It is Finished

The healthcare debate is over. The quasi-socialist Democratic party is rejoicing in the orgasmic throes of victory, having successfully wrested control of the U.S. health insurance industry from the private sector. In a 219-212 vote, the healthcare bill passed. Not a single Republican voted for it.

I am in a blind rage. I can only offer my fragmented thoughts in the following paragraphs. Other more adept pundits have explicated the severity of this situation far more deeply than I ever could. I can only offer you a common man's fury.

The sheer numbers are dizzying. Over ten years, this bill will cost over $900 billion. Subsidized insurance will lead to soaring deficits and higher taxes. President Obama has consistently lied through his teeth about the economic ramifications of his pet project. Do not be taken in. You cannot spend $900 billion and claim that doing so is "deficit neutral".

It is safe to say that the United States will never again in its history be able to pay off the national deficit. We will owe other countries money until the end of our republic's existence (whenever that may be). Our inability to live within our means, and our addiction to the unfabricated concept of an all-powerful, all-helpful federal government, have brought us to this point.

Rest assured, President Obama is surely happy. He's made that quite clear, what with his arrogant, gloating pontificating: "This is what change looks like!" I agree with him. This is what his party's idea of what change looks like: ugly, divisive, inefficient, impractical, morally bankrupt. Everything about the Democrat's healthcare policymaking, from their use of bribes and kickbacks to their unfettered support of abortion, smacks of absolute moral cluelessness. They lied to the American people about the contents of the bill. They made it clear that they would pass it by any means neccesary, ignoring established procedures and the fact that only 30% of the country wanted the bill to pass. And they have disregarded the sacred desire of pro-life Americans to abstain from funding infanticide with their own tax dollars. The rape of my earnings by taxation each week is bad enough; that those dollars are now going from my paycheck to some bullshit "community health center", and ultimately to abortion providers, sickens me. The colonists rebelled against the British Empire for a hell of a lot less.

An aside to Representative Bart Stupak, the "pro-life Democrat" (there is no such thing): you, sir, are a dishonest, useless bastard. Your posturing as a pro-lifer means nothing in light of your ultimate weak capitulation to the White House. I take back every positive thing that I may have said about you. You have proven that, like every other Democrat in America, your natural sense of right and wrong is trumped by dollar signs and matters of political expediency. This is why I hate everyone of your ilk, and why I sincerely hope that the Democratic party is obliterated in November. The only good Democrat is an unseated Democrat.

In the past year Obama has directed the federal takeover of significant chunks of the U.S. banking industry, the U.S. car industry, and now the U.S. health insurance industry. When the market is bad, it's the perfect time to buy. The President has used the current economic downturn as an excuse to carry out the hyper-regulatory fantasies that Democrats have only been able to grasp at for the past fifty years.

This bill will be a massive burden on our country. Instead of real reform, we have a mere power grab. Liberals hated it when George W. Bush listened in on the phone conversations of terrorists, but they don't care about the protection of privacy when industry is concerned.

May God bless us with a repeal, whether now or some other day.

Disgusting

Donna Simpson, of New Jersey, has only 400 pounds to gain before she reaches her goal of weighing in at 1000.

This is one of the saddest, most digusting things I have ever seen. Here is everything that is wrong with America: the laziness, the utter lack of moderation, the feeling of pride in one's vices, the lionizing of personal choices that ought to be seen as shameful.

Her "boyfriend" (eeeeew.......) supports this. He supports the fact that this woman is destroying herself with food. He must be one truly sick, mentally compromised son-of-a-bitch, to be frank.

And the fact that anonymous online creeps pay to watch her eat? Whoever those people are, they ought to be kept far away from the rest of civilization. This is even worse than the fact that "midget porn" exists.

Wishful Thinking

The Boston Globe says that Catholic opposition to President Obama's awful healthcare plan is "crumbling".

Bullshit. There is still an enormous number of Catholics who oppose this bill, on the grounds that it is undoubtedly going to lead to taxpayer-funded abortions.

I have more to say on this later, but know this: if the Catholic Church supports the Obama administration on this healthcare reform bill, it will reap the consequences. There will be stronger government promotion/coverage of abortion (if Obama can muscle, cheat, and lie this bill through Congress, he will surely defeat its abortion-restricting stipulations similarly). There will be a stronger Democratic party, willing to continue its march towards moral obliteration for all. And there will be an association of Catholicism with the American left that will weaken and hurt Catholicism's position opposite liberal licentiousness on many issues.

Biting the Hand That Feeds You

What the fluff? Patrick Kennedy, having ruled out reelection, went on a paradoxical House floor tirade. His target? It wasn't the GOP. Nor Scott Brown. Nor George Bush. Nor "the past eight years".

What was it? The media. Of all things, the media. The "cynical" media, as he calls "it"*. Railing against the lack of press coverage of the Afghan war, Kennedy pointed up at the gallery, shook his fist, gnashed his teeth, and decried the newsmen.

Was this a stunt? Are you kidding, Patty? The press has praised, promoted, covered for, and lied to protect the Kennedy family for 50 years. After all they have done to shield America's royalty from negative public opinion, Patrick blasted away. Left-wing reporters across the nation must be feeling as though they've been had.

This is the ultimate betrayal. In liberal eschatology, Kennedy will be in a lower circle of hell than Brutus, Cassius, and the Iscariot...and Joe Lieberman.

*One should not refer to the media as "it", since "media" is plural. The singular usage would be "medium".

Plural: The media are sadly devoted to left-wing causes.
Singular: The medium of print news is dying.

Pro-Life QB Tebow Heading to the NFL

Apparently, Heisman-winning quarterback Tim Tebow's Focus on the Family commercial during the Super Bowl isn't going to keep NFL teams from drafting him. Despite last month's whining from Planned Parenthood, Tebow will be conducting private workouts for the Buffalo Bills and Seattle Seahawks. He is expected to be taken early in the NFL draft this month.

My two cents: the Bills should sign him ASAP. They have not had much success at the quaterback position in quite some time. Stints by Doug Flutie, Drew Bledsoe, Trent Edwards, Kelly Holcomb, and J.P. Losman have all proven fruitless. Perhaps the Bills can revive their sad-sack franchise by building a team around a premiere young QB. They are in a tough division: playing the Patriots and Jets twice a year each is not easy, and adding a dominant young passer to the mix would surely make for some memorable clashes against old foes in the fall.

Tebow might just be a dream player, from a public relations standpoint. True, his pro-life views are controversial. But he's a driven, image-conscious young man, and he has shown courage by speaking his mind. Who would you rather have as the face of your team: Tim Tebow, or the party-animal/potential rapist Ben Roethlisberger? Look for some major discomfort amongst Pittsburgh Steelers players, fans, and management this year. Big Ben is a nightmare off the field and his once-promising career has almost been destroyed. Bringing in a nice, Christian guy like Tebow is safer for business, it would seem.

I intend to keep monitoring Tim Tebow on this blog. Charting the impact of his own beliefs (and the media covergae of those beliefs) on his NFL career will make for interesting study.

Embarassing

The United States has apologized to terrorist-harboring dictator Muammar Gaddafi of Libya for criticizing his calls for Jihad against Switzerland.

Go ahead and click on that link. Read the story. This is one of the most humiliating and embarassing diplomatic blunders that Obama's White House has yet committed. Gaddafi's government has openly assisted terrorist groups that have killed American citizens in the past. And we are apologizing to him because we were critical of his calls for more terrorism?

If President Obama does not immediately rectify this situation, than he will cement his place the weakest, most impotent American president since Carter, as far as international relations are concerned.

Whacky PETA Activists Make Cheese From...Breastmilk???

This is one of the most bizarre and creepy things I have seen in months. PETA is trumpeting the arrival of a new kind of cheese. It is a cheese that does not involve animal dairy products. It is breast milk cheese. Luckily, this is only being done in one restaurant in New York. However, it strikes me as degrading, in light of my unshakeable belief in human exceptionalism. Mother's milk is meant for the nourishment of human infants. Shouldn't that be intuitive enough for most people?

Also, as far as sheer social niceties are concerned, can you imagine the social awkwardness and relational complications of eating something made from an adult woman's breast milk? Sorry, Katie, your stuff is okay, but I prefer the Brie. It could get awkward.

I despise PETA, and always have. Their radicalism is frightening. I would be more amenable to hearing about why KFC is evil for abusing its chickens if the people telling me about the abuse weren't a bunch of bullying, psychotic, left-wing nutjobs.

It's no secret that this group has done unsavory things. They handed out comic books to kids that proclaim Your Mommy Kills Animals. How low is that? And for a group that promotes animal rights, they sure kill a lot of animals. PETA admits to putting down critters on this awesome website, aptly titled PETA Kills Animals.

Additionally, PETA's highly sexualized ad campaigns have done more to degrade gullible, attractive women than they have to win over people's minds to the animal rights cause. When I look at PETA's materials, all I see are naked girls in cages and on billboards. Forgive me for not getting past that imagery. One recent stunt, involving a naked pregnant girl in a cage on Mother's Day, ranks as one of the least tasteful things since dead-animal jewelry hit the market.

My take: animals are made out of meat. Meat has been incredibly useful to human society. How we treat animals does say something about our own humanity (those kids who post themselves burning bunny-rabbits on YouTube are worthless hoodlums). However, animals in and of themselves do not share in our humanity. We ought to treat other creatures well because of our own dignity, not theirs.

School: "Don't Talk About Faith Here"

Freedom of religion, not freedom from religion, was promised to us by our founding fathers. The cornerstone of the American ideal is that we may pursue happiness and live without fear that our beliefs will be forcibly quashed by the authorities.

Tell that to the Wisconsin school principal who has given his Bible-reading high school student a talking to. Why? His open discussion of religion with other students was "disruptive".

Again we see that for all their talk of openness, the politically-correct are the first ones to silence those with whom they disagree. Luckily, this story has a happy ending, or at least not a negative one. The student was not officially rebuked or reprimanded.

However, it is not hard to see where an incident like this could ultimately lead. Talking about sex, drugs, and how awful George Bush was? That's fine. But talking about God? Mention Him and you'll earn you a trip to detention.

Congratulations, First Things!

This month's issue of First Things is now online/in print. The issue merits special attention because it marks the twentieth anniversary of First Things' publication.

There is no other comparable journal of religion and public life. First Things provides the most stimulating, useful, and generally well-written commentary I've ever encountered.

One must be thankful that giants such as Father Richard John Neuhaus, Joseph Bottum, and George Weigel have walked in our time.

It's Sad That People Care About Levi Johnston

Of all the aggravating pukes who have graced the tabloids lately, there is one who reigns supreme above the rest. He is emblematic of America's love for useless people. His name is Levi Johnston, and he is as distasteful a fame-seeker as they come.

You all know the tale: Johnston got with Bristol Palin. They found that she was with child. The two publicly acknowledged the pregnancy. They announced they would be married. They broke up. Johnston has pimped himself to the media.

There it is. Like so many of today's celebrities, Johnston is receiving attention for no good reason. The root of the word "celebrity" is "celebrate", though these days you don't have to do anything worth celebrating to be celebrated. In this case, a young man is famous for getting a seemingly pleasant, attractive young lady pregnant, leaving her, and then embarking upon a cross-country media campaign. He is no better than Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian, or Rachel Uchitel, all of whom are famous for doing nothing (other than a lot of rich guys).

So what of this media campaign? What is Johnston's goal, exactly? To clear his name of any potential charges of negligence? No. To stump for his prior/potential mother-in-law's enemies out of revenge? No. To promote abstinence, or non-abstinence, or to talk about teenage parenthood, or grouse about what life under the thumb of Sarah Palin is like? No.

Johnston has no real angle at play, no direct line of attack, from what I can glean. He's been jetting from talk show to talk show, gracing the couch of Tyra Banks, the desk of Larry King, and so on. Dressed like Edward Cullen, replete with mall-boy bouffaint and clothes he couldn't afford a year ago, Levi has merely been fielding softball questions about his fifteen minutes of fame. Naturally, there's some bomb-lobbing towards the Palin family matriarch ("time to take the gloves off", he impotently promises here). Overall, though, there is no substance. He just seems to like attention for attention's sake.

In fact, Johnston does not seem to have anything worthwhile to say about his experiences. Consider the following exchange he had with Larry King last April, when Larry asked him how his relationships with the Palins fell apart:

Larry: So what happened?
Levi: I don't know what happened. I think somewhere along the lines, we just weren't hitting it off anymore and...
Larry: But they won't let you see your kid?
Levi:No. I can go over there and see him. But it's kind of an uncomfortable thing for me to go over there. You know, I want to be able to take him and do that kind of thing, go do the father thing with him and I can't.
Larry: Why can't you?
Levi: You know, I'm not sure...

"I don't know." "I'm not sure." Phrases of doubt, of non-clarity, of an utter and unabashed cluelessness, are peppered throughout the transcript. You really don't know, do you, Levi? Than why did you go on a major national news program? If I had fifteen minutes on Larry King, I don't know what I'd talk about, but I would try to prepare somehow.

Now, you might not like Bristol Palin or her message. However, at least she knows what she thinks. At least she actually thinks something. She has shared the experience of her teenage motherhood with other young people in order to educate them about the issues of abstinence and teen pregnancy. This strikes me as a reasonable line of thinking for a person in her position, or at least an intuitive way of connecting her life circumstances to larger societal issues. (Whether she should be parading around in public so much is a legitimate question; there is some contradiction between her role as an "abstinence spokesperson" and her own disavowing of abstinence as a viable lifestyle choice, and perhaps it would be most approrpriate for her family if she stayed out of the papers altogether).

Now, as the year winds down, we have been treated to far more of Levi Johnston than anyone could have imagined. Levi Johnston has posed for the pornographic Playgirl magazine. Apparently, he collected $100,000 to bare his rear end for the mag, though Levi's Johnston remains incognito. This outrageous move has secured him a place as a national joke, but being a joke in America can sometimes pay well, and therein lies my disgust.

After all, here we have a young man who could have been a role model for what a responsible teen father would look like. Instead he is merely someone who turned tail on his family in order to make some money doing porno, trashing his baby's grandmother, and booking talk segments. He could have had a nice life with a pretty girl, but nay, he has chosen the way of the well-paid boot-licker. He shall be the delight of the weak-minded, the laughingstock of the serious, and the talking-point of the clueless.

His lack of direction and values, and our own obsession with people of his ilk who seek publicity and shame themselves for the hell of it, do not bode well for us. That Levi Johnston has risen to such prominence is indicative of our country's maddening, base desire for mindless "infotainment" and juicy gossip. These things serve no purpose, and as they crowd the public's collective mind, attention to real public affairs material wanes.

Required Reading: "Time" Top Ten Lists

Paradoxically, despite its questionable leanings, I like Time magazine.

I like it because it is well written, comprehensive, and not nearly as nakedly partisan and obnoxious as other similar broad-scope commentary magazines tend to be. Let's be honest: Newsweek is just about unreadable these days, what with its replacement of good writing with inflammatory, subpar, college-level snarkiness. If I had a nickel for every time that Newsweek gave President Obama an "up" arrow rating in its weekly, over-simplified "who's up, who's down" featurette, I'd be rich. (Actually, I'd be richer if I had a nickel for every "down" arrow that they've given Dick Cheney, who seems to be the target of Newsweek jeers every day; maybe they're running out of other stuff to talk about).

Anyways, Time it is, and the Time year-end feature is now online, consisting of fifty separate top ten lists for the year (everything from the usual Ten Best Movies to more obscure stuff, such as Ten Most Awkward Moments and Ten New Weird Species). I highly recommend parsing this for at least a little while. There is some useful information here, and if nothing else, the exhaustive lists will jog your memory of 2009's most interesting news stories and events.

It can be both depressing and enlightening to relive a year in public affairs. Here you will be reminded of the heroism of our soldiers in the Middle East, and you will relive the irrelevant hype surrounding Octomom. You will read about the monumental debate surrounding congressional healthcare bill, and you will see the faces of Lindsay Lohan, Susan Boyle, and Miley Cyrus. The panorama of America, in all its complication, gloriousness, and stupidity, is such a thing to behold.