Interesting Stuff from Here and There

A few stories I have come across today that I find interesting, in no particular order . . .

From The Washington Post:  Senate Democrats suffer heartburn after attempting to hide $250 Billion in increased health care costs:

John Cornyn (R-Tex.) . . . [stated], "This, of course, violates one of the president's first principles, when he said he won't sign any health-care bill that adds one dime to the deficit," he reminded reporters. "This adds a lot of dimes to the deficit."

From the Associated Press:  The House version of Obamacare will cause health cares costs to increase.

Measures in the legislation to reduce cost may take 15 years to 20 years to deliver a savings dividend . . . [and] tens of millions of newly insured people could put a strain on the health care system.

Again from The Washington Post:  an editorial warning about the runaway Obama budget deficits, which have now reached the staggering sum of $1.4 Trillion just for 2009:

Today, foreigners hold nearly half the $7.5 trillion U.S. public debt. As a result, the politics of deficit reduction are not only extremely difficult, they are extremely difficult and international. Inflation could trigger a global run on the dollar and a nasty interest rate spike.

From The New York Times:  an article about AP reporter Michael Graczyk, who has covered more than 300 Texas executions [I am personally opposed to capital punishment, which is a topic for another day]:

Seeing inmates in the death chamber, strapped to a gurney and moments away from lethal injections, he has heard them greet him by name, confess to their crimes for the first time, sing, pray and, once, spit out a concealed handcuff key. He has stood shoulder to shoulder with other witnesses who stared, wept, fainted, turned their backs or, in one case, exchanged high-fives.

From Newsweek:  an opinion piece by Jacob Weisberg concerning the Obama Administration's attacks on Fox News in which Weisberg calls Fox News "un-American":

What's most distinctive about the American press is not its freedom but its century-old tradition of independence—that it serves the public interest rather than those of parties, persuasions, or pressure groups. Media independence is a 20th-century innovation that has never fully taken root in many other countries that do have a free press. The Australian-British-continental model of politicized media that Murdoch has applied at Fox is un-American, so much so that he has little choice but go on denying what he's doing as he does it. For Murdoch, Ailes, and company, "fair and balanced" is a necessary lie. To admit that their coverage is slanted by design would violate the American understanding of the media's role in democracy and our idea of what constitutes fair play.

This is rich.  The American press is about as independent of political inclination as, well, as I am.  The real reason Weisberg, who usually writes for Slate, is upset with Fox News is that Fox is cleaning everyone else's clock in the ratings.  If no one were watching Fox, neither the left-leaning media nor the Obama Administration would care what was being said.  And it is equally rich that a liberal would call Fox News "un-American" after all of the cries from the left that "dissent is patriotic" when George W. Bush was still in office.  By the way, I do not watch either Glenn Beck or Bill O'Reilly.  About the only show I watch with any regularity on Fox News is Special Report, which is on from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m.