News and observations

News item: Study: Insurance companies hold billions in fast food stock (CNN)

Observation: This is a bit like mining companies taking out life insurance on their employees

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News item: Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's hard right turn (Maclean's)

Observation: It's too bad that America's noxious mix of religion and politics (which inevitably corrupts both) has drifted northward.

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Comment [verbatim]: "Since we seem to be the worlds policeman. The US should be paid for it. If we are going to be in the Pursian Gulf , Pursia needs to pay the US (I think they can afford it." (seen on an NCPR blog entry)

Observation: "There's nothing scarier than ignorance in action." -Tom Smothers

Further observation: "The argument against democracy is to spend 5 minutes with the average voter." -My old high school friend Dan

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Article: The Return of Christian Terrorism:Threats of right-wing violence have doubled in the past year. What is behind the latest upsurge in the movement to create a Christian theocratic state? (Alternet)

Observation: Probably the arrival of a president who, though religious, doesn't shove his religion down people's throats at every waking instant. This is seen by Christian theocrats as "secularism."

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Article: How the FCC Can Protect the Internet from Pro-Corporate Judges and Greedy Telecoms (Alternet)

Observation: If you don't want your internet provider to routinely block your favorite website (whether TheDailyShow.com, GlennBeck.com or anything in between), you should support net neutrality.

Choice and flexibility are bad for consumers

I know Cal Thomas is hardly our nation's foremost embodiment of intellectual honesty. But this column has to be one of the most Orwellian pieces I've ever read, even by his standards!

Thomas' argument in a nutshell: Allowing consumers to pick à la carte which TV channels they subscribe to amounts a "government official or bureaucrat deciding which cable shows are good for [you]."

Now maybe there is actually a legitimate argument about why such an arrangement would be bad for consumers, an argument more substantive than "Fox News could not have been launched in an a la carte environment." But Thomas sure didn't make it.

I want to pick which cable channels I subscribe to. Apparently, this constitutes the FCC controlling my entertainment choices.

Thomas wants it so I must decide essentially between two choices that Time Warner picks for me. That is the avenue of consumer freedom, according to him.

Just as freedom is slavery, choice and flexibility are bad for the consumer. So says one of our foremost advocates for the 'free market.'