February 04, 2009

Breaking News: Australia

Sunday February 1: Australian customs officials apprehend a man traveling from Dubai who is smuggling a pair of live pigeons in his pants. He is also carrying two eggs, some seeds and an undeclared eggplant.

Full Story at the BBC.

Posted by flamingbanjo at 07:23 AM | Comments (4)

February 01, 2009

Department of Trying the Same Thing and Expecting Different Results, Part 1 million:

From the New York Times:

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson, Republican of Texas, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that she wanted cuts to “social spending provisions” that total about $200 billion in the bill. Additional tax cuts, Ms. Hutchinson and other Republicans said, would be more effective than large-scale government spending programs.

“The whole idea is to stimulate the economy immediately,” she said. “I think we can do it more effectively with less money. Let’s do something timely, temporary and targeted* , and do it on an overwhelmingly bipartisan basis. It still can be done.”

Hmm. Okay, replace social spending intended to alleviate the suffering of the millions of people who have recently lost jobs, homes or both with tax cuts to "stimulate the economy." Got it. Anything else, Senate Republicans?

The Obama administration and Democrats have already cut two provisions in the bill passed by the House of Representatives last Wednesday without a single Republican vote. Dropped from the bill was $200 million to fix up the National Mall and millions for family planning that Republicans said would finance contraceptives.

Financing contraceptives? In a depression? That's just crazy talk! If only there were some way we could educate the children to just abstain from sex before they were ready. Then we won't need to worry about needless expenses like condoms. Good thing the Republicans are still around to be the voice of reason on this issue. And remember, unwanted Made-in-the-USA children are a treasured national resource! *

Look, it's pretty clear the Republicans don't want any Democrat-led stimulus plan to work, because it would spell their own political end. It's also clear that they will never abandon their central policy plank, which is that rich people shouldn't have to pay taxes or obey laws that restrict their ability to make money. There can be no compromise with these people, because their policy positions have proven to be disastrous, and compromising with that is like agreeing to only drive your car a little way off the cliff. Or agreeing to only "put it in for a little while," which by the way is also the Republicans' preferred compromise on the whole contraception issue.

Posted by flamingbanjo at 02:26 PM | Comments (0)