Little edgy here

Thanks to Lawdog, I feel a knife post coming on. You should go read him (linked, over to your right) on the recent zaniness in Washington about banning import of one-handed openers.

Dunno whether I'll actually kick in a couple of pennies worth myself. I'm scared I won't be able to avoid making fun of a local DNR cookoo who dresses all tactical and sports a very prominent clip knife in the clip knife pocket of his SWAT pants. Along with the Glock it sure makes us civilians around the lake sleep better, knowing that he's standing between us and the dreaded bullhead poachers.

The health football

The Senate has the cost of the new mandatory health insurance bill down to something like $850 billion. The proposed law is only 850 pages long, so you can be sure your own congressthing will be reading it thoughtfully and in full.

The good news is that everybody seems to be going along with Baucus and Grassley, +marginally+ less dangerous than Dodds who is becoming an object of amusement around the Capitol these days. "Pass my bill. Mine! Mine!"

The bad news is that the usual herd of lefties is still demanding the bill be moved through to law at warp speed. I understand their concern for haste at the expense of good sense. Just look at all those uninsured dead bodies piling up outside the hospitals.

I do not precisely recommend sending a destroyer out to WestPac under orders to conduct gunnery practice over the bow of any KorCom ship engaged in pissing us off. But let me hasten to add that if our Commander in Chief so orders, I shall not editorialize against it.

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I certainly wish history had something to teach us about how seriously we ought to take aerial threats against Hawaii by insane oriental governments.

How much is that in real money?

It isn't all that much in context, just $10 billion, that China proposes to loan to the Stans of central Asia. They have to do something with the baled currency we send them for leaded-paint toys and food-grade melamine for babies. And I suppose it's just as well they lend it to used-camel dealers as spend it on more attack submarines.

Global strategic implications are somewhat worrisome, but the real ass-kick comes in the side announcements at the meeting. The Chinese participants grinned and grinned as their comrades the Russians declared that the dollar is an interesting historical artifact but had seen its day as the world's reserve currency.

( Medvedev and China don't want to kill the dollar just yet; they have a lot of them to get rid of and so are pleased to continue to support Bush and Obama magic show while they dole greenbacks carefully around the world in return for goods and, particularly, influence.)

And I'll just betcha that someone in Washington today is going to go on the electric television and act surprised. If he's faking it he's just another shrewd politician. If he really is amazed that someone is attacking the American Dollar, he's a doofus who thinks you really can have an honest dollar while taking on debts you can't repay -- such as volitionary wars and free doctoring for the masses to eventually include everything from Viagara to liposuction to hair restoration, (quality-of-life issues, dontcha see?). All paid for by an economy based on trading paper promises back and forth with Washington as the referee and creator of additional promises.

Economic predictions get pretty Nostradamic, but it isn't much of a stretch to imagine your grandkids knowing, right off, how many bushels of dollars it takes to buy a 6G X-Box priced in zlotys.