"A generation ago, Warren says, basics (housing costs, health insurance, transportation, education, and taxes) accounted for fifty-four per cent of the average family’s income. Today, they account for seventy-five per cent of it. Now, some of those costs arguably do reflect a lack of frugality—homes are more expensive in part because they’re so much bigger. But the fact that more than fifteen per cent of personal consumption expenditures now go to medical care, when in 1930 only three per cent of personal consumption did, isn’t a reflection of frivolity, and that’s not going to change any time soon."

Getting smart energy management for your house without having to wait for your utility to install it. Interesting.

Health care reform is vitally important to our country, but I fear that whatever reform we get will not go nearly far enough to truly help us or our economy. One problem is we have people in prominent positions saying crap like what a leader in the Southern Baptist Convention said:
"A top Southern Baptist official has accused President Barack Obama and congressional Democratic leaders of attempting to do 'precisely what the Nazis did.'" and "'The Nazis said people should be euthanized when they had lives unworthy of life,' Land argued. 'Well, at the very least Dr. Emanuel, [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi, [Sen.] Max Baucus and President Obama are saying that some people have lives less worthy of life. And the older you are, the sicker you are, the less valuable your life is and the more likely they want to terminate your care.'"

Look, I have no problem with anyone disagreeing with the Democrats' reform proposals, but comparing the Democrats to Nazis is beyond the pale.

My favorite part of Rex Hammock's post is this bit: "Over the weekend, PaidContent.org’s Staci Kramer passed along a joke via Twitter she heard at the Online News Association awards:
How does a journalist count?
“One, two, Trend!”"

From the story: "U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx, a Republican from Banner Elk, is warning that Democrats will try to sneak health care reform through Congress.

It's the political equivalent of slipping a 747 through a toll booth, but Foxx told 1240 3WC, "Hometown Christian Radio," in Wilkesboro that she thinks Democrats will put health care reform inside another piece of legislation that lawmakers would find difficult to oppose."