Politics and other nightmares

I have written before that I have both libertarian and conservative instincts when it comes to gay marriage. My libertarian side says that if two consenting adults want to enter into a union, it's not government's business to decide who should or should not be able to. But my conservative half says that marriage has been defined one way in most places in most times and we should be careful messing around with it (unintended consequences and all that).

Why do so many people still trust the government to lift up the downtrodden when so many of its actions end up screwing the poorest among us?

NEW YORK (AP) -- TV's big switch from analog to digital broadcasts will be complete in just one year, on Feb. 17, 2009, and many consumers are puzzling over how the shift will affect them: Do they need a new converter box, a new TV, a better antenna?

He didn't say, "Read my lips," but John McCain still made the same mistake George H.W. Bush did:

Republican John McCain says there will be no new taxes during his administration if he is elected president.

"No new taxes," the likely GOP presidential nominee said during a taped interview broadcast Sunday.

Elect Hillary Clinton 44 or Barack Obama 44, and this is what you'll get, from the likes of Robert Reich, who labored for Bill Clinton 42:

Now we're talking:

With a decision about property tax relief looming in the General Assembly, Mayor Tom Henry will ask his division directors Monday to examine how they can help the city cut $10 million from its budget.

“It won't be pretty,” Henry said.

Why was Mark Souder so mad? 

Not everyone picked sides. Rep. Mark Souder (R-Ind.) was ticked at everyone. He condemned the sport's owners and players.

"The wall of silence coming out of baseball is disgusting," he said, adding it couldn't be trusted to do its own testing.

Never imagine that the global-warming hysteria has gotten as silly as it can:

And so it begins:

The nation's first baby boomer received her first Social Security retirement benefit Tuesday in Vero Beach, Fla., local station station WPBF is reporting.

Kathleen Casey-Kirschling was born one second after midnight on Jan. 1, 1946. The 62-year-old retired teacher who lives in Earleville, Md., and Vero Beach applied for her benefits online, and received her payment by direct deposit.

We're going to take it all, baby, wipe out the whole national budget.

Told you so:

An effort to amend the city's smoking ban was snuffed out before it ever got started.

It's rare for the City Council to not even approve a proposed ordinance for introduction and the discussion stage. The members who voted against the introduction were as much as saying they had their minds already made up. That's fine -- if they really have, then prolonging consideration of the proposal would just be a waste of time.

What ethnic subset has as much clout as expatriate Cubans in Miami? Seems like the Vietnamese in San Jose -- 100,000 of them -- would like to get there. There's a big fight over whether the Vietnamese business district should be called the Saigon Business District or Little Saigon: