I bought new socks and underwear recently.

Apparently, this means the recession is over???

Really?? I can't speak for everybody, but if I don't have any underwear it's a top priority -- recession or not. I was expecting to see something like jewelery or vacationing on that list. But boxers, plastic surgery, divorce rates? Come on. Those are as good of predictors as the groundhog for predicting weather.


For the past couple of years, the dwindling economy worried a lot of my coworkers at Seabrook Park. They stopped racing the greyhound dogs there because of lack of business. And this was even with greyhound racing about to be made illegal in Massachusetts, which would have meant more business for them across the border in New Hampshire. I was working in the poker room there, and clientele for the poker room was down also. Like that article mentions, the gambling business is a pretty good indicator (as much or more so than malls) of people's willingness to spend money and their confidence in their job security.

Quote of the Week

About 6 years ago I came across an interesting book at Borders and decided to buy it. It was Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig. You can find more info about him on Wikipedia.

This passage is important because 5 years ago Lessig was at the forefront of the net neutrality debate:

At the center of the debate is the most important public policy you've probably never heard of: "network neutrality." Net neutrality means simply that all like Internet content must be treated alike and move at the same speed over the network. The owners of the Internet's wires cannot discriminate. This is the simple but brilliant "end-to-end" design of the Internet that has made it such a powerful force for economic and social good: All of the intelligence and control is held by producers and users, not the networks that connect them.

If you're not familiar with current events of the net neutrality battle, I suggest reading about it. In a few years, your ISP could block your favorite website. Your blog could take minutes to load. It could take an hour to send a file to a friend, or days to download a 90-minute softcore porn. But don't worry; we are safe for now.

Health care for all [of the citizens of the 23 states that want it]!

Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming — whew, what a list — are all declaring Obama's universal health care laws unconstitutional.

Judge Roger Vinson relates the new laws on regulating health care to (hypothetically) regulating food:

"Congress could require that people buy and consume broccoli at regular intervals, not only because the required purchases will positively impact interstate commerce, but also because people who eat healthier tend to be healthier, and are thus more productive and put less of a strain on the health care system."

That is kind of an amusing analogy. But what about certain states (such as Massachusetts) requiring their automobile drivers to buy insurance? Isn't that the same thing?

I guess that's kind of different. After all, roads are property of the public, and thus the government in a sense. And as a judge told me once, driving is a privilege, not a right. However, how we choose to live within our own homes and how we manage our health is not.

How about instead of requiring all citizens to buy their own health care, why not just make all public-sector employers buy their employees health care? That way Joe Schmo who lives on his home farm or owns his own business doesn't have to get health care if he doesn't want to. But at the same time the government can feel fulfilled that all of its employees (direct or indirect) are taken care of.

I'm not big into law or politics, but I want to stir up the pot and get people thinking and commenting. Please do!