A seeming disparity in campaign and election law: voting is anonymous, donating money to a campaign is not. Actually, that’s imprecise. The candidates have to disclose the name of anyone who donates at least $200, so you can only find out whether I’ve given at least $200 to a campaign or party. But you still can’t look up how I voted. So nyah.

I’d be interested to know why the public is entitled to know that I gave two hundred bucks to Kang or Kodos, but not which of them I voted for. I’d also be interested to know why the privacy of a $199 donor is more sacrosanct than that of a $200 donor.

One possible answer: well, we have to know who gave whom what money so we can look into the possibility that we’re bribing our perfectly honorable politicians. I would rebut that all too often it seems the opposite is true, and the perfectly decent and respectable politicians are bribing us: “Put me in power and I’ll give you A, B, and C, paid for by that guy over there.”

I think that either all the donations should have real live people’s real names attached to them or none of them should. Either we go with the principle of full disclosure or that of total privacy. I also think the number and amount of donations should be entirely unlimited—if I want to give my billions to Ralph Nader and his parrot, then so be it.

I’ll announce my endorsement for President soon.

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It seems that Berke Breathed is plotting to kill off Opus this coming Sunday. I don’t lament the passing of the comic strip itself, because Breathed’s work hasn’t been funny since Reagan was president. However, Opus Himself is one of the all-time greats of the funny pages, and he would be missed. I hope that Opus will pull off a Shawshank-like escape from the animal shelter, but I don’t expect it.

Watch Louis C.K. on Conan O’Brien’s show. The valuable part begins two or three minutes in, but watch and listen. I’ll have to find or create a transcript.

Senator Obama said that Americans will have to start thinking about how they use energy. I don’t remember the exact quote, but McCain may have echoed him.

Translation: we’ll have to conserve energy when possible and seek efficiency in energy use because, after all, it’s not unlimited.

Well, Americans should think about how we use energy. We should have to conserve energy. We do have to conserve energy. Sometimes that’s easier than other times. But that goes for all things of economic value: we should think about how we use them. We should have to conserve them.

My question is this, to all the politicians who favor socialized medicine (a.k.a., “free health care,” or “universal health care”): does this mean Americans won’t have to think about how they use health care? Does this mean we won’t have to conserve health care?

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I hope that in the interest of bipartisan unity, the Senators take the timing lights and shove them down Brokaw’s throat. Good Lord, that man is obnoxious.

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THERE IT IS! “Should health care be treated as a commodity?” Like it or not, it is a commodity. You can “should” and “wish” and “hope” all you want; it’s a resource like any other. It is neither free nor unlimited.

I think it is sad how many people believe the lies about socialism. All it takes is a simple high school economics class to know that socialism doesn’t work. Competition, that’s where the utopia is.
I wasn’t home to watch the debate, so all I saw was about 30 minutes worth on YouTube. Sadly, both candidates disappoint me when it comes to their economic ideas and their beliefs concerning what needs to be done to fix the economy. Personally I think the bailout was a huge mistake and that throwing cash at a problem won’t fix it; it’s like putting a Band-Aid on a bullet wound.

As of 7:57 PM eastern time, Kyle Orton is today’s leader in passing yardage.

At a recent git-together up in Clemson, my friend Dr. Hmnahmna washed out all the empty glass bottles and took them home to recycle. Nothing odd about that, except that “home” was in the middle of Virginia, 400 miles away. I believe the Doctor received cash for the bottles, but if not, then I hope he was compensated for his actions via the emotional high one gets from saving the planet or the satisfaction of doing one’s civic duty.

Either way, it reminded me of a conversation I had a while back. A person we’ll call “Rube” mentioned that he believes recycling helps save the planet and that he encourages people to recycle, but that he doesn’t recycle because neither the city nor his subdivision gave him a recycling bin.

I mentioned that I recycle some things such as aluminum or plastic when it’s convenient, but never paper. I figure, the more we recycle paper, the less demand there will be for trees, thus fewer trees will be planted.

It’s a simple economic calculation. Recycling has a benefit: companies can use recycled stuff to make new products without having to find or use new resources. Recycling also has a cost: the time, effort, and resources it takes to recycle that stuff. If the benefit is greater than the cost, recycle. If not, then don’t. One way to tell whether recycling is worthwhile is to see whether companies are willingly paying for recycled materials. If they aren’t, then perhaps it’s actually wasteful to recycle.

I pointed out that Rube had made a similar calculation. He weighed the benefits against the costs of recycling, concluded that the effort of recycling without a collection bin handy would not be worth the benefits, and decided not to recycle.

Rube glared at me with utter revulsion and asked if I was crazy. His reaction surprised me for a split second and then I realized that in my calculations, I had forgotten the moral aspect of recycling. You see, merely believing that “recycling is a cardinal virtue” makes up for not actually recycling.

The flip side is that actually recycling does not make up for the belief that “recycling is a matter of efficiency and economics.” Ignorance was no excuse; I begged forgiveness and recited the “Captain Planet” theme song 40 times as penance.