Finally somebody is putting this Sarah Palin insanity into perspective. Compliments of Jimmy Fallon and Late night.

It's starting to feel like a game show in Washington DC: I can price that Health Care Reform in 4 notes.

I can price that Health Care Reform in 3 notes.

...price that Health Care Reform!

Senate Democrats have Kimbo Slice'd a generous $350 billion off the House Democrats' stab at bringing health care to the masses. For those of us in the government-skeptic camp, that might be the only concession we win in this battle--a tiny reduction in what will invariably be mammoth costs.

Grabbing a pencil and paper, that means to insure an extra 2% of Americans (the projected difference between what passed the House on Nov. 7th and what the Senate now proposes), it costs $350 billion. Using that percentage increase, to insure the 10-13% (estimated 30-40 million) of uninsured Americans it would cost--in, um, Congressional Pelosi Dollars --$3.5 trillion dollars or more!

The math geniuses in Congress have somehow managed to stack the financial deck on this impending calamity to claim that it will only cost $8.5 billion a year to help 31 million people. That's a total of $2741 in gov't largesse for the currently uninsured, per year for 10 years. PER YEAR!

Any guesses on how much that cost goes up at the end of 10 years? Or, maybe worse, half way through the first 10 years?

I wonder what kind of odds Vegas is giving this health care budget projection/allocation...

How many times have you seen a price tag on a government program double or triple based on changing economic landscapes, tax revenues, faulty projections and/or flat out inaccurate projections?

My big question at this point: why is this gargantuan government plan only projected out for 10 years? That might be the most shortsighted thing since somebody allowed Jack Ruby to hang out at the Lee Harvey Oswald jail transfer.

Are you trying to tell me this insurance plan terminates after 10 years like a Mission Impossible directive? That would actually be good news at this point.

If you think costs will hold steady at $8-9 trill per year, I've got a floating bridge I'd like to sell you.

Check any newscast or news outlet these days and you'll find no shortage of stories about how schools are failing and kids are dropping out.

Anyone around my age (40) was born and raised on Schoolhouse Rock, which probably taught me more about "The Three R's " than all but a few teachers in my formative years.

For reasons that are too insignificant to post I recently stumbled across this Schoolhouse Rock entry on taxes that I had never seen before. Time for a refresher course! Let the learnin' begin.

First off, I'll admit it, I've always wanted to be a counterfeiter. Something really cool about being able to create and produce identical documents that mimic currency. Not to mention all the free stuff yo'd be able to buy.

And I've always had a soft spot for the movie "To Live And Die In LA". Just the thoughts of the shopping spree are exciting. The jail time...not so much. But it's fun to dream.

Now for a looming nightmare.

In this scheme, once an ad starts running, you'll have to interact with it to prove you've watched it. Worse, the interaction will vary -- the required activity or location of the "clickspot" will change from ad to ad -- which makes them much harder to avoid.

Computer hard drives and the Internet have completely rearranged the monetization of subsidizing otherwise free content via old media. New media is fantastic but the new media providers/creators won't be able to perform these functions for free for very long. Eventually end users will have to pay a fee for some of it.

Or

Lots of this new media will disappear.

It's already happening with music downloads. The free file sharing sites are getting shutdown (albeit some darknets still operate) and more people gravitate to pay-per-download sites to be legit.

So how many commercials will you subject yourself to seeing in order to obtain this stuff for free?

Are you Mac or PC?

Seems that Apple has hit the jackpot by being user friendly. Forcing people to log that they "watched" an ad...not so much. So how much is it worth to you?

Let the backlash begin!

Maybe Anniston's agent can swing a cameo on Fox...

Good thing or bad thing?

While the fastest growth was in the use of the stronger words, the term “jackass” has gained favor recently, appearing in 34 family-hour shows so far this year, up from 31 in 2007 and 27 in 2005. Other words have come in and out of favor: “sucks,” for example, appeared in 226 family-hour episodes in 2005, fell to 120 in 2007 and rose again to 232 so far this year, according to the council’s research.

When I was a kid mom drew the line at 'sucks'. My sister and I were forbidden from uttering that word in descriptions of things we disagreed with or didn't like.

Now there are so many worse words that turn up on television I frequently find myself saying "can you really say that?". It's not that it bothers me or that I object, I simply ponder the societal landscape and occasionally find surprise in what is newly permissible.

Frankly, I like the cutting edge word-play and enjoy the shows that maximize it.

P.S. Have you seen this guy around the office?

Major League Baseball historical narration, compliments of Dock Ellis. Sorta Mel Allen meets Charlie Murphy!

New (vide-yo!) installment of the spectacularly creative duel between Amir and Streeter who founded the website CollegeHumor.com.

It's getting tougher and tougher to tell if these pranks are legit or if they're both in on it for the sake of publicizing their website.

I think the only way to tell for sure if it's all legit is for one of them to be hospitalized or maybe maimed in a bizarre gardening accident. (Bonus points if you get the gardening accident reference)

I asked the question after Prank War 7 and it deserves to be asked again, is it real or fake?

I'm skeptical that it's real but as I said before, it's still pretty entertaining even if it's a put on.

Remember all the Democratic political howling about the Bush-Cheney invasion of Iraq as an oil grab? "No Blood For Oil" signs at your weekly political protests? You remember, right?

Well, here's one very connected Democratic political advisor who appears ready to cash in on Kurdish oil.

When drillers struck oil in a rich new field called Tawke in December 2005, no one but a handful of government and business officials and members of Mr. Galbraith’s inner circle knew that the constitutional provisions he had pushed through only months earlier could enrich him so handsomely.

Dick Cheney and Halliburton could probably use a few lessons from this guy. Turns out he comes from a family with a long-standing history of supporting Democratic Party politics. So I guess the powerful, monetary allure of oil knows no political boundaries.

Looks like you've got company, Dick.

I'm eagerly awaiting folks like VP Biden, Sen. John Kerry, and maybe Sen. Harry Reid to ask some questions about this. Will they question the role and/or influence of this former Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffer (Biden was a committee member for ages and was committee chair prior to advancing to the Vice-Presidency). Or is this just part of the free market economy the Democrats blithely (ignore or) pay lip service to?

Then again, maybe Harry Reid will simply look at this as a way to rope another American--Galbraith--into his favorite tax bracket.

No Blood For Oil For Health Care!!

Wonder when I'll see that sign at a "progressive" political street protest?

That's either the name for my new rock-n-roll band.

Or.

The title of this news clip...

Don't let this broad anywhere near The Grand Canyon. Britney Spears is apparently interested in hiring her as a back-up dancer. Britney says she'll look incredibly stable next to this chick...

So it turns out this Newtonian example of physics had been drinking. I like to drink too but I never came close to falling off a 3-foot platform (with a train approaching) (and I've done my fair share of binge drinking). I think it was a guy named Murphy who said ledges are a magnet for drunk people.

At any rate, when I first saw the video I thought, why didn't any of the on-lookers jump down there and try to get her out? She's down there for a fair amount of time before the train approaches. The incident occured around 10:20pm Boston time and you can see there are tons of people on the platform watching.

Were all these people gonna let this woman get crushed by train? She's not an overweight 2-bills fatty that you'd need to lift out with a crane. She's HWP.

Would you jump down and assist the person or would you wave frantically at the approaching train and hopefully alert the attention of the driver? I hadn't factored for the danger of the electrically charged 3rd rail possibly zapping both the inebriated, would-be "T" passenger and myself thus negating my attempted heroics.

How would you have handled it?

Or...