More et ceteras

Last week I vented about Obama's deficit spending. Although I don't think what I wrote requires any elaboration, I am still going to offer some by pointing out the piddling nature of the $2 billion he says he is willing to consider cutting from federal spending next year. $2 billion may sound like a lot -- until you realize it is precisely what the government borrows every 10 hours. In other words, The Exalted One is willing to consider (not commit to, mind you, but consider) cutting less than fifteen hundredths of one percent of the amount the government borrows. And keep in mind, the reason it borrows is to pay for ventures it can not fund from the greater than $4 trillion it collects in taxes and fees. Yet Obama expects us to believe he is serious about getting deficit spending under control. We are not fools, Mr. President.

I don't know what is more surprising: That Catholic University of America has co-ed dorms, or that someone is suing the school because it plans to phase them out and go back to single-sex dorms. What I do know is that the lawsuit, which was filed by a professor from another school, is a perfect example of an academic gone absurd...Don't get me wrong, I would have loved to live in a co-ed dorm when I was 19 -- but going to court to force other people to subsidize anyone's living arrangement is w-r-o-n-g.

Every now and then you see a story about a consumer boycott backfiring, with the target of the boycott seeing its economic fortune rise rather than fall. And if you are like me, those stories always make you smile. So here is a new one for your reading pleasure.

Earlier tonight I turned on Spike TV and watched "1,000 Ways to Die" for the first time. This may not say much for my maturity, but I became instantly hooked. As I type this, our TV remains tuned to Spike, whence four more episodes of that show have since aired. I don't plan on turning it off until I go to bed. Yes, I might need help.

And lastly, I feel compelled to mention that I just loaded Homer's Odyssey onto my Kindle and am eager to read it. I remember reading select passages from it when I was in eighth grade (that was in Ms. Ravas's English class, just in case anyone stumbles onto this blog who happens to have been wandering the halls of dearly departed Riviera Middle School back in the mid-1980's)...Anyway, I remember being captivated by the adventure of it all, by the notion of a war-weary man having to travel across miles of danger-ridden wilderness to make it back home. Yes, there were all those trappings of Greek mythology, but to me it was an adventure yarn pure and simple, and the mythology only served to heighten the adventure...Over the past weekend I read Sarah bedtime stories from a Disney book, and one of those stories was "Hercules" -- which got us to talking about Greek gods and legends, which sparked my memories of those Odyssey excerpts, and it was mere minutes before I decided to revisit the tome and read the whole thing. I already know how it appealed to my 13-year-old heart; now I am interested to see how it will appeal to my 40-year-old heart.

Note: The inimitable Mark Steyn is the source from which I learned that $2 billion is what the government borrows every 10 hours. Based on that, I myself did the math to come up with the "less than fifteen hundredths of one percent" figure.