My Latest to Brother Harkin...

The logical result of your statist desire to usurp healthcare control is the desire to enforce a code of health on the ruled that infringes upon their liberty.

Although I am disgusted that you are proud to be leading this charge, because there are far more legitimate isues for the government to be concerned with, I am also amused that you can honestly claim that such minor actions will accomplish your intended result. You can build all the bike paths you want (I do enjoy them myself) and open an all-day fruit bar in the government schools, and if no one chooses to make use of them nothing will happen.

Our very lives are in peril so the government action must be greater. Trample on liberties for our own good. We need you to help us whether we know it or not. Please illegalize fast-food and beer immediately. Please establish a government commission to enforce a grocery fairness doctrine where health foods must get equal shelf placement and advertisement as potato chips and Coke. Maybe selling groceries on the open market is a bad idea and we all need equal rations to ensure equal access to a healthy lifestyle. After all health is a right and liberty is a bell.

Ok, so enough funny stuff. Let's get serious and propose something that would actually positively affect the health of the most unhealthy people in our society - the poor. You provide them with government food stamps and they are able to squander them on Coke and Doritos. A simple change to food stamps that enforced they be spent on fruit, vegetables, meat, and bread would be lawful, ethical, free, reasonable, and likely would produce a far greater result than bike paths and school programs.

Someday I hope we will wake up and realize that the government has no place in schooling children, healthcare, agriculture, automaking, or Wall Street and you guys can get back to protecting life, liberty, and our pursuit of happiness.

Hanging out at Grandma Smith's

I thought it would be fun to lose a chunk of the Mazda's front bumper this weekend, so I drove to Manchester hoping that some ice would come off a truck's mudflap and take care of that for me....

The annual pilgrimage to JCPenny