I was too lazy for medical school.

If I only had a brain... (5)

Let's play spot the straw man:

"There's going to be a major debate over the next three weeks," Obama said in Warren, Mich., deviating from his prepared text on new spending for community colleges. "And don't be fooled by folks trying to scare you saying we can't change the health care system. We have no choice but to change the health care system because right now it's broken for too many Americans."

I don't think you'll find too many people that say our health care system isn't somewhat dysfunctional. You will find a lot of people who disagree with the President on how to fix it.

I wonder if this is the same straw man that had Obama worried during the election:

"Nobody thinks that Bush and McCain have a real answer to the challenges we face. So what they're going to try to do is make you scared of me," Obama said. "You know, he's not patriotic enough, he's got a funny name, you know, he doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills."

Public Enemy

Call me greedy (4)

Well said:

"I want to keep what I earn" is regarded as greedy and unenlightened.

"I want to take what you earn" is regarded as selfless and progressive.

Don Boudreaux must write one hundred letters to various editors every week. John S. has a great question in the comments regarding what Don's batting average is in getting them published.

I didn't see the answer, but I bet it's low. Too often he doesn't fit the narrative.

We're no Angels (3)

Madison, from the Federalist Papers, No. 51, p. 322:

If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.

Those who wish for government to take on more control of our lives would be wise to remember this. People are only human, and are corruptible; government is just as much at risk (if not more) than private enterprise.

And no, I'm not quite to the point of reading the Federalist Papers. I've been thumbing through The 5000 Year Leap by W. Cleon Skousen.

Movie trailers (2)

When was the last time a movie trailer didn't give too much away?

I just saw a trailer for The Orphan, and it may have set a new record. It doesn't appear to give us Esther's secret, just everything else.

I remember the same thing with the trailer for The Strangers. It actually gave away the final scene of the movie, along with the reason the couple was being tormented.

By the way, one of best trailers with respect to red herrings was for What Lies Beneath.

Or so I remember. In trying to find the trailer, I ran across this trailer, which gives everything away. Also, in the wikipedia entry, there a blurb about Robert Zemeckis telling Roger Ebert that audiences want to know everything about a movie.

No thanks. Minimal info and maximum suspense please.

What's next? (1)

Get busy living, or get busy dying. - Andy Dufresne

Forgive me; I am an engineer, not a writer. However, I did start this blog many months ago and perhaps it's time to actually write something. I must have felt I had something to say. Not sure what yet.

Not being a writer it will take time to get this thing going. But it won't get going on it's on.

I hereby pledge to write one post per day for the next 30 days. I hereby don't pledge they will be any more meaningful than this one.

Let's see how many posts I can get up before Paul notices.

The After Party

The Atlanta Tea Party was fun. What next?