A STUDY IN MEDIA HYPOCRISY

Would you think that any major American media outlet would be more willing to offend the world's Catholics than those practitioners of the wonderful, peaceful religion of Islam?  Naw ... not in this country, right?  Well, you're wrong.  Let's take CNN as an example.  For the first part of this lesson in hypocrisy I'll direct you to a story that appeared on CNN.com on September 28, 1999.  The headline reads "Exhibit controversy makes coffee-table book a hot item."  This is a story about an eight-pound coffee table book that was flying off the shelves of New York City bookstores.  Why?  Because of a controversy over one picture in the book .. a picture of a work of "art" in the book titled "The Holy Virgin Mary."  The piece was done with elephant dung.  Catholics were less than amused.  So, what did CNN do?  It published the story complete with a picture of the offending piece.  Here's your link to check it out.  Now .. we move to February 6, 2006 and another CNN.com story titled "Danes feel threatened in cartoon row."  This story, of course, is about all of those peaceful Muslims rioting and threatening death and mayhem because someone drew a cartoon of their pedophile-prophet Mohammed.  Here's your link for the story about these peaceful Muslims.  Now ... scroll down to the bottom of the story.  You'll see the notation "CNN has chosen not to show the cartoons out of respect for Islam."  Well, isn't that special.  Go ahead and show a painting of the Virgin Mary created out of elephant poo, but withhold the pictures of these cartoons that are causing carnage around the world.  We don't want to insult Muslims, do we?  Catholics?  Well, apparently they're on their own.

OFF TO THE CLINIC!

Well, the fun never ends for the Talkmaster.  I'm off today to take care of some routine medical testing ... so we'll turn the rest of the program notes and the reading assignments over to my frisky and loyal staff.

BUSH'S $2.77 TRILLION BUDGET

Yesterday President George W. Bush sent his budget blueprint to Congress.  The total bill? $2.7 trillion dollars.  How much is that?  Well, that's quite a few zeros....$2,700,000,000,000.  A rather tidy sum.  Yet despite almost three trillion dollars being proposed, the howls have already started about "cuts."

The budget priorities include a boost in defense spending (we are at war, you know) and also the making of the tax cuts permanent.  In Democratic budgetspeak that means the budget "pays for" the tax cuts.  As if all of your money belongs to Washington, and it is only through the generosity of politicians that we get to keep any of it.

On the chopping block are 141 government programs.  The administration is proposing programs be cut back or eliminated.  Most likely, this will never happen. Every last one of those 141 government programs has a constituency and politicians that will stand in the way of their being cut.  The Republican party has controlled the House of Representatives for 11 years....and every year the budget gets bigger.  Ronald Reagan must be turning over in his grave.

Also included in the budget...a $423 billion deficit.  That means almost half a trillion dollars will be borrowed this year and charged to the futures of our children and grandchildren.  And this is conservative government?  I'd hate to see the liberal version.

SO JUST HOW MUCH IS THAT?

When people hear that the president has submitted a $2.7 trillion budget, they probably don't quite grasp just how much money that is.  Government schools have assured politicians that they will continue to produce students that care more about the Super Bowl than they do what politicians are doing with their futures.

To give you an idea of how much money we're talking about, last year the U.S. government spent an average of over $20,000 in taxes for each household in the U.S.   Now ask yourself this: just how much of that money would have been better spent if the feds had just cut people a check for half of that...say ten grand?  Or, here's a novel idea: how about just not collecting it in the first place?

So where does the Bush administration rate in this regard?  The biggest spender...ever. Adjusted for inflation, here is the average household federal government spending for the past few presidents:

--Clinton...$18,000 per household.  That's right, the federal government took and spent less of your money under Clinton than Bush 43.

--Reagan...$14,000 per household.  A far cry from today's amounts.

--Nixon.....$12,000 per household.  And he was a big spender! Still no match for the current administration.

We have officially reached a point where when it comes to government spending, there isn't much difference between the parties.

CUTTING OFF KATRINA "GUESTS"

REDNECK SCRAP BOOK

Hey, no need to go out and spend money on some fancy electric toothbrush. Some things you have lying around [may not be safe for work if you, or your boss, look closely] could pull double duty. More in the Redneck Scrap Book.

Today's "separated" comes from Joel.

WHAT THE HECK ARE THOSE POINTY HAND THINGS?
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NEAL'S FANS GET TOGETHER
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