Elitist ideas and more

Obama signs trade, worker assistance bills; measures advance administration's economic agenda

This way, we can buy cheap imports, and the government will pay to retrain us to do whatever is left over.  Yay!  Take it from me, though, if you're, say, 50 or older, that retraining won't likely do you a whole lot of good.  But what does Obama have to say about it?

But he said they will ultimately be good for American workers and for American business.

Okay, so, American business, I get because you can't beat cheap foreign labor.  And, it's also good for American workers, cuz, you know, we can all retrain at government expense into something awesome like Medieval  Dance, or flipping burgers at McDonald's.

AAP: Docs Have Role in Preventing Childhood Obesity

No, there's nothing really interesting in the above link, other than some smarty pantses did a study and arrived at some obvious conclusions, like kids should eat lots of vegetables, and not a lot of junk.  Nah, can't be right.  I think we need another study to make sure.

What Is Cryptosporidium, and Should You Be Concerned?

And in more health news, the only thing really surprising here is that people still swim in public swimming pools after all the publicity about it.  Apparently, some people still don't get that using a public pool as a toilet is just, well, rude.  And then there are some that don't see anything wrong with swimming in someone else's toilet.  So, sounds like a win-win for at least those people.  I think I'll take a pass on public swimming pools, though.

Supreme Court quashes clean air rule, says cost must be considered

It's been about 40 years since the Ford Pinto case caused national outrage that a company would actually do a cost-benefit analysis when considering whether to take an action that might save a few lives.  Now, it appears that the Supreme Court is saying that this is exactly what the EPA should do when considering environmental rules.  But, here's a comment that's truly troubling, made by Mike Duncan, president of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, an industry group:

“Elitist ideas usually carry lofty price tags.”

Since when is clean air an "elitist idea?"

U.S. Healthcare Spending On Track To Hit $10,000 Per Person This Year 

This is from back in January, but so long as people keep yakking about how much Obamacare is saving us, I'll keep pointing out how much it's costing us.  It will only get worse.  $10,000 per year, per person.  That's a staggering number to me, and should be to everyone.  I know that I can actually live on less than that, and pretty soon, I'll probably have to, since, well, I have to spend on health care every year now, thanks to Obamacare.  Some people will say I've been lucky, and maybe I have been, but I've never come close to spending that much on health care in my entire life.  And yes, I get the whole idea that some people have health problems and so, their costs are much higher than mine.  But $10,000 per year per person is, well, mind-blowing.  Especially when you consider that this doesn't even include the administrative costs associated with Obamacare, like that disastrous website.