As the World Spins

The Republicans are expressing outrage at Obama's deficits. This is like the runner up in a fart contest calling the winner gross. If they're truly outraged at big deficits they ought to finally give up their worship of Reagan and defense of Bush2.

Some Catholics attacked Obama and Notre Dame because they didn't think that one of the nation's leading universities should invite the president to speak (because he's pro-choice). Those Catholics should be reminded that the protestants, deists, closet agnostics, and general collection of anti-papists who founded this country reluctantly let them in because they were worried that once safely here, the Catholics would try to subordinate our laws to the whims of the pope.

Tomorrow Californians will likely vote down provisions to fund their state government. Californians are so angry that even our local public radio station in San Diego has begun to sound like right-wing talk radio. They don't even deny that needy constituents will lose out without more taxes (e.g., the mentally ill), but insist that the only way to get politicians to stop wasting money on (trivial) appointments for each other is to deny the government money. How brilliant. Anyone who looks across the border at Mexico where tax rates are only 18.5% can see that the best way to reduce corruption and abuse in government is to cut taxes, budgets, and the ability of the government to actually govern.

Lest you think that I'm a mindless Obama defender, I'll say that his policy for education suggests a history of paste-eating. He is spending $100 billion to "fix" the 5,000 worst schools in the nation by firing all the adults in those schools and starting over. There is nothing in his (and his Education Secretary Arne Duncan's) policy that suggests that he realizes that the 5,000 worst schools are just as much a product of the educational system as the 5,000 best. To act otherwise is to de-moralize millions of professionals, create chaos, and miss the opportunity to actually make systemic change. If Obama's plan worked, education would have already been "transformed" by the half dozen previous presidents. The only thing unique about his approach is the magnitude of the budget he'll waste.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has been rebuked for calling the swine flu a pandemic. Apparently casual users of the term have something other than three nights in bed with a fever when they think of a pandemic.

Republicans are now claiming that Pelosi knew about torture back in 2003. This would have been remarkable. In 2003, even Bush and Cheney were unaware of torture. Or so they told us. So if Pelosi knew about it, she'd have been unique. This is sort of like the devolution of their protests against climate change.
1. We aren't torturing.
2. I mean, we are torturing but it is not authorized and was just the act of a few mavericks.
3. Okay, we authorized it but it worked.
4. Ha! Nancy Pelosi never once said a word of protest and she knew! We might have done something immoral and ineffectual but Pelosi didn't stop us.