Medary.com

"So, what happens if somebody doesn't buy this mandatory health insurance you have in the Senate bill?"

Violators could be charged with a misdemeanor and could face up to a year in jail or a $25,000 penalty, Barthold wrote on JCT (Joint Committee on Taxation) letterhead. He signed it "Sincerely, Thomas A. Barthold."

In other words, according to Thomas A. Barthold, Chief of Staff for the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, we'll throw your ass in jail for a year if you can't afford our mandate to buy health insurance.

Because we CARE.

We CARE so very, very, awfully much. We just CARE, you know. We forward-thinking progressives CARE more than you evil nasty classical liberals and conservatives do. We're better than you. We're smarter than you.

So just sit down and shut up. This won't hurt a bit.

Why is it that the same people who obsessively worry about the Earth's climate reaching a catastrophic "tipping point" because of excessive carbon dioxide emissions have no worry whatsoever about the U.S. (or world) economy reaching a catastrophic "tipping point" because of excessive government spending?

OK, over the past two days there's been such a blizzard of stuff coming out that I can't keep up. So, in the tradition of Presidents of both parties, I offer tonight the Friday Night Link Dump, wherein I just throw a bunch of stuff out there, on a Friday night, when it's nearly certain that nobody will actually take notice.

I might or might not come back to some of these things and comment further. But dang, things are happening too fast for mortal humans to keep track of. This does not argue well for the kind of centrally planned economy the Democrats lust for.

Here's the Link Dump in summary. Click on each individual Link Dump to go to . . . that Link Dump. See how easy it is?

Friday Night Link Dump: Democrat-Socialists Gone Wild
Friday Night Link Dump: Democrat-Socialists Gone Wild (Health Care Special)
Friday Night Link Dump: America vs. ACORN
Friday Night Link Dump: The theory and practice of liberty
Friday Night Link Dump: Sarah Palin
Friday Night Link Dump: General Science
Friday Night Link Dump: Manufacturing Crises
Friday Night Link Dump: Global Climate Cooling Warming Change We're All Gonna Die Everybody Panic And Give Al Gore Money
Friday Night Link Dump: Odd, Strange, and Weird

Do people only have so much willpower to spend?

This Psychology and Heath article, as quoted at Futurepundit, says maybe so:

"Cognitive tasks, as well as emotional tasks such as regulating your emotions, can deplete your self-regulatory capacity to exercise," says Kathleen Martin Ginis, associate professor of kinesiology at McMaster University, and lead author of the study.

Martin Ginis and her colleague Steven Bray used a Stroop test to deplete the self-regulatory capacity of volunteers in the study. (A Stroop test consists of words associated with colours but printed in a different colour. For example, "red" is printed in blue ink.) Subjects were asked to say the colour on the screen, trying to resist the temptation to blurt out the printed word instead of the colour itself.

"After we used this cognitive task to deplete participants' self-regulatory capacity, they didn't exercise as hard as participants who had not performed the task. The more people "dogged it" after the cognitive task, the more likely they were to skip their exercise sessions over the next 8 weeks. "You only have so much willpower."

See. THIS is why I don't want to do things. I'm saving my willpower for the important stuff. Yeah. That's the ticket.

LIE.

I had previously nominated FAIL as the Word Of The Year, but with everything that's happened so far, the word lie has become a strong challenger.

Science Daily:

. . . does “use it or lose it” apply to foreign languages? Although it may seem we have absolutely no memory of the neglected language, new research suggests this “forgotten” language may be more deeply engraved in our minds than we realize.

Psychologists Jeffrey Bowers, Sven L. Mattys, and Suzanne Gage from the University of Bristol recruited volunteers who were native English speakers but who had learned either Hindi or Zulu as children when living abroad. The researchers focused on Hindi and Zulu because these languages contain certain phonemes that are difficult for native English speakers to recognize. A phoneme is the smallest sound in a language—a group of phonemes forms a word.

. . .

As it turned out, even though the volunteers showed no memory of the second language in the vocabulary test, they were able to quickly relearn and correctly identify phonemes that were spoken in the neglected language.

So maybe there's still hope for my long-ago high school German . . .

UPDATE: Fixed spelling in the title. I'm on my old computer . . . I'm not used to its keyboard any more. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

From the book Power in the People by Felix Morley, as linked by Gary Galles at the Ludwig von Mises Institute:

The survival of the Republic is not endangered by weakness in the central government, but by popular pressure for its aggrandizement.

It's an AP article, so I can't tell you what's in it. You'll have to go read it in the Kansas City Star:.

Well, OK, a couple of words, I think I can get away with.

Ten dollars. November 29. January 2. January 3.

Just because they can.

Kansas City Star:

When Iowa visited Iowa State two weeks ago, the Hawkeyes got the visiting rival treatment from fans — boo! No news there.

What is odd is how Iowa State is asking fans to greet its next visitor.

The school requests a standing ovation for Saturday, which goes against fan nature. Maybe booing isn’t your thing. But showing respect for the opponent taking the field?

Saturday’s guest at Jack Trice Stadium is Army, and nothing could be more appropriate. Same holds true when any of the service academies pay a campus visit.

According to the article, this started at Ohio State when they hosted Navy. I agree with the sentiment of honoring the service of those at the Service Academies, but it wouldn't be all bad if this was a tradition before all sporting events.

Respect your opponents.

Another week, another 7.3 pounds lost. 36 days, 36.3 pounds. 242.7 pounds, according to the fancy-schmancy scale at the weight loss clinic. At this rate, I'm looking at 205 by Halloween--and my actual target weight is 209.

The new shipment of meal replacements

That's the good news. The bad news is that my body composition analysis done last week was screwed up--the dietician entered my height wrong--6'3" instead of 6"0.3". Big oops. That messed up a lot of the numbers and made it look a lot better than it was, causing the nearly miraculous numbers that I had last week. This week, it was back down to Earth a bit.

My real numbers are 242.7 total pounds of which 162.5 was lean muscle mass, 119.1 was water, and 80.2 pounds of fat. The difference of those numbers from the first body composition analysis are: -36.3 pounds total, -14.5 pounds lean muscle, -10.8 pounds of water, and -17.3 pounds of fat. Still really good numbers, but not fantastic. And, I had a bit more muscle loss than the physician assistant I saw today wanted to see, so I get to hit the weights a bit more in the gym. More reps, not more weight, don't ya know.

At this rate, I just might be within shouting distance of my goal weight by the end of October. I said last week I was shooting for 230 by Halloween--that's only 12.7 pounds away, now. And I'm over half way to my overall goal of 209--that's only 33.7 pounds away.

I think I'll make it, but I'm gonna need a whole closet full of new clothes.