Do Nothing Congress to Do Less

The New York Times reports:

The House majority leader, Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, told fellow Democrats this week that the House would not be in session next year on Fridays, except in June for work on appropriations bills.

...

And on Friday, President Bush once again hammered Congressional Democrats, accusing them of failing to meet basic responsibilities like approving annual budget bills and confirming his nominee for attorney general, Michael B. Mukasey.

"This is not what Congressional leaders promised when they took control of Congress earlier this year,” Mr. Bush said. “Congress needs to keep their promise, to stop wasting time, and get essential work done on behalf of the American people."

...

On Wednesday, the House cast its one-thousandth roll-call vote of the year, the first time that it reached that mark since the Constitution was ratified. Democrats hailed the occasion, while Republicans sniped that only 106 of the votes were on bills ultimately signed into law, and that 45 of those bestowed names on post offices or other property.

The federal government continues to operate on a continuing resolution as the Democrat Congress has failed to pass any appropriations bills for the fiscal year that began October 1st.

Congressmen are also expressing disgust at the possibility that they may only get two and a half weeks off for Thanksgiving and three and a half weeks for Christmas.

Unexpected Upward Revision in Jobs Raises Risk of No Recession

Gene Epstein writes at barrons.com:

Revision was the watchword in the September jobs report. For August, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a statistically insignificant decline of 4,000 in non-farm payrolls, prompting the New York Times to run the headline, "Unexpected Loss of Jobs Raises Risk of Recession." Not for the first time, and probably not for the last, the loss of 4,000 has now been revised to a gain of 89,000. Imagine the corrected headline: "Unexpected Upward Revision in Jobs Raises Risk of No Recession."

Read the rest here.

Oh, Holy Congress, Defend Us From Popcorn

The Macaca Post reports that Congressional Democrats are pressuring OSHA to regulate microwave popcorn:

Last month, the issue's visibility increased after a Colorado man, who ate two or more bags a day of microwave popcorn, was diagnosed with popcorn lung disease.

He ate two or more bags of popcorn a day and that's the only thing that's wrong with him?

Meanwhile, the federal government continues to operate on a continuing resolution after Congress failed to pass any of the basic appropriations bills for the fiscal year which began October 1st.

Moooooooose!

Cannonball, ND - 1,600 miles outside the Beltway

From the AP:

When Beverly and Ernie Fischer gathered up their cattle this fall in Morton County, they rounded up a little more than they expected.

"We were moving some cattle, and we got a moose," Ernie Fischer said. "He thinks he is a cow," said his wife.

Ernie Fischer said it was difficult to get the young bull moose away from the cattle, and workers put it in a separate corral until it could be released. The moose also broke fences on the ranch 20 miles south of Mandan.

It's not the only such incident in south central North Dakota this year. Emmons County rancher Sam Gross recently reported a lone bull moose in his cattle herd, and a moose also was spotted in a cattle herd in McIntosh County.

New Law Discourages Loan Repayment

The Macaca Post reports:

Public service employees -- federal workers, soldiers, nurses, firefighters and others -- will have an opportunity to qualify for student loan forgiveness under a law signed by President Bush yesterday.

The law forgives outstanding education debt for public service employees who have made 10 years of monthly payments on their loans while serving full-time in government, public education or other positions related to public service.

The loan-forgiveness provision of the law [took] effect Monday, which will start the clock ticking on when the government will take responsibility for paying outstanding debt...

There's no reason to pay off debt if someone else will do it for you.

Can You Say Kyrgyzstan?

Al Kamen writes for the Macaca Post:

Bit of a slip-up at the United Nations... Someone posted a [draft] of President Bush's... address on the U.N. Web site... complete with helpful phonetic pronunciations for various countries and people.

"The United States, salutes the nations that have recently taken strides toward liberty," the draft said, "including Ukraine, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan [KEYR-geez-stan], Mauritania [moor-EH-tain-ee-a], Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Morocco."

"In Zimbabwe," the draft said, "the behavior of the Mugabe [moo-GAH-bee] regime is an assault on its people," and the U.N. "must insist on change in Harare [hah-RAR-ray]."

I would have misprounounced both Kyrgyzstan and Mauritania (and probably still will). Neither one comes up in conversation much, after all.