You may, possibly, have heard about some small flap, involving US attorneys, possible Congressional subpoenas, calls for the resignation of the US Attorney General, and more spreading around of the term "executive priviledge" than I've seen in years.
It's all very entertaining, of course. Here's a timeline, for people who like lots of links.
And, because I am nothing if not fair and impartial, we have here, by Andy McCarthy, an article on executive priviledge and, uh -- "placing someone under oath connotes subservience", and such. I'm sure, of course, that all involved gave hours of painful consideration to possible connotations of subservience, and the repercussions thereof, when calling former Clinton aides before the House, as anything less would be petty and small-minded.
It's all quite funny, really. After all, I grew up during the Clinton administration, when the overwhelming conservative consensus seemed to be "Suspicion, all the time, of anything that seems the least bit sketchy in the administration, is a good thing." Having forgotten to leave that behind when the executive branch changed parties, I'm afraid I'm still stuck in that mindset. And watching the latest round of "Oh, no! Executive power/priviledge/jurisdiction is being questioned! Quick, to the breach!" is all very amusing.
Oh, yes. Spring is definitely here. Even though I'm slightly bitter about the early Daylight Savings Time making me get up in the dark again, the 65-degree weather more than makes up. I'll admit, I'm slightly hyper. Having actual changing seasons will do that. It's so much fun to drive home with the windows down and see that two-foot pile of snow you shoveled a couple of weeks ago still standing by your drive. Much better than waking up in the morning, looking at the calendar and thinking "Oh, I guess it's winter/summer now. That's nice." like I have some years. *cough*Texas*cough*
In completely unrelated news, I ran across the latest issue of Computer Shopper at work today, and it looks like it's now thinner than PC Magazine. How is this possible? I think they used to be almost an inch thick, and none of that all-glossy fancy-schmancy stuff, either. Good old newsprint was good enough for most of the magazine, I mean ads-in-bound-form. It boggles the mind.
Today, when I got home from work, the mail in my mailbox did not make me happy.
To begin with, Rockwell Collins is instituting a new "Participate in our Wellness Program, or pay an extra $125 a year in healthcare costs" policy. This year, participation means filling out a Personal Health Assessment with blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar numbers. Next year, they've conveniently left the door open to expand this participation to include taking online nutrition courses, or participating in community charity walks. I'm extraordinarily excited.
Here's where we start calculating how many hours of my time it's worth to participate. Given that my time is worth money, this $125 penalty is clearly worth only a certain amount of my time. Let's suppose, for instance, that I can make $50 an hour doing contract work outside of my day job. That's a very conservative number, but we'll work with it. This means that if participation in the wellness program at some point in the future involves more that 2.5 hours of my otherwise free time, it's no longer worth it to me.
This is clearly going to be very annoying.
But that's not all. I also got something from Saint Matthew's Churches today, and I was tempted to fill the postage-paid envelope with copies of Luke 16:13, but they'd probably just send me more mail. And then I'd probably want to start taping the envelopes to boxes of sand and dropping them off at the post office, and that wouldn't be very Christ-like, now would it?
*sigh*