February 3, 2004

Another Bogus Budget By Paul Krugman Well, whaddya know. Even as the Republican leadership strong-armed the Medicare drug bill through Congress, the administration was sitting on estimates showing that the plan would cost at least $134 billion more than it let on. But let's not make too much of the incident. After all, it's not as if our leaders make a habit of faking their budget projections. Oh, wait. The budget released yesterday, which projects a $521 billion deficit for fiscal 2004, is no more credible than its predecessors. When the administration promises much lower deficits in future years, remember this: two years ago it projected a fiscal 2004 deficit of only $14 billion. What's new this time is that the administration has decided to pay lip service to conservative complaints about runaway spending. Read the rest: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/03/opinion/03KRUG.html?th   10:06:14 AM    comment []

The General likes breasts; Michael Powell doesn't   Continuing coverage of Super Bowl TIT. Here's Dan Gillmor: Feds Outraged by Almost-Bare Super Bowl Breast; but Animal Flatulence is Fine. AP: CBS apologizes for Jackson's breast-baring at Super Bowl halftime show; FCC launches probe. (FCC Chairman Michael) Powell said, ``I am outraged at what I saw during the halftime show of the Super Bowl. Like millions of Americans, my family and I gathered around the television for a celebration. Instead, that celebration was tainted by a classless, crass and deplorable stunt. Our nation's children, parents and citizens deserve better.'' Classless, crass? You bet. But more classless and more crass than Super Bowl commercials containing: A farting horse? Multiple ads for drugs to stimulate (human) male erections? Hints of beastiality (the chimp hitting on the young woman)? A dog that grabs a man's crotch and won't let go? Just asking... [Dan Gillmor's eJournal] I know "public morality," this amorphous caricature of what the Average Person expects from other people, is supposed to skew in the direction of conservative, possibly because it's better to expect less from other people than more, but isn't launching a federal probe (hi-yo!) into the exposure of a partially concealed breast just a wee bit, oh -- what's the word I'm looking for? -- insane? What cracks me up about public morality is the difference between normal levels of crass exploitation of women and a "classless, crass and deplorable stunt." Apparently the difference is a nipple. Put as many cheerleaders on the field and bikini-clad women in the commercials as you want, but Heavens to Betsy don't confuse the proper places for partially concealed breasts. Dan Gillmor is being silly by agreeing with the description of Janet Jackson's harmless striptease as "classless and crass." It was neither. In fact, it was so innocuous it didn't deserve any mention at all. And yet here I am. Prattling on about a nipple. I'm lonely.   12:34:14 AM    comment []

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