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heads, tails: everyone loses .....

everyone loses .....

The spending package for the fiscal year that begins October 1 included no big surprises, especially since its key elements had already been reported in detail in recent days.

The Pentagon’s proposed budget, for instance, is $515.4 billion, an increase of 7.5 percent over this year, meaning that military spending would be the highest in inflation-adjusted terms since World War II. And the White House’s plans for trimming Medicare and Medicaid have also been previewed.

Whether the president’s vision will become reality is by no means clear, given the Democratic majorities in both Houses of Congress and Mr. Bush’s lame-duck status as the country looks toward the election of the next president in November. Democrats are likely to push for increased spending on social programs, and fewer tax breaks for corporations and wealthy individuals.

Mr. Bush said he would cut or terminate 151programs, saving $18 billion in 2009. One agency, the Education Department, accounts for 47 of the terminated programs and three of the programs to be cut. But he would increase spending in areas that fall under the umbrella of “national security.”

Mr. Bush’s proposed budget, the first in the nation’s history to exceed $3 trillion, foresees near-record deficits just ahead — $410 billion in the current fiscal year, on spending of $2.9 trillion, and $407 billion for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1 — before the budget would come into balance in 2012.

Bush Seeks Budget Of US$3.1Trillion

hot airheads...

From Jay Leno, Aired Monday night on NBC:

You know what’s amazing about Los Angeles? This city never fails to amaze me. Last week Governor Schwarzenegger was in town, all the Republican candidates were here, all the Democratic candidates were here, all with Secret Service protection. And all put together, they still had less of a motorcade than Britney Spears going to the hospital.

And Bill Clinton said the other day that we need to slow down the economy to fight global warming. That means George Bush has done more to stop global warming than Al Gore.

Laughlines  The New York Times..

Platinum Kulture...

Dumb and Dumber: Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge?

By PATRICIA COHEN
Published: February 14, 2008

A popular video on YouTube shows Kellie Pickler, the adorable platinum blonde from “American Idol,” appearing on the Fox game show “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?” during celebrity week. Selected from a third-grade geography curriculum, the $25,000 question asked: “Budapest is the capital of what European country?”

Ms. Pickler threw up both hands and looked at the large blackboard perplexed. “I thought Europe was a country,” she said. Playing it safe, she chose to copy the answer offered by one of the genuine fifth graders: Hungary. “Hungry?” she said, eyes widening in disbelief. “That’s a country? I’ve heard of Turkey. But Hungry? I’ve never heard of it.”

Such, uh, lack of global awareness is the kind of thing that drives Susan Jacoby, author of “The Age of American Unreason,” up a wall. Ms. Jacoby is one of a number of writers with new books that bemoan the state of American culture.

disaster...


Naomi Klein Discusses "Disaster Capitalism" On Real Time With Bill Maher (VIDEO)

digging a BIGGER hole...

September 26, 2008

Bailout Plan Stalls After Day of Talks; Bernanke and Paulson Head Back to Hill

By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN and SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON — The status of a rescue plan for the nation’s financial system was in doubt on Thursday, at least for the moment, as lawmakers emerged from a meeting with President Bush to say that negotiations had a ways to go.

The Treasury secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. and the Federal Reserve chairman Ben S. Bernanke quickly returned to Capitol Hill to try to revive the proposal.

One critical snag seems to be opposition to the $700 billion plan by conservative House Republicans.

“My hope is that we can get a deal,” said Senator Christopher J. Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, hours after House and Senate negotiators had announced that an accord was at hand. President Bush had hoped that an agreement could be announced after the late-afternoon meeting.

Mr. Dodd, looking tired and annoyed, complained that the late complications were making the episode sound more like “a rescue plan for John McCain,” the Republican presidential candidate, than one for the financial system.

It does no good, Mr. Dodd said, “to be distracted for two or three hours by political theater.”

The senator was apparently alluding to a growing revolt by conservative Republicans, and the fact that Mr. McCain had not yet endorsed the plan, whose concept runs contrary to the policy positions he has taken.

Mr. McCain and his Democratic opponent, Senator Barack Obama, left the White House by a side entrance without commenting. The initial silence of the presidential candidates reinforced the impression that thorny issues still need to be addressed.

see toon at top...