Month: February 2011
$148 Billion Lost Each Year to Hangovers
$148 billion
Annual cost of lost job productivity (absenteeism, poor performance) in the United States due to hangovers, according to a study published in Annals of Internal Medicine. Pertinent the Monday after Super Bowl Sunday.
Something to Cry About
The Valentine’s Day 2011 issue of the National Enquirer features a story alleging that GOP Speaker John Boehner has had adulterous dalliances “with at least two different women” in Washington.
Frankly, the article, which was leaked by the website Boy Culture, seems pretty thin. There’s a rehash of the story broken by Mike Stark, an openly liberal D.C. journalist, after Labor Day alleging that Boehner, 61, had had an ongoing affair with a printing industry lobbyist, Lisbeth Lyons, who appears to be in her late thirties or early forties.
The speaker and his wife Debbie, a real estate agent in Ohio, have been married for 37 years and have two children. But there may be more here than a politician breaking a pledge to his wife. If the allegations are true, it appears Boehner’s affair smacks of corruption, according to Stark:
Verbatim
Anybody giving you anything different than that, you want to walk out the door, stick your finger down your throat and give them the green weenie.
— Former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.), co-chair of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, declaring that people who claim they will cut the deficit without attacking entitlements (Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security) or defense aren’t serious. Simpson added, “If you have a career politician get up and say, ‘I know we can get this done; we’re going to get rid of all earmarks, all waste, fraud, and abuse, all foreign aid, Air Force one, all congressional pensions,’ that’s a sparrow’s belch in the midst of a typhoon.”
The Reagan Legacy: Can We Talk?
While folks born from the late ’70s on reflect fondly on the 100th birthday of Pres. Ronald Reagan, I wanted to inject a little reality on the subject of the Gipper.
As someone who was already around when he was in office, I have a different view of the golden age conservatives now see as the greatest in our country’s history, except of course, for the halcyon days of 3/5ths personhood and what-not at our country’s founding. Reagan gave us:
- Voodoo economics, aka trickle-down economics, aka supply-side economics, aka tax breaks for the rich
- Tripling the national debt within two years (see “voodoo economics”)
- Just Say No
- Creating a new demographic of Americans: The Homeless
- A 4,370-piece set of dishes (19 pieces per setting), costing $209,508
- Bombing Libya and killing 60 people, including Leader Muammar al-Gaddafi’s 15-month-old daughter
- Ketchup as a vegetable in public school lunches
- Lt. Col. Oliver North
- Selling arms to Iran and using the money to overthrow the government of Nicaragua
- Using astrology to plan presidential trips, functions, speeches, etc.
Rand’s Laser Faire
I’m not going to assert he’s insane,
But we need to make Rand Paul explain
How he’ll fulfill his intent
To become president,
By voting against aiming lasers at planes.
It seems laser pointers create danger
When pointed at a cockpit in range, sir.
But Rand Paul’s a contrarian
And an ardent Libertarian —
The gubmint can’t tell HIM where to point his laser!
Verbatim
I don’t know what else we can do to stop the parlor game speculation about who’s coming and who’s going. Lord knows we’ve knocked it down a thousand times over, and at a time of such challenge for American foreign policy the punditry is especially unwelcome and unhelpful.
–Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), telling ABC News he has no interest in being Secretary of State after the Boston Globe, Kerry’s hometown newspaper, reported Kerry “is running an unofficial campaign to become the next Secretary of State.”
–Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), telling ABC News he has no interest in being Secretary of State after the Boston Globe, Kerry’s hometown newspaper, reported Kerry “is running an unofficial campaign to become the next Secretary of State.”
Americans Own 53% of U.S. Debt
53%
Amount of the U.S. debt owned by the American public, by far the largest share owned by any country, reports the Chrisitan Science Monitor. Although China is the largest foreign owner of U.S. debt with 9.8% of the total, they barely inch out the Japanese, who own 9.6%.
Bush Cancels Switzerland Trip After Threat of Arrest for Torture Crimes
Former Pres. George W. Bush is denying that the sudden cancellation of his scheduled speech at a Jewish charity event in Switzerland has anything to do with the fact that human rights groups promised he would be arrested on arrival.
Human rights lawyer: ‘I think George Bush’s world is a very small place at the moment’
Bush was to be the keynote speaker at Keren Hayesod’s annual dinner on February 12 in Geneva. But pressure has been building on the Swiss government to arrest him and open a criminal investigation if he enters the Alpine country.
Criminal complaints against Bush alleging torture have been lodged in Geneva, court officials say.
