Politics and other nightmares

I notice that, while the Democrats are busy repairing America's "damaged reputation" around the world because of George W. Bush's mean-spirited "our way or the highway" approach, they can't help but do a little furriner-bashing themselves when it comes to trade. President Obama (correctly) wanted the "Buy American" provision out of the stimulus but is leaving an allegedly watered-down version in.

Reason magazine online has a Personal Stimulus Generator, which you can fill out and thus stake your very own claim for some of the trillions of dollars soon to flow from Washington. I filled it out, and here's the result. If you don't want to read the whole thing (nobody in Congress has, after all), here's my part that was added:

wireless and broadband deployment grant programs

Barack Obama apparently isn't happy merely being the president. Now he has set his sights higher. He wants to be an urban planner:

I got some grief when I said "doing nothing" is sometimes the best option. Turns out I'm not alone in that opinion:

The compromise economic stimulus plan agreed to by negotiators from the House of Representatives and the Senate is short on incentives to get consumers spending again and long on social goals that won't stimulate economic activity, according to a range of respected economists.

The mayor talked about gambling in his state of the city speech, and he tried to draw a distinction between "embracing the quest" for a casino here and "having the option." It seems like a pretty fine line to me -- it's pretty clear he's really enthusiastic about the idea of a casino. And what in the world does this mean?

Whenever a sex-education curriculum is proposed, there is the predictable outcry from some parents who argue that schools are taking over things that should be taught at home. But the sad truth is that sex education often isn't handled at home -- so if the schools don't do it, and the parents don't do it, the kids will have to make do with what they pick up from the popular culture and other kids -- just the way we learned. (And we all know how well that turned out.)

I know I've been a hysterical scaremonger over the stimulus bill, so let me be an adult about this and admit that I've been completely wrong about the whole thing:

Handing President Barack Obama a key legislative victory, negotiators from the House and Senate reached an agreement on a $789 billion economic stimulus plan, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Wednesday.

This is an interesting comparison of our two most recent presidents:

It turns out that the state isn't the only government unit that likes to keep a little cash in reserve. There are 1,008 little fiefdoms out there with 1,008 little rainy day funds:

Indiana's 1,008 townships have amassed more than $200 million in taxpayer money that is stashed in reserves, yet no one -- township officials, state officials or lawmakers -- has made any effort to curb the property tax collections that generated the surplus.

Looks like Gary has trumped us. Fort Wayne Mayor Tom Henry has asked for a measly $300 million from the $5 billion Indiana is expected to get from the coming stimulus package.