For Your Health

Merriment is good for your health. The government is maybe not so good for your health. So we won't talk about the health care reform package at the moment, because if it passes, you will need all the health you can get.

Instead let's talk about how much knowledge has been gained in the last 2,000 years. This from a poster in a gas station/convenience store encountered in my travels:

What have we learned in 2,064 years?

The budget should be balanced, the treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.
-Cicero, 55 B.C.

So, evidently nothing.

And from the same travel stop, a definition for the nineties buzzword "politically correct". This was reportedly the winner of a Texas A&M University contest for the best definition of a contemporary term.

Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

Them's fightin' words.