What is Elmo?  A seal?

I've been watching "Scrubs" a long time but I never thought I'd be treated to Elmo asking "She yo woman?"

Quote of the day - "The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money" - Margaret Thatcher  (Lifted from New England Republican).

The Generational Theft Act moves to the Senate

Since I have to work all day, I always feel like I'm adding two cents to an issue that's been thoroughly reviewed. But I'll just say a couple of things: no matter how ginormous they make this stimulus bill, the actual cost will be much higher due to the interest on all the money we're going to borrow.

Who's going to pay for it? The kids. They'll have to pick up the bill for another $300+ billion in interest, pushing the overall cost of the package well over a trillion dollars. The consequences of this unchecked spending will put further strain on a generation that is just starting to see the cost of runaway entitlement spending.

Support for the stimulus bill is slipping as Americans catch wind of the inevitable pork, including fish barriers and honeybee insurance. Plus, simple math indicates that a trillion dollars, even if it created the 4 million jobs that Obama promised, adds up to $250,000 per job. However, since Americans haven't cared that much about deficit spending from World War II to the prescription drug benefit, I'm doubtful the Republicans in the Senate will find the spine to stop this $1 trillion mistake. But I hope they do, for the children.

No avail for snail mail

Fox News: "Experts see dim future for U.S. Postal Service"

A day after Postmaster General John Potter threatened to cut mail delivery from six to five days a week, postal experts, direct marketing executives and politicians alike said the outlook for the quasi-governmental U.S. Postal Service is bleak.

"It certainly represents a divergence of mail service as we know it," Postal Regulatory Commission Chairman Dan Blair told FOXNews.com of the potential move to five-day service as a cost-cutting measure. "But we don't really rely on mail the same way we do today as we did five, 10 years ago. Our expectations of postal service are different from a generation ago."

Oh, we'll have mail. Forever. You don't want to incur the wrath of the Postmaster General:



People will mail more when they invent a junk mail filter for envelopes.

No love lost – I listened to the impeachment vote of Rod Blagojevich on C-Span radio today and there was not a remotely sympathetic ally of the governor in the Illinois Senate. They couldn't wait to get rid of him.

Too tired to blog - It took me two hours to get home tonight, driving through the ice and dodging the snowplows that set up a (slowly) rolling roadblock on I-91.

Great job, Congress!

CNN: "Congress has moved to prevent money from the proposed $825 billion stimulus package from being used for zoos, aquariums, golf courses, swimming pools and casinos, an effort to ensure the bill funds only what it calls the "highest quality" infrastructure projects."

You know, there were some people in Washington saying: "Hey, let's spend the stimulus money on go-kart tracks!" But then somebody stepped in and yelled "No! We have to spend the taxpayers' money wisely." So they didn't spend the money on go-kart tracks.

Bravo, lords and ladies, bravo. [sarcastic clapping]

Fiddle-de-doo – American author John Updike died today at age 76. He was a literary master, a wizard at setting scenes and establishing characters. You can get a taste of his style in the short story "A&P" about a minor incident in a grocery store.

Nancy Pelosi: "There is no Social Security crisis"

(H/T - Theo)

The kids will pick up the bill - Dr. Sanity declares "Hakuna Matata" on the massive stimulus bill.  Let's live it up!  (H/T Maggie).

Related - Charles Krauthammer on the non-stimulus pork in the bill: "Look, this is one of the worst bill in galactic history."  And: "We will leave behind, after spending $1 trillion, a dog run in East Potomac Park."

More - No Looking Backwards: "How 'bout a nice greasy pork sandwich served in a dirty ashtray?"

Please welcome Liz Lemon!

Me, last month:

On the one hand, it appears that the law is clear and the (not-yet-impeached) governor can appoint whomever he wants to fill Barack Obama's Senate seat. On the other hand, it seems reasonable that the legislature has a check on executive power in extraordinary circumstances (e.g. Senator Oprah).

USA Today, um, today:

Blagojevich considered Oprah Winfrey for Senate post

Advantage: Viking Pundit!

Newton and Leibniz were pikers - Science News reports that Archimedes was figuring out the basics of calculus.  (H/T Fark)

Famous robot passes away - Now who's going to warn Will Robinson?

Situational environmentalism – Good article in today's WSJ about how those who champion green energy policies suddenly find a lot to dislike when it causes "visual pollution" such as the proposed Cape Wind project off Nantucket Sound.

Free stuff, somehow paid for – George Will reviews the move to expand SCHIP to, essentially, everybody: "Grace-Marie Turner, a student of health-care policies, says this SCHIP expansion is sensible -- if your goal is quickly to get as many people on public coverage as possible and to have children grow up thinking that it is normal for them to get their health insurance from the government. That is the goal."

As Will notes, the State Children's Health Insurance Plan was passed by a Republican Congress to fill the gap for people whose income precludes them from receiving Medicare Medicaid. But now, as all government programs, it's no longer just for "poor" kids in another signpost of our creeping socialism. Let no good deed go unpunished.

There goes the wiretapping controversy

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss:

The Obama administration fell in line with the Bush administration Thursday when it urged a federal judge to set aside a ruling in a closely watched spy case weighing whether a U.S. president may bypass Congress and establish a program of eavesdropping on Americans without warrants.

Old narrative: Big Brother fascism. New narrative: hopeful, one-way dialogue sharing!

Quote of the Day - Orin Kerr: "To answer the question "How many former editors of the Harvard Law Review does it take to administer the Presidential oath properly?" is "More than two.""

Computer maintenance - Several months ago, I essentially gave up my laptop computer to my kids so they could play Club Penguin or Adventure Quest or whatever.  Tonight, I discovered the wages of sin: ITunes update, Flash driver update, Java update, Norton Security updates, Mozilla Firefox updates, etc.  Geez.

NY Senate news - Just in, via Fark: Kirsten Gillibrand to fill Clinton's seat.

Moving pictures - Here's a list of the Academy Award nominees.  Know what movie I saw that's on this list?  Wall-E.  That's it.