I think the overall budget could certainly be trimmed in all areas while still offering the same or better services by rethinking the hundreds of patchwork programs and updating technology. We talk about government waste as if someone was out there throwing away money, but much of it is because of decades of low-bid contracts, deals for vendors favored by Congressmen and the fact that government tends to cut capital budget before anything else.

What I become outraged about is that the right is suddenly the guardian of the deficit, after the Republicans in power spent in a way that would embarrass drunken sailors, including a brand-new expensive entitlement, the Medicare drug benefit, which was written almost entirely by big pharma. As Paul Krugman keeps saying, this is not the time to suddenly become deficit hawks. The only entity with money to spend is the government, and if it doesn't pour money into programs that hire people and increase production, the country is going to spiral into a much worse fiscal state.

I would hope a vibrator that plugs into the wall would be the Vibrator to Destroy All Other Vibrators!

It's a lover, not a fighter.

Of course, there is no bitterness like the bitterness of your vibrator running out of battery when you are trying to handle business. Not that that's ever happened to me

It's just frustration extra-amplified.

That said, if I had a Magic Wand right now, I would use it on my back. If I had a boy right now, I'd also use him on my back. My back hurts. Craziness.

If I had a boy right now, I'd also use him on my back.

Der.

I love how this thread is jumping from discussions of the budget deficit to the KILLER VIBRATOR THE DESTROYER and back again.

If more people had better vibrators, there would be lots less spending of gummint money.

What I become outraged about is that the right is suddenly the guardian of the deficit, after the Republicans in power spent in a way that would embarrass drunken sailors, including a brand-new expensive entitlement, the Medicare drug benefit, which was written almost entirely by big pharma.

Yeah, the Republicans don't want the Democrats to spend money on programs that people will like, because it'll make them like Democrats more. So increasing the deficit when Republicans are in power leaves Democrats to clean up the mess rather than enact more spending themselves.

Clinton was really mad about this when he took office.

Hmmm... Trying to bring it all together.

It we were to use some of the saving incurred from withdrawing from Iraq to buy every woman in the country a Hitachi Magic Wand, it might help the overall mood of the nation.

Y'all are reminding me of a long-ago conversation on Table Talk, about dealing with kids' minor aches and pains and gripes, and one extremely innocent, sheltered mom who'd been using a Hitachi Magic Wand for its purported purpose, vibrating away the little knots her two Little League players got in their shoulders and calves. Everyone, thinking she already knew what it was actually for, made sniggering little jokes about what a great multipurpose tool it was, and when she finally twigged to the point of all the jokes she was horrified.

And concerned about what she was going to do next: now that she knew what it was really for, she didn't think she could use it on her little boys (but they loved it! they'd be heartbroken!), and now that she'd spent three years using it to massage her little boys she sure as hell wasn't going to use it for its actual purpose.

JZ, that story is so tragic it should be turned into a play. Maybe by Shakespeare or Pinter....