Tuesday, February 08, 2011

YES, FEDERAL WORKERS are overpaid. Which is no surprise to anyone who lives and works in the D.C. metro area.
THE GOOD NEWS is that House Majority Leader Paul Ryan to lock in cap on discretionary spending. The bad news is that I doubt Congres has the cojones to make it stick.
ALMOST THERE: How much further can the New York Times fall? Only 10 bucks a share to go.
BLUE DOG DEMOCRATS: Republicans in waiting.
OBAMA LECTURES Chamber of Commerce on ‘Mutual Responsibility’. For Obama, ‘mutual responsibility’ means “it’s my responsibility to tell you what to do; it’s your responsibility to do what I tell you.”
IT’S SO EASY to mock the New York Times that this little piece is hardly notable except for the important constitutional questions in the comments:
[1] Are those physics laws constitutional? And

[2] Newtonian physics was formulated more than 100 years ago. It was written in a language that few people can understand. It didn’t anticipate the realities of our times. We have to be willing to re-interpret Newtonian physics to make it relevant to the modern world.
If the Constitution is old, confusing, and should evolve, shouldn’t the Laws of Physics also?
NEW OBAMA ADMINISTRATION MOTTO: Apparently Win The Future (WTF) didn’t go over too well, so Vice President Biden is testing a new one: Seize The FUture (or STFU).
THE TOP FIVE REGULATIONS American businesses hate.
EPA climate change regulations
OSHA “occupational noise” regulation
EPA restrictions on ozone pollution
Dodd-Frank financial reform
EPA training requirements for renovation projects
What surprises me is not the list but the fact that there were (at least) 1,947 pages of letters complaining of over-regulation.
WELL, WELL, WELL: I voted against it before I voted for it.

Hypocrisy is nothing new to Congress, but scroll down and look at the numbers. Amazing.
FOX POLL: Do you feel more or less secure in your current job than you did a year ago? Oh, much more secure. A year ago I thought I might be able to return to work. Now I’m absolutely certain that I’ll remain unemployed.
FORMER DNC CHAIRMAN HOWARD DEAN: It‘s Government’s Job to Redistribute Wealth. Just not his wealth.
[NSFW] CODE PINK DUPES saved from Cairo chaos by evil oil company. A safe for work version is here.
HOW SWEET. The President wants to talk to little old me. Fortunately, my TV, radio, and telephone don’t turn on at his request demand.
NOW I CAN TURN THEM BOTH OFF WITH A SINGLE SWITCH: Olbermann to join Al Gore’s Current TV.
VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Clueless in Cairo.
IN AN OTHERWISE UNREMARKABLE piece of Washington Post blather, columnist E.J. Dionne displays his [lack of] understanding of bipartisanship.
Note that while Kerry and McCain were doing their bipartisan work, Republicans in Congress and conservative judges were trying to scrap a health-care law that was the product of two years of legislative struggle and debate.

Yes, there was a teensy bipartisan moment when the Senate agreed to repeal certain IRS reporting requirements in the law that both parties decided were too onerous. But that was an exception to the rule of ideology, partisanship and posturing on health care.

We should be having a continuing dialogue over how we can get health insurance most efficiently to all Americans and how last year's law could be improved. Instead, Republicans would get rid of what we have without putting anything in its place.
Will he ever come to the realization that the word bipartisan includes the prefix “bi”? Don’t hold your breath.
“WE’RE NUMBER ONE!” Brewster Rockit on the state of education in America.

Unfortunately, he’s right.