The Pam & Tim Tebow in Focus On The Family Commercial was, if you had the sort of insect soul that put credence in such things, supposed to be some sort of knife in the gut of a woman's "right to choose." The 30-second-spot was played up to be the most heinous, knuckle dragging chunk of pure Conservative propaganda ever to be foisted on a gullible American public. It was proclaimed to be something that could return all American women to the age of coat-hangers and back-alley abortionists.
Well, here it is. Judge for yourself...
Then, feel free to judge the judges for the cretins they quite honestly are.
NOW president Terry O'Neill said it glorified violence against women. "I am blown away at the celebration of the violence against women in it," she said. "That's what comes across to me even more strongly than the anti-abortion message. I myself am a survivor of domestic violence, and I don't find it charming. I think CBS should be ashamed of itself."
Okay. Now judge the judges.
It's very special that the professional feminists out there are not afraid to say the stupidest things, isn't it?
A 15 mpg clunker that travels 12,000 miles a year uses 800 gallons of gas a year. A 25 mpg vehicle that travels 12,000 miles a year uses 480 gallons a year.
So, the average Cash for Clunkers transaction will reduce US gasoline consumption by 320 gallons per year. They claim 700,000 clunkers were turned-in, so that's 224 million gallons saved per year. That equates to a bit over 5 million barrels of oil. 5 million barrels is about 5 hours worth of US consumption.
More importantly, 5 million barrels of oil at $70 per barrel costs about $350 million dollars. So, the government paid $3 billion of our tax dollars to save $350 million. We spent $8.57 for every dollar we saved.
This NY Times article about the fiscal and personnel turmoil at Harper's manages to avoid the elephant in the room: the magazine is just not that good anymore. Back in the late 90s-early 00s, you could count on Harper's for in-depth reporting or long-form essays on a variety of topics. For example in late 2000, before the poker craze hit, the magazine ran a great article by James McManus about the World Series of Poker. Another time I recall an expose on the sugar industry and how they stick sweet stuff into everything.
The downturn came – unsurprisingly given Lewis Lapham's politics – around the election of George W. Bush. Political commentary had always been a part of Harper's but now it turned into a full-blown case of Bush Derangement Syndrome. Every cover story, every sidebar, every commentary was a full-blown whine, criticism, and kvetch. Some, maybe all of it was justified, but who wants to read the same thing over and over? It's a shame, really, but emotion ran ahead of reason and now Harper's is circling the drain.
And oh, 'tis true. I read the magazine, cover-to-cover, each month, not because I necessarily agreed with what it had to say to me, but because it never failed to provoke me, to make me think.
And then . . .
It simply stopped doing that, and became Lewis Lapham's private preserve into which his poisonous views could be poured, month-after-month, without concern for opposing views, without apparently considering that the magazine had been turned into a turn-off.
Topic: Just When You Thought It Could Not Get Worse
Posted by Everyman - 21:21:58 EST
If you are just an ordinary Canadian citizen, your life-saving surgery has to wait for months because of budget considerations.
Retired teacher Jo Danielson is living on the edge with an abdominal aneurysm, a dangerous bulge in her aorta, the largest single artery in the body. [...] But she will have to wait until April, when the Vancouver IslandHealth Authority's next budget year begins. The health authority has placed a cost-saving, yearly cap on the stent procedure because of the extra cost.
Death, and a painful one at that, could be only moments away.
Ah, but those who govern Canadian citizens get to go elsewhere for the surgical procedures they need:
Questions are swirling about where Danny Williams, the popular premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, will have scheduled heart surgery later this week, after his office would not confirm yesterday if the surgery will take place in Canada or the United States.
"I can confirm that Premier Williams did leave the province this morning and will be undergoing heart surgery later this week," said Mr. Williams's spokeswoman Elizabeth Matthews in an email to the Canadian Press.
An unconfirmed CBC News report last night suggested the 59-year-old premier was headed to the U.S. for surgery.
Nationalized Health in Canada; good for thee, not for me.
Topic: Just When You Thought It Could Not Get Worse
Posted by Everyman - 16:14:01 EST
It seems like just yesterday when it was being urged that health care reform should be enacted because it was Teddy's signature issue for many years.
That didn't work, it now seems.
Perhaps that explains why, when the president talks about undoing some of the more important provisions of No Child Left Behind - another signature issue of the former senior Senator from Massachusetts - his name is not on anyone's lips, and is not, so far as I can see, in the editorials of the MSM, either.
Spinning in the grave is really just an odd metaphor . . .
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