If you got an A in Questioning Authority, you flunked.
May
17
2011
Watching Some Good Friends Scream "Let Me Out"
Gosh, if you're a conservative/libertarian with blood pressure
problems, you might want to stop reading right here, right
now.
Of the 204 new Obamacare waivers President Barack Obama's administration
approved in April, 38 are for fancy eateries, hip nightclubs and
decadent hotels in House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's Northern
California district.
… but if you're taking medication, you can probably risk
going to the linked article. Mona Charen is eloquent
on how intrinsically corrupt the waivers are:
There are rumblings of suspicion that HHS has shown favoritism
-- labor unions have received some 26 percent of waivers while
constituting only 12 percent of workers. As Rep. Fred Upton,
chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, remarked,
"What does it say about the feasibility of the health-care law
when the administration needs to exempt over 1,000 health plans
from its own law?"
Ms. Charen quotes extensively from a National Affairs article
titled "
Government by Waiver"
by Richard Epstein, also one of my favorites. He examines the
waiver notion as it applies not just to Obamacare, but other
regulatory regimes. What's the common problem in all
instances? Epstein:
The fate of our rights and
liberties is left to the wisdom and discretion of individuals; we are
therefore governed by men, not by laws. It was this exact circumstance
that our system of government was designed to avoid: As James Madison
noted in Federalist No. 10, "enlightened statesmen will not always be at
the helm." In this sense, the problem of government by waiver shows us
just how far we have strayed from the intentions of those who created
our system of government -- and how we risk betraying their hope that we
might preserve it.
Tossing the car keys to bureaucrats with no effective constraints
on their arbitrary behavior is no way to run a country.
As Abe Lincoln probably didn't say:
If you like this sort of thing, then this is
the sort of thing you'll like.
Good scientist Dr. Paul Armstrong and his lovely wife Betty are on the
trail to find a meteorite that he thinks might contain the
rare element "atmospherium". Unfortunately, Evil Scientist
Dr. Roger Fleming is also looking for it in order to
revivify the titular Lost Skeleton of Cadavra and bring
about his plans for world domination. And (by sheerest chance)
a couple of humanoid aliens (Kro-Bar, and his wife Lattis)
have crash-landed their spaceship in the area, and need atmospherium
for repairs.
And, worse yet, the aliens have accidentally let loose "Mutant",
an ugly three-eyed beast that looks just like a guy in a cheap
rubber suit.
As you can tell, the movie is strictly for laughs, poking gentle fun
at the cheapie SF horrorfests of the 50s. The movie appears to have
been made for about $398, including salaries. (It actually
cost, according to one of the special-feature interviews, "under
$100,000.")
The dialog is intentionally loopy. When Dr. Paul suspects
that Kro-Bar and Lattis may not be of this world, Kro-Bar
replies:
"Aliens? Us? Is this one of your Earth jokes?"
So it's very funny, but (to quibble) it's just one joke, over and over,
for
for the entire 90-minute
movie. I don't care how funny a joke is: eventually,
you're gonna stop laughing at it. (Well, maybe if you're high.
We weren't.)
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