The "Health care Summit" Nothing But A Ruse

Ruse: (noun) A trick, stratagem, or artifice.

Congrats, voters. The Obama administration just tried to pull a ruse on you with its "Health Care Summit":

Giving no ground, President Barack Obama and Republican leaders fought forcefully for their competing visions of historic health care reform Thursday in an exhausting, often-testy live-on-TV debate. Far from any accord, Obama signaled the Democrats were prepared to push ahead for an all-or-nothing congressional vote.

Look, this was all a big trick to convince you that bipartisanship isn't possible and that the Democrats have no choice but to force health care through because of those evil, combative, partisan Republicans. Now is the time to let this administration know that you are on to their tricks.

Vancouver Thought

They've reportedly distributed 100,000 condoms to Olympic athletes in Vancouver, but nobody can find Boner. Sad.

Silly Ernie

Ernie Els on Tiger Woods' statement today:

"I feel sorry for the sponsor," said Els. "Mondays are a good day to make statements, not Friday. This takes a lot away from the golf tournament."

HAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh Ernie, you so don't have a career in politics in your future. While I'm not defending Tiger, his problems ARE bigger than just you silly tournament. His PR folks know that you dump this sort of a thing on a Friday because the weekend mutes it. Like you say, Ernie, Tiger is selfish, but so are you to think that he should have made this statement after your tournament, which few people care about since he isn't in it.

Another Congressman Declines To Seek Re-Election

This time, Evan Bayh.

Sen. Evan Bayh, a centrist Democrat from Indiana, is ready to announce he won't seek a third term in Congress, giving Republicans a chance to pick up a Senate seat.

Am I the only one getting nervous about seeing all the rats scurrying for the emergency exit? At first, I thought it was just Democrats who saw the writing on the wall. Now I'm wondering, what do they know that we don't?

Rethinking Our Response to Recessions

This current recession, particularly the depth of it, has got me thinking...about forest fires. Bear with me.

One method of forest management is to clear the forest floor of dead vegetation, to clear out old growth, and thin out the forest in general. Another approach is to allow the forest to be natural, to accumulate an abundance of vegetation old, young, and dead. In either, forest fires are inevitable. But in the cleaned up forests, the fires tend to be less severe and more manageable, whereas in the forests with a lot of dead vegetation and old growth, the fires are more severe and less manageable.

So, what does this have to with the economy. Well, start by forgetting the use of the word "managed." Because we actually manage this economy too much by trying to preserve its old growth and nearly dead vegetation. Every time we have even a minor economic downturn, we are doing everything in our power to pull ourselves out of it. As someone who needs my job, I get why that is our first instinct. But in doing so, we prop up a lot of bad businesses and business practices and we allow a lot of debts that should be cleared of the books to build up. And it results in a severe economic contraction at some point down the road. Perhaps we should start looking at protecting the tinder in our economy less during downturns and instead start looking encouraging areas of new growth that will be less vulnerable.

Thank A Democrat For the Health Care Debacle

This evening I was reading back through my archives from early last year, and it began to dawn on me how ugly things were getting. We were still just beginning to grasp what was wrong with the economy so people were still scared of the unknown. Because of that, and because we were still congratulating ourselves on being post-racial, the Obama administration had carte blanche to reach government into any and all aspects of our lives.

Then came health care reform.

Democrats wanted it shoved through quickly because they knew that once the people began to look at it closely, they wouldn't like what they saw. Unfortunately, the people figured it out quicker than the Democrats anticipated they would. The quagmire that has been health care reform has devoured much of the Obama Administration's socializing momentum and finally allowed the electorate to take a step back and really look at what they elected.

If Obama is as politically astute as Bill Clinton, he may still bounce back from this. But he will never accomplish the things he had hoped to prior to tilting at this windmill.

Olympics: Luger's Death Not Our Fault

Bogus.

But the International Luge Federation and Vancouver Olympic officials said their investigation showed that the crash was the result of human error and that “there was no indication that the accident was caused by deficiencies in the track.”

Well worded, because the accident was a result of human error. But the death was the result of an awful track deficiency-exposed metal beams along the straightaway coming out of that last turn. Any track, not just one as hellaciously fast as that one, should not have any exposed areas that could bring an out of control, 90 mph body to a sudden and deadly stop.

And as long as I'm at it, all of the media outlets that were showing that video yesterday should be ashamed of themselves. Who needs Faces of Death when you have the major media?