I ask a simple question for the first guy that I met. And I said, ‘What about the eleventh year? You guys constructed this health care bill with six years of costs and ten years of revenue. What about the eleventh year?’ And the guy looks at me and says, ‘I’m eighty!’ Sam Zell

Yes, this is the fact of the matter by the admission of reformists themselves; six years of spending supported by ten years of revenue. Mr Zell is actually quite generous here as the fly in the ointment surfaces in the seventh year, not the eleventh. By the eleventh year, even on its own terms, the whole operation will be five years in arrears. And the anonymous Senator presumes he will then be dead and happily so. Well, we assume this is a fellow who knows his own worth. If he is happy we should be happy. But what if his date with eternity stands him up? What if death disappoints? [Read more →]

Tags: health & medical, money by Ken Watson
No Comments »

NOTE: I’ve deleted the original contents of this post because I am tired of explaining satire, sarcasm, and dry humor to troglodytes and other sub-literate wastes of flesh.

In their place, I’m supplying a promotion of my friend Brian‘s recent book, whose title is now my default response to nearly everything and everyone these days.

Enjoy. May your personal misery index multiply one thousandfold.

[Read more →]

Tags: television, trusted media & news by Michael Cade
5 Comments »

The rats have fled. In Wisconsin and now in Indiana, Democrats who have been shellacked into a piddling minority have screwed up their little faces in rage, taken their balls and gone home. Well, they have not gone home, but they have gone. Evidence indicates that they favor the Land of Lincoln for their refuge for reasons unknown except that here they are beyond the reach of state troopers set on their trail. But their solidarity cracks. One Wisconsin Senator is heavily pregnant. Her needs threaten her resolve. Another declares that the legislated end to direct deposit (a brutal Republican maneuver) puts his escape in jeopardy since his means are slight and life on the lam, expensive. One Tim Cullen has publicly flirted with surrender but been talked out of it. He exists now in a state of quantum ambiguity across State lines, like Schrodinger’s Cat, neither here nor there, neither alive nor dead. In any case the cowardice, dereliction and pure stubborn depravity of these traitors has thrown a broomstick into the spokes of democracy. We should thank them.

Democracy was held in low regard by the bright, drunken fellows who founded our country and drafted our earliest laws. [Read more →]

Tags: on the law, politics & government by Ken Watson
No Comments »

I think Charlie Sheen is making perfect sense, and that from his point of view, from his experience and position in life, he’s entirely correct.

Is that a scary thing?

[Read more →]

Tags: art & entertainment by Mike McGowan
2 Comments »

I never thought I’d write a “kids today” blog — especially not in my 2nd blog out for this site. In fact, I had another blog practically written, one I anticipated polishing up once I got home last night until I happened to catch the earlier train  from work and happened to sit next to a group of high school boys so insulting, so incredibly ignorant, that I spent the rest of the commute composing this very blog in my head.

I am familiar with and accept the notion that “boys will be boys” — in fact, I sometimes am willing to let downright not-nice-crassness go because of it (with a blue velvet Virgin Mary perched above the toilet in my guest bathroom, who the hell am I to judge on crass?), but these kids went beyond even my limits. [Read more →]

Tags: family & parenting, getting older by Sara W. Moreno
3 Comments »

Bear with me for two reasons: First, I can’t believe that someone, somewhere in the history of philosophical thinking, hasn’t said what I am about to say — but as a guy who cranks out a column a week here and three other pieces per week on his own blog, I’m simply not going to research it and find out. (Please feel free to let me know if I am parroting Descartes or Dr. Phil or something.) Second, I’m going to start with people, in general, and then apply it to the artistic types, so, please be patient, dear reader. [Read more →]

Tags: artistic unknowns by Chris Matarazzo, religion & philosophy by Chris Matarazzo
No Comments »

“Most people think little.” So Somerset Maugham observed in his quasi-autobiography, The Summing Up.

I was reminded of this recently when a couple of people I was talking with made some casual remarks of a political nature. It was obvious that they were simply parroting something they had read in the New York Times, or seen on PBS News, or heard on NPR. Liberal platitudes, in other words.

The problem, of course, was not that the views expressed were liberal (one encounters the same thing with conservatives), but that they were platitudes. [Read more →]

Tags: that's what he said, by Frank Wilson by Frank Wilson
5 Comments »