Miscellaneous 98

1) One of the businesses that got a waiver from the President's health care bill is this swanky restaurant in San Francisco called Boboquivari's. To give you an idea of just HOW swanky, if you want to order a porterhouse steak there, you had better bring some dinero with you; $59 (plus a sizable tip, obviously), to be exact. The obvious questions here are....a) Couldn't the proprietors of this place use some of these "proceeds" to purchase decent health insurance for their employees? And b) how in the bluest blazes did they ever get a frigging waiver to begin with?...President Obama?............2) While, yes, I understand that it probably isn't feasible to have everybody up on that debate stage who wants to be there (yes, I'm talking about the Republican Presidential debates), I'm still kind of disappointed that (Gary) Johnson and (Fred) Karger have apparently gotten blackballed. I mean, come on here, folks, these are two of the more interesting candidates. Karger is a moderate who not only admits to being a moderate, he's actually proud of it (that, and he's the first openly gay American to ever run for President) and Johnson is a libertarian whose positions on a whole host of issues are exceedingly interesting (not to mention unorthodox in Republican circles); his views, specifically, on drug legalization, immigration, foreign policy, abortion, etc.. To not have fellows like these on the program does nothing but reinforce the notion that the Republicans are a monolithic group . But, hey, who in the hell am I to say, right?............3) I heard a great description of Rocky and Bullwinkle the other evening. Somebody referred to this pair as "a couple of fellows, one sightly smarter than the other but neither one of 'em rocket scientists." That pretty much encompasses it, no?