Pun Salad

… if it were twenty degrees cooler:

• A must-click: a visualization of US debt at WTFnoway.com.

• The debt-limit debate has caused me to pay a bit of extra attention whenever I notice something Our Federal Government is doing we'd be better off without. Today's example is from Peter Suderman:

  Ready for the Food and Drug Administration to start regulating your iPad? It might not be long. This week, the agency released proposed rules governing regulation of applications designed to run on a host of handheld devices. Currently, there are about 200 million such medical apps in use, with about 600 million expected to be available over the next few years.

  The FDA's initial probe into the area is modest in scope, but will still do a great job in stifling and delaying innovative new technology. And Suderman notes the FDA clearly wants to do more in the area.

• One of the issues on which I part company with many conservatives: I think the Pledge of Allegiance is kinda creepy. But I'd be OK with requiring this bit from a Sheldon Richman column to be recited at the beginning of every classroom day, every legislative session, every Independence Day celebration, …

  Government is not some higher super-competent entity like the man pretending to be the Wizard of Oz wanted the people to think he was. It's a coercive organization of limited, flawed, and essentially ignorant men and women who, having been anointed in an election after campaigns hawking snake oil, are presumptuous enough to think they are capable of making wise decisions on our behalf.

  I've probably mentioned this before, but the Pledge was written by an obnoxious socialist.

• Pun Salad's official, but unaware (and uncompensated) mascot, Cathy Poulin did the glamorous charity thing in Farmington, CT recently. She was "sporting silver sequined platform spikes and a white-fringed cocktail dress almost identical to the one worn on stage by Jennifer Lopez recently with her husband Marc Anthony pre-break-up."

  The reporter describes her as "always peppy."