Politics, Government & Public Policy: December 2006 Archives
Here's a nifty visual guide to where you tax dollars go. It doesn't include "non-discretionary spending", so it's only a partial picture, but it's still quite informative.
I almost titled this post "Kids Are Dumb" but then I realized that nearly half of Americans would probably agree with the priorities of children under 10.
The poll of just under 1,500 youngsters ranked "God" as their tenth favourite thing in the world, with celebrity, "good looks" and being rich at one, two and three respectively. ...Meanwhile "killing" and "wars" head the list of the "very worst things in the world", followed by drunks, bullies, illness, smoking, stealing, divorce and being fat. Dying is in tenth place. ...
The children who answered the survey would also put a stop to stealing, but wanted more holidays and more hospitals.
Sounds like the list was made by the Democrat Party! (Except for "divorce".) And what would happen if we put them in charge?
Asked what rules they would make if they were king or queen of the world, the number one response from the under-10s was to ban knives and guns.They would also put a stop to fighting and killing, telling lies, drugs, bullying, drunks, and smoking.
Knives? Good luck cutting your tofurkey on Thanksgiving Academy Awards night.
Brian M. Riedl of the Heritage Foundation lists the top 10 examples of government waste. This is why solving a problem through government should be a last resort.
Sadly, the Congressional intelligence committees are anything but. The incoming chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Silvestre Reyes (D-TX), doesn't even know that al Qaeda is a Sunni group.
The dialogue went like this:Al Qaeda is what, I asked, Sunni or Shia?
“Al Qaeda, they have both,” Reyes said. “You’re talking about predominately?”
“Sure,” I said, not knowing what else to say.
“Predominantly — probably Shiite,” he ventured.
He couldn’t have been more wrong.
Al Qaeda is profoundly Sunni. If a Shiite showed up at an al Qaeda club house, they’d slice off his head and use it for a soccer ball.
Jeff Stein says that both Democrats and Republicans are pretty ignorant of basic facts about the War on Terror, but can you imagine President Bush getting away from such a wrong answer so easily? Someone needs to send our congressmen a link to the Middle East Buddy List.
It's sure good that Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi decided to refuse the chairmanship to experienced Intelligence Committee ranking member Jane Harman (D-CA) due to a personal grudge, despite consensus that Harman is incredibly knowledgable about national security issues.
(HT: CNN Political Ticker and Instapundit.)
