Typical: Congressional Leaders exempted their staffs from #Obamacare…

If you read the New York Times this week, you may have been surprised to read the following story:

“Wrinkle in Health Law Vexes Lawmakers’ Aides“

Under a wrinkle that dates back to enactment of the law, members of Congress and thousands of their aides are required to get their coverage through new state-based markets known as insurance exchanges.

But the law does not provide any obvious way for the federal government to continue paying its share of the premiums for the comprehensive coverage.

As you might imagine, the members of Congress (and their aides) are none too happy at being subjected to the same rules the common rabble will soon be “enjoying”.

Toxic Knowledge: How to control an unwieldy weapon

This is NOT Lucy…not that she wouldn’t try this, however…

Daily, even hourly, I hear my granddaughter exclaim, “I can do it! Let ME do it!” At which point I can anticipate hearing a howl or shriek of frustration at least 50% of the time, because in her zeal to do whatever it is she knows how to do, she has acted rashly and dropped, spilled or broken something, or she’s fallen down and hurt herself.

In Lucy’s case it is empirically true that “a little learning is a dang’rous thing.” But in her case it’s because knowledge is imperfect, and accompanied by impulsivity and lack of finesse. How is learning dangerous for adults?

A CLASSIC Video: “Keynes vs Hayek”, plus the behind-the-scenes interview with the writers

I’ve wanted to do this post for at least a year.

And yet, some more pressing topic always seemed to push it onto the back-burner. But with President Obama’s running around the countryside, talking up his latest Economic Recovery plan (which I assume is a recovery from his PREVIOUS Economic Plans), this finally made its way to the front of the line.

But first we need to set the table a bit, so you’ll need to read this post from Erika over at HotAir.com. To give you a hint as to its overall tone, here’s just the first sentence which she includes from a letter by the editors of the Chattanooga Times Free Press:

Chutzpah: Obama now says there’s ‘No Evidence’ #KeystoneXL Would Create Many Jobs

This news item got a bit lost over the weekend, which may have been by intent. However, this excerpt shows you just how deeply indebted (or how like-minded) President Obama is to the radical “Green” lobby in the United States.

From Breitbart.com:

In a New York Times interview published Saturday, President Obama came out foursquare against the Keystone XL pipeline, claiming that it would not create jobs. “Republicans have said that this would be a big jobs generator,” Obama said. “There is no evidence that that’s true.”

Failing to accept the TRUTH about the #MiddleEast:

Do you remember this old Obama quote?

“…Now it’s our moment to lead – our generation’s time to tell another great American story.

So someday we can tell our children that this was the time when we helped forge peace in the Middle East…”

(–Senator Barack Obama, 4/23/2007)

Hmmm,….  How’s that coming along? Let’s take a peek at a few items from the region:

Reason for Hope (…with thanks to @TheParkForum…)

I’ve recommended 843 Acres: The Devotional Blog of The Park Forum in this space previously. I continue to be very impressed by the quality of thought which goes into these devotionals, especially considering how very concise they are. A typical post is two or three paragraphs, and a prayer.

One from this past week which I found particularly meaningful was entitled The End of Fatalism. The author introduces the subject like this:

“One of the worst feelings in life is fatalism–that is, the feeling of resignation that this is the way things will be forever and nothing will change. That this is the way that I am or my spouse is or my kids are or work is or our government is or our society is. That I am powerless to do anything about it. That it will go on this way forever and, most likely, it will just get worse.”

Wow, can I relate to that. There are many days when I read some news article or commentary and it fills me with despair for our country, and fear for my little granddaughter. 

How the Government *protects* our Tax money: “Spend it or Lose it!!!”

From the group Bankrupting America comes one of the better satire videos in recent memory. A tremendous send-up of NBC’s ‘The Office‘, they’ve re-imagined it as a “normal” Federal Government agency: the “Department of Every Bureaucratic Transaction”, or D.E.B.T..

After you watch the clip below, make sure you stop over at their website. It covers the everyday waste going on in all areas of our government, and how irresponsible behavior is consistently rewarded. It’s chockablock with other videos, graphics and articles, so take your time looking around.

***NOTE: This video currently has about 10,000 views on YouTube right now. From what I’ve seen, your average cat video can get 30,000. A subject THIS important needs to generate waaay more than that.

Just sayin’…

DETROIT: the Movie

Courtesy of Steve Breen: