The important things in the health care discussion

Want to get an idea of how skewed the health care debate in this country is? Perhaps you know my Congressman, Barney Frank. The guy who got re-elected in 1990 with 66% of the vote even after he was nearly unanimously reprimanded by the House of Representatives. Yeah, that guy . . . and that district. So he had one of those town hall meetings on health care, where lo and behold, he confronted the same kind of rowdy conservative mobs that have been getting an awful lot of press coverage. It just goes to show you that even though they scream the loudest, they are not representative of the average viewer at home -- they only appear that way by showing up en masse and shouting down any and all opposing views.

This is confirmed in a recent NBC poll: Obama's health care approval ratings -- while not impressive -- have not gotten any worse in recent weeks. Meanwhile, misinformation on the proposal abounds. As Jon Stewart remarked on the TV coverage of politics, "The race to the bottom is done with tenacity."

Dept. of It Could Be Worse

Wow. Bernie Madoff, consider yourself lucky with the 150-year prison sentence you received. AP reports that China has just executed two businessmen for committing fraud. The death penalty has by and large been on the decline in the U.S., as well it should be. May we only see a further drop, leaving behind the only countries to execute more: China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and North Korea.

What can't Iran get away with?

Sorry to interrupt everyone's attention from the awkward kiss between Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the "re-elected" President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. While much attention has rightly been paid to the electoral mess going on in Iran, we seem to have once again lost sight of the bigger issues -- a.k.a., the reasons why we care about the results of the Iranian election so much.

Several sources are reporting that the plane crash in Northwest Iran that killed 168 people two weeks ago was caused by the detonation of explosives meant to be given to Hizballah by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. This explosion comes on top of one in Lebanon not long ago, an illegal Hizballah weapons cache. The existence of this cache was known to the UN force in Southern Lebanon for months, but they predictably did nothing about it. Sadly, the Iranians will once again walk away scot-free.

Obamanoia, cont'd

On the continuing trend of Obama-can-do-no-right, I stumbled upon an analysis of Obama's body language by the conservative blog American Thinker. Conclusion: Obama is a snob. They reach this conclusion from a vast body of evidence -- namely, one photograph the White House released of the president walking in front of Skip Gates and Sgt. Crowley. But lest readers feel they have not learned enough from this example, they kindly provide a stunning visual juxtaposition with a singular photograph of President Bush!