Random Brain Flotsam

I watched President Obama’s first primetime press conference tonight.  He’s definitely better with a teleprompter than without.

The number of jobs to be saved or created by the economic “stimulus” bill has jumped from 3 million to 4 million.  The extra million jobs will be in Fantasyland!

Isn’t it amazing that in an 800-billion plus piece of legislation, there’s not a single earmark?  I love the way the earmarks have been renamed shovel-ready or ready-to-go projects.  Isn’t that a little bit like trying to slip some bacon past a rabbi?  Congress: “Rabbi, will you please bless this stimulus bill?”  Rabbi: “What’s that strapped to the back of your stimulus bill?  It looks like a giant slab of bacon.”  Congress: “Oh, no, Rabbi, that’s not bacon, it’s ready-to-go meat.”  Rabbi: “It looks like bacon.”

The mainstream media has had very light coverage of the White House takeover of the 2010 Census.  Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel will be the point man.  I wonder what the media coverage would be if Bush were still in office and he assigned Karl Rove to take charge of the Census?  Front page of the New York Times and Washington Post, probably.

The powers-that-be keep saying that we need to get this stimulus bill passed in order to keep this crisis from turning into catastrophe.  When the bill passes and the President signs it, how will we ever know what would have been?

Did President Obama specifically mention the State of Maine in his remarks tonight because of the support of Sen. Susan Collins and Sen. Olympia Snowe?  Or does Maine just happen to have the right population to make his point about the number of jobs lost?

Question: How much will those of us who have jobs have to pay to save Elkhart, Indiana?  Answer: Nothing.  The bill will be passed to our children and grandchildren.

The national debt, as of February 9, 2009 at 10:39 PM EST, stands at a little over 10.7 trillion dollars.  How high will it go?  When is enough enough?

Finally, this one’s not about politics – Baseball player Manny Ramirez was recently offered $25 million by the Los Angeles Dodgers for one season.  And he said no!!  OK, so he wanted a multi-year deal, but come on!  $25 million?!  For one year?!  Oh, well, anyone who’s a baseball fan knows that Manny’s always had a few screws loose anyway.