Shorties the 13th

A cure for boredom or a prescription for insanity? You decide!

Almost 6 months later, ” Louisiana rebuilding plan unveiled.” My favorite part? “[I]t would require that people who receive housing assistance rebuild to new federal standards that haven’t been finalized.” Because it’s so easy to plan your rebuilding budget when the rules governing what you can and can’t do haven’t been written yet. According to the Washington Post, there is a take the money and run clause — I mean a mortgage buyout provision. I wonder what happened to the people who were sent to Katrina Camps.

Soon, there may be no such thing as “public records.” Good luck getting a replacement birth certificate. Or researching disease clusters. Or finding your birth parents. Or finding the health impact of industrial sites.

Within a decade, one of every 5 dollars spent in the United States will be spent on healthcare. This number may be low, as I think the expectation that prescription drug costs will go down is unrealistic. Every month new drugs are developed and patented, and there will always be a premium charged for them. Furthermore, there are hundreds of diseases being researched at any given time, meaning new drugs to treat those illnesses will soon be under development. Keep in mind this figure includes health insurance, hospital costs, drug costs, and actual fees paid to medical professionals. Oh, and if “The [Bush] administration predicts that Americans would become more thrifty consumers if they had to pay more of the upfront costs, which occurs with health savings accounts,” then they should get the tax rules and forms changed so that Joe and Jane Average can deduct premiums for individual health insurance policies.

Neo-Conservatism is dead. Long live Neo-Conservatism. Now lay down and shut up already!

And finally, Honda may start selling a “cheap” hybrid vehicle in 2007 or 2008. Unless of course they don’t.