schachterrific!

Its not everyday that I get to blog about the ACLU and Huffington Post on the same day. Both organizations stand on the opposite side of the centrist line from where I stand and neither is a favorite of mine. Yet first I find the HuffPo raising the alarm about the administration in bed with BigPharma, and now this from the ACLU website:

The American Civil Liberties Union submitted comments today to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) opposing its recent proposal to reverse current federal policy and allow the use of web tracking technologies, like cookies, on federal government websites. Cookies can be used to track an Internet user’s every click and are often linked across multiple websites; they frequently identify particular people.

So now Uncle O’s Internet Intelligence Group is looking to track people who visit government web sites. 1984 is here, folks. Just arrived a little late….

So the Whitehouse and Big Pharma are in bed together. And they are both screwing the American public. Of all places, The Huffington Post uncovered the smoking gun:

The memo, which according to a knowledgeable health care lobbyist was prepared by a person directly involved in the negotiations, lists exactly what the White House gave up, and what it got in return.

It says the White House agreed to oppose any congressional efforts to use the government’s leverage to bargain for lower drug prices or import drugs from Canada — and also agreed not to pursue Medicare rebates or shift some drugs from Medicare Part B to Medicare Part D, which would cost Big Pharma billions in reduced reimbursements.

Tell me something more than half of all Americans didn’t know.

Sometimes you hear a voice in the crowd and you immediately sense that this is a special moment; that you are listening to truth, raw and unvarnished. Katy Abram spoke the truth.

As the national health care coverage bill gets nearer to passing, it is becoming more obvious as to just how scary it is. As a self-emplyed entrepreneur, I should be happy over the idea of government provided coverage. I’m not. Any process that takes away freedom in the name of government control, is not something to be happy about.

And now I find out that once you go in, YOU CAN’T GET BACK OUT.

I stumbled over this incredible blogpost about Sarah Palin, and for once I think someone got it right. This is the executive summary of what a mean, sad country we’ve become.

All national politicians take their share of potshots; it comes with the territory, and anybody who can’t take the heat, as Harry Truman famously said, should get out of the kitchen. And with that heat inevitably comes some spillover onto a politician’s family members – especially if those family members are politically outspoken adults, Washington lobbyists, or businesspeople involved in shady practices. But some grief will come as well to soft-spoken spouses and minor children. It’s the nature of the business.

But no politician in modern memory, not even Bill Clinton or George W. Bush, has faced the sort of ferociously personal assault that greeted Palin from the instant she set foot on the national stage, in many cases before her detractors even knew anything about her besides that she was female, attractive, pro-life and pro-gun. And while the pervasive crude sexual references to Palin were horrible, the assault on her family was the worst of all. Palin has worn many hats in her life – Vice-Presidential candidate, Governor, Mayor, Oil & Gas Commissioner, City Councilwoman, sportscaster, point guard, runner, beauty queen, moose hunter – but it’s clear that the role that defines her is her role as the mother of five children. And as James Taranto put it, “If you’ve never met or had a mother, the thing to know about them is that they tend to be very protective of their children.”

Probably, one of the best blog posts I’ve ever read.

And Sarah Palin? Don’t count her out just yet. Take it or leave it.

For the longest time, I’ve thought that the world is being run by idiots, but felt it wasn’t PC to say that out loud. (Come to think of it, the whole concept of PC is pretty idiotic, so what does that say about me?) Anyway, along comes American Thinker and puts to print my whole point. In. Its. Entirety.

As a nation we are under the thumb of idiots. Not just indoctrinated, or wrong-thinking, or power-hungry, or manipulative, or even malevolent people. No, I mean real lowbrows, people who constantly fall for really stupid ideas. Neanderthals. (Look at the Governor of California just running the state budget into the ground. See what I mean? That’s not just incompetence. It takes special stupidity, almost a deliberate, willful absence of real thinking.)

The Federal EPA is about to officially declare carbon dioxide to be a pollutant. That’s not just false and unscientific; it’s not just an excuse for taxing everything in sight, including breathing. It’s not merely wrong. It’s idiotic. It marks a low point in our national conversation. Scientists or engineers with a grain of sense shouldn’t be taking the EPA seriously for a second. Forget the “climate experts,” with their grossly inadequate computer models. Normally intelligent people should boggle at the EPA. They are bizarre. Only the truly ignorant could fall for this level of ignorance. Or those who just can’t think.

Read more here. A real eye-opener.

Leonardo da Vinci may have actually painted the famous Mona Lisa a number of times and in different ways. A recently discovered painting shows ‘naked’ similarities to the da Vinci masterpiece:

I kid you not. For more details, go here.