Intemperate Commentary

I was looking at the headlines on Drudge, and I realized, "You know, I don't want to blog any of these." So, it's time to rant.

They're still going on about the child of that Smith woman who died... how long ago was it now? Explain to me a world in which we have international conflict, large national issues at stake... heck, we even have baseball season now. Why in the world is the kid of someone who I couldn't even begin to guess why she was famous still news at this point?

Meanwhile, there's this whole controversy brewing over what some announcer named Imus said. All I could think upon opening up the story to read about it was, "People got upset over what some guy who looks like he's freshly dug up said? Really?" I mean, sure, I can see why people would be upset over what he said (link here, including the picture I'm talking about), but c'mon, the guy looks warmed over. I'm not sure I could take anything the man said seriously at this point, even if he were just reading out of the phone book. On the serious point for a moment, I think Mr. Boortz has it absolutely right when it comes to the people referring to Imus' statements as racist: "Racism is the belief in the inherent genetic superiority of one race over another. There was nothing racist -- not by definition -- in Imus' remarks."

On a completely different thread, I was reading up on House Resolution 73 earlier. Even though I'm sure it's just a small cross-section of the total number of such occurrences, I was about ready to spit nails upon reading the third point under Findings (section two), about people who were prosecuted for using firearms in self defense. Seriously, if we can't use guns for self defense, what's the point of having them? (Okay, hunting and such aside.) Thankfully, Representative Bartlett is a right-thinkin' kind of guy on this. We'll see what comes of it, though. Death in committee wouldn't particularly surprise me, after all.

Going Whole-Hog

The obligatory link: Senate war bill features $20B in pork

I know, at this point, nobody is really surprised by the ways that congress goes about spending money. Sad, but true. Still, you'd think that they could at least keep their snouts out of the trough while passing spending bills relating to military action. ... ... ... Well, no, you wouldn't think it, and neither would I, but I suppose we could wish it.

Meanwhile, senator Byrd was quoted as saying that the bill as laden with pork is "common sense and good economics". To twist a favorite quote to fit the circumstances, "What part of this looks like good economics to you, huh? What part of this?" And who's surprised that they're still trying to appropriate more money because of hurricane Katrina?

Of course, the House doesn't come out of this clean, either. They tacked on $20B or so of their own pork on their version of the bill.

Masked Man For Governor

The obligatory link: Wrestler enters political ring

Sure, it's not unheard of for people on the spectacle side of things get into politics. We have a couple of good examples right here at home, between Ventura and Schwarzenegger. Still, I guess the added amusement value of this one is the fact that... well, he's not just a wrestler, he's a masked wrestler. (Yes, the link does have a picture of Murakawa in his mask.)

Interestingly, this isn't the man's first foray into politics, according to the article - he's been involved in local politics since 2003. Now, he apparently intends to run for governor of Iwate prefecture.

For those extreme political junkies out there, while I haven't been able to find any policy statements from Murakawa himself, here's what I have been able to find: Murakawa was a member of the Liberal Party of Japan, which merged with the Democratic Party of Japan in 2003. The party platform can be viewed in English in PDF form here. Really, though, that's reading far too much into a story about a man who wears a vinyl wrestling mask while conducting politics.

Madison On The First Amendment

"The civil rights of none, shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretext infringed. " - James Madison

The differences between this and the final version of the amendment are rather interesting.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Honestly, I have to say that Madison's version is at once clearer and more powerful, even though the two statements are covering essentially the same material. If only he could have managed to stick with the "nor shall any national religion be established" portion, it might have saved us a few headaches.

Well, at the least, it's an interesting window into what people are now calling original intent.

At Least Someone's Still Working For Us

The obligatory link: Bill would block credit cards for illegals

Three cheers for Representative Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee. It's nice to see at least one member of Congress standing up for what's right, even though it may cost them politically in the future. She's introduced a bill which, as the above link states, would prohibit Bank of America's asinine plan to offer credit cards to people without acceptable forms of identification.

For those who didn't catch the beginning of the story, click here for a refresher.

Tokei Muyou - No Need For Clocks

The obligatory link: Postal Service fixes long waits by removing clocks

Is anyone surprised that a government entity came up with removing clocks from an area to try to cut down on people complaining about the amount of time they have to spend waiting? Setting aside my normal dislike of the Postal Service for a moment, can you conceive of a private company even thinking about doing something like this? "Well, our service is about as slow as molasses... What do we do about it?" "I know! We take down the clocks to distort our customers' sense of time, and thus get away with it! This has the added bonus of not having to maintain and upkeep the clocks, too."

No, it seems fairly obvious that a private company would either hire more staff to cover the amount of work, or find some way to streamline the operation to cut the service time down. Unfortunately, obvious rarely happens when government is involved.

Kyle at Lone Star Pundit has another take on this story.

The title, 時計無用 (tokei muyou, or "no need for clocks"), is a play off of the title of 天地無用 (tenchi muyou, "No Need For Tenchi"), a mid-90's adventure/comedy anime.

Another Body Blow For Personal Responsibility

The obligatory link: Poll: The Politics Of Health Care

You can click over and there's a PDF with the full results, but let me just hit the highlights so you can tear your hair out now...

Most Americans believe government can play a role in fixing the health care system. Two-thirds say the federal government should guarantee that all Americans have health insurance.

I don't even need to finish that series I've been doing on the constitution to know that this one is none of the federal government's business.

Eighty-four percent of Americans favor expanding government programs in order to give health insurance to all uninsured children.

Again, no real surprise. We could probably even get some of the regulations out of the way of nuclear power if we could convince enough people that it was "for the children".

Still, there is a minimal bright spot in all of this:

Less than one in three, however, say the government would do a better job than private insurance companies at actually providing medical coverage. Forty-four percent said the government would be worse as a health care provider than private companies.

Surprising That They'd Even Consider It

The obligatory link: Post Office may issue "forever" stamp

Even though the post office is provided for in the Constitution, I can't say that I really like the fact that it still exists as a government entity. After all, haven't plenty of private companies proven that they can do a better, faster job?

Anyway, on the table today is the post offices' attempt to raise stamps three cents (again). I understand they need to cover things like fuel costs, but the thing is, with the admission that usage of first-class mail is declining, it looks more like an attempt to pad their numbers.

As to the "forever" stamp, the concept is to print a stamp with no valuation on the face, so people could buy them at the current price when they were issued (figure the three cent increase goes in, so that'd be 42 cents), and they would remain valid even in the case of a future rate increase. There is certainly a chance to speculate on the price of stamps here, particularly for people who use a great deal of them. Of course, what happens if they later go off and "un-forever" the "forever" stamp? Sure, it sounds rather illegal, but a government entity could probably get away with it, if it tried hard enough.